Landyards: Speculations of Inactive U.S. Navy Shipyards by Jeffrey Nesbit

MILITARY PRODUCTS manufacturing, maintaining, & decommissioning

Philadelphia Navy Yard, c. 1925

View from Delaware showing maintenance of aircraft carrier

LANDyards

Speculations of Inactive U.S. Navy Shipyards

Jeffrey S Nesbit

ÂŠ 2017 Jeffrey S Nesbit All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the Author, Jeffrey S. Nesbit, except in the context of reviews. Research Assistants:

Lucas Flint Robby Stubbs

Book Design:

Jeffrey S Nesbit Lucas Flint

Part II Inquiry in this volume contains work compiled from students of: Landscape Urbanism seminar, Spring 2016/17 School of Architecture, UNC Charlotte Students: (2016) Maryam Ahmadi Oloonadabi, Stanford Barnes, Raaga Bhandari, William Buff, Siwen Chen, Rebecca Devlin, Lucas Flint, Vinay Kantharia, Shuxin Lin, Erica Miller, Amir Naeem, Laurel Nee, Heather Tarney, Monica Whitmire; (2017) Christina Booher, Yagmur Ersayin, Mackenzie Helm, Melaine Ireland, Cassidy Kearney, Christopher Meza, Nazanin Modaresahmadi, Ronald Oziogu, Velina Paneva, Kaysey Raper, Jennifer Simpson, Bradley Singletary, Maxim Stark, Ryan Stell, William Watson,

i. Introduction 01 Production

> shipyard history

02 Brooklyn

> historical islands

03 Philadelphia > extraction and tourism

04 San Francisco > blurred lines

05 Seattle

> recycle and burial

106

06 Charleston

> memory to morphology

126

07 Speculation > curating unpredictability

ii. Acknowledgments

172

introduction In contemporary planning efforts it is common for the North American metropolis to reconsider the post-industrial landscape as opportunity for initiating public interest, regaining the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge and profoundly expanding real estate markets in a place not so long ago left for abandonment. Several of these landscapes of industrial change, operated and managed as shipyards for the U.S. Navy, struggle for renewal. A total of 15 shipyards had been constructed across the United States coastlines. As early as 1767, the U.S. Navy engineered and manufactured landscapes in order to properly fabricate and maintain the various battleship fleets, keep up with technological upgrades, and sustain military agendas. Today, with only five remaining active sites, majority of the original shipyards have been turned over to the local city municipality, changed ownerships through private investments, or still remain dormant. Ironically, due to obvious security and excavation of ground, the sites are left as huge voids in the now ever-expanding urban metropolis. To examine future possibilities of such consequential voids, inactive shipyard sites are selected as context for considering productivity and void, challenging the primary themes of an urban design practice. Must we rely on economic engines of development and allow for superficial readings of once thriving productive places to generate our model for sustainable environments?

Is it possible to learn from past productive memory and in turn, radically re-imagine places charged with new urban methods of ecological performance and extra-urban unpredictability? Instead of working through historical methods of preservation or modern planning principles, thinking of the city as an expanded field of influence marks the foundation of this design research. These landscapes make up a physical territory of ground and an expanded territory of economy and political power. As an extra-urban domain, the work charges to investigate evidences of selfgenerative adaptations throughout the physical, political, historical, and economic landscape, and focuses on opportunities of ecological transformation to advance the new frontier of 21st century urban form. This project is divided into three primary working phases. First, the focus Part I initiates argument for why inactive shipyards are ripe for revisiting our contemporary position on the post-industrial condition populated within the post-modern city. Secondly, the work records historical evolutions of US Navy shipyard production processes to inform new design solutions. Thirdly, the analysis develops into speculative design proposals as a series of ecologically productive voids. The process of activating this residual, voided production, transforming into systems of ecological evolution informs three design objectives: (1) effective use of the available 11

land beyond existing urban models, (2) augments the role of architectural topography, and (3) advances opportunities of anticipating adaptable environments. The fluctuation of military global politics greatly impacts the shipyard employment rates. Even more so, with the “on” and “off” oscillations of operations found in various yards, like that of San Francisco have severe consequences. This relationship with warfare and the U.S. Navy growth coincidently impacts the local economy and opportunities from local communities. We see in Charleston, South Carolina the founding of the shipyard drove – almost single-handedly – the future economy for North Charleston and the greater Charleston region. Now that we see shifts in wartime games and changes in our contemporary political climate, these once massive public investments are turning toward private contractors and other mechanisms to conduct military manufacturing and maintenance. The changes have left voids of opportunity in our landscapes as industries have moved away from waters edge making for public engagement to become more attuned and situated along waterfront property. History, investment, and associated landscapes have obvious value in both real estate markets and opportunities for stimulating a so-called “green” city future. Majority of examples found from the development occurring in the inactive shipyards show such kinds of implemented strategies – for example multi12

family and mixed-use residential markets, public parks, and private and commercial development. Boston and Washington D.C. offer typical examples for this kind of developmental force and economic activity at play. Are these the only way we can envision honorific places from our fluctuating past? It is possible to anticipate continuous fluctuations from one phase to another? We might just be able to appropriate types of productivity in these industrial voids, and yet generate potentially fruitful landscapes. Conceptually, this ingredient, a paradoxical behavior of productive voids, postulates key structures on why we are questioning the practices of normative capital development and the associated architectural outcomes linked to urban form. Organizationally, this book is structured into thirds; (1) CONTEXT, (2) INQUIRY, and (3) SPECULATION: Chapter 01 Production establishes both the physical and historical narrative as an argument for advancing our design position in a 21st century urban and extra-urban territory. By initiating the conversation, the text elaborates on the modes of productivity set within the Shipyard landscapes as a layered historical foundation of operational performance. As a working method, Chapter 02 through 05 informed by selected student work as opportunities for evaluating three inactive Navy shipyards, including Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, and one

decommissioning naval complex in Seattle. The book concludes with, Chapter 06 Charleston and 07 Speculation, absorbing both the intellectual framework and exploratory methods in landscape urbanism as a case study in Charleston, South Carolina to examine the role of political, social, and economic unpredictability and enable environmental and formal design interrogation. Revisiting our post-industrial sites once more, as we have done many times over, in attempt to illustrate a new kind of architecture topography â&#x20AC;&#x201C;one capable of advancing and anticipating unpredictable environment. Moving from historical knowledge, working ground, transfers of productivity, and engagement of elastic memory offers reconciliations for our postindustrial terrain and beyond.

Detyens Shipyard (active), 2016

Formerly, Charleston U.S. Navy Shipyard

production shipyard history

USS Oregon, 1903

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Navy Yard, San Francisco

production shipyard history

A total of 15 shipyards had been constructed across the United States coastlines. As early as 1767, the U.S. Navy engineered and manufactured landscapes in order to properly fabricate and maintain the various battleship fleets, keep up with technological upgrades, and sustain military agendas. These landscapes make up a physical territory of ground and an expanded territory of economy and political power. Today, with only five remaining active sites, majority of the original shipyards have been turned over to the local city municipality, changed ownerships through private investments, or still remain dormant. It is worth genuine reconsideration for how we are treating these landscapes steeped in our rich history. Must we rely on economic engines of development and allow for superficial readings of once thriving productive places to generate our model for sustainable environments? Let us take a moment to briefly outline the historical legacy of the Navy shipyards and its impacts on our political and economic landscape. _____________________

History, Wartime, & Tenant Before the United States Congress officially past the Naval Act in 1794, shipyard construction was well underway. The first shipyard, Norfolk 16

active shipyards: portsmouth nsy [kittery, me]

norfolk nsy [portsmouth, va] coast guard yard [baltimore, md]

puget sound nsy [bremerton, wa]

pearl harbor [honolulu, hi]

boston nsy [charlestown, ma] new york nsy [brooklyn, ny] philadelphia nsy [philadelphia, pa] washington nsy [washington, dc] charleston nsy [charleston, sc]

pensacola nsy [pensacola, ﬂ]

new orleans ns [pensacola, la]

long beach nsy [long beach, ca] san francisco nsy [hunters point, ca] mare island nsy [vallejo, ca] inactive shipyards:

active shipyards: 01 portsmouth nsy // est. 1800 // maintains nuclear submarines 02 norfolk nsy // est. 1767 // maintains ships of the atlantic fleet 03 coast guard yard // est. 1899 // maintains coast guard cutters and craft 04 puget sound nsy // est. 1901 // decomissions nuclear-powered submarines 05 pearl harbor nsy // est. 1908 // maintains ships of the pacific fleet [in]active shipyards: 01 new york nsy // active 1800-1966 // turned over to the city of new york 02 philadelphia nsy // active 1801-1996 // turned over to the city of philadelphia 03 washington nsy // active 1799-1883 // retained by the navy and used for shore establishments 04 charleston nsy // active 1901-1996 // turned over to the city of charleston 05 pensacola nsy // active 1825-1911 // converted into a naval air station 06 new orleans ns // active 1901-2011 // converted into a “federal city” 07 long beach nsy // active 1943-1997 // turned over to the city and port of long beach 08 san francisco nsy // active 1941-1969 // turned over to the city of san francisco US Navy Shipyard Map 09 mare island nsy // active 1854-1996 // turned over to the city of vallejo Active and inactive 10 boston, ma // active 1800 - 1974 // turned over to national parks service

PUBLIC U.S. SHIPYARDS

Navy Shipyard (NNSY) located in Portsmouth, Virginia continues to operate since itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s founding in 1767. The NNSY was monumental, supporting war efforts from the early days under British control, the independence of the country, through WWI, WWII, and began nuclear work in 1964. Still in operation today, the facilities continue to receive upgrades and renovations for the construction and maintenance of our Navy fleet. While NNSY technically began its operations in 1767, the yard was completely destroyed during the Revolutionary War and was rebuilt in 1820 under full United States control.1 Out of the first five naval shipyards, established under the authorization by President John Adams in 1801, today only one of the original five remains active. The four others, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, and Washington each have their own story. Washington and Boston have already undergone significant redevelopment efforts in the yard. Therefore, we are left with Philadelphia and Brooklyn as sites yet to fully receive adaptation.

