EMILY PARISH GORDON 2012 WORK SAMPLE Academic work 2010–2012 Harvard Graduate School of Design
Academic work 2010–2012 Harvard Graduate School of Design CONTENTS 2. Curriculum Vitae 4. Neo-Mining: Reconstituting the Foothills of Beijing for Peri-Urban Growth 10. Flux City: Willet’s Point 16. RiverCity Gothenburg: Dive In! 22. Forage Conservation: Sowey Naval Air Field
Curriculum Vitae EDUCATION 2009-2012 Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts Graduate School of Design Master of Landscape Architecture I 2003-2007 Vassar College. Poughkeepsie, New York Concentrations in Religion and Art History Bachelor of Arts, with Honors
PROFESSIONAL 2012 Studio Instructor in Landscape Architecture. Career Discovery Program Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts 2012 Project development & graphic consultant. Green Roof Technologies, LLC Bel Air, Maryland 2009-2012 Teaching & research assistant. Graduate School of Design Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts 2007-2011 Design intern. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. Brooklyn, New York
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
AWARDS ASLA Merit Prize, May 2012 ASLA Student Awards, General Design nominee, 2012 ASLA Student Awards, Analysis and Planning nominee, 2012 GSD Platform 5 selection, Spring 2012 and Fall 2011 International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, nominee, 2011 Penny White Award, Spring 2011 GSD Platform 3 selection, Spring 2010 and Fall 2009
PUBLICATIONS 2012 Instigations: GSD 075, ed. Mohsen Mostafavi and Peter Christensen (forthcoming) Qinglonghu Foothill Strategy: Peri-Urban Development Alternatives for Southwest Beijing, ed. Kongjian Yu Adaptive Terrain: Infrastructural Strategies in the Hills of Medelin, ed. Christian Werthmann (forthcoming) Third Coast Atlas, ed. Clare Lyster, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White (forthcoming) Platform 5, Harvard Graduate School of Design, publication and exhibition inclusion (forthcoming) 2011 A View on Harvard GSD, vol. 3, Harvard Graduate School of Design 2010 Platform 3, Harvard Graduate School of Design, publication and exhibition inclusion
CONTACT emilypgordon@gmail.com t. 845.206.8921 315 Eckford Street, Apt. 3R, Brooklyn, New York 11222
Curriculum Vitae
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NEO-MINING Reconstituting the Foothills of Beijing for Peri-Urban Growth GSD Spring 2012; critics Adrian Blackwell, Steven Ervin & Kongjian Yu Collaboration with Carmen Martinez Responding to the challenges of explosive growth in Beijing, and a peri-urban site scarred by limestone mines, Neo-Mining proposes alternative processes for urban expansion in Qinglonhu—a primarily agricultural township lying just outside the 6th ring road at the base of the foothills southwest of Beijing. Accounting for the extraction and reconstitution of raw material as necessities of growth, Neo-Mining leverages these as drivers of urban form. An ecologic life-cycle approach to the reuse of mining sites and materials generates and informs a new model for foothill urbanization. Collapsing sites of extraction with sites of construction, Neo-Mining proposes continued mining phased with the construction of a new city directly on the Qinglonghu mines. As a result, land disturbance in minimized and the agricultural plane is preserved. Mining techniques and technologies are altered to efficiently provide both the material source of the city and its constructed foundations as well. Methods that previously degraded the environment are altered to become the backbones of new urban ecologies. Developing beyond a master plan that details phasing, connectivity, urban program, and density distribution, three specific experiments in urbanization ensue. Factors explored include material re-use, water management, landscape strategies, urban program, built form, and ultimately, unique urban identities carved from phenomenal sites.
Geologic Tourism & Research in the Beijing region (opposite)
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
China University of Geosciences Beijing Research Institute of Geology Institute of Geology and Geophysics Chinese Academcy of Geological Sciences
regional rail
regional rail
QINLONGHU MINES
Beijing General Research Institue of Mining & Metallurgy
Fengshan Geoparks Tourism District Peking Man of Zhoukoudon
Geological Museum of China
Academic Work . Neo-Mining
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2003
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2009
2012
Current mining practices exacerbate erosion and air pollution (below); dispersed expansion of existing mines (above); strategic branching and phased urbanization of future mines (right).
