Sara Jensen Carr

The Topography of Wellness

Lecture by Sara Jensen Carr, Assistant Professor of Architecture and the Program Director for the Master of Design in Sustainable Urban Environments at Northeastern University.

This lecture will be presented virtually, please register in advance for the Zoom link.

Our changing understanding of the reciprocal relationship between the environment and the body is reflected in the palimpsests of our urban landscape. Concepts of wellness, disease, and treatment have influenced urban design from the Industrial Revolution to today, and the results have ranged from successful to unintended incubations of the next generation of illnesses. As we face a rupture in the parallel histories of public health and the public realm, examining our built environment through this lens is necessary to frame today’s most urgent questions. This talk looks to the past in order to offer meditations on how the urban landscape must shift again to address the intertwined issues of our pandemic present, social justice, and climate change for a healthier future for all.

Sara Jensen Carr is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and the Program Director for the Master of Design in Sustainable Urban Environments at Northeastern University, as well as an affiliate faculty with the Master of Urban Planning and Policy, Global Resilience Institute, and Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research. Her work and research on the connections between urban landscape, human health, and social equity has been recognized by the Graham Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Science Foundation, and has been published in Preventive Medicine, LA+, The Avery Review, and Hawai’i Journal of Medicine and Public Health, among others. Her first book, The Topography of Wellness: How Health and Disease Shaped the American Landscape, was published by University of Virginia Press in 2021, and has been covered by The New York Times, CityLab, The New Republic, Curbed, and the BBC, among others.

Organized by the PhD students in the Urban Planning Program at Columbia GSAPP. Free and open to the public.

Virtual events hosted on Zoom Webinar do not require an account to attend, advanced registration is encouraged. GSAPP is committed to providing universal access to all of our virtual events. Please contact up@arch.columbia.edu to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.