Great White Fleet, 1939 - 1945

World Tour, issued by President Roosevelt

Philadelphia is the established birthplace for the U.S. Navy. In 1776, originally constructed on the Front Street docks to support various naval fleets at the time, later moved to League Island in 1871, approximately seven miles south of present-day Center City.2

According to The Navy Yard Philadelphia urban development company, the site was a major production center during the War of 1812 and into the years following the Civil War. At its peak, the Philadelphia Navy Yard (1801 – 1996) employed more than 40,000 people during the WWII and constructed up to 53 ships actively used in warfare tactics. The Yard sited along the Delaware River was critical with introducing advancement in engineering technology, particularly by constructing the first floating dry dock in the world. By 2000, the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development acquired full control of the site and has since actively redeveloped the property. Although redevelopment efforts are underway, more than half of the massive 1.875 square miles (1200 acres) of property remain abandoned . Brooklyn Navy Yard (1801 – 1966), set along the east bank of the East River in New York City similarly posed substantial contributions relating to power and facilitating global impact. Described by the Brooklyn Navy Yard organization, in 1907 the yard built the USS Connecticut marking the United States as a global superpower acting as the flagship fleet for President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet”.3 Between the years of 1939 – 1945, the Brooklyn Yard doubles in size

from approximately 100 acres to 200 acres marked as a major zone carved out of the Brooklyn waterfront footprint. In addition to Philadelphia and Brooklyn, three additional shipyards can be included in the collection for study; Charleston, San Francisco, and Bremerton (Seattle), each providing their own rich histories in our industrial landscapes of military shipbuilding heritage. Charleston Navy Yard (1901 – 1996) in South Carolina was solely formed on the basis of revitalizing the economy of the southern states after the Civil War. Along with housing the largest dry dock on the entire eastern coast, Charleston Navy Yard boosted the surrounding economy in the Charleston region by immediately bringing jobs and commerce to local city business and residual thriving communities. 229 ships were constructed throughout WWI, 114 of which were built solely in 1944.4 At the end of WWII, the Yard’s combined annual payroll exceeded a whopping $9 million and civilian employment had peaked to 25,948 workers in the naval complex. To illuminate the fiscal benefit here, in 1941 the shipyard workers salaries caused the per capita income in Charleston multiplied three times to that of the state of South Carolina.5 Until the early 1990’s, the Charleston Shipyard continuously 19

stood as the most prominent employer in the entire state and with 1,800 acres, ranked 3rd largest shipyard in the country behind San Diego and Norfolk. San Francisco Navy Yard (1870 – 1991), also known as Hunter’s Point, was used for many commercial purposes prior to being purchased fully by the US Navy in 1939. Prior to this acquisition, the contract shipbuilders had operated the base, Bethlehem Steel in the 1920s.6 Interestingly, both Charleston and San Francisco fluctuated from highly active facilities to being placed on the chopping block, constantly on the brink of closure. Extremely large in scale, both distinctively followed the pattern of global politics. In San Francisco, on a fairly regular basis between the initial shipyard constructions in the 19th century to the Navy officially leaving the site in 1991, the facilities swapped ownership and halted activity often. For example, in 1974 the US Navy decided to decommission the site allowing for private tenants and commercial shipping companies to take over leases . Shortly following, by 1980 the art community from San Francisco use sites in the yard as working studios. But then again in 1985 the US Navy retracts their leasing agreements and pushes tenants and artist out of the Yard – operating for another six more years during 20

the Cold War until finally closing down the base in 1991. Still in limbo, development plans known as the Bayview-Hunter’s Point Area Plan, from 1995, struggles to maintain clear strategies for implementation and renewal.7 The last and possibly the most unusual sample of our Navy Shipyards is not necessarily inactive. The Puget Sound Navy Shipyard (PSNS) in Bremerton, Washington, approximately 25 miles across the Puget Sound from downtown Seattle, was built in 1891. In addition to the construction of 1,700 small boats, initially the PSNS focused on the construction of ships, but moreover subchaser, submarines, a couple minesweepers, and a series of sea-going tugs.8 By mid 20th century, the PSNS is qualified to constructing entirely new technologically upgraded ships and became the first nuclear powered submarine construction site. To follow suit on its abilities to handle nuclear materials, in the 1990’s the US Navy decided to not close the Yard in Bremerton, contrary to the closures of Charleston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco all between 1991 - 1996.9 Instead, it re-invents PSNS as a recycling center for decommissioning nuclear-powered ships. According to Naval Sea Systems Command, the impacts and creative responsibility from this Puget Sound landscape marks the first

organization in the world to design, build, operate, and recycle nuclear powered ships. Focused exclusively on the decommissioning of submarines and hazardous materials gives us reason enough to include in the list of sampled “inactive” yards. Although the PSNS is still owned and operated by the US Navy, the productive processes, in fact are inverting the former initiative of construction. Although a different kind of productive void, the yard establishes patterns of a productive void nonetheless. This simple illustration of flip-flopping productive shipbuilding industries, local community culture, and economics, play dramatic roles in the evaluation of the shipyard void. It is of no surprise these landscapes have coordinated and produced monumental impacts on the global stage. Through our outline of historical highlights, it comes without controversy these landscapes deserve attention. Due to their history, size, and evolution of environmental presence, these vast inactive places, or dross as referred to by Lars Lerup, generate new questions on urban form.10 Just by the sheer number in size, mark massive voids in our growing urban realm. In fact, in almost all of the 10 inactive shipyards, we find the cities breeching the boundaries of such voids and

consequentially taking advantage of prime real estate along the past industrial waterfront. Based on our understanding and as history proves time and time again, the behaviors of these shipyard industrial landscapes optimize the ability to transform and adapt according to direct linkages of international and local politics, simultaneously. Detailed descriptions on specific shipyard histories, transformations, and economic impacts are described in subsequent Chapters, Five “Brooklyn: Historical Islands”, Six “Philadelphia: Extractions and Tourism”, Seven “San Francisco: Blurred Lines”, and Eight “Seattle: Recycle and Burial”. _____________________

Department of Commerce Beyond the United States Navy efforts for establishing high-powered military efforts across the globe, other departments tend to have indirect associations on the landscapes of shipyard territories. The U.S. Department of Commerce primary mission is to “promote job creation and improved living standards for all Americans by creating an infrastructure that promotes economic growth, technological competitiveness, and sustainable development”.11 Over the past hundred 21

years since its creation, the Department of Commerce has expanded its organizational structure to include two surprising service departments; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). NOAA includes a wide variety of protection and resource focus on ocean and atmospheric conditions therefore making up wildlife, weather, aviation, and marine operations . The research segments of NOAA produces charts, maps, information, and data on projective forecasting of weather and cosmic weather patterns. The coastal resources, particularly related to wildlife and weather play a key role in the focus of this research effort. As we described above with the establishment of United States Navy Shipyards, the association of environmental presence cause interference and immediately alters coastal wetland environments, impacts on biodiversity, and changes fish and wildlife protection; all of which are conditions under the jurisdiction of the larger umbrella of the Department of Commerce. The second department worth noting, the National Technical Information Service focuses on the collection of information 22

on technical, engineering, and scientific as related to government development. The research under the United States government agencies utilizes the NTIS to support and provide information reports to other agencies across the multi-facetted departments within the government.12 The information collected under the Serviceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s practice creates non-classified material to produce and disseminate informational products in attempt to better stimulate innovative solutions in development related to government territory. In 1965 the National Technical Information Service produced an extensive report on the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mechanized Shipyardâ&#x20AC;?.13 Within the report, the research outlines how the shipyard and the practices within the shipyard can best develop a highly efficient process of shipbuilding for the United States Navy fleet. The guide for the design of mechanically producing a waterfront property for shipbuilding practices organizes with extreme precision for economic benefit. In doing so, the report summarizes shipyard modernization, production methods and control, shipyard layouts, manufacturing processes, and offers detailed recommendations for shipyard design.

MATERIALS

PROCESSING

ASSEMBLY

OUTFITTING

pipe shop

panel production

assembly hall

worker parking

shops

under construction

cafeteria

offices

outﬁtting

outﬁtting area

warehouse

sub-assembly area

steel processing

shape storage

plate storage

scrapyard

oxygen storage acetylene plant

outﬁtting dock

power sub-station

building dock pump house water treatment

Stages of Shipbuilding Production

Materials, processing, assembly, outfitting (typ.)