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
2015
2020
2025
2030
Inactive existing mine Active mine Residential Research/institutional Tourism
Academic Work . Neo-Mining
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SITE 1: 2020 Residential Development Population: 32,500 people Houses/Ha: 85 houses/ha Total surface: 125.46 ha % surface roads. 6.5% open space: 27.5% residential: 42% industrial: 20 % commercial: 3% other facilities: 3% parking: 7%
SITE 2: 2025 Research Campus Population: 6,000 people Houses/Ha: 40 houses/Ha Total surface: 38.51 Ha open space: 55% roads: 4% residential: 10.3% institutional: 16% commercial: 6% parking: 15%
SITE 3: 2030 Tourist Destination Population: 3000 people Houses/Ha: 55 houses/ Ha Total surface: 13.83 Ha open space: 65% roads: 1% residential: 18% tourist: 7% commercial: 4% facilities: 0 parking: 10%
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
Academic Work . Neo-Mining
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
FLUX CITY: Willet’s Point GSD Spring 2011; critics Gary Hilderbrand & Chris Reed Individual work Traditional Western cities are typically founded on principles of stability and permanence. Change and uncertainty—in the form of rich and complex landscape systems—are typically erased, filled, leveled, denuded, marginalized, or stabilized. Experimenting within an alternative methodology that searches for a more responsive framework, the Flux City studio focuses on the development of urban form as driven by ecology and environmental dynamics—a landscape-based urbanism—aspiring to resiliency with regard to long-term environmental, social, political, and economic shifts. Flux City explores and challenges the perceived juxtapositions between fixed urban infrastructures and the environmental dynamism that characterizes coming climate change and sea level rise in Willet’s Point, Queens—a marginalized Flushing Bay neighborhood whose position is highly problematic for urban growth and land investment. The encompassing 100-year flood zone continues to hinder development in the area. Not only is the site unprotected from rising sea levels and storm surge on its coastal edge, but it currently forms a bottle-neck pinch-point for a larger inland flood basin that drains increasing levels of precipitated storm water into Flushing Bay. These conditions further stress complex networks of aging and insufficient infrastructures surrounding the site. Automotive disassembly businesses have successfully colonized the marginal land of Willet’s Point, but operate largely without environmental or economic regulation, resulting in high levels of contamination that are further mobilized during hydrologic events. Natural ecologies, such as those of the typical Atlantic coast barrier islands, are well adapted to absorb and mitigate these dynamic forces of coastal extremes associated with climate change—while cleansing water and providing diverse habitats. However, their ability to do so relies on cycles of generation and deformation that contradict the stability associated with safety and reliability in our built urban environment. The Flux City strategy embraces the challenge inherent in adapting such a system to the urban context. The strategic deployment of targeted coastal piers initially catalyzes symbiotic function between new infrastructure and natural processes of sedimentation and hydrology. The staged formation of protective barrier islands thus offers coastal protection and replaces expensive and destructive dredging practices. Later, the pier foundations—filled with accumulated sediment—gain land value, becoming the foundation for a new pattern of urban expansion that connects the disparate neighborhoods currently separated by the flood-zone void. By 2080, when sea levels are predicted to be1.5 meters above today’s average, this new archipelago will protect the bay’s older development while providing outer reef marine habitat and a new expanse of sheltered back-water tidal marsh, sited to filter and mitigate the basin’s contaminated storm water.
Academic Work . Flux City
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Emily Gordon . 2012 SAMPLE
Academic Work . Flux City
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sea to marsh : island profile 1:750
along the road : open island 1:750
along the road : island string 1:750
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
Academic Work . Flux City
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The return of aquasity: 15,000 years of post-glacial land rise gradually drained the ocean from the Gothenburg region. Waterways and archipelagos in constant transition defined the character of the landscape and the cities and economies derived thereof. Recently, global climate change has reversed the process, causing water levels to rise with increased fluctuation. Flooding is exacerbated by a local history of urban fill and coastal alteration (above left).
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A postcard for Gothenburg: Dive In! (opposite). Islands and archipelagos of the Gota Alv (this page).
