48-627 Exploring "Afterlives" as Architectural Practice

6 units, Carnegie Mellon University

This course invites students to think differently about the sites they engage with. Building on Saidiya Hartman’s conceptualization of the “afterlives of slavery”, which gets at the endurance of the plantation in the present day, this course will help students think through ways the (often unseen) histories of a site might continue to impact the present and future. In short, this course asks: In what ways do the socio-political, ecological, and/or economic histories of a particular place continue to manifest through the built environment and how might this inform your architectural practice? This is a reading and discussion intensive course. We will engage with works from, for example, critical geographies, the architectural humanities, and environmental studies. The course will culminate in a final project where students can choose a site where they will investigate its “afterlives.” We will discuss various methodological approaches to conducting this kind of research (including GIS, archival work, and visualizations).

Prerequisites: none listed

Offered: Spring 2026

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