_ForestCity:Onondaga
MASTER CORE STUDIO
ForestCity:Onondaga W I T H P R E F A C E B Y K. PAULL WILLIAMS. I N T R O B Y A N N A D I E T Z S C H and SCOTT RUFF.
Preface
K. Paul William, Onondaga, Eeel Clan
At night, the lights and sounds of the American city of Syracuse throb just beyond the edges of the bowl-shaped valley that is Onondaga, casting tendrils into the sky. The rumble of “civilization” barely penetrates. Thrust along the eastern rim, US81, a military highway, reminds us that we are engaged in a long losing fight against encroaching toxic assimilation. When the highway roars, one thinks: I would have fought the State too, fifty years ago, and just as hard. With all Haudenosaunee weapons, human and spiritual. This is a place of resistance. In the comparative calm, we see many more stars at night than the people on the other side of the hills. We hear the calls of creatures of the night. By day, the trees guard us. Onondaga is an island of culture, ecology, law, and people. This is protected land, a place of peace and quiet. As the central fire of the Confederacy, it needs to be much more than the embers. Today as a thousand years ago, the Haudenosaunee live in clearings rather than clearances. The edge of the woods is a vital, reassuring sight. It is the boundary between cultivated land and a wild familiar forest; between light and dark; between distinct elements of a mostly intact ecosystem in which human beings are an integral part of the circle of life, rather than its overlords. Haudenosaunee society has been swept by the winds of change that affect all of North America. Extended families, clan families, ohwatsire, receded as the nuclear family gained power as the human economic unit. Clusters of single-family homes replaced longhouses three centuries ago. Sustaining traditional values means constant resistance, but not unthinking resistance. It means relentlessly asking: who are we? How are we different from our neighbors? Which of those differences are so determinative of who we want to continue to be that we will protect them, and even fight for them?
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Those two distinct streams – sustaining our understanding of our place in a biome, and our gratitude for this provident place, and sustaining the culture and values that grew out of being the people of the place – converge in any thinking about a seniors complex for the Onondaga Nation. Pragmatically, older people require distinct care, often specialized care, and living spaces designed for their comfort and protection. But older people are also family, with the knowledge, wisdom, compassion and energy that younger generations cannot afford to be without. The elders need the company of the young. The Onondaga challenge is North American society’s challenge in boldface: how do we create places that cradle our elders without isolating, warehousing them? And more: how do we make that place reassuringly Haudenosaunee? I was invited to join a panel at Cornell to hear the results of the graduate students’ ideas and drafts for an Onondaga seniors’ complex. Clear-eyed young people with serious academic training, exceptional imaginations, and hard work. But they were dealing with Haudenosaunee society, with too little time. They were not invited all the way in, not told everything we know (we’ve had too much taken from us as a result of our generosity). The result is a collection of designs each of which embodies some aspects of what the students had learned, and learned about, at Onondaga, but which also inevitably reflects the cultural baggage that the students brought with them, and could not leave at the woods’ edge. To be sure, there were aspects of stereotype: corn rather than the panoply of foods; the longhouse as home rather than symbol; metaphors of law and government rather than subtle relationships. But there was also remarkable, inspired, thoughtful effort, evidence that as the students met the nearby “other” that is Onondaga, the shared fire of their meeting gave off sparks of creativity. Their designs respected the land, insisted on natural elements, incorporated light and wood and water. Their work is a gift. It is a box of ideas. I am certain Onondaga will receive it with the respect it deserves. 9
Final review at Sibley Dome, on Dec. 07, 2022. 10 | B_22f
Guest crits: Angela Ferguson, Dillon Pranger, Nathan Williams, K. Paul Williams, Steven Davis and Warren Schwartz. 11
Marking the Ground
Inspired by the view on top of the hill, where we could see the other side of the village, we wondered how tighten the connection between land and community? We first learned from the land, observing where it rises, where it descends, and where it makes turns. We then marked these locations and built earth walls following the logic on the land Knowing cedar is sacred to the Haudenosaunee, we then surrounded the earth walls with cedar columns of various sizes and densities to inform various interior spaces. Next, we made the spaces accessible by either inserting or elevating floor slabs from the ground. And by doing so, we created different intimacies with the ground. The center where the marking walls converge is the fireplace, where people gather around to share the heat and stories. We then radiated outwards, establishing spaces between the walls: the entrance, the dancing pool, the courtyard, the outdoor exercise space, and the crop field.
By Cynthia Kuo and Yuxuan Wu 42 | B_22f
FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 43
FLOOR PLAN
Materials used included rammed earth, cor and cedar. 46 | B_22f
FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 47
Image of Dancing Platform + Short section
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FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 49
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Image of the chicken coop + Short section
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Image of Workshop / Game Rooms 52 | B_22f
Living in Symbiosis: Reconciling Nature and Man-made Environment The design is based on our understanding of Onondaga social practices. “Haudenosaunee” not only means “people who build the longhouse”, but also evokes the idea of “nature as home”. Based on the belief that nature is built when a house is built, this project aims to bring back the symbiotic relationship between culture and nature. The building is located in the Onondaga Nation farm, perched on the border of natural forests and next to agricultural land, serving as a transitional place that mediates nature and manmade things by negotiating the threshold between forests and architecture. The project “Living in Symbiosis” simulates the dynamic and diffuse natural process og growth via three phases reflected in the architectural forms.