Therein comprise the overlap between NOAA and the NTIS services; the shipyard and its specificity of place. On one hand, the government department makes clear suggestions for completely manufacturing sites along the water-front for stimulating economic growth by way of shipbuilding with government contract. On the other hand, the NOAA department provides information on the impacts such practices would have on the environment, including wildlife, regional species, and oceanic influence due to the increase in scale of shipping transit and discharge in the coastal regions. Detailed impact on the landscape will be described in Chapter Nine â&#x20AC;&#x153;Legacy: Memory and Morphology in Charleston, SCâ&#x20AC;?, as it related directly to the environment, coastal plains, and ecological deterioration. _____________________

Production in the Yard Before addressing a position from NOAA, we need to first understand the organization of production in the landscape through processes of production. The processes of shipyard manufacturing related to site configurations tend to ignore the characteristics of topography and waters 24

edge conditions. Therefore we commonly find production strategies remaining consistent regardless of one location to another, even when these places do not share climate or environmental specificity. For example, the production processes in Charleston, SC remains similarly organized compared to Brooklyn, NY. Moving from raw materials to ocean-ready deployed fleets requires precise tooling, infrastructure, and layout management. Four primary stages of production regulate the configurations upon the landscapes; materials, processing, assembly, and outfitting.14 In the first stage of the site, materials, raw materials are acquired and brought onto the site, typically accessed through railway infrastructure. This immediate connection strengthens distribution and material purchasing beyond local regions and accelerate transmission across the United States. The rail lines access the site tangentially to unload the raw steel. The materials are then stored in plate storage and shape storage with a subsequent scrapyard from previously unused materials adjacent to newly acquired material storages. The second stage, processing, moves the raw material into the steel-processing zone

covered from the elements. In this stage infrastructure requirements include the power supply station used to power the entire yard, oxygen storage for various equipment, and the acetylene plant for storing manufacturing gas, along with a pipe shop. Assembly, the third stage of production, transfers the fabricated steel to an assembly hall used to collect, organizes, and prep the panels and framing. The worker parking surface, panel assembly and production, sub-assembly and pre-outfitting mark the major fabrication preparation for outfitting. The forth stage, outfitting, finalizes the fabrication process of ships, submarines, or other smaller marine vessels. Made up by shops, warehouses, and outfitting docks, this is the stage transferring ships from ground to water and deploy newly constructed vessels out into ocean waters for trial launches. Often the size of these battleships and vessels require dry-docking during outfitting stages. More specific descriptions of shipyard layout and staging infrastructure are described in Chapter Three “Artifact: Productive Typologies of Memory” and Chapter Four “Ground: Level/Re-Level”.

the shipyard cafeteria, offices, and other personnel services are positioned between assembly and outfitting. Subsequent programs expand the resources and amenities for personnel, while increasing the site boundaries. Often we find the shipyards themselves include a wide variety of programs. The Navy tended to purchase adjacent properties increasing the federal footprint, in some cases by three times, in the early 1900’s to enhance resources.15 Supporting military personnel and civilians, these shipyards cultivated a larger economic

USS Tidewater, 1945

Consequently, due to the high volume or worker needs in the third and fourth stages,

Charleston

ecosystem larger than the federal monies alone. Including facilities such as medical clinics and hospitals, mechanic training and educational facilities, shipyards served local economies, established new cultural identities, and celebrated the power of dedicated individuals to work towards goals supporting a military superpower with national pride. _____________________

Territory Beyond the conditions expanding the federal footprint of Naval operations on the shipyard landscape, we find three dimensions of expansion.

USS Carl Vinson and escorts, April 2017 Pacific Ocean, off the Japanese Coast

First, the scope of economic influence in the landscape extends into the development, production, and consumerism tied to the civilian community adjacent to such military activities. In every instance the Naval Complexes have immediate impacts on economic successes, or declines during non-productive periods. In Brooklyn, the neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Dumbo, particularly the legacy of Vinegar Hill have and still remain greatly shaped by the existence of the yard. The Yard cultivated

the development and establishment of new shops, business incubation, and redevelopment properties, which often reside along the periphery of the former federal boundaries. In San Francisco, due to oscillations in production, ownership, and tenants, the Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point yard constantly changed boundaries; both at the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge divide and the Bay View neighborhood to the east. From production efforts of shipbuilding and naval radiological research to social and cultural transformations, the geographical territory radically blurred community activity and economic instability. Even as the property ownerships shifted and activity rehabilitated alter the range of influence; attempting to fuel economic profits for future developments while enacting methods of decontamination such as irradiated sands and silt importation. Physically, the activities in the yard alter the territory including the economic growth of nearby neighborhoods. Second, the United States Naval Shipyards uniquely act as absorbers of raw materials, such as steel (and wood for early construction). In Philadelphia, the shipyard had been built on an island in the Delaware River south of the city boundaries. As production requirements demanded more

real estate, soils were shipped into the area ultimately leading to the manufactured grounds transforming the boundaries from island to peninsula. Along with grounds for expansion, new materials were shipped and brought into the site on railway such as steel. During the peak periods of production, the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard demanded massive influx of steel. Majority of extraction sites of iron ore necessitated the need for filling orders to be sent directly to the shipyard in Philadelphia. Marked as immediate connection to the extraction of resources in our landscapes for territories reaching the boundaries of state lines, major state and national railway systems contributed to the shipyards production success. The shipyard has constructed federal property boundary lines outlining its, so-called regulated, operations even though evidence indicated by boundary change, regularly. Additionally, we know production in the yard impacts neighboring economies directly influencing social and cultural factors, or vice versa. As demands for military tactics in naval operations require new and retrofit vessels to be constructed, monopolized extraction sites increase removal and distribution of raw resources in and across state line. 27

The third dimension of expansion includes a range of influence uniquely extending geographical and political territory. It is here, in the shipyard landscapes, which mark the geographical nodes for military deployment. The geopolitical territory is expansive and powerful; just as demonstrated in the “Great White Fleet” debuted as the global super-power by President Roosevelt. As an aggressive political message to North Korea, in April of 2017 under President Trump’s administration, the United States Navy dispatched the 97,000-ton USS Carl Vinson escorted by a missile cruiser and destroyers to the East Sea.16 This positioning, regardless of acts of war or not, expands the boundary of the shipyard manufacturers into the seas of political territory. The decision to move the powerful naval fleet off the coast of the Korean peninsula, demonstrates a message both visual and political. According to CNN news report, “the deployment is a military show of force, signaling to North Korea that the US military can operate at sea in area where the regime might engage”, and suggests its actual engagement of war would require a much larger call to action by the United States military forces. Even after these fleets are utilized for varying tactics in military warfare, the ships are then 28

dispersed into other locations. Known as the mothball fleets, decommissioned ships are instituted as National Defense Reserve. Primary sites populate the coastlines for containment and are expended once again. Although inactive, these ships are considered sufficiently capable to become reactivated in a time of national emergency. However, often these fleets become scrapped for other purposes. The National Defense Reserve Fleet in Suisun Bay of northern California or other mothball fleets including transport ships and 12 minesweepers in Beaumont’s reserve on the Texas coast house many of the ships. Almost as extended islands of productive ground, the reserve fleets become anchored and tethered to one another in the shallow tidal estuaries of the United States coastline. If the vessels are not issued into the mothball fleets, they are then fully discharged and recycled. Primarily responsible for the recycling of nuclear submarines along with other battleship deconstruction, Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facilities in Bremerton along coastal edge of the Puget South use the materials in two ways. If materials do not contain high levels of nuclear radioactivity, the materials are deconstructed for other military uses. On other hand, if materials are too dangerous for reuse, materials including

submarine reactors are disposed. In 1982, the Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act mandating the proper disposal of nuclear waste. Deep in burial trenches, the permanent disposal facilities house the last remains of vessel waste and geologically embed themselves deep in the trenches of the sub-ground storage. The shipyard captures territories of extraction processes for raw materials, efficiently establishes manufacturing and maintenance productions in a domestic landscape, leading to the deployment of vessels around the globe to pronounce military tactics and logistical positioning, both physical and political. The geopolitical dimension of expansion rests in the hand of military defense systems, philosophies, and all the while demands utilization of a working ground on a once profoundly different landscape. The landscapes themselves remain ecologically altered and absorb varying degrees of influences from each interfaces of territorial domain. From raw extraction of geological resources to historically profound memories in our local communities and global politics, the shipyard leaves us with a stratification of ground, history, and expanded geospatial territory.

Submarine Nuclear Reactor Disposal Site Hanford, WA

Mothball Fleet, Suisun Bay, 2008

A collection of tethered fleets dating back to WWII

_____________________ ENDNOTES 1. “Naval Sea Systems Command”. Norfolk Navy Shipyard History. Accessed September 8, 2016. http://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Shipyards/ NNSY/. 2.Philadelphia Authority for Industiral Development. The Navy Yard Philadelphia. Accessed August 15, 2016. http://www.navyyard. org/about-the-campus/history. 3. Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. BNYDC History. Accessed October 1, 2016. http://brooklynnavyyard.org/the-navy-yard/ history/. 4. “Naval Base History”. City of North Charleston http://www.northcharleston.org/Visitors/ Attractions/Greater-Charleston-Naval-BaseMemorial-(1)/Naval-Base-History.aspx. Accessed Nov. 15th, 2016. 5. Ibid. 6. Lennar Sales Corporation. 2014. The San Francisco Shipyard. Accessed September 8, 2016. http://thesfshipyard.com/history/. 7. Ibid. 8. Naval Sea Systems Command. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility. Accessed September 8, 2016. http:// www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Shipyards/PSNSIMF/ 9. “U.S. Naval Shipyards: Supporting the Fleet Today and Preparing for the Future” in Naval Sea Systems Command. (NavSea Public Affairs, 2016). 10. Lerup, Lars. After the City. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000). 11. Steve Charnovitz, “Reinventing the Commerce Dept.,” Journal of Commerce, July 32

12, 1995. 12. Andrews, Benjamin, et al. Conceptual Deign of a Mechanized Shipyard for Fast Deployment Logistics Production. (Stanford Research Institute, 1965), 55. Distributed by National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce. Ground manipulation outline site conditions for ideal siting and processes of ground manipulation. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. “U.S. Naval Shipyards”, in Naval Sea Systems Command. 16. Tim Schwarz, Barbara Starr, and Zachary Cohen. “North Korea issues warning as US strike group head to Korean Peninsula”. CNN News. Accessed April 18, 2017. http://edition.cnn. com/2017/04/10/politics/us-aircraft-carrier-carlvinson-north-korea-strike-capabilities/.

