As part of the discursive programme accompanying Habitat: Expanding Architecture, Alessandra Ponte will give a lecture about the concept of ‘total environment’ and how this relates to energy landscapes and megastructures in Canada. She will focus on mining in a region on the border of Labrador and Quebec. Developed after World War II, it includes a model town with a megastructure regulating its climate.

Alessandra Ponte is a professor at the École d’architecture at the Université de Montreal. For the last eight years she has been responsible for the Phyllis Lambert International Seminar, an annual event which addresses current topics in landscape and architecture. In 2009, she curated the exhibition Total Environment: Montreal 1965-1975 (Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal).