Erin E. Moore is a professor in the Department of Architecture and in the Environmental Studies Program. Moore works in teaching, research and design practice on the environmental context of building construction and on the ways that buildings shape and reflect cultural constructions of nature. She uses her architecture practice FLOAT architectural research and design as a testing ground for designing with explicit intentions for the ecological context of buildings. Recent work explores the architectural space of fossil fuel consumption, biogenic carbon sequestration, and climate change including the studio course “Lines: Lines, Pipelines, and the Contested Space of Fossil Fuel Transport in the Pacific Northwest,” the paper “Geologic Time is No Longer Slow Time,” and the installations “Pipeline Portals” for resistance to natural gas pipeline construction (Oregon, 2020), the installation “Topography: Feminist Re-mapping of the Space of Fossil Fuel Transportation,” for the European Culture Centre (Venice, 2021), and “OUR: Collective Future Project” for the Dhillon Marty Foundation under the aegis of UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations (MOST) program (Paris, 2017). Moore was an invited contributor to the art and architecture section of the United Nations Experts’ Report on Harmony with Nature (2016).
In the face of serious global challenges, Moore believes that it is critical to develop aggressive, creative innovators who can connect the power of design with good science and rigorous ethical thinking. In her own teaching, Moore works to bring together processes of design and innovation with the science of sustainability in collaborations with chemists, ecologists, and biologists. Her class Molecular Innovation in Material Lifecycles (2013) was a collaboration with chemist Julie Haack. Her class Ecology of Building Materials: Wood (2015) was a collaboration with wood scientist Suzana Radivojevic. Moore has developed a natural history-based introductory design curriculum for the graduate studios, teaches in the terminal (or integrated design) studio sequence on topics related to ecology and global climate change, and teaches the large lecture course Introduction to Building Construction with a focus on connecting material ecology with human experience.
Moore is a graduate of the University of California-Berkeley (Master of Architecture) and of Smith College (BA, American Studies) and is a registered architect in Oregon and Arizona.
