“All landscape is reuse, whether through the intervention of human action or through the earth’s continual formation… it is not possible to ‘discard’ landscape, only to reuse it.”
Anita Berrizbeitia
Located in northern Boston, Rumney Marsh is a saltwater marsh alongside the trash-to-energy incinerator, a landfill, and suburban industrial land. Although the Massachusetts government has protected the marsh, the land is still threatened by future inundation of sea level rise and land encroachment. Marsh will migrate, and lands will disappear, yet infrastructure remains. The project starts by classifying infrastructure in situ as vertical and horizontal, stitching through Rumney Marsh as a matrix. Vertical poles and giant transmission lines soared, tearing up the sky; horizontal car lanes crawled along the “protected” land. Furthermore, due to the shutdown of the local power station and rising tides that threaten other energy-generating facilities, the Rumney Marsh region urges attention to alternative energy sources.
Matrix Futurama brings all these agents toward an imaginative, waste-based future through on-site readapting and recycling infrastructure. By recycling, readapting, and reutilizing the existing infrastructure matrix, the Matrix Futurama envisages a sustainable, water-based future that conserves energy, connects transportation, preserves ecological habitats, and vitalizes communities.
The design identifies three layers of matrix infrastructure: in the neighborhood, on the marshland, and along the roads. First, billboards, signs, and advertisements are ubiquitous in suburban neighborhoods. The project documents each billboard around and found them particularly strong in place-making. The design reprograms them to generate electricity from the energy lost from the Wheelabrator. Pixilated solar dots will be assembled as mosaics onto billboards, acknowledging the original patterns of local businesses. Second, energy poles serving for Wheelabrator are no longer in use, leaving a large footprint through the marshland. Acknowledging that Rumney Marsh is the hot spot for birds of over 200 species, Matrix Futurama intends to readapt these wood and metal poles, turning them into bird shelters. Situating on mud mounds, they create diverse habitats. Various heights and interventions for degrading wood poles provide elevated perches for birds.
Third, preserving the land requires connectivity, but roads around all lie within the FEMA flood zone and 1-ft sea-level-rise area. The project proposes stages of deconstruction and reconstruction. It envisages breaking up pieces of the original road and soil and piling them into small archipelagos that eventually support raising the streets. Soils and gravel cover these berms, which support marsh continuations. In the last phase, the archipelago islands break the original water barrier, enhancing the marshland’s connectivity yet preserving access for rails, cars, and humans. All of these strategies come together in a metabolic flow of reciprocal materials. All of these strategies come together in a metabolic flow of reciprocal materials. It identifies giant car junk graveyards and metal processing facilities nearby. These tiny materials collected on-site are recycled and remade into solar pixels and solar panels to generate renewable energy on existing installations. Bird habitats are on the basis of decaying, underutilized natural wood electric poles. Existing road infrastructure is broken and piled into smaller mounds to form the archipelagos. It is an in-situ, self-cut, and fill for a new connectivity scheme under the future inundation context.Overall, by readapting and recycling infrastructure, the Matrix Futurama envisages a sustainable, water-based future that conserves energy, connects transportation, and preserves ecological habitats.
Reciprocal Metabolism: material flow of construction through infrastructure recycling and readaptation through three developing stages
Ecological archipelago
Transportational supports
Recreational islands
EDUTAINMENT KALEIDOSCOPE
Benjamin Franklin School Playscape Design
Fall 2021
Undergraduate Junior Design Studio
Instructor: Mitch Glass, Cornell University
Old Brooklyn is a historical community located 20 minutes away south of the city of Cleveland, Ohio. The community belongs to Cuyahoga County. Locating at the east heart of Old Brooklyn, Benjamin Franklin School is a unique community-based local school that lays a foundation for all scholars for success in learning, citizenship, and career. It has students across a wide age range, with kids from pre-kindergarten to 8th-grade students. However, the school lacks a safe and playful open space for children, as the front yard of the school is stark and empty.
The project proposes a playground suitable for kids from different grades and ages. By analyzing Benjamin Franklin School’s children’s activity schedule and circulation, the design transforms the original slope in front of the building into a playground slope with slides, climbing ropes, and trampolines, offering various activity opportunities for children. Divided into zones with activities suitable for children of different ages, the playground provides soft mounds as safe exploration places for kindergarten-aged kids. In addition to a playground for students, the design delineates public spaces adjacent to the street. These open spaces become an amphitheater with seating for neighborhood congregations. Last, the project incorporates sensorial arousals, including a water fountain and a sand pit, to offer unique experiential education for children at their age of curiosity. The Old Brooklyn Planning Committee supervises the project, helping to conduct community-engaged meetings in September 2021 with children and local stakeholders
The design process has incorporated a site visit to Ohio and a community-based meeting with stakeholders in September 2021.
During the meeting, surrounding neighbors, community planners, school faculty members, and children articulated their needs and opinions. The following project design paid attention to the public’s voices.
