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195° 210°

/h 10 km

/h 30 km

/h 40 km

hrs 294+ 264 235 205

WEST

285°

300°

315°

255°

330°

240°

345°

225°

50

H NORT /h km

/h 20 km

15°

30°

SOUT

H

45°

165°

60°

150°

75°

135°

120°

EAST

105°

*$

176 147 117 88 58 <29

Prevailing Winds Wind Frequency (Hrs)

Location: Detroit Metropolitan Arpt, USA (42.2°, -83.3°) Date: 1st January - 31st December Time: 00:00 - 24:00 © Weather Manager

Landfill Urbanism Opportunistic Ecologies, Wasted Landscapes Dan Weissman

Dan Weissman, a Milwaukee, WI native. is currently a Master of Design Studies Candidate at Harvard Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Graduate School of Design with a concentration in Sustainable Design, while also delving into urbanism, landscape and ecology. He completed the Masters of Architecture at the University of Michigan in 2010, working with Geoffrey Thun as thesis advisor and mentor on Landfill Urbanism (Formerly named: PostLandfill Ecologies). Dan has also worked as a Lighting Designer at Lam Partners in Cambridge, MA, and instructor at the Boston Architectural College. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis.

Copyright 2010 Dan Weissman The views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning or The University of Michigan.

Fonts are set in Georga and DIN

100%

POST LANDFILLED CONTENT

Beef Other Meat (not bacon) Chicken Other Poultry Fish (fresh, frozen, canned, dried) Crustaceans & Mollusks (shrimp, clams, etc) T.V.P. Type Foods Unknown Meat

Landfill Urbanism Opportunistic Ecologies, Wasted Landscapes Dan Weissman Masters of Architecture Thesis Heavy Weather: Atmospheres | Environment | Ecology or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the Weather Channel

Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning University of Michigan 29 April 2010 Advisor: Geoffrey Th端n

Cheese (including cottage cheese) Milk Ice Cream (also ice milk, sherbet) Other Dairy (not butter) Eggs (regular, powdered, liquid) Beans (not green beans) Nuts Peanut Butter Fats: Saturated Unsaturated Bacon, salt pork Meat trimming Corn (also corn meal and masa) Flour (also pancake mix) Rice Other Grain (barley, wheat germ, etc) Noodles (pasta) White Bread Dark Bread Tortillas Dry Cereals Regular High Sugar (first ingredient only) Cooked Cereals (instant or regular) Crackers Chips (also Pretzels)

001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034

Unknown Produce Fresh Vegitables Canned Vegitables (dehydrated also) Frozen Vegitables Potato Peel Fresh Fruit Canned Fruit (dehydrated also) Frozen Fruit Fruit Peel Relish, Pickles, Olives

040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049

Syrup, Honey, Jellies, Molasses Pastries (cookies, cakes and mix, pies, etc) Sugar Artifical sweetners Candy Salt Spices & Flavorings (catsup, mustard, peper, etc) Baking Additives (yeast, baking powder, etc)

051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058

Popsicles Pudding Gelatin Instant Breakfast Dips (for chips) Non-Dairy Creamers & Whips Health Foods

060 061 062 063 064 065 066

Slops Regular Coffee (instant or ground) Decaf Coffee Exotic Coffee Tea Chocolate Drink Mix or Topping Fruit or Veg Juice (canned or bottled) Fruit Juice Concentrate Fruit Drink , pdr or lqud (Tang, Koolaid, Hi-C) Diet Soda Regular Soda Coctail Mix (Carbonated) Coctail Mix (non carb, liquid) Coctail Mix (Powdered) Premixed Coctails (alcoholic) Spirits (booze) Wine (still & sparkling) Beer Baby Food & Juice Baby Cereal (pablum) Baby Formula (liquid) Baby Formula (powdered) Pet Food (dry) Pet Food (canned or moist) TV Dinners (also pot pies) Take Out Meals Soups Gravy & specialty Sauces Prepared Meals (canned or packeaged)

069 070 071 072 073 074 075 076 077 078 079 080 081 082 083 084 085 086 087 088 089 090 091 092 093 094 095 096 097

Vitamin Pills and Supplements (commercial) Prescribed Drugs (prescribed vitamins) Asprin Commercial Stimulants and Depressants Commercial Remedies Illicit Drugs Commercial Drug Paraphenalia Illicit Drug Paraphenalia Contraceptives Male Female

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

Baby Supplis (diapers, etc) Ingury Oriented (iodine, bandaids, etc) Personal Sanitation Cosmetics

111 112 113 114

Cigarettes (butts) Cigarettes (pack) Cigarettes (carton) Cigars Pip, Chewing Tobacco, Loose Tobacco Rolling papers (also Smoking items)

123 124 125 126 127 128

Household & Laundry Cleaners Household Cleaning Tools (not detergents) Household Maint. Items (paint, wood, etc) Cooking & Serivng Aids Tissue Container Toilet Paper Container Napkin Container Paper Towel Container Plastic Wrap Container Bags (paper or plastic) Bag Container Aluminum Foil Sheets Aluminum Foil Package Wax Paper Package

131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144

Mechanical Appliance (tools) Electrical Appliance and Items Auto Supplies Furniture Clothing: Child Adult Clothing Care Items (shoe polish, thread) Dry Cleaning (laundry also) Pet Maintenance (litter) Pet Toys Gate Receipts (tickets) Hobby Related Items Photo Supplies Holiday Value (non food) Decorations (non holiday) Plant and Yard Maint Stationery Supplies Jewlrey

147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

Child School Related Papers Child Educ Books (non-fiction) Cild Educ. Games (toys) Child Amuesment Reading Child Amuesment Toys (games) Adult Books (non-fiction) Adult Books (fiction) Adult Amusement Games

171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178

Local Newspapers Newspapers (other city, national) Organizational Newspapers or Magazines (also religion) General Interst Magazines Special Interest Magaizine or newspaper Entertainment Guide (TV Guide)

181 182 183 184 185 186

Miscellaneous Items (specify on back of sheet)

190

3

The Garbology Project University of Arazona

108 109

1> Corner, James â&#x20AC;&#x153;Terra Fluxusâ&#x20AC;? The Landscape Urbanism Reader, ed Charles Waldheim. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 2006.