The mechanization of the shipyard is powered by the primary contributions of the utilization of both single and double boom cranes. These cranes strategically distributed across the landscape initiate optimizations and productive efficiencies for the maintaining and assembly of warfare ships and submarines. Double Boom Crane

Unique to the processes of shipbuilding, the gantry cranes allow for multi-functional processes and shipbuilding and warefare tactics. For example, this gantry crane in San Francisco supported Operation Skycatchâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the testing of a multi-ton dummy Polaris missile in mid-air, restricting free flight. San Francisco Gantry

The building dry dock is designed to provide a clear space 750 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 35 feet deep below water. Pumping equipment is provided to dewater the dock 8 hours after launching. Capstains, winches, and bollards to assist in manuevering ships out of the dock are included. Construction is planned inside a dewatered excavation protected on the water side by a steel sheet pile coffer dam. The dock is assumed to be fully relieved reinforced concrete structure with drains below the floor and behind the walls to prevent the buildup of hydrostatic pressure when empty. Floating Dry Dock

The manufacturing warehouses are multi-bay, welded steel frame and pre-engineered structures supporting overhead bridge cranes and steel deck roofs with build-up composition roofing. Metal siding above 10â&#x20AC;&#x2122; high pre-cast concrete sill walls provides a low-maintenance enclosure for the large space necessary for assembly. Doors are power-operated, steel rollup type where practical or vertical rising or horizontal sliding, depending upon the availability of door parking space and door size. A reinforced concrete floor slab provides support to all equipment and manufacturing operations, except for a few heavy machines requiring individual pile foundation. Warehouse Facades

In current shipyard reclaimation, ancillary infrastructures, including ships and ground-rollers, dramatically alter the arrangements and topographic characteristics of the landscape. As another evolutionary process, these conditions continue to damage local wildlife and horticulture. It is assumed the leveling and re-leveling of ground over one hundred years directly relates to production for military, political, and economic gain. Ship Moving Land

de/re constructed LANDyards investigates four U.S. Navy Shipyards, wherein each site focuses on a particular theme unique to that location. Brooklyn looks at historical islands, recognizing the legacy the urban edge has played historically while implementing new pockets of ecology to help revitalize the environment. Philadelphia tracks the extraction of steel from across Pennsylvania and takes a closer look at the process by which these raw materials move from earth to sea. San Francisco grapples with several different perimeters, each a boundary in their own right. Seattle acknowledges the decommissioning of submarines that occurs on the site and manipulates the landscape as well as the water-scape in order to deal with the elimination of radioactive materials. U.S. Navy shipyards have irrefutably colorful histories as public land, private properties, native citizens, and the military engage and interface in multitudinous ways over time. They can provide employment for cities, drive local economies, generate nostalgia for manufacturing, house artist colonies, and even evict their residents. Navy shipyards embody a chronic cycle of creative and destructive processes, despite no longer creating machines of destruction. While there is a relatively recursive pattern regarding the histories of navy shipyards, each individual shipyard personifies a unique history inextricably linked to local social, cultural, and historical factors. Some attributes stand

out more than others, but in order to create a comparable measure of each site there had to be some level in consistency in what was considered pertinent to observe. The underlying criteria that drove the inquiries of these sites are histories, mapping, ecologies, and grounds. In the first section, the history of each site is unearthed and analyzedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;only by understanding the past can speculation on the future occur. The second section looks at variety of ways each site can be mapped, often by isolating a single criterion that diagrams the site in a reductive and elucidating manner. The third lens through which the sites are studied is ecological, in that native flora and fauna may have an influential role in dictating productive processes enabled by a particular site. The final measure by which each site is analyzed is ground. The traditional cut-and-fill method of new urbanists and landscape architects oftentimes fails to pay homage to existing memory of place; understanding the natural development of land as well as correlating anthropomorphic interventions permits a more informed decision of how manipulation of ground may impact a variety of other factors, for better or for worse. After building a comprehensive understanding of the site through these metrics, inquiry shifts to postulating how landscape may become integrated with these sites in such a way that induces productivity, albeit not in the traditional sense of the navy shipyard but through identity in respect to place. 45

Bremerton, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn

Figure/Ground and Topography Maps

brooklyn

historical islands

Brooklyn Navy Yard

Aerial looking northeast

historical islands

brooklyn

Settled on the East River waterfront, the Brooklyn Yard was one of the first five Naval Yards established in the United States by president John Adams in 1801. Ironically it is one of the last five to still exist to date. The 300-acre site was utilized for the manufacturing of multiple naval ships becoming the premiere naval industrial facility for the nation. Spanning from the War of 1812 to World War II, each ship has left its mark on US history. The yard housed many facilities including drafting departments, machine shops, steam shops, ordinance machine shops (where engraving would take place), engineering rooms, sub-assembly shops, a Naval Hospital where the manufacturing of anesthetics was perfected, as well as living quarters for the Marine Corps.The Navy yard has experienced many innovations in technology. In 1837 the Fulton II was launched as the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first steamed power warship assigned to sea duty. Four years later in 1841 the first use of a steam powered pile driver aids in the creation of Dry Dock 1, the first amongst six to placed on site. Crafted from granite blocks, these Dry Docks were extruded into the ground. They would then become flooded with water until even water levels were reached. The ships would then be able move into the docks and sit evenly on concrete blocks. The water would then be pumped out and the ships would be ready for repair. These docks would later be used for the construction of aircraft carriers.

Along with 90 other bases and installations, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was closed under Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, in 1966. Three years following its closure the yard reopens under Commerce Labor and Industry in the County of Kings (CLICK) in 1969 as an industrial park, later replaced by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) in 1981. Through the efforts of diversification by the BNYDC the yard experienced ninety-eight percent occupancy with over 200 businesses on site. Steiner Studios opens in 2004 becoming the largest studio complex outside of Hollywood. The Brooklyn Navy Yard strives to reinvent itself through former manufacturing facilities to make way for new industry and manufacturing.

Brooklyn Navy Shipyard, 1966

View looking west across the cranes and dry docks

Historical Impact

Brooklyn, 1766

Agricultural lands of Brookland and Nassau Long (modern day Brooklyn)

Brooklyn Navy Yard, 1810

Original boundary of the Navy Yard upper left corner

Brooklyn Navy Yard

Finishing construction of ship and outfitting for deployment within the Brooklyn dry dock

In the years after the Revolutionary War, remains of more than 8,000 men who died aboard British prison ships washed ashore along the Wallabout Bay from the East River. “For many years after the end of the war, the sandy beaches of Wallabout Bay remained littered with the bones of men who died in the prison ships—one resident of the area described skulls lying about as thick as pumpkins in an autumn cornfield. . . . ” wrote Edwin G. Burrows in his 2008 book Forgotten Patriots. In 1808, residents of today’s Vinegar Hill collected the bones and built a small crypt for them on Front Street and Hudson Avenue. City leaders called for a more heroic monument to honor those men who were lost. In 1908 the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument was dedicated in Fort Greene Park, about a half a mile away from the Navy Yard. A fraction of the remains of the martyrs in twenty-two boxes contained in a vault are still there today. Diagramming development of the bay shows a clear response to British occupation. Recording relationships of (navy yard) figure (water level) ground, and geometric projections of order have staged an inquiry into local cultural conditions. The Navy Yard colonized Vinegar Hill, acting as a gentrifying agent. The Navy Yard spilled into Vinegar 54

Hill, and then molested the social climate of DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass). DUMBO, in its decrepit state, was bought up by a real estate tycoon who offered capital incentive to attract businesses. It was a successful business venture and continues to be a model for gentrification, purportedly inspiring displacement on an international stage. The Navy Yard’s Wallabout neighborhood has managed to avoid gentrification of nearby neighborhoods such as DUMBO and Williamsburg because of its relative isolation and industrial grit. Today, the fabric of the Wallabout neighborhood struggles to remain amidst severe, local gentrification. The shutdown of the Navy Yard in 1966 was an imminent sign of decline and marked a disconnect with the waterfront. The history of the Yard illuminates the developing social landscape. Opportunities exist between these once gentrified, or continuously gentrifying areas today. The Navy Yard now serves as a model, poised to remedy or neglect it’s own historic actions. These maps look at a new idea of an urban cemetery. There has been such a loss of green and historical space within the navy

1776 British prison ship dry land

Death of Americans aboard British prison ships fueled the Revolutionary War. Marking dry land to catalog cartographic references.

1810

U.S. Naval Hosp

ital

Navy Yard responds to British occupation of Wallabout Bay.

U.S. Navy Yard territory

1827

projection (street geometry)

barracks

1943

marsh

Navy Yard establishes Vinegar Hill and is projected through settlement. Marshland represented as ground.