The playground slope combines the existing topographical landform in front of Benjamin Franklin School and recycling materials, including tires, nets, and tree trunks. Through several sketch model studies, it becomes a multi-functional slope that incorporates regular entry staircases, climbing nets and tires, stepping wood, and slides, providing a unique experience for children. Right adjacent to the school building, the slope becomes a patio with seatings, providing outdoor rest space for faculties. The design process has incorporated a site visit to Ohio and a community-based meeting with stakeholders in September 2021. At the meeting, surrounding neighbors, community planners, school faculty members, and children articulated their needs and opinions. The following project design paid attention to the public’s voices.
The concept aims to create zones of different activity spaces suitable for students across a wide age range and accessible gathering spaces to welcome the surrounding neighborhood. Following the original major entrance of the school and incorporating observed human flow, the design proposes new circulations for users. Based on circulation and existing topography, the plan incorporates a water fountain and a sand pit to offer unique experiential education for children at their age of curiosity. The proposal suggests a running track for sports needs of upperclassmen. Additionally, the amphitheater is a welcoming space for public gatherings. Soft mounding in the center becomes a playful space for young children to crawl around to fully experience outdoors safely.
RAILS TO TRAILS A Resilient Proposal of the Hudson Metro-North Railway
Fall 2023
Undergraduate Senior Design Studio
Instructor: Josh Cerra, Cornell University
The Hudson Line, known as Metro-North, is a major commuter railroad running through New York and on the east shore of the Hudson River. Operating since 1851, the rail connects Westchester, Dutchess, and Rensselaer counties with New York City. A large proportion of the rail resides right on the shoreline of the Hudson, providing fantastic views during rides. However, connecting directly with the Atlantic, the Hudson River is undergoing a rise in river level because of climate change. Recently, news reported that storms and surging water impacted the Hudson Line.
The project analyzes rising water and its impact on railroad segments and proposes new schemes to adapt and utilize such enormous infrastructure. Project research classifies the Hudson Line into four types based on the rails’ adjacency with water and relation with surrounding urban areas.
Based on railway typologies, the design suggests four prototypes of “railroads” as trails. These trails are greenways as linear waterfront public spaces, providing activity opportunities for surrounding communities. The railroad infrastructure incorporates tidal channels, tidal plains, and wetlands to alleviate rising river water or temporal surging. The designed greenway alters the original railroads’ interface, resulting in excessive ballast materials, which are gravels of the railroad foundation. The proposal suggests recycling ballast scraps into eco-seawalls, permeable drainage, and intertidal bases of resilient Hudson natural shorelines.
Inundated
& abandoned railroads’ ballast reuse process
The project pays attention to recycling unused ballast materials on the railroad foundation. The process includes separating impurities, sieving, sharpening edges, and processing for other usages. Ballast as a permeable material is reapplied in situ for drainage along the
cumulate as mounds of railroad waterbreak. Furthermore, mixed with water, cement, and sand, gravel
ecological seawalls to improve the Hudson River’s shoreline biodiversity by providing habitats for aquatic
It can
greenway.
ac-
ballast can be manufactured into textured
plants and animals.
Ballast as tidal breaks Original waterfront railway
Ballast as eco-seawall Original inland railway
Ballast as permeable drains
Separation of impurities (leaves, woods)
Sieving to gravels
Cement Sand
Concrete
Textured eco-seawall
Sharpening edges
Recycled ballast for track beds
Ballast in inundated railroad
Based on the existing Hudson Line’s adjacency with the river and its relationship with the surrounding urban environment, the design proposes four intervention prototypes for railroad segments. A sunken greenway with ballast drainage has potential stormwater holding capacity in portions where the railroad weaved through cities in a lower elevation. In places where the Hudson Line is next to the waterfront, the design creates a river tidal plan with tidal channels, creating habitat for riverfront marshes and a buffer to reduce wave impact. Other programs include ecological seawalls as sustainable and green bulkheads. Behind the railroad barrier inland, the design includes wetland ponds through changing landforms to offer retention and detention room for temporal overflow.
Railroad boardwalk & intertidal channel
Railroad river break & retention wetland
Sunken corridor as flooding channel
(COLLECT)IVE-GLADES
A crossover design framework to reduce, recycle, and redirect excessive phosphorus in Southern Florida
Spring 2024
Undergraduate Research Honors Thesis, Cornell University
Faculty Advisor: Anne Weber
Southern Florida has been experiencing dramatic population growth, and lands have been turned into suburban housing and agricultural fields. In the 21st century, cities and towns in Florida reported concerns about freshwater loss. Meanwhile, its once pristine tropical wetland has been drastically altered since the 19th-century Swamp Act, with diking, canalization, and drainage for agriculture and open pasture. Yet, environmental issues occured. The largest natural freshwater lake in Florida, Lake Okeechobee, has transformed into a toxic pond, accumulating agricultural wastes and triggering harmful algae blooms.
Landscape design, when combined with best management practices, has the potential to offer a framework for resolving Southern Florida’s water pollution crisis while providing new public spaces and improving the unique ecological environment. By applying this framework, designers, residents, and farmers can enhance the phosphorus cycle and improve the new collaborative network of productive, ecological, and social landscape in Southern Florida.