By Brenda Bai and Andrew Truong
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FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 33
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Model pictures + Floor plan FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 35
Diagrams of growth evolution: building and nature + Diagram of trees canopy and species
Image of elderly permanent housing The diagram ron the right epresents the relationship between the Forest and Agriculture Fields. The Forest, which is existent in nature, was used to offer a source of hunting, gathering, and collecting supplies such as wood for building. Agriculture Field, on the other hand, is flatter and provides a source for planting, harvesting, fishing, and trade. The Elder Center will serve as a crucial connection between these two phases.
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Image of Language Center Diagram: Overtime Trasformation of Nature
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Onondaga Nation Elderly Center + Cultural Library
Early investigations into the Onondaga way of life taught us the important role that historical artifacts and traditional foods could play in the continued preservation of Onondaga culture and its people. As such, we created a structure that seeks to preserve embodied knowledge through both building program and intergenerational interaction. A greenhouse, communal kitchen/ living space, elderly housing wing, and cultural library form the four primary spaces of this project. A series of interstitial spaces allows these programs to mix, while the loose, open plan encourages a multitude of uses depending on the number of occupants on a given day.
By Rex Miller and Andreya Zvonar
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FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 23
Structural Model + Floor Plan 24 | B_22f
The design is a new interpretation of the Haudenosaunee longhouse - this linear form branches and grows, orienting itself towards sunlight and views of the site. The longhouse’s central fires are reinterpreted as organizing elements, becoming hearths and gathering spaces such as the Learning Nest. 26 | B_22f
Three volumes with different roof types converge, and combine programmatic uses: gable, for the most public spaces; shed, for more intimite spaces, and flat, for the most private spaces. Rigid timber frames form the primary structure. Reclaimed wooden siding, consisting of vertical louvers, drapes over the structure to create a flexible skin that can be pulled away for varying levels of shading and exposure to the elements.
Constructive elements + Long section
Corn stover bales made from the agricultural waste of the fields are placed in between the timber structure, and form an 18” thick wall that insulates the building. 30 | B_22f
Reclaimed siding from local barns forms the outer skin. This thick wall deviates from its normative function to become performative at the scale of furniture, providing seating and storage.
FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 31
Growing an Elderly Center
This project strives not merely to create a physical space for the community, but to serve as an institution for intergenerational knowledge. Living with nature - planting of foods, medicines, trees, and passing down the knowledge associated with their role in Onondaga culture is critical to this long-term thinking. Through companion planting, such as the three sisters, the community improves food sovereignty, protects biodiversity, and teaches future generations their spiritual and cultural significance. Integration with nature is critical to the project, and a range of specific relations to nature are created; such as a communal courtyard, a lively year-round greenhouse filled with culturally significant plants, gathering areas sheltered by the living roof (but not enclosed), comfortably conditioned interior space, the recreational woods surrounding the building, semi-enclosed areas on the green roofs, and the arable farm land to the south of the building. Movement through the elder center necessitates negotiating between these different spaces, and ones own relationship to nature and time is highlighted and strengthened.
By Adam Boker and Keygan Sinclair
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FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 15
Scale Model Showing: large thatch roof program masses, and topography. 16 | B_22f
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Interior spaces are embedded into the landscape, with berms along the outward-facing walls and green roofs that continue the reforestation of the site. Interior walls are built from Onondaga Limestone found both under the site and just down the road in the nation’s Quarry. Trees with shallow root systems, such as red maple or white pine, can grow on top of the green roofs close to the core of the project; whereas trees with deeper root systems, such as fruit trees like pecan or walnut, grow towards the periphery forming a food forest. Image of outside pateo + Section
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FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 19
The project seeks to explore the reciprocal relationship between planting, elder care, and knowledge transfer. The roof is pierced by light wells, allowing trees to grow underneath. 20 | B_22f
The thatch needs to be rep to twenty years, and over t replacement, the amount o decreased as the roof com the tree canopy. The buildi alive. The elder center is th finished, but it is instead in (or growing) along with th
placed every fifteen time, with each of thatch needed is mes to be replaced by ing thereby becomes herefore never fully n the process of building he community.
After several decades ivy, grapes, willows, and other vine plants, with encouragement, will grow on and between trees, replacing the thatch entirely. FORESTY CITY: ONONDAGA | 21
Credits
work credited along book
Preface Introduction Front and back cover image
K. Paul William Anna Dietzsch and Scott Ruff Arseny Pekurovsky
Image page 6
Cynthia Kuo
Photo page 10
Anna Dietzsch
Image page 12
Rex Miller
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