The Deep Time Project aims to develop strategies in relation to the multiple temporalities coexisting within the planet. Inevitably, recognizing deep time as part of human nature, and hence as integral to the architectural condition, will reposition architecture “in the web of life and in the connected but different histories of the globe and the planet.” This daunting but necessary transformation will change the ways we think about architecture, the ways we design and build, the ways we, architects, account for worlds. This entails a paradigmatic shift by which what we call “the globe” (home to our ever-globalizing cultures and economies) and “the planet” (this very old cosmic entity we’ve been inhabiting of late) are seen as entangled and unfolding in shallow (human) and deep (planetary) time simultaneously. The unprecedented global challenges we are facing today demand radical and new temporal accountability. The course’s premise is that the great challenge of becoming true planetary stewards demands that we develop a “deep time” literacy. The Deep Time Project is a multidisciplinary platform of inquiry, research, and investigation offered to all students at MIT.

Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT.School of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences.Frontiers in Science, Technology, and the Arts.

Timefulness by Marcia Bjornerud