Overview
This public conversation series accompanies Professor Pamela Karimi’s course Designing Deserts: Architecture, Ecology, and Imagination in Arid Lands.
The series brings together architects, visionaries, and community leaders to share experimental approaches to architecture in drylands and beyond: from desert communes and water-harvesting towers to adobe habitats and environmental prototypes. Each presentation addresses overlapping challenges of climate change and displacement, offering collaborative design strategies for sustainable architecture and design justice in extreme environments.
Free and open to the public.
Organized by Associate Professor Pamela Karimi and supported by the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, Cornell Center for Social Science, and the Department of Architecture at AAP.
This lecture is part of the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement Lecture Series.
Passive Cooling Lessons from Traditional Desert Architecture
- Speaker: Yaser Mousapour, Paad Architects
- Focus: How can historic desert architecture be reinterpreted to meet today’s climate challenges?
- Time: September 17, 2025, 10–11 a.m.
- Location: 140 E. Sibley Hall, for remote access, contact zk223@cornell.edu
Designing for Water Scarcity
- Speaker: Arturo Vittori, Warka Water Inc.
- Focus: How can design empower underserved communities to create a sustainable and equitable future?
- Time: September 24, 2025, 10–11 a.m.
- Location: 140 E. Sibley Hall or via Zoom
Architecture for a Changing Climate
- Speakers: Pouya Khazaeli Parsa & Alireza Taghaboni (Esfahk Mud Center / Next Office)
- Focus: How have traditional design techniques inspired new visions for cooperative and climate-conscious architecture?
- Time: October 15, 2025, 9–11 a.m.
- Location: 140 E. Sibley Hall, for remote access, contact zk223@cornell.edu
Imaginative and Participatory Solutions for Drought
- Speakers: Erfan Ghiasi, Parisa Davoodi & Ali Habibian (Raah Studio)
- Focus: How can speculative and adaptive design strategies be cocreated with communities facing water scarcity?
- Time: October 22, 2025, 10–11 a.m.
- Location: 140 E. Sibley Hall, for remote access, contact zk223@cornell.edu
Building a Zero Waste Community
- Speakers: Hilda Maingay & Earle Barnhart (New Alchemy Institute / Green Center Inc.)
- Focus: What lessons in ecological self-reliance can a decades-long permaculture experiment offer for climate-adaptive, low-impact urban life?
- Time: October 29, 2025,10–11 a.m.
- Location: 140 E. Sibley Hall or via Zoom
The Spirit of Adobe Architecture: A Conversation on the Cal-Earth Institute
- Speaker: Pamela Karimi (Cornell University)
- Focus: How can superadobe building techniques provide affordable solutions for a climate-resilient future?
- Time: November 12, 2025,10–11 a.m.
- Location: 140 E. Sibley Hall, for remote access, contact zk223@cornell.edu
