This week, I’ve organized a short (very short) lecture series for the students in my studio (well, the “Post-Natural Ecologies” half of the studio) at Virginia Tech’s Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center.

Tuesday at 5:15, Fred Scharmen (sevensixfive/the Working Group on Adaptive Systems) will give a talk entitled “Soft Sites”, examining four sites on the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River, which are “all located at the intersections of infrastructure, industry, and commerce”.  Though these sites are seemingly “castoffs”, Fred argues that “closer examination reveals a more complicated reality – [they] are in fact mirrors of their surroundings, visible evidence of the shifting political, economic, environmental and cultural interests that compete to determine the creation of new space and development”.

Friday at 4:00, Brett Milligan (Free Association Design) will speak on “Landscapes of Dredge: Cycles and Choreography”, looking at the industrial act of dredging as a component of a wider system of anthropogenically-accelerated sediment handling processes which generate a fascinating array of diverse and bizarre landscapes.  (Brett is based in Portland, Oregon, and will be joining us via the internet.)

While this is rather late notice, both of the lectures are free, so if you’re in the DC area either tomorrow (Tuesday 25 October) or Friday (28 October), feel free to stop by — as the poster above says, we’ll be in the Red Room of the WAAC (1001 Prince Street).