4

The projection of new possibilities for future urbanisms must derive less from an understanding of form and more from an understanding of process - how things work in space and time.

James Corner

Infrastructure is the repressed monolith upon which urban civilization is founded...To reveal these measures is, in a way, to celebrate the power of the natural conditions they mitigate - and to hope that in mitigating their effects we do not forget we are never actually free from them.

Wes Jones

2> Jones, Wes; Instrumental Form: (Boss Architecture) Words, Buildings, Machine Princeton Architectural Press, 1998, p69.

5

Woodland Meadows Landfill Foreground mound capped 1996 Active fill beyond

IW - Segregated IW - Mixed Segregated Imported

In-State Industrial Waste + Construction & Demolition Municipal & Commerical Waste

Incinerator Ash

Imported

In-State

Types of Solid waste disposed in michigan landills Fiscal Year 2009

6

>Contents 9/ DRT-E Introduction 12/ Flows 18/ SEMLDI 22/ The Sorted Project 36/ Industrial Ecology 43/ Appendix 45/ Continuous Cities 1 47/ Glossary 48/ Bibliography 51/ Acknowledgments

300

Recovery of the composting component of recycling 250

million tons

200

Recovery for recycling Combustion with energy recovery

150

100

Landfill, other disposal 50

0 1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

Municipal solid waste management, 1960 to 2008

Source: US Environmental Protection Agency Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery; Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling and Disposal in the United States, Detailed Tables and Figures for 2008, Figure 26 & Table 29.

November 2009

7

DRT-E 1. Articulated Excevator 2. Cab 3. Methane Tank 4.Engine 5. Exhaust 6. Hoist wheel 7. Vertical Excevator [with geomembrane sensor] 8. Trommel Screen 9. Fines drop 10. Conveyor 11. Foot 12. Methane Extractor

32’6”

7’6”

12’0”

6’0”

5.

4’6”

10’0”

10.

2.

8’0”

6.

4.

3.

8.

1.

9.

12.

Gas Vent/Foundation Layer 7.

4’0”

Solid Waste

5’0”

1’2’ 4’

8’

Section: Directed Robotic Trash Extractor

8

Max Depth: 400’

Topsoil Protection Layer Drainage Layer Geomembrane Soil Barrier

19’6”

11.

As a child, my father would take my brother and I to the local junkyard. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d watch, amazed, as the compressor squashed our waste into a dumpster, then scavenge through piles of scrap metal and climb gigantic wheeled Caterpillar earth-movers. For better or worse, this archetypal junk yard has given way to massively controlled spaces of waste disposal. Today, continuously increasing demand for material coupled with a culture of disposability has coincided with heightened policy measures restricting landfill development. We have a crisis of waste management. Meanwhile, as landfilling has grown from a localized phenomenon into a regional set of distribution networks, neo-industrialization is emerging throughout the Great Lakes megaregion, suggesting opportunities for reuse of wasted landscapes.

This project posits that extraction of existing landfill sites for material and energy is inevitable.

Landfill Urbanism suggests that the act of landfill mining, a contentious and stinky proposition, has the capacity to foster a localized, robust industrial ecology, while also recasting the publicsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; relationship with our waste through tactical deployment of architecture and urban space-making. Directed Robotic Trash Extractors (DRT-E) exhume and cultivate material, as the projectsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; conveyor-belt infrastructure allows individuals, cooperatives and corporations to safely sort and collect based on their needs: a novel approach to accessing our 21st century resource. By allowing complete engagement with the public, Landfill Urbanism fosters productive interdependent relationships between consumers, as well as offering to its users a series of spectacular didactic, practical, and recreational experiences.

Industrial Ecology: The shifting of industrial process from linear (open loop) systems, in which resource and capital investments move through the system to become waste, to a closed loop system where wastes become inputs for new processes (wikipedia)

Where the public of today consumes, the public of Landfill Urbanism harvests.

9

10

The Landfill, out of the public consciousness, is neglected.

Due to the lack of strong governmental oversight, Landfill operations have historically been a breeding ground for corruption, excess, and sluggish-to-backward environmental stewardship. Its owners focused on waste quantity as income. Recent shifts, due to a more enlightened pubic and stringent policy decisions following 1990’s ‘Subtitle D’ Federal mandates, have served to increase awareness of the waste management process. Or at least increase the marketing campaigns by the largest waste management corporations expounding environmental stewardship.

Regardless, the generation of waste is clear. We Americans produce on average some 4.39lbs of waste per day.1 To that end, Walter Benjamin suggests that our collective unconscious provides a “creative relationship between generations and their wishinvestments in new technologies and new products. [We] accentuate the unredeemed promises of bliss that attended endless spectacular consumption and boundless technological production.”2

3> [Online] www.cleanair.org

4> Leslie, Esther; “Telescoping the Mircroscopic Object” Imprint, London; Black Dog Publications, 1999. pg.61

The Landfill, in its ability to sustain and imbed collective unconscious as it holds 75% of our spent consumer goods, food scraps and packaging, must also hold cultural relevance.

