The Extraterritoriality Nexus: Manifestation of Extraterritoriality as Natural Phenomenon in Urban Context

Abstract

Architecture and urban planning have to be renegotiated in the context of an increasingly globalized world, where immeasurable human impressions are so complexly woven that it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a distinction between nature, culture and the built environment. Within these global networks are our ever-changing cities and landscapes. Fragmented exceptions, defined as geographically autonomous zones of extraterritoriality, disseminate these cities, bringing unstable processes and mutated landscapes that will undeniably affect our futures. Author’s Note Architect and designer Melanie Fessel initiated the Open Network Ecology Odyssey (ONE), an interdisciplinary research enterprise working to integrate ecological issues into the urban environment through philanthropic design. Melanie is currently the Director of Design Research at Terreform ONE, an ecological design group for urban infrastructure, building, planning, and art. She received her post-professional degree, a Master of Architecture II, from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2011, and her diploma in Architecture and Engineering from the Berlin University of Technology in 2008. Before that, she attended the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, in Barcelona, Spain. She was an associate in the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design, and has worked as an architect and urban designer in Spain, Switzerland, and New York City, with a focus on municipal buildings and master planning.