ARTT 006J. ARCH Design: Cities, Territories Infrastructure: (Crum River Futures)

This design studio takes the Crum River Watershed as a site of infrastructural movement. We will begin the semester by walking along the Crum River to the Delaware and identifying different layers of development that have transformed the watershed’s disposition. Dams, highways, streets, sewers, bridges, hard-surfacing, embankments — these different constructions all represent historic efforts to reorient the watershed for different priorities. Their coexistence comprises a sedimentation of human history that begins with the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people that occupied the area before European colonization. With this understanding of the Crum, students will develop analog maps that help to identify a specific issue and site that are of interest. These analog maps overlay historic information with the visual outputs of GIS data, entering into a dialogue with the Crum and the diverse agents and interests that depend on, and influence the watershed. In the second part of the semester, each student will develop design methods through the articulation of a proposal for their chosen site. These projects imagine a new future for the Crum, can be oriented toward specific human or non-human communities, and work toward a more general renewal of the watershed’s ecological equilibrium.
Arts and Humanities.
1 credit.
Spring 2026. Devabhaktuni.
Catalog chapter: Art
Department website: www.swarthmore.edu/art

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