250

500

750

1000

Urban Density developed during World War II

1500 ft

Brooklyn Navy Yard, 1776 - 1943 Growth and Density

1801: Government Purchase U.S. Brooklyn Navy Yard

1845: Pre-Civil War Naval Hospital

1938: WWII Expansion The Ache Years 1939-1945: Navy Yard doubled in size due to political influences/effects from WWII

1906: Post-Civil War

Cut and Fill Sequence MapsDevelopment of Navy Yard over time extension of land mass infringing on water edge removal of land mass carving new water edge double line road

additive

subtractive

navy yard

0 300 600 900 1200ft

Brooklyn Navy Yard, 1801-1961 Evolving and manufactured edges

1961: Post-WWII The Beginning of the Decline

yard since the beginning of its history. There should be ecologically sensitive methods if remembrance that include intimate memorial spaces to preserve the historical green spaces. Trees and rivers becomes corridors of regeneration and biodiversity, representing historical pathways. Cemeteries have cause environmental contamination in the groundwater as well as soil decomposition over many years and is a microbiological risk for humans to get infections. The locations of cemeteries in the last 2 centuries did not account for intense urban development, so new burial practices in the the urban landscape should be practiced to create a safer environment. This strategy focuses on helping to link the numerous disconnected and underutilized green cemetery, historical and memorial green spaces in and around the Navy Yard. The goal is to create an outdoor environment that also honors the site’s history. Infrastructure is not just the physical organizational structure and facilities needed for the navy yards operation, it is the connective tissue that sustains and progresses it. Therefor the potential of spaces in and around the Navy yard serve as gateways for the environment and humans. It lays the groundwork for an urban ecological infrastructure with overlaid

networks. It is important to not only rebuild with nature along the waters edge but also develop streams of natural corridors across the yard to re-establish the symbiotic relationship between nature people and habitation. The streams of corridors consisting of trees, wetlands, watercourses invite social engagements and will enrich networks and nature across the scope of the paths. The navy yards waterfront can’t be sustained as isolated or segregated edges from the rest of the yard, because it is a thread of a larger ecological structure interwoven with other natural conditions. The waterfront can be a part of a larger network of connected green spaces. Cemeteries prove spaces for nature and recreation. They also provide habitat for wildlife and have been identified as areas with “potentially high levels of biotic diversity,” especially in urban area (Gilbert 1991, Laske 1994, Barrett, 2001). Gary and Terry Berrett (2001) argue that even small burial grounds contribute to biotic diversity. Cemeteries serve as ecological patches and corridors that, regardless of their size, collectively support habitat. Cremation does not serve this function.

Projective Mapping

Americans struggled under British rule and revolted. During the Revolutionary War Britain occupied New York. From 1774 to 1783 British prison ships were moored in Wallabout bay. The Navy Yard began as a geographical response to that oppression, cannibalizing the same advantages that sited what had been the world’s most formidable navy. That yard manifested the pride of a community as the ‘can-do shipyard’. Denizens spilled their culture beyond the boundaries of the yard. Homes were built where people found work, projecting order into what had been a rural, farming landscape. Infamously, sailors kept the neighborhood awake with debauchery all-through the night. DUMBO

VINEGER HILL

BROO KLYN NAVY YARD

FORT GREENE PARK

Gentrification is the new oppressive superpower. It is an economic system of displacing people. The yard, recalling its history of political and military interventions, can not sit idly by while its people are oppressed.

PRISON SHIP MARTYRS MONUMENT

Mapping Brooklyn

Projections of shipyard legacy and future programming

Devices of historic development are overlaid as an instrument for remediation on local human ecology. Ground manipulation, cultural projections, production processes, and transmission networks guide the burgeoning topography. A new ground

1960 USS Constellation Fire

1776

1808

Crypt on Hudson Ave.

1831

Anchored British Prison Ships

Naval Hospital/ Cemetery

1951

Commodore John Barry Park

1908 Fort Greene Park/Martyrs Monument

River path Tree Path Green/Historic/Memorial Areas

1969: Process Infrastructure, Historic Preservation and Ecological Processes

Site

Vinegar Hill Hudson Ave. Road Extension 1938 Assembly/Production Route

300 600 900 1200 1500ft

Cut to Fill (bodies remains transported)

Mapping Brooklyn

Expanding proximities of a productive edge

is reconciled that recalls the history and methodology of place adjacent to, and sometimes over-top of, future speculations. A floating halfpipe built in the carcass of a WWII dry dock reincarnates form and defines a physical space between behaviors separated by time. Water treatment happens below the halfpipe, increasing remediation density within the same spatial footprint. [Skate- boarding below water level, on a new ground.] A network of handcars operate on existing railways of past ship

Entry onto dock from site.

Waterway extension into site

Historical remebrance area at end of dock to honor brave soldiers who died in anchored prison war ships in that same area a long time ago.

Field Study Collage:

Fields Study Collage Historical pathway form field informed Historical pathway from field study study informed a new potential program a of annew elevated potential dock extended over the river in the very spot so many brave soldiers died on the anchored ships. This dock dock allows for a extended revival of the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over relationshipthe with the land andin the location program of anprison elevated river allows the site and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s occupents to find and honor yet another historical land mark. so many soldiers had died on the anrchored prison ships.

construction, traveling through the navy yard and its history. Meanwhile, commuters are cyclically transmitted in climatic shuttles that are a microcosm of gentrification. Corporate sponsorship of the navy yard is offered as an opportunity for public relations (adopta-highway) and local commerce. The ungentrified aesthetic becomes a marketing opportunity, like so many hipster distilleries. Economic incentive rises to combat the economic system of oppression. WHAM-O was ingrained with the counter-culture movement that responded to the Vietnam War and now finds a new forum for public unrest. An expected series of unpredictable programs are generated by these interventions into the human ecology. Handcar typologies develop for different users: a commuter zips across the yard, avoiding the wait for the shuttle. Winecylces connect consumers to an existing, roof-top vineyard in the navy yard. Children on a sea-saw are propelled through the yard by their engagement with the place. Low-income housing is incubated within the navy yard as rising economic pressure makes neighborhoods uninhabitable.

Skateboarding is associated with rebelious youth. Building a floating half-pipe in an abandoned dry dock to energize the community that is resisting gentrification. Skateboarding happens at water level. Water remediation happens below grade. The program gains efficiency as multi-valent ecologies occupy the same footprint.

A network of public handcars are built on the railway-remains of the historic warship assembly line. Organized by efficiencies of past production, citizens enjoy a commute through the navy yard and its history. Children can enjoy wholesome fun with physical excercise and fresh air! A place for the neighborhood to play.

historic track

future transit Fort Green Martyrâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Monument; site of historic cut and fill Sands Street entrance

Sands Street entrance is a site of cultural projection from the Navy Yard. Cutting into the entrance and infilling a program based on a history of war. A large scale social rebellion rose in the 1960s to oppose the Vietnam War. Counterculture sought out anything anti-establishment. Frisbee gained popularity as a non-traditional past-time. Gentrification is a economic system for displacing people. Combating gentrification with a marketing opportunity for corporate sponsorship of the navy yard (adopt a highway) that stages community infill.

Frisbee player, identified with Vietnam counter-culture

Projective Collage

Anticipating layered and speculative programming

Ecology Section

Ecological Engagement

As the remnants of urbanism and city sewage has trickled into the East River over the years, the river has suffered a savvier depletion of its ecosystems. The animal and plant life that once inhabited the water, have since been greatly reduced, if not non-existing. grasslands

swale

grasslands

mowed paths

Utilizing existing infrastructure for ecologically performative urbanism

path

pedestrians cyclists

Ecologically Productive Layer

lawn

pick-up sports sun bathers picnickers

Sorgastrum nutans Indian grass

pedestrians cyclists

Panicum virgatum Switchgrass

path

slope stabilization

Juniperus virginiana Juniper

pedestrians

Betula nigra River Birch

grasslands

water

One of the missions for the Brooklyn Nay Yard in sustainable development is the implementation of greenscapes or gardens onto the rooftops of current buildings within the yardsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; boundaries. As a proposal, rather that placing gardens onto the rooftops, the rooftops would facilitate the cultivation of wetlands. The seeding processes of hydroponic plants would take place on top of the roofs of the buildings. Still known for itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s manufacturing, the foundations for these wetlands or floating islands would be fabricated in the shops throughout the site, which would later be transferred in to the dry docks. Cranes maneuver through the site on reinstated rail lines collecting the plants and placing them in the dry docks to be further developed into floating islands and deployed, similarly to how naval ships once did in the yards prim. Once in the water these islands anchor themselves into other areas in and along the East River. The islands act as ecological wetlands that filter, clean, and treat the water to revitalize ecological systems.

