School Notes: School of Architecture
March/April 2024

Tubewells

Groundwater Earth: The World Before and After the Tubewell, on view at the Yale Architecture Gallery through June 1, tells the hidden history of the largest distributed mass of fresh water on the planet. The fruits of groundwater are all around us: nearly half the global population drinks it and over half of all crops are irrigated with it. Groundwater extraction technologies are to agriculture and urban growth what the elevator was to the booming American metropolis of the early twentieth century. 

The exhibition, curated by Diana Balmori Assistant Professor Anthony Acciavatti, traces for the first time the preposterous, practical, and perilous experiments with groundwater. It focuses on the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Sonoran Desert—two major sites of experimentation with groundwater extraction since the nineteenth century. Combining more than a decade of fieldwork in the Americas and Asia with archival research undertaken in three continents and vast amounts of data collected using remote-sensing satellites, Groundwater Earth examines the scales and slow-motion impacts of groundwater extraction on the tilt of the earth to the shape of cities and farms. 

Perspecta 56: Not Found

The latest issue of Perspecta, appearing in March, takes as its focus the various ways architecture camouflages the forces and powers that shape the natural, social, and political aspects of our lives. Edited by Guillermo Acosta Navarrete ’21MArch and Gabriel Gutierrez Huerta ’21MArch, and designed by Mike Tully ’22MFA and Cat Wentworth ’23MFA, the issue considers the complexities and potentialities of architectural concealment, obfuscation, and mimicry, and the power inherent in architecture’s expanding capacity as media. Contributors include Esther Choi, David Sadighian ’07, ’10MEnvD, Trevor Paglen, and Michael Young. 

Alumni events

Upcoming happenings for School of Architecture alumni include: an event for Los Angeles alumni on March 20, hosted by Foster + Partners and organized by Marc Guberman ’08MArch, ’08MBA; and an alumni gathering in Washington, DC on June 6, hosted by David M. Schwarz ’74MArch in conjunction with the AIA Conference on Architecture.