The Red Victorian
1665 Haight Street
San Francisco, CA 94117

The management of energy too often defers to the invisible hand of the market or keeps its hands off Mother Nature. Strategies like weatherization, zoning reform, and consumption tweaks can help maximize services while lowering bills. But they don’t just save dollars or watts. They also support tacit narratives of lifestyle, property rights, and the horizons of political possibility.

In this talk, Urban Works Agency co-director Janette Kim will discuss findings from her recent book, The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform (with Erik Carver, Princeton Architectural Press). Underdome unpacks the political narratives behind architecture energy management strategies by drawing a new map of contending energy agendas. This publication reads architecture through the political ecology discourse, which identifies collective interests activated by access to and control over ecological resources.