Image: Eva La Roi _Lithosphère - Hydrosphère – Atmosphère — "Les Usages du Monde”, Gare St-Sauveur, à Lille, France.

LAN3016YF (L0101) 
Instructor: Fadi Masoud

"Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings."
— Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism

Sea-ing Red asks what the ancient landscape of the Red Sea can teach us about designing cities in an age of climate change, geopolitical tensions, and environmental uncertainty. Located in Jordan at the northern tip of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba holds extraordinary ecological and cultural assets, yet the region is increasingly shaped by urban visions that disregard its climatic and ecological contexts. Rather than treating climatic extremes, aridity, and geopolitical uncertainty as problems to overcome, the studio positions them as generators of contemporary and enduring urban forms.

As such, the studio rejects both nostalgic imitation and resource-intensive futurism. Proposing instead a contextual climatic modernity that learns from regional practices and histories studied for their environmental and spatial intelligence, and not their imagery.

Aqaba will be understood not as an isolated resort or logistical gateway city, but as part of a connected Red Sea landscape whose environmental systems exceed political borders. The city region is governed by the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), which has been actively pursuing large-scale development projects while balancing environmental stewardship, tourism growth, and infrastructure investment. Our projects will in turn support the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) in envisioning its urban growth trajectory and to develop new forms of public realm, housing, mobility, and infrastructure. We will explore how borders might become shared ecological territories, how tourism might support rather than consume a place, and how urban development might enhance and regenerate environmental conditions rather than supersede them.

The studio will consider the following prompts:

·       Heat is a form-giver.

·       Water scarcity is not water absence.

·       Topography is a relational urban form generator.

·       Aqaba's primary urban section sits along a desert–mountain-to-coral-sea transect.

·       The coastline is a gradient as well as a civic and ecological commons.

·       Borders are constructs with spatial implications that are wider than a line.

·       Tourism is extractive but could be regenerative.

·       Contemporary forms must be climatically situated.

·       There is no instant "smart city," only one that incrementally adapts.

·       Conservation cannot be a branded label to offset destructive developments.

·       Optimism is intertwined with vision.

Extreme optimism is a design position: the conviction that alternative futures can be spatially imagined, institutionally supported, and materially constructed; even in the most contested geographies.

An optional, partially sponsored field trip to Jordan with visits to Amman, the Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum, and Aqaba is proposed during Reading Week. Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, will serve as an alternative field-study location should the political situation deteriorate. The island offers an excellent alternative setting for investigating landscape, urbanization, tourism, climate adaptation, and arid environments. The island is internationally recognized for integrating landscape conservation, planning, and tourism management.