From this many questions emerge: What do landfills represent in modern society? Tombs of consumerist capitalism or a stock-pile of resources vital to the economies of emerging nations? Is methane creation a rational end-game trajectory? What are the possible futures of the growing quantity of our society’s time-capsules? Will they steadily grow ever larger as predicted by MVRDV’s DataCity?

Or destined to create new recreational spaces through banal complex ecologies as theorized by Field Operation’s ‘Fresh Kills’ project? Or mined for their resources by international emerging superpowers?

11

Alternative Waste Treatment Technologies

Anaerobic digestion Alcohol/ethanol production Biodrying Gasification In-vessel composting Mechanical biological treatment Mechanical heat treatment Plasma arc waste disposal Pyrolysis Sewage treatment Tunnel composting UASB (applied to solid wastes) Waste autoclave

Another whole Ballgame...

gan

Unusable demolished car material

ork ersey a Hazerdous Waste

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Waste-to-energyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Incineration

Household Construction/ Demolition

~75% Transfer Station

Municipal Waste

Industrial

Transport Composter

Commercial Reuse Center

Institutional

Recycling Facility Paper

Transportation Costs

Plastics Ferrous

Policy Decisions

Government Labor

Landfill _ Cap height Accepted Volume Environmental Remediation

Fuel

Vehicles

Road-Use Vehicle Construction

Waste Management Companies

Refuse Trucks Rolling

Waste Management

12

National Waste Associates [Formerly Allied]

Veolia Environmental Services

13.64’

33.41’

Caterpillar 836H Landfill Compactor

Robotic Sorting

Soil Clay

27’5”

Off-gassing Mercury, Dioxins, etc

13’6”

°5.74

Liners

Compactors

AutoFluff

Tipper Off-Road Dumping

28’9”

Caterpillar 772_Off-Highway Truck

Vehicles

Ash

36.5’

Landfill

Cap 14.3’

Inorganic Waste organic waste

Leachate

VOCs Ground Water Pollution

M ax i m u m h ei g h t M ax i m u m r each

8 .9 m 9 .4 5 m

Meters Feet

14 13 12 11

Landfill Gas

10 9

6

15

4 3

10

2

5

1 0

0

1

5

2 3

10

4

15

5 6 Meters 0 Feet

0

1

2 5

3 4 5 6 7 8 10 15 20 25

35

20

5

Gas Plant

40

25

7

Collection + Piping System

Caterpillar 330C MH Waste Handler

30

8

Air Pollution Global Warming

2 9 .1 8 f t 31 f t

45

20

9 10 11 12 13 30 35 40 45

Heat Trommel Screen

Electricity

Discharge Conveyer Hydraulic Power Unit

Diesel Drive Unit

Oversized Chute

Chassis

Local Utility

Westpro Rotary Trommel Screen

Adjacent Industries

Sources: www.cat.com www.westpromachinery.com

13

Keweenaw

Keweenaw

Houghton 78

26 Ontonagon

Baraga

81

Luce

29

Marquette

Gogebic

Alger 51

Iron

Chippewa

17

Schoolcraft Mackinac

Dickinson

Delta

Chippewa

72

61

65 79

18

Charlevoix Emmet

Menominee

Cheboygan

53

20

Charlevoix

31

Leelanau

Presque Isle

Montmorency

Otsego

Antrim

Leelanau 23

Manistee

49

Mason

Clare 33

Osceola

Lake

Ogemaw

Gladwin

Oceana

Mecosta

Newaygo

12 Isabella Midland

MICHIGAN Montcalm

8

Muskegon 14 76 36

Gratiot

.5pt line = 200,000 CY Huron

39

Ionia

67 Ottawa

Bay

15

5666

Tuscola

74 37 4

Clinton 46 Shiawassee

NEW YORK

Lapeer

9

Eaton

Ingham

MASSACHUSETTS

67,888cy

St. Clair 43 38

19 34

11

Barry

45

40

Genesee

24 25

3 63 27

Sanilac

Saginaw

34,751,326cy Kent

Allegan

$37/ton

Arenac 50

7

264,053cy

Iosco

Roscommon

Wexford

28

WISCONSIN

ONTARIO

9,054,371cy

Alcona

Grand Kalkaska Crawford Oscoda Benzie Traverse Missaukee

70

Alpena

32

10

3,486cy

57

Macomb

Oakland Livingston 54

Type II Landfill Type III Landfill

Van Buren

35

Berrien 22

69

5

Kalamazoo Calhoun

Jackson 30

2

Washtenaw

71

St. Joseph Cass

48

44

Branch

Hillsdale 1 Lenawee

CONNECTICUT

Wayne

13 52 55 58 6 41

5,870cy

73 77 64 Monroe 59

68 47

PENNSYLVANIA

Town of Wayne

6,900cy

NEW JERSEY

1,083,468cy

ILLINOIS 409,456cy

OHIO

INDIANA

1,249,519cy

897,328cy

MARYLAND

38,178cy

5800cy

FLORIDA

>Imports Michigan is the 3rd largest importer of waste in the country. In 2009 20% of the material landfilled in Michigan originated in Canada.

Source: REPORT OF SOLID WASTE LANDFILLED IN MICHIGAN OCTOBER 1, 2008 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

14

For much of human history, waste collection and disposal has been a purely local process, generally relying on natural processes to ultimately renew waste into usable material. The proliferation of inorganic materials into the 20-21st century waste stream has exacerbated traditional waste handling procedures of in-ground disposal or incineration. While costs incurred extracting virgin resources continue to mount, recycling programs have yet to make a significant impact on waste reduction. Meanwhile, heightened policy measures barring new landfills have resulted in the spiraling growth of individual mounds.