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
1790
1860
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2020 return of aquasity
RIVERCITY GOTHENBURG: Dive In! GSD Fall 2011; critics Martha Schwartz & Emily Waugh Individual work Dive In! embraces the ability of the designed public landscape to provide an identity, a public amenity, and an infrastructural solution for the growing city of Gothenburg, Sweden. Through the transformation of a defunct industrial port site, Dive In! restores agency to the Gota Alv river to determine the character and organization of future urban growth—returning the river to the city. Responding to an ambitious City of Gothenburg initiative to densify and re-connect the sprawling city-center with the river, Dive In! proposes a landscape-based solution that will connect the north and south banks, enhance estuarine health and habitat, and provide a public landscape that becomes an urban oasis, a ‘Gateway to Gothenburg’ and an icon for Western Sweden.The project demanded an understanding of the complexities of infrastructure, river ecologies, economic development, social dynamics, history, and climate change that impact and shape the trajectory of the city and the river.
Academic Work . RiverCity Gothenburg
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Island 1.
Frihammen Islands: A variety of water’s edge conditions are sequenced for each island. A diversity of microclimates and habitats invite park users to explore and celebrate the Gota Alv.
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Island 2.
Frihammen Islands key: 1. Public Marina 2. Amphitheater Hill 3. Terraced Lawn 4. Play Lawn 5. Beach 6. Promontories
Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
Island 3.
7. Indoor Aquarium w/ Green Roof 8. Indoor Saunas w/ Green Roof 9. Aquarium Promenade 10. Habitat Pools w/ Sunken Walk 11. Infinity Pool 12. Boulder Hill 13. Marsh Walk
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Hisingen Waterfront
Marsh Channel
Killibacken Stream
Ringon Waterfront
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Hisingen Waterfront
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Lundbyvassen Waterfront
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Gothenburg Bridge
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Island 2
Island 1
Island 3
Historic Waterfront
remaining active shipyard 100m
Academic Work . RiverCity Gothenburg
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An aquarium promenade gradually ramps below the water’s surface, revealing the aquatic world below. Opposite, visitors can take a plunge and join the display.
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
The trough—a dry walkway immersed in the water— offers eye-level looks at the reflective habitat pool on one side, and the open river on the other.
Academic Work . RiverCity Gothenburg
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(Plan graphics by collaboration with A. Scottie McDaniel; harvest montage by Sara Newey)
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
FORAGE CONSERVATION Sowey Naval Air Field GSD Fall 2010; critics Pierre Belanger & Christian Werthmann Collaboration with A. Scottie McDaniel & Sara Newey Sited on a decommissioned Naval air field in the suburban Boston metropolitan region, this studio demanded the revisualization of a complex1,500-acre brownfield site for a long-range strategy that prefigures biophysical systems as the denominator for re-envisioning public infrastructures and regional urban economies and ecologies. Forage Conservation introduces a much-needed prototype for a new model of urban-suburban land conservation and wildlife management. By rejecting traditional, polarized conceptions of conservation and development, the collisions and juxtapositions between our built environment and the resilience of ecologic adaptation are revealed and addressed. Responsive habitat management systems regain balance for exploding populations of wildlife ‘nuisance speices’, while capitalizing on growing interests in local and wild food markets in the Boston region, and maximizing economic synergy between land management techniques, by-products and local economies. To address unpredictable fluctuations in wildlife populations, the notion of the static masterplan is rejected in favor of designed dynamic disturbance and flexible potentials for habitat creation, land management, and public use. The resulting ‘site plan’ is iterative and layered—an accumulation of trace and change.
Academic Work . Forage Conser vation
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Management practices address four major components: a reconnected hydrologic course, a successional shrub meadow, runway breakdown, and regenerative silviculture. (Management sections & montage by collaboration) Beginning with initial construciton, designed dynamic disturbance and land management alter habitats, appearance, and experience.
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Emily Gordon . 2012 Work Sample
Academic Work . RiverCity Gothenburg
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EMILY PARISH GORDON 2012 WORK SAMPLE Academic work 2010–2012 Harvard Graduate School of Design
CONTACT emilypgordon@gmail.com t. 845.206.8921 315 Eckford Street, Apt. 3R, Brooklyn, NY 11222