BOUNDARY ANCHORING EVOLUTIONARY VOCABULARY

BOUNDARY EXPANDING EVOLUTIONARY VOCABULARY

URBAN PARKS AND RECREATION BOUNDARY EXPANSION

PROGRAMMATIC EVENT-MAKING Urban recreation zones are activated for limitless potential, illuminating ecological conciousness in the city

INFRASTRUCTURE

ECOLOGY TRANSPORT

PROGRAMMATIC EVENT-MAKING

ECOLOGY PRODUCTION

INFRASTRUCTURE

DEVELOPED BOUNDARIES

INFRASTRUCTURE

RAW MATERIAL TRANSPORT

seeding

deployment

assembly

Seeding, Deployment, and Assembly

Expanding urban behavior through the distribution of farming

Territorial Formations

The evolutionary transformation of the Brooklyn Navy Yard spans over its historical significance as a hub for Naval ship manufacturing and repair and is an integral piece to the identification of the yard as a landscape today. The continual reiteration of expansion and contraction of the sites edge vindicates the productivity demands of the site and times. Although no longer active as a naval yard, the site functions as a hub for manufacturing and production on a prominent scale. Through historical recollection, reintroducing the process of expansion and contraction promotes new possibilities for productivity, transforming the sites edge and extenuating the landscape. Employing the dry docks and river as a means of connecting to high-density adjacencies as nodes which provide anchor points in which boundaries of the landscape are blurred; fragmenting the sites edge. Speculating that over a course of time the insertions onto the perimeters of these nodes would not only grow out but also see addition, frequently altering the condition of the landscape. Once a landscape of hyper productivity in the manufacturing and repair of naval ships, the Brooklyn Navy Yard retains its productive heritage, housing manufacturing and production companies of multiple scales, re64

institutionalizing its industrial buildings. Over its span the yard has undergone processes of expansion and contraction of the sites edge, accommodating for increase productivity. Continuing the process of expansion and contraction to accommodate for a new productive use, the landscape of the yards edge alters again through the act departing fragmentation.

Speculative Ground Morphology, Brooklyn

Physical model, cnc milled 65

philadelphia

extraction and tourism

Philadelphia Navy Yard, 1955 Aerial looking east

extraction and tourism

philadelphia 68

The United States Navy recognizes the 13th of October, 1775 as the date of its official establishment, when the Continental Congress passed a resolution creating the Continental Navy. However, colonists were building ships in the area since 1682. With the end of the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Navy was disbanded. Under President George Washington threats to American merchant shipping by pirates in the Mediterranean led to the Naval Act of 1794, which created the U.S. Navy. The original six frigates were authorized as part of the Act and were designed by naval designer Joshua Humphries a local Philadelphian. In 1876, the Navy Yard moved permanently from its original location on South Columbus Boulevard between Ellsworth and Wharton Streets. Early development of the League Island Navy Yard concentrated along Broad Street taking advantage of river access and limited population. The district was at that time an ideal location for industries that needed to be away from the city center due to harsh fumes and by-products. The earliest industrial development includes a gas company (eventually to become Philadelphia Gas Works) and the Atlantic Refining Company, both located along the banks of the Schuylkill River. The area has been in constant flux, hosting everything from garbage dumps to a horse racing track and a park designed by Olmstead in 1895; all while being home to the US Navy. The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (PNSY) continued to operate as a naval base until 1996, employing more than 40,000 people during its peak production period in World War II. During that time, 53 warships were constructed, and an additional 1,218 were repaired. The year 1970 saw the completion of the Blue Ridge, the last new ship to be built at the Yard. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) made the decision to cease operations in 1991. The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard closed on September 26, 1996. The area is now part of an expansive revitalization project attempting to capitalize on the renewed interest to live and work downtown.

Philadelphia Navy Shipyard, 1955

Aerial looking north towards the manufactured peninsula

Historical Impact

League Island Map, 1891

South of Philadelphia municipality along the Delaware River

Philadelphia Navy Yard, c. 1945 Aerial looking toward east

Mining Tower

Pennsylvania (specific location unknown)

Philadelphia Shipyard Crane, 1944 350-ton hammerhead crane

Pennsylvania Excavation Site

Linking excavation to deployment of military fleets

Philadelphia Navy Shipyard

View from Shipyard crane

Accessibility to Navy Yard jefferson station

Extended Mapping

city hall

to north of philly

to west philly

to airport

location of Philly beer festival private transportation to and from north and west Philly public transportation to and from center city

Philadelphia Transit to Shipyard

navy yard shuttles tourist navy yard visit shuttle

Connecting activities and centralities across Philadelphia

The shipyard latent with histories contains traces of processes and events within the matter that witnessed them. The matter itself has properties all its own independent and in response to events that form territories within it. As we approach the intersection of design and site, the dynamic layers of time, material, process, and nature have been woven and unraveled numerous times before us and will continue to do so. It is our task then to do so with caution and attention to the behaviors present that are within view as well as those buried and hidden, 74

not in an attempt to fetishize or even critique those who buried them, but to make visible their continued influence on the behaviors present. The morphogenetic model neither situates a place or people with a particular time, but allows for the situation of ourselves within the duration of time and place. Thus, the dialog between person, place, and time opens the world of the individual beyond that of their perspectival position in the world to the expanse which is life itself.

additions to the site subtractions from the site initial boundary of the site current boundary of the site

subway station (proposed)

interstate high pollution

Development plan

Public transportation

navy yard redevelopment industrial zone

1/2

1 mi

subway route (proposed)

subway station

subway route

water taxi stops

water taxi route interstate

1/2

1 mi

bulldings

park

deep water

dross green space

channel

Philadelphia Shipyard Edges

Continuously altered edges and manufactured grounds

Ecological Engagement

Philadelphia Edges and the ports through its hostory existing electricity main system

1996 - TODAY

existing gas main system

1801 - 1876

existing water main system

1876 - 1996

edge of the water body location of the ports

Philadelphia Navy Yard Moves

Three different sites along the Delaware River where the Shipyard once was located

new ecology on infrastructure

new ecology on infrastructure crane track into trolley track algae farm

trolley

hard edge to softedge ﬂoating ecology ﬂoating ecology

water collection greenway

parking algae farm

solarpanels recreation pool

sitting edge

water ﬁlteration water ﬁlteration

water collection

Ecologically Productive

Utilizing existing infrastructure for ecologically performative urbanism, including floating ecologies and anchored infrastructures

Bituminous

1860

Anthracite Implementation of Steel Hulls

Thousands of Tons

1900 1940 Coal Production in Pennsylvania

1980

Source: Unites States Geological Service https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1147/historical.html (accessed April 4, 2017)

sawmills iron steel mills

rivers railways major roads coal

Pennsylvania Extraction Sites Sawmills, iron, and steel mills

50 mi

timber

15 10 5 0

Sawlogs Pulpwood Other Products

North Central

South Central

Western

2.0 Billions of Board Feet

North Eastern

1.5

1.0

0.5

Softwoods

Implementation of Steel Hulls

Million Cubic Feet

Hardwoods

South Eastern

South Western

1860 Timber Production of Pennsylvania by Region

Source: United States Department of Agriculture - Forest Service The Timber Industries of Pennsylvania 1988 https://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/resource_bulletins/pdfs/scanned/OCR/ne_rb130.pdf (accessed April 4, 2017)

1900 1940 Timber Production of Pennsylvania

1980

sawmills iron steel mills

rivers railways major roads coal

50 mi

timber

Pennsylvania Extraction Sites

Timber and coal

Projective Collage

Considering to overlap layers of history and location; extraction sites tied to shipyard manufacturing

We ask what conditions are present in themselves or within the traces on the surface and within the material presented to us by the past itself? In discovering such, we aim to develop a set of mechanisms latent within, that not only capture and displays existing visible data, but an engine to create a way of looking. This ambition is not to engender a particular perspectival arrangement with a fixed field before it, but facilitate an arrangement in which the beholder who turns it on, and keeps it running by being a beholder, is able to see beyond what is commonly seen and whatever can be seen. Thus, not reproduce the visible—what is commonly seen—but makes visible—what commonly is not seen, but which the past has intuitively decayingly preserved us. 80

To understand the how Pennsylvania uniqueness within conversation of shipyards, we must examine Pennsylvania’s foundation with regard to its natural resources. Geologically, Pennsylvania is an old piece of ground that resided below sea level and then rose slowly, then exponentially as a response to continental collisions 260 million years ago. The strata folded, split, and buckled under the pressure causing ripples in the landscape. The wealth and industry of Pennsylvania were derived initially from the natural resources and subsequently people who were attracted to the region to work in industry would also become a significant resource.

ďŹ eld condition strategy ecologies of memory

ďŹ eld condition caption goes here cuptae inihil moluptatus molut eaque parum laut laute volendi aciam autame ipsumqu ibeatem porunt as quam consedit adis ilitias aut maiore plabo. Ut rae aut plaboria dero con nisit officae et laborruptium renti doluptati veliat aciam eaque aut ilitias

1/2

1 mi

ecologies are the dna that makes a landscape

1/2

1 mi

Fields and Memory

Projecting memory of extraction sites into the landscape of ship manufacturing

Territorial Formations

The extraction of resources coupled with technological advances fueled by capitalisms demands, led to advances in machinery that would forever change the landscape. The very ground of Pennsylvania uniquely facilitated and complicated transmission. It was the very elements found within the strata, coupled with technology and ingenuity facilitated the machinery and the need of such machines to overcome or manipulate the ground. The machine within and of the landscape, constructed canals and railroads enabling the coal and iron industries to dominate the region as cities grew upward and steel machines traversed the globe. Identity is commonly understood as â&#x20AC;&#x153;the distinguishing character or personality of an individual.â&#x20AC;? The dichotomy of the idea of identity occurs predominantly because the world inherently takes positions by either taking us back into history and therefore a belief in preservation of identities, a fabled origin of various civilizations; each developing associations within itself with particular materializations in terms of culture, technology or architecture, or prompting us to dispel such labels and look anew. It is often in facing the fact of cosmopolitanism, that is the territorialization of the individual within another, and subsequently the deterritorialization within, where one becomes conscious of striving for 82

certain kinds of identity â&#x20AC;&#x201C; either by defending ones inherent (historical) identity, introducing a pastiche identity that one aspires to, or at the other end of the spectrum, just dismissing the past and injecting new beginnings of materializing domains. Rather than impart a fictional recount of past, by superimposing the trace of excavation onto the site of production and transmission the present can comprehend the relationships of its foundation. Thus, there is a territory in which the fluctuation of the past, occupies, covers, infiltrates, and legitimizes the future.