Alan Berger connotes this wasted land as Drosscape, illustrating in his text a categorical set of distinct dross territories visible throughout North America. Of these, the Landscapes of Obsolescence (LOO’s) render visible the open loop in material and energy flows.5 Architecture, when considered within tactical frameworks and techniques proposed through regional and landscape urbanism, can serve as a transformative catalyst for drosscape, providing a unique opportunity to neo-industrialize the post-industrial landscape.

Although the phenomenon of regional to mega-regional waste management persists, Piere Belanger notes in his essay ‘Landscape as Infrastructure’ that a shift is occurring “from conventionally large, centralized industries of mass production to a decentralized pattern of production.”6 Landfill Urbanism proposes that landfill extraction could serve two functions. First, as neighboring states and provinces send Michigan their waste (and pay the state to do so), Landfill Urbanism takes advantage of both imported and domestic waste material. Second, the operation may facilitate interdependent industrial networks at similar scales to existing landfill networks. All in an attempt to shrink the energy loop,

5> Berger, Alan; Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America; Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 2006 p186

6> Belanger, Piere “Landscape as Infrastructure” Journal; University of Wisconsin Press, 2009

Landscape

15

Ash Incinerator

Combustion 30%

s

Land Compactors Tippers Off-Road Dumpers

Materials + Energies

1960

Reuse

ll: 63%

Landfi

Pa p M er Gletal a s Pl ss as Ru tic s Co bbe m rs po st

Po we r

La

nd fil l

Landfill Infrastructure +Technology

Ga

Recyclables 6.4%

WASTE GENERATED: 88,100,000 TONS

Landfills Clay/

Hazardous Waste

Soil

Leachate Ground Water Pollution

:32%

Recycled

Materials + Energies

2008

Po we r Pa M per et Gl als Pl as as s Ru tic s Co bbe m rs po st

Reuse

MUNICIPAL WASTE GENERATED: 254,100,000 TONS

One line: 10,000,000 tons Sources: US Statistical Abstracts [online] www.census.gov 16 Environmental Protection Agency [online] http://www.epa.gov US

WASTE FLOWS IN THE UNITED STATES 1960-2008

Industrial Infrastructure + Technology

Anaerobic digestion Alcohol/ethanol production Biodrying Gasification In-vessel composting Alternative Mechanical biological treatment Waste Treatment Mechanical heat treatment Technologies Plasma arc waste disposal Pyrolysis Sewage treatment Tunnel composting UASB (applied to solid wastes) Waste autoclave

Robotic Sorting Stack Scrubbers

20Btu/ton

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Waste To Energyâ&#x20AC;?

Ash

4-5% Original volume

0%

~2 g le

ab

: 16

%

ail av

Ash

as

bus tion

Land Liners Leachate Collection + Piping Gas Collection + Piping Monitoring Equipment Compactors Tippers Off-Road Dumpers

Landfill Infrastructure +Technology

Incinerator

Com

520Btu/ton

Methane Energy Plant

as

lG

il df

n

La

Landfill: 52%

Hazardous Waste

Type II Landfill Type III Landfill

Clay/ Soil

te

cha

Lea Water Filtration

Ground Water Pollution

Underground Disposal

Ground Water Pollution

17

Federal Government State of Michigan

In 2012, the newly formed Federal Agency for Waste Reclamation, or FAWR, seeds funds to the State of Michigan to develop a pilot program with the intention of waste reclamation. Michiganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the agency responsible for landfill development, management and oversight, partners with the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth to form the Southeast Michigan Landfill Development Initiative. Charged with developing programs to productively utilize the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growing resources found within landfills, the Woodland Meadows Landfill constellation has been chosen for this historic pilot project.

EPA Environmental Protection Agency Subtitle D (Federal waste laws) FTC Federal Trade Commission

FAWR Federal Agency for Waste Reclamation

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration

MNRE Michigan Department of Naural Resources & Environment

DELEG Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth

SEMLDI South East Michigan Landfill Development Initiative

South East Michigan Landfill Development Map of Detroit metropolitan region showing active landfills in 2009 (pie charts) overlaid on industrial corridors and highway system.

Landfill proximity to such existing corridors suggests the potential for unique and emergent industrial ecologies occurring at each landfill.

18

Smiths Creek Landfill

Detroit Edison Co Range Rd Ash Disposa

Pine Tree Acres Inc Eagle Valley Recycle & Disposal Facility Oakland Heights Development Inc

Veolia Es Arbor Hills Landfill Inc

80 40 City Of Livonia Landfill 80 30

Detroit

Woodland Meadows Avena Contractors

Sauk Trail Hills Landfill Ann Arbor

Edward C Levy Co Landfill Riverview Land Preserve

12

Detroit Edison Co Sibley Quarry

80 25 Carleton Farms Landfill

80 40

Matlin Road Landfill Allied Waste Industries Rockwood Landfill

Holcim US Inc Dundee Plant

Initiative

Monroe Power Plant

Consumers Energy Company Whiting Plant Substation

SEMILD

South East Michigan Initiative for Landfill Development

Landfill Dumping - 2008

Vienna Junction Industrial Park Sanitary Landfill

Type II: Municipal Public Waste Type III: Industrial Waste + Constructuion Debris Industrial Zones Landfill Productive Flows Waste Flows

19

Arbor Hills

Sauk Trail Hills

Woodland Meadows Landfill & Recycling

Woodland Meadows

Owner: Waste Management, Inc Size: 206 Acres Opened: 1994 License: Type II Waste Only Permit: #4088 Spot Elevation: Aprox. 1,130ft (350â&#x20AC;&#x2122; tall)

Total Capacity Remaining Capacity Capacity used in FY2009 Projected years of remaining capacity Calculated years of remaining capacity

Riverview Preserve

Carleton Farms

Det

roi

t M et

rop

oli

51,500,000cy 24,261,000cy 1,148,000cy 18 21

tai

n A irp

ort

>Woodland Meadows/Sauk Trails Landfill Constellation Twenty miles from Detroit near the Industrial community of Wayne, Waste Management owns and operates the 200+ acre Woodland Meadows landfill adjacent to two capped landfills as well an additional 200+ acre landfill operated by Republic Waste Services across Interstate 275. These two active fills represent almost a third of the airspace available in the southeast Michigan Region.