Through prototype explorations in the Otter and Taylor Creek in the S-191 subwatershed in Highlands County, the thesis envisions a systematic catalyzation of productive landscapes of pasture and citrus farms, human landscapes of suburban towns, and ecological landscapes.
A study of the algal bloom process of Lake Okeechobee in June 2018
Everglades
Lakes
Water Direction
Everglades Agriculture District
Lakes
Everglades
Canal
Water Direction - canals
Water Direction - sheet flow
Wildlife Conservation Area
Everglades Agriculture District
Lakes
Everglades
Canal
Water Direction
River
Urban Area
Wildlife Conservation Area
Everglades Agriculture District
Lakes
Everglades
Canal
Water Direction
River
Florida was wet and wild from 1500 to the early 1800s. Native peoples including the Calusas, the Jeagas, and the Seminoles once occupied the peninsula.
From 1500 into the early 1800s, South Florida is wet and wild. During spring and summer rainfalls, Lake Okeechobee would spill its excess water over the natural southern shore and form a slow-moving river. Such surface sheet flow spreads over more than 8 million acres.
Four major canals were completed in 1917: the Miami, North New Rivier, Hillsboro, and West Palm Beach canals from Lake Okeechobee through the Everglades to the coastal tidewater. A wealthy saw works woner, bought 4 million acres of the Everglades, draining the area ideal for farming. He connectedthe Caloosahatchee River and the upper chain of lakes to prevent southward sheet flow. In 1905, the Everglade Drainage District was created by the state, encouraging and selling drained land for farming.
In 1926, the Great Miami hurricane struck and sent floodwater over Lake Okeechobee’s earthen embankment into the region’s largest town, killing more than 400 people. From 1932 to 1938, the US Army Corps of Engineers built a series of levees, gated culverts, and locks to encompass Lake Okeechobee. Known as Hoover Dike, this infrastructure was an economy booster during the Great Depression. The Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District (FCD) by 1949.
After the Everglades become a national park in 1947, major drainage works stopped. The state legislature created the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District, passed the Flood Control Act, and divded the Water Conservation Areas.
Governor Bob Graham launches “Save Our Everglades” program, and Florida Legislature passes the Surface Water Improvement and Management Act (SWIM).
Finding the most polluted river
The thesis continues to zoom in on the scale through data comparison and mapping. The research lands on selecting the S-191 basin in Taylor Creek Nubbin Slough watershed in Okeechobee County as being one of the most polluted regions.
The Taylor Creek Nubblin Slough subwatershed contributes the most, with around 94,2 tons per year of phosphorus, over the Southern Florida Water Management District’s target of 65.8 tons. According to the Southern Florida Water Management District report, in 2018, the S-191 basin contributed 65.2% of average phosphorus loads, with 612 ug/L in water.
Silvopasture
PhosFlow Corridor: a site design example of Otter Creek, Southern Florida, for phosphorus treatment
McArthur dairy farm phosphorus buffer
Citrus farm wetland treatment cell park
Mosuito creek residential canal corridor
INTERSECTION OF EQUITY MEMORIAL
Cornell University Willard Straight Hall Takeover Memorial
Fall 2020
Undergraduate Sophomore Design Studio
Instructor: Valerie Aymer, Cornell University
Located in the heart of Cornell, the Willard Straight Hall is a focal point of student activities. It is where protests for equity and justice took place, including the 1969 Willard Straight Hall takeover, the 1993 Day Hall takeover, and the 2020 Ho Plaza protest.
In order to remember and praise such spirit, the design takes place in the front courtyard of Willard Straight Hall. It is a gradually rising and sinking memorial, utilizing gradually rough concrete walls to swallow people into semi-enclosed spaces, evoking their solemn emotions. Walls are agents of commemorative writings and are interactive so everyone can participate and record traces of strivings for equality. Plantations are cherry blossoms and iris, which flower in late April, the same time as the 1969 protest, to create a celebratory atmosphere. The central has a rippling fountain, with jumping water indicating optimistic achievements and a positive future. Overall, the design is a comprehensive move to create an emotional experience for people to remember movements for equity and justice throughout Cornell University’s history.
This sophomore studio focused on sketches to convey the design process A series of “before” and “after” drawings delineate design directions and iterations. The sketches are succession spatial narratives known as the travelogue, recording thought and experiment processes.
The memorial, in general, strategically utilizes slops and low walls to create a space for people to contemplate. The project integrates interactive and engaging concrete walls that offer spaces for students and faculties to use chalks to record their efforts to gain equality. Mild ramps are planted with medium-sized cherry and iris that bloom in late April when the takeover happened decades ago.
In the middle is a rippling fountain, symbolizing the ripple effect of equality demanding protests all over the US after the takeover. The fountains are also a space for reflection, contemplation, and rainwater and snow collection in response to pipes on the building’s facade. Noticeably, in the upper left corner, there is a potential green space to keep one of the large oak trees adjacent to Willard Straight’s South entrance. The project proposes amphitheater seating for people walking on Ho Plaza Road, where the memorial intersects with public open space.