Speculative Ground Morphology, Philadelphia

Physical model, cnc milled 83

san francisco blurred lines

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Navy Shipyard, 2002

View looking towards west at abandoned dry dock

blurred lines

san francisco

The story of the San Francisco Shipyard starts out as the American dream for two San Francisco entrepreneurs. A.W. Von Schmidt and Thomas Hardy buy twenty-nine acres from the South San Francisco Association in 1860, under the condition that they build a drydock. In 1866 they broke ground at Hunters Point and carve it out of the hard stone that lies right under their feet. Upon its completion in 1867, they hauled the steamship Ajax in for a demonstration. The dock emptied the water in just under two hours. By 1870, the California Drydock Company moved into town and opened its doors for commercial service. In the 1890s the shipyard is in full swing and a heroic warship is launched from Hunters Point, the USS San Francisco. By 1903 a second drydock is built, 750 feet long and 30 feet deep. The dock is capable of docking the largest merchant vessels around. A change of hands occurs in 1908 and Union Iron Works purchases the Drydock for $1.9 million. 1908 was an exciting year for the shipyard. President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” is serviced at the docks due to the depth of the harbor. A third drydock is installed at the shipyard in 1916 and this one reaches great lengths, 1,000 feet to be exact.

A giant shipbuilding boom occurred in the early 1940s when World War II broke out. It is here that the key components of the “Little Boy” atomic bomb are loaded onto the USS Indianapolis and then dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. In the middle of the boom the infamous crane is erected and at the is the larges in the world. It is capable of lifting battleship gun turrets and other objects weighing up to one million pounds. By the 60s Operation Skycatch launches in the shipyard. This study of Polaris Missiles pulls a multi-ton missile out of the sky to be inspected for testing. Decades later the Navy completely shuts down the base as part of a Cold War realignment and disposal program. By 2000 the plans have solidified and the City commits to invest in local education, transportation, public open spaces, hiking and biking trails, community facilities and energy efficiency and in 2014 the City of San Francisco broke ground on the first homes at the shipyard.

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Navy Shipyard, 1993

Aerial looking northeast

Historical Impact

San Francisco, 1857 U.S. Coast Survey

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Navy Shipyard, c. 1940s

Includes the active dry dock in the foreground and the massive gantry crane in the background (both existing landmarks today)

Hunter’s Point Navy Yard, 1999

Manipulated ground and gantry crane

Hunter’s Point Navy Yard, 1968 Construction of Shipyard extension

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Shipyard, 2008

Artifact of the Shipyard used for historical preservation purposes

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Shipyard, 1945

New boom crane along rails

Extended Mapping

pier 45 pier 41/43 pier 39 pier 35 pier 33 pier 31 pier 27/29 pier 23 pier 19 pier 15/17 pier 3 pier 1 pier 30/32 pier 48 pier 50 pier 52 pier 54 tourism

pier 80 pier 94 pier 96

transportation cultural historical industrial

ferry routes tourism private

transportation cultural historical

private

industrial

private public

waterfront parks

private

ship yard

San Francisco

Coastal edge mapping and piers

5 mi

angel island

tiburon

oakland

city hall

4.7 les

sfo

ferry routes

bus stops/stations

highways

light rail stops/stations

major roads

ferry terminal

shipping lanes ship yard

5 mi

San Francisco Public Connectivity

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Shipyard in relationship to greater San Francisco Bay Area

The port of San Francisco has three distinct features that this project attempts to address. These include but are not limited to blurred edges along the coastline as well as in the atmosphere through the experiential conditions of fog, production process remnants on the landscape, and socioeconomic conditions in and surrounding the site. To explore edge conditions a typology of edges was extracted from current and historical maps to understand the conditions where the water meets land or port. This navy yard experienced a fluctuation of use and program over time, never settling on one consistent trajectory. Each program is engraved in the site in various ways. Many of the original buildings remain. The reshaping of the port, manipulated to accommodate the shipping format, as well as the transition from a male dominated island with a surrounding community to a hazardous zone inhabited by low income residents is drastic, and has isolated the area. This isolation has generated public frustration and a future for the yards. The projective and analytical mapping techniques reveal the connections between these three themes and their impact on the landscape as well as the local community. Through the process of projective mapping we begin to unveil a dormant dialogue between these three undercurrents and 94

give visibility to the invisible or further distort the distorted to embolden the atmospheric qualities. The historical map overlaps three periods of the Yardsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; history. These include the year 1948, 1969, and 2010. The overlapping reveals the growth of the yards and the subsequent landscape transformations. The evolution of the edge condition is mapped out through a series of diagrammatic maps. Therefore, one is a natural evolution and one is manufactured. These two conditions and their contrasting features create an interesting dialog at the diagrammatic level.

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Edges

Evolution at Waters Edge

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Shipyard

Evolution at Waters Edge (1861, 1883, 1910, 2010)

Ecological Engagement

community markets

community gardens

ion

Pulling Ground into Water Bringing Water into Land recreational water pond continuous creek recreational purpose collecting run-off water Imported Ground: recreational plaza for ﬁshing food production some of existing buildings being used for ﬁshing industry

rsit y

Cleaning Water Contamination Providing foord for Habitats Increasing Bio Diversity Aquatic Vegetation Pond: Floating Plants: Arroyo Willow Gross Type Shoreline Plants Submerged Plants

com

mu n

ity

rec rea

tio

tic

pre

ser

foo

vat i

veg

rod

eta

uct

tio

ive

exp

eri

Continuing the study of cleaning contatminations of water + ground: Hemp experimental ground experimental pond

nta l

The constant transformation of edges at the Hunters Point Navy Yards creates an opportunity re-think the purpose of the local Strategies fortoEnvironmental Responsiveness edge condition.

The constant transformation of edges at the Hunter’s Point Navy Yard creates a unique opportunity to re-think the purpose of local edge and environmental condition

Extend City Grid: greenways preserved and increased by increase in land-water edges

The San Francisco shipyard has experienced a series of major transformations along the edge where land meets water. The land has primarily been altered and extended, pushing the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge further out to expand production and shipyard functions. The land was flattened to allow for ease of movement for production processes. The flattening of the land creates an increased susceptibility to rising water levels. The edges currently function as greenways. Due to the inactivity of the shipyards the edges are now pedestrian ways. However, the other buildings are not currently functioning. The intention is to capitalize on the edges as pedestrian ways by increasing the number of edges. This can be done by folding the edges back into the landscape, reversing the original expansion of land into water to water into land. Edge conditions also create an opportunity for protection against rising water levels. By increasing the number of native plants that can clean the soils the relationship between the water and the soil can begin to clean each other. Remediation: 1. Mangroves can alleviate rising water levels. (flat land) 2. Plants that clean water or soil

(contamination from ship building) 3. Plants that help with air pollution/ asthma (air pollution effect on local residents) What to do with abandoned buildings? Destroy or maintain? If maintain how to integrate (could be educational, could be public, library, community center, makerspaces, innovation lab, artists, music, school, job training, marijuana/hemp?). If destroy how to replace? The self-organizing structure that we have developed is a product of the logic inherent in the mechanisms of push and pull apparent in the fibrous structure of the cannabis plant and the manipulation of ground on the site. Weaving emerged as a product of testing the splitting of a grid along various nodes. The nodes were determined by existing site conditions. The extent of the push and pull along the grid is determined by a set of parameters and the scale is a gradient reflecting the existing site. The resulting logic is a series of networks with dynamic spatial conditions grouping land edges and water. These dense topographical fluctuations support a variety of opportunities in a compact area. These ecologies develop at micro scale yet impact the macro environment on the site. The components of the system are a series of push and pull 97

Mussel Farm

Marker Bouy

Bouy

Backline

Sea level

30 20

Anchor

10 Clay Base

Meters

Coral Farm

Water level

Sea level

Kelp Farm

20 10 0

Clay Base

Meters

Hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point Strategies of Aquaculture Sea-level, bouys, and mussels

Mussel Sleeve

Runoff is one of the main leaders in pollution, especially in the Hunters Point Shipyard. Creating bioswales is a logical solution to filter the runoff and create a buffer between the yard and the bay. In addition to walkways, boardwalks, and public programs, people are able to directly interact with the evolving shoreline and water treatment processes.

Productivity in Ruins

Projecting ecological opportunity within fragments of historical artifacts

Larger scale of Engagement of Water with ground

Smaller scale of Engagement of Water with ground

Linear Form of Engagement of Water with ground

Section Diagram: Showing Veriety of Engagement of Water and Ground: Over or Under Ground in differen Scale

Water We not only use the hemp for decontaminating the soil but also looked at the structure of Hemp as an stating point inorder to weave the the water and ground togaether. The diagrams shows the pulling and pushing of the ground and water and the creationg of veriety of engaement of land and water which would renforce different ecological use and activity through the site.

Watershed and Scales of Engagement

Oscillating between ground and water as a porous interface for ecological use and programmatic activity

100

Ground

The map shows the superimposition of water and ground one another. Water andofthe ground weaved to each Theon map shows the superimposition water and ground on eachother. other andtoextending grid ofand theextending city and Water and by the distorting ground weaved eachother bythe distorting thetherefore grid of the city and thereforethe it increases the ecological of ground it increases ecological use of use ground and and water through the shipyard. It Brings Water in and Ground out to water through the shipyard. It brings water in and ground increase the edges and create different scale and use of Pond over the out to increases variability in the edge and create different ShipYard. scales and use of retention ponds across the Yard.