1964 20

1980

Downtown

1990

1999

Detroit:

2003

: 4 .5

Mil

es

20 Miles

2006

Sauk Trail Hills Landfill

Owner: Republic (Formerly Allied Waste Systems) Size: 200.7 Acres Opened: 1992 License: Type II Waste Only Permit: #9186 Spot Elevation: Aprox. 1,150ft

les rms: 30 Mi Carleton Fa

Total Capacity Remaining Capacity Capacity used in FY2009 Projected years of remaining capacity Calculated years of remaining capacity

17,350,000 tons 11,246,000cy 1,103,000cy 10 10

t: n Airpor Willow Ru

Ford Truck Final Assembly Plant

s 5.5 Mile

Sherwood Village Downer Cemetery Michigan Ave

I295 Exit 22

Canton / Livonia off-ramp commercial area Spot Elevation: 670ft

2010

Middle River Rouge Riparian Corridor Spot Elevation: 645ft

21

Fellows Creek Golf Course

River Rouge Corridor

MI Ave

Bus mart

Line

200

s

town

Down

Ford Final Assembly Plant

5.5

t:

por

Air

Wayne Town Center

S

Commercial

un w R

und

Inbl

es

Mil

700

llo

ago:

Chic

217

s

mile

GM Motor

Low Density Residential

Golf Course Woodlands Buren New Van Cell Golf Course

High Voltage power from Detroit Edison

22

Industrial Zones

oit:

Detr

le 20 Mi

The Sorted Project

23

>Dirt Farm >Mined Mound >rail [CTX] >Silo >Warehouse

>The Backlot

>The Line

>I275 Headhouse >Primary Sorting >remediation pond >living machine >Power Plant

Site Plan Original Scale: 1/64” = 1’0”

Pg 35 Pg 33

Site Section Original Scale: 1/16” = 1’0” silo

50’0”

trailer

pelletizer

rail

24

palletizer

warehouse

>The Sorted Project: Conveyor-belt Infrastructure Feeding upon nearby landfills and newly generated waste, the Sorted Project fosters an emergent industrial market. The Sorted Project seeks to capitalize on the infrastructure of waste flows while also relying on market-based economy to turn waste into profit. Architecture, when considered within tactical frameworks and techniques proposed through regional and landscape urbanism, can serve as a transformative catalyst for drosscape, providing a unique opportunity to neo-industrialize the post-industrial landscape.

The junk yard lacks apparent form - an underlying logic exists, but it does not present itself formally to the visitor, making accessibility of materials difficult. Conversely, the traditional recycling facility is onedimensional, seeking specific materials for specific destinations. The Sorted Project proposes that a third, hybrid solution may alleviate the growing crisis in waste disposal.

An emergent market-based urbanism of reuse suggests that, similar to the intensification of energy and material flows seen at catalytic moments throughout history, spatial proximity is critical in fostering novel material industries Adjacency could allow for disparate tenants to expand their networks in wholly unique and emergent ways, a phenomenon untenable in the drosscape. As previously unproductive material finds meaning and purpose, a new material economy emerges.

7> For a longer discourse on material and energy flows, see: De Landa, Manuel; A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History; Zone Books, 1997

Electrical energy created on site serves the surrounding industry, and with direct access to transportation infrastructure, the project connects itself to all available regional and international networks.

Pg 31

Pg 29 Pg 27

ATV Rental is HERE! Ride the mound!

cleaning

25

Projected final cell structure of Woodland Meadows Landfill. Dotted line demarcates section at right Below: DRT-Es on the mound

26

Square Manhole box with lid (fiberglass typical) Leak detection tubing extends to bottom of sump beween inner and outer pipes Condensate forcemain in dual containment

Valve box with cap

47.5°

1’ 2’

4’

8’

>On the fill Directed Robotic Trash Extractors, or DRTE's, and other mining equipment extract material, as recreational activities such as ATVs or mountain bike riding, snowmobile or even DRTE rides take advantage of the constantly remolded landscape.

Sealed Penetrations (TYP)

Coated Electric Cable

Depth Varies

Gas Colletion Header Pipe Gas collection header trench

Varies

Tee Condensate forcemain in dual containment outside limits of waste placement Concentric reducer(s) HDPE Pipe Valve with Remote Operator Sealed Penetration

HDPE Pipe Pump Discharge Line Air Supply Line To Pump

10’ MIN

HDPE Dual Containment Pump Bentonite Slurry Fill Electric submersible pump

End Cap

1’0”

End Cap

6” 2’-0” MIN

Condensate Collection and Pump Station Source: “Geotechnical aspects of Landfill Design and Construction” pg. 348

27

>Infrastructural Architecture Landfill Urbanism insists upon a reemergence of infrastructural architecture, meant to recondition the publicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relationship to our waste. The Sorted Project recalls public works projects from the early 20th Century and WPA era such as Bostonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s majestic water pumping stations and the Hoover Dam, examples of architecture created to promote the existence of infrastructure as a vital constituent of society.

