Nan Ellin, PhD: Canalscape: Ancient and Contemporary Infrastru

http://aridlands.woodbury.edu/lectures/lectures.html Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design Lecture Series: 2010_2011 The human need for water has ordered landscapes, given rise to culture, and shaped architecture + urban form throughout history. Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design examines the role of water engineering in shaping public space and city form, by using arid and semi-arid sites in India, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the New World to explore how dryland water systems throughout history have formed and been formed by ritual, hygiene, gender, technology, governance, markets, and, perhaps above all, power. Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design brings together historians, urbanists, and contemporary designers to selectively excavate global historical case studies and reveal relevance to contemporary design practice. The series asks, in all cases: - How are ancient environments still contemporary? - How have systems been designed to adapt, or fail, in the face of change? - In a period of hydrologic uncertainty brought on by climate change, what strategies does the archeological record offer contemporary drylands design