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  Desert Dichotomies: Climatic Imaginaries of the Arid+[Ant]arctic

  Amanda Aman

  Desert Dichotomies is a research-based architecture design studio that examines the impacts of climate change across arid and polar desert environments, revealing unexpected parallels between landscapes often understood as environmental opposites. Focusing on Antarctica, Arctic Alaska and the Sonoran Desert, the project investigates how climate change, resource extraction and human systems of control are transforming ecological processes, water systems and cultural landscapes. While arid deserts face increasing drought and water scarcity, polar deserts are experiencing accelerated warming, ice loss, permafrost thaw and flooding. Despite these contrasting conditions, both regions exhibit similar consequences, including declining water quality, biodiversity loss, infrastructural vulnerability and disproportionate impacts on Indigenous communities.

  Through case studies of Antarctic marine ecosystems, the Colville and Kobuk River basins of Arctic Alaska and the Colorado and Gila River systems within the Sonoran Desert, students explored the relationships between hydrology, ecology, land sovereignty and human occupation. Utilizing archival research, geospatial analysis, open-source mapping tools and environmental data, the studio produced the Arid + [Ant]Arctic Atlas, a comparative framework that visualizes climate change across multiple scales and contexts. Students translated this research into speculative visualizations and imagined futures through architectural representation and generative AI tools. By positioning mapping and storytelling as instruments of environmental advocacy, the project advances a design pedagogy grounded in climate literacy, environmental justice and the visualization of more equitable and resilient futures.