28

ATV Rental is HERE! Ride the mound!

>The power station harnesses energy from multiple sources: landfill gas, methane, waste material and biomass incineration, as well as collecting the energy from wind turbines within each headhouse chimney.

cleaning

> The Remediation pond handles runoff from the surrounding landfills, and serves to clean and recycle water from both the sorting facility and power station for reuse as cleaning and coolant in both facilities.

>The Headhouse Three Head-houses serve as transition points from primary sorting to the line conveyor belts, caring material into the back-lot. The Head-houses also serve as central locations for public interaction through an interpretive center featuring dynamic viewing experiences of the facility.

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>Form Follows Energy Just as sorting adds value to material, so to can architecture become that ‘value added’ to a large territorial project. Stan Allen, in his essay Infrastructural Urbanism notes that: 8> Allen, Stan; Infrastructural Urbanism; Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition, 1999, p54.

“Architecture is uniquely capable of structuring the city in ways not available to practices such as literature, film, politics, installation art, or advertising. Yet because of its capacity to actualize social and cultural concepts it can also contribute something that strictly technical disciplines such as engineering cannot. “8

Where typical industrial facilities hide themselves from the public, here the architecture seeks to say: “come explore me!”

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Here, a convection chimney functions to suck smelly air from the recently exhumed material, generating electricity from a turbine when conditions allow, and moreover serves as a dramatic backdrop to the moment of revelation witnessed below. During normal operating hours, workers stationed in the pit watch for materials specific to their operations, radioing back to their colleagues stationed along the line. The public is welcome at any time to view or participate in the experience.

cleaning

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Suggested Setback 20’

Knock-out for stair or ramp

Conveyor Belt

Sort Floor Drainage Channel Concrete Pad 10’0”

Standard Lot 115’ x 50’

Suggested Setback 20’

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the Line Cross-Section 1” = 16” the Line Cross-Section 1” = 16”

Tenant B Airspace Tenant A Airspace

50’0” Tenant A Airspace

Tenant B Airspace

Knock-out for stair or ramp

Conveyor Belt

Sort Floor

Drainage Channel

Concrete Pad 10’0”

warehouse

pelletizer

palletizer

Cree pulls aluminum and zinc for recycling into their LED heat-sinks, while the Glad company contracts workers and robotic armatures to capture spent plastic bag material; computer repair specialists collect E-waste, or an artist collective will rent space as a testing ground for multi-media work. While typical sorting facilities of today will only sort what is economically productive to their networks, the line allows any material to be productive again: rusty rebar, 8-oz Styrofoam cups or electric scissors.

33 ilo

Standard Lot 115’ x 50’

>The line, Along the 800’ long conveyor-belt line, lots are rented at rates based on proximity. Closer to the head-house, the higher the rent. Although nothing would prevent a single company from removal of all material on the belt, a significant cross section of material exists on each conveyor belt to warrant multiple interests served.

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warehouse rail

The backlotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s zoning accommodates any configuration of structure within each 6000sf lot - tenants may build any structure they wish within planning guidelines to facilitate their own agenda, subdividing or accumulating additional lots as needed. As tenants move in, crosspollination occurs. Independent harvesters begin working together, creating new material networks and economies unavailable to traditional recycling practices.

trailer

silo

>The Backlot (Industrial market)

>Export Unclaimed material is either shipped in bulk to buyers via train or truck, or if the economy does not exist for particular materials, those materials may be re-deposited in the landfill for future extraction.

>Dirt Farm As a significant portion of the landfill consists of soil (generally used as daily cover), any reclaimed dirt may be remediated and sold to customers.

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700

700

>Industrial Ecology Beyond the scale of the site, the project suggests that re-terretorialization of the regional urban ecology is imminent as new industrial, commercial and agricultural spheres grow in the landfill’s shadow, taking advantage of the new local material opportunities.

This intensification could adversely affect local residents of the area, as lowdensity residential development is not a productive adjacency. Rezoning of landfill adjacencies will be inevitable to facilitate this industrial ecology.

10 years

30 years

SVS Vision Optical Center

Kroger

Great Expressions Dental Center

Cornerstone City Church

UAW`

Walker Winter Elementary School

Wayne Cty Land Resource

Wayne’s Lumber

UHaul

Artman’s Nursery

Michigan Market Quiznos Salon Texturz

Subway McDonalds Super 8

Holiday Inn Express

Dick Scotts Indian Motorcycle Detroit

Dick Scotts Nissan

Viscount Pools + Spas Sova Plastic Products

I275

Arby’s

U-haul

Days Inn

Wendy’s

Scholastic Book Fairs Inc

Fellows Creek Lodge

Fellows Creek Golf Course

Boise Building Materials Distribution

Ford Motor

Ford Focus Final Assembly

Artic Cold Storage

Ford Stamping

Trailer Park

Galaxie Corporation

Ford

Metra Tool Michigan Foundation Concrete

Pro Coil

MTS MTS Transportation Transportation

700

Micro Paint Poly Chemie + Supply

Ringmasters Republic Manufacturing Services (Scot-Forge)

Wayland Refridgeration

Sysco Detroit

Whiteline Trucking

Whiteline Trucking

Bruce’s Auto Sales Serta Mattress

GM Romulus Engine

L&W Engineering

Empire Carpet

Statewide Boring and Machining

1 Mile

Woolf Aircraft Products Re-constituted airspace

Mastronardi Produce

Post-landfilled material use Industrial growth

GM Romulus Engine All American Auto Upholstry

Vistar of Michigan

Jesko Auto Repair

Commercial Growth Agricultural Growth Flows Dirt Farm

Bay Logistics 7-11 Mobile truck Stop & Services Plaza

50 years

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Kermin Die and TOol

GMA Industries

Golf Carts Plus

New Building Form

Mayesh Wholesale Florists

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37

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39

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40

power

The problem of waste is deep - it’s systemic. Although technological advancement will no doubt attempt to minimize the impacts of increased environmental degradation, alternatives (or augmentations) to existing social practices are critical to maintaining our way of life.

