HNRS-110 | Building Communities

Full Title: Building Communities

Topic Description:

Since the Roman author Vitruvius, architectural historians have connected the formation of shelter with the origins of human civilization. Today, we live in a world in which the human hand has touched the most remote locations on the globe. The ‘built environment’—buildings, landscape and all infrastructure shaped by human hand—is the constant fabric in which we live our lives. Though many of us prize our relationships to pristine nature, we rarely encounter it. In this course, students will take a new look at the built environment surrounding them. Studying common buildings and the communities that they shape, this course will focus students on developing their thinking with respect to some core questions. How do buildings shape human lives? Where are the lines between individual rights and public values with respect to the built environment? How do our real, physical communities compare to ideal communities?

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: April 2021