Latent Realities:
Visualizing Forces of the Tennessee Valley Authority
Arch 425/525_Spring 2014
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee

Latent Realities looks to explore the seen and unseen forces associated with the work of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Attention to framing will be essential as we look at how the network of associated projects have impacted the region’s settlements, hydrology, agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure... etc. Tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) will be critical to our analysis, especially when investigating issues of reciprocity between ecology, economy, and energy at a macro scale. While the course purview is locationally focused, there will be opportunities to discuss concurrent concerns facing developing territories and the role infrastructural insertions can serve in creating design for intelligent landscape/urbanism. The seminar will give students in the architecture and landscape programs a series of new skills as well as a greater understanding of how complex systems interrelate. The collective output should lead to a body of publishable original research.

Organized as a sequence of topics the elective will include readings, presentations, and an extended study tour that focuses on visualizing/mapping the relationships between the historical landscape/ecology, TVA projects of 1930s-1970s, and the region as it stands today.