Landfill Urbanism realizes human nature for what it is. Blane Brownell notes that “Homo Sapien is the only species that creates what may be truly considered waste.”8 We must, as a species realize that completing the cycle is not a matter of choice, but a critical element of sustaining our very existence. Landfill Urbanism may not be the long-term solution, nor does it seek to fix past wrongs. Under the constraints of our current socio-economic reality, it takes advantage of every possible material and economic opportunity, and therefore is unforgiving in its operations. Yet it projects hope that through a reconditioning of our relationship to waste, the project’s very existence will cease to be relevant at some sought-after moment in the future.

8> Brownell, Blane; “Material Ecologies in Architecture” Design Ecologies. Ed. Lisa Tidler & Beth Blostein; Princeton Architectural Press, New York NY, 2010, p229.

On the landscape of the landfill, entrepreneurs, corporations, artists and consumers collectively struggle to control the energy flow, where closing the cycle is the key to power.

The structure predicts its own obsolescence, and therefore is designed for disassembly

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Gas collection and control system Topsoil Protection Layer To gas flare station or power plant

Drainage Layer Geomembrane Soil barrier Gas vent/foundation layer

Solid Waste

Leachate collection system Primary Geomembrane Primary Soil barrier Leak Detection System Secondary Geomembrane Secondary Soil barrier

Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Containment System Source: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Geotechnical aspects of Landfill Design and Constructionâ&#x20AC;? pg. 5

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II

I

IV

III

(A) Area Fill

>Appendix

I

II

III

IV

V

Invisible Cities Glossary Bilbiography Acknowledgments

(B) Trench Fill

III II I (C) Above and Below Ground Fill

V

VI

III

IV I

II

(D) Valley Fill

Solid Waste Landfill Geometries Source:

“Geotechnical aspects of Landfill Design and Construction” pg. 8

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Stout Insect Repellent Trash Bag: $0.42 / bag

30gal

40”

33% recycled LLDPE 66 % LDPE 1% all-natural Pest Guard insect repellent additive 33”

Stout Biodegradable & Compostable Trash Bag: $0.81 / bag

48”

32gal

Meets ASTM 6400 certifications for compostable plastics. The bags are 100 percent biodegradable and compostable, totally degrading in 10 to 45 days in commercial compost. Bags control odor and dissipate moisture 33” Source: www.greenlightoffice.com

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Continuous Cities 1 Invisible Cities | Italo Calvino The city of Leonia refashions itself every day: every morning the people wake between fresh sheets, wash with just-unrapped cakes of soap, wear brand-new clothing, take from the latest model refrigerator still unopened tins. Listening the the last-minuet jingles from the most up-to-date radio.

On the sidewalks, encased in spotless plastic bags, the remains of yesterday’s Leonia await the garbage truck. Not only squeezed tubes of toothpaste, blown-out light bulbs, newspapers, containers, wrappings, but also boilers, encyclopedias, pianos, porcelain dinner services. It is not so much the thinks that each day are manufactured, sold, bought that you can measure Leonia’s opulence, but rather by the things that each day are thrown out to make room for the new. So you begin to wonder if Leonia’s true passion is really, as they say, the enjoyment of the new and different things, and not, instead, the joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurrent impurity. The fact is that street cleaners are welcomed like angels, and their task of removing the residue of yesterday’s existence is surrounded by a respectful silence, like a ritual that inspires devotion, perhaps only because once things have been cast off nobody wants to have to think about them further.

Nobody wonders where, each day, they carry their load of refuse. Outside the city, surely; but each year the city expands, and the street cleaners have to fall farther back. The bulk of the outflow increases and the piles rise higher, become stratified, extend over a wider perimeter. Besides, the more Leonia’s talent for making new materials excels, the more the rubbish improves in quality, resists time, the elements, fermentations, combustions. A fortress of indestructible leftovers surrounds Leonia, dominating it on every side, like a chain of mountains.

This is the result: the more Leonia expels goods, the more it accumulates them; the scales of its past are soldered into a cuirass that cannot be removed. As the city is renewed each day, it preserves all of itself in its only definitive form: yesterday’s sweepings piled up on the sweepings of the day before yesterday and of all its days and years and decades.

Leonia’s rubbish little by little would invade the world, if, from beyond the final crest of its boundless rubbish heap, the street cleaners of other cities were not pressing, also pushing mountains of refuse in front of themselves.

Perhaps the whole world, beyond Leonia’s boundaries, is covered by craters of rubbish, each surrounding a metropolis in constant eruption. The boundaries between the alien, hostile cities are infected ramparts where the detritus of both support each other, overlap, mingle.

The greater its height grows, the more the danger of a landslide looms: a tin can, an old tire, an unraveled wine flask, if it rolls toward Leonia, is enough to bring with it an avalanche of unmatted shoes, calendars of bygone years, withered flowers, submerging the city in its own past, which it had tried in vain to reject, mingling with the past of the neighboring cities, finally clean.

A cataclysm will flatten the sordid mountain range, canceling every trace of the metropolis always dressed in new clothes. In the nearby cities they are all ready, waiting with bulldozers to flatten the terrain, to push into the new territory, expand, and drive the new street cleaners still farther out.

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46

>Glossary Airspace:

The space above a landfill site to be occupied by future waste. Due to Subtitle D, consolidation of landfill sites has also increased airspace requirements of individual landfills.

Decompose

To separate into constituent parts or elements or into simpler compound1 Dross:

1 : scum that forms on the surface of molten metal 2 : waste or foreign matter; impurity 3 : something that is base, trivial, or inferior 4 : Wasted Land in Urban America9

9> Berger, Alan â&#x20AC;&#x153;Drosscape: Wasted Land in Urban Americaâ&#x20AC;?

Princeton Architectural Press; New York, NY, 2006

Dump

Open Pit for rubbish disposal Garbage

1 : Unsorted/compacted Post-Consumer Material 2 : Wet discards: food scraps, yard clippings, etc

10> Trashed [Movie] Custom Flix, 2007

Landfill gas:

Mixture of methane and other compounds created from anaerobic decomposition.

Methane is 21x more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere. Only about 20% of methane produced by landfills is currently captured for energy.10 Leachate:

Water-based liquid that has filtered down through landfills. Generally sent to municipal water treatment facility for cleaning.

Midden:

A dump for domestic waste (historic) Refuse:

Inclusive term for both wet and dry discards Rubbish:

All refuse plus construction and demolition debris Sanitary Landfill:

Engineered Landfill with considerable lining materials below and above fill, capped nightly by up to eight inches of soil, auto-fluff or other fill.

Trash

Dry discards: newspaper, boxes, cans, etc Waste:

Unwanted or unusable material in a system.

Waste-to-Energy:

A euphemism for incineration that employs higher temperature burning with more efficient energy conversion and exhaust scrubbing technologies.

Other definitions extracted from: >Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage; William Rathje and Cullen Murphy >www.miriamwebster.com

47

>Bibliography Allen, Stan. “Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City” Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition, 1999 Belanger, Piere “Landscape as Infrastructure” Landscape Journal; University of Wisconsin Press, 2009 Berger, Alan; Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America; Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 2006 p186 Brownell, Blane; “Material Ecologies in Architecture” Design Ecologies. Ed. Lisa Tidler & Beth Blostein; Princeton Architectural Press, New York NY, 2010, p229.

Burtynsky, Edward; Urban Mines [Online] www.edwardburtynsky. com/ Corner, James; Fresh Kills Park - Phase 1 Projects [Online] www. fieldoperations.net/ DeLanda, Manuel; A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History; Zone: Swerve Editions,

New York City, 1997.

Environmental Protection Agency Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2007 Ghosn, Rania, ed; “New Geographies 2: Landscapes of Energy;” Harvard University Press, Cambridge NA, 2010.

Hecht, Norman L.; Design Principles in Resource Recovery Engineering; Butterworths, 1983.

Hiester, Thomas R, Shafer, Harry J, Feder, Kenneth L.; Field Methods in Archaeology 7th Ed; Left Coast Press, 2009.

Joichim, Michel, ed; “RAPID RE(F)USE: WASTE TO RESOURCE CITY 2120,” Terreform 1; [Online] www.terreform.org, 2008 Jones, Wes; Instrumental Form: Boss Architecture) Words, Buildings, Machine Princeton Architectural Press, 1998

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Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Report Of Solid Waste Landfilled In Michigan: October 1, 2007 – September 30, 2008; Chester, Steven E., et al; Lansing, Michigan, January 30, 2009 Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Renewable Operating Permit Staff Report N6009 (Sauk Trails Landfill); January 5, 2007 National Center for Resource Recovery; Sanitary Landfill, A State-ofthe-Art Study; Lexington Books; 1974.

Maas, WIny; et al. MetaCity DataTown; 010 Publishers, 1999.

Murphy, Cullern & Rathje, William; Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage; The University of Arizona Press, 2001.

Prechthai, Tawach et al; Quality assessment of mined MSWfrom an open dumpsite for recycling potential; Asian Institute of Technology, Klong Luang Pathumthani Thailand, 2 November, 2008 Rogers, Heather. Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage; The New Press, New York, NY; 2005 Rosenthal, Elisabeth; “Smuggling Europe’s Waste to Poorer Countries;” The New York Times, 26 September 2009.

Thompson, Nato Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Geography, and Urbanism Independent Curators International, New York, NY, 2008.

Qian, Xuede, Koerner, Robert M, Gray, Donald H.; Geotechnical Aspects of Landfill Design and Construction; Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2002.

Waste without borders in the EU?: Transboundary shipments of waste; European Environment Agency; Copenhagen DK, 2009.

“Woodland Meadows Landfill” [Online} www.wm.com; Waste Management Inc, 2009.

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>Acknowledgments A special thanks to my advisor, Geoff Thun, and to the Heavy Weather advisors Craig Borum, Amy Kulper and Shweta Manchanda for their continued support and enthusiasm for the project. Additionally, thanks to professors Aline Cotel and Harry Giles for their engineering expertise, and to Kathleen Klien at South-East Michigan Waste Management for providing a wonderful tour of the Woodland Meadows site. Thanks to the Thunder Crew: Kyle Skar, Caroline Souza, Chris Nakamura, Charlie Starr, Scott Wenz and Alex Hobochenski. Finally, my sincere gratitude to my family, David, Mimi and brother Aaron my editor, and to Kyle Sturgeon, Lauren Shirley, Lauren Bebry and Jos Kiley. Your support has been invaluable.

Thank you.

Dan

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