Projection Of Shipyard Projection of Street Lines Water Ground Under Water

Projecting a Malleable Grid

Exploring strategies of blurred edges and programmatic overlays

101

methods translated from the cannabis fiber structure. The result is a parting of the grid that denotes in plan either a pool of water or a swelling of the ground condition. The swelling of the ground condition may occur on the site or in some instances off site in the water. The result is the influx of water onto the site and extension of the ground out. The extension of the ground into the water results in small islands or peninsulas with a tendency to support new opportunities for shipping and/or micro ecologies. The method to the placement of these pools and swells originates from existing site conditions where the push and pulling was already exiting. These existing conditions are exaggerated and the resulting conditions should support the macro logic where possible with the flexibility for tangential scenarios. Ecology The edges along the water of the San Francisco Navy Yard have shifted significantly over the years. The biggest shift occurring, as a result, of the transition of the site to the Navy Yard shipping point. The land was pushed out into the ocean to create an edge that would be more efficient for shipping and the ship building process. Therefore, the topography is flat and the site protrudes out to create a peninsula. The peninsula is the perfect 102

shape for allowing the boats to access most the site with one main entrance from the city for automobiles and foot traffic. To reclaim and repurpose the site, this original strategy of pushing and pulling the land to optimize processes is emulated. The process in this scenario is however centered around redevelopment of the ecology and local economy. The ecology on the site has experienced serious degradation as result of the ship building processes. The soil is contaminated with various chemicals including PCBs. The hemp plant has a history of significance on the site and in the local area, but also can extract PCBâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s from the soil. San Francisco was one of the first states to legalize medical marijuana and the adjacent Oakland island is home to a university specializing in the sales and production of the cannabis site. The school has served as vital member of the local community, and stimulated the local economy since its opening in 2007. Closer to the site the Tubbs Cordage company was the first rope manufacture on the West Coast. The company opened in 1851 and served the industry until the 1980s. The rope was originally made of imported Manila hemp. The reintroduction of an agricultural industry to the local area creates an opportunity

paths along waters edge

residential properties above water lines

phytoremediation using hemp farming

This relationship of the water to the land creates new opportunities for cleaning the soil but also the water and increasing the number of edge conditions. We see the increase of edges as a beneďŹ t to the community as the current site indicates that where the land meets the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge the inability to build preserves the space for pedestrians.

original edge

potential agriculture production potential residential sites

Potentiality of Edge

103

Territorial Formations

for education and employment for the local community. The area has struggled to support the local community and the contamination of the site and air pollution has kept the land value low. In general, the site has become alienated from the city due to the contamination and crime within the local community. We see the hemp industry as viable opportunity to stimulate the local economy and remove contamination. Infrastructure As a result of this conclusion we studied the fibrous structure of the hemp plant, which has qualities of pushing and pulling while maintaining the overall structure and network. This became a point of focus for the structure of the site and processes. By allowing the existing site conditions to instruct how this new logic could emerge, we found opportunities for multiple processes to occur. The manipulation of the surface related the pushing and pulling logic began to create pools of water interspersed throughout the side with land and objects weaving around the pools or rather splitting to create them. This relationship of the water to the land creates new opportunities for cleaning the soil but also the water and increasing the number of edge conditions. We see the increase of edges as a benefit to the community as the 104

current site indicates that where the land meets the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge the inability to build preserves the space for pedestrians. Topography The process of pushing and pulling occurs not only in plan but also in section creating heterogeneity of spaces. This structure mimics the existing site conditions where the local community has literally maintained higher ground as it has been the least exposed to threatening weather and water conditions. However, the weaving in section creates opportunities for higher ground to occur in relationship to the water and edges at multiple scales. Ultimately, we hypothesize that the resulting heterogeneity of spatial conditions has the capacity to support a dynamic ecology.

Speculative Ground Morphology, San Francisco

Physical model, cnc milled 105

seattle

recycle and burial

106

Puget Sound Navy Shipyard, 2010

Flooded dry dock for submarine maintenance

107

seattle

recycle and burial

Established in 1891, the originally named Navy Yard Puget Sound was founded in Bremerton, Washington on the Sinclair Inlet. In 1877, the idea of building a naval yard in the Pacific Northwest arose due to the lack of a shipyard north of San Francisco’s Mare Island Naval Yard and hesitance to build a naval facility in Canada. Due to inflated prices, the Navy could not afford the land. Two business men, William Bremer and Henry Paul Hensel, invested in building the town of Bremerton and sold the needed land to the Navy within their budget. Founded by Navy Lieutenant Ambrose Barkley Wyckoff in 1891, he found that the Puget Sound was the perfect place for the Naval Yard due to the mild climate, good harbors as well as a large supply of timber, iron ore and coal. The yard’s first dry dock was completed in 1896 and the second in 1913, making the Navy Yard Puget Sound the only site along the West Coast to capable of handling the navy’s largest vessels.

108

During the first World War, the location on the Pacific coast made it difficult to repair any vessels damaged in battle and was primarily used as a site for new ship construction. Shortly after the war ended, the yard experienced a period of little activity, but was then revitalized during the Great Depression due to an influx of government funding. The yard’s large hammerhead crane was completed in 1933 and by 1935 a $1.5 million machine shop was constructed on site. The fourth and fifth dry docks were completed in 1939 and 1940, making the yard the only shipyard along the west coast capable of handling aircraft carriers and battleships. On November 30, 1945, the name of the shipyard changed to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and its mission changed from repair to deactivation. A period of activation of the reserve fleet occurred during the Korean Conflict between 1950-1953 but shortly returned back to deactivation. Established in the 1990’s the yard still deactivates the nuclear vessels under the Navy’s Ship-Submarine Recycling Program, where submarines are salvaged into three or four sections, and nuclear fuel is shipped by rail to the Naval Reactor Facility in the Idaho National Laboratory outside of Idaho Falls. The reactor compartments are sent to the Hartford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state where they will eventually be buried.

Puget Sound Navy Shipyard Aerial looking north towards Bremerton, WA

109

Historical Impact

Puget Sound, 1948

Geographical depiction of the region and its hydrological distribution

110

Puget Sound Navy Yard, c. 1970s

View of dry dock with maintenance of submarine

111

Nuclear Reactor Locations

Describing location of reactor compartments in submarines and typical military fleet cruisers

112

Submarine Decommission

USS Ohio under missile and nuclear decommissioning

Puget Sound Navy Yard

Single boom crane with rail tracks up against the dam wall

Puget Sound Navy Yard

Dam wall and path, partitioning flooded and dry docks (single boom cranes in the distance)

113

Extended Mapping

Puget Sound Region

Northeastern Washington State hydrological map

114

to ocean

2 hours

1.5 hours

airports roads ferries municipalities 0

1.5 hours 8

16 Miles

Regional Infrastructure

Including Puget Sound hydrological linkages

115

Ecological Engagement

HOW TO: Decommission A Nuclear Submarine

off reactors must be shut down to allow the immediate radioisotopes to decay

Iodine-131, half-life 8.04 days Xenon-133, half-life 32.50 days

contaminated submarine parts

parts transported to safe disposal

nuclear material

reusable submairne parts

nulear material transported to safe disposal

long term storage

long term storage reprocessed and recylced

SOURCES: Decommissioning Of A Nuclear Submarine, By: John Cohen Nuclear Powered Submarine Inactivation and Disposal in the U.S. and Russia: A Comparative Analysis, By: Anatoli S. Diakov, Vadim K. Korobov and Eugene V. Miasnikov

Nuclear Waster Facility

Nuclear reactors buried in Hanford, WA

116

Decommissioning A Nuclear Submarine

Processes currently used for decommissioning nuclear warfare in the U.S. military

Rail Crane

Nuclear Waste Disposal

Nuclear Decomissioning Irrigation Agricultural Use + Distribution

Existing Woodlands Act as a Burrial Site + Clean Contaminated Air

Algae Ponds (Dry Docks) Plant Fertilizer Water Filter Waterbody Remediation Aquaponic Systems Small Scale Ecology

Nu c De lear S c Wa omis ubm ste sio arin Dis ning e po + sal Ag ri

cul tur + al Re Eco Prod ge log uc tio ne rat y n ion Co mm Fe unity ry M Ex Term arke ten in t sio al + n

Strategies for Future Engagement

Activities along exiting infrastructure provide frameworks for future ecological, and productive engagement; rail, disposal, and aquaculture

117

There is some natural ecology along the shoreline around the Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shipyard where streams and rivers empty their water and sediment into the bay. The concept here is to spread that nutrient rich ecology over to the piers and dry docks and in the bay itself. Underwater lights would connect and aluminate and in so protect these new ecological conditions.

5 mi

Shipyard and Bremerton, WA Connectivity

Projecting aqua-culture and rich ecological nutrients across the Puget Sound

118

Ferry Terminal

Ferry Route Coastline

Piers

Dry Docks

Lines of Light Ecology Support lines Ecology Shipping Lanes

Aquaculture Phase I

Aquaculture Phase II

Dry Docks

Buried Lines of Light Operation_ Nutrient Supply Line

Bouy Farms: New Surface Ecology

Aquaculture Phase III

Dry Docks

Buried Lines of Light Operation_ Nutrient Supply Line

Bouy Farms: New Surface Ecology

Aquaculture Phase IV

Dry Docks

Buried Lines of Light Operation_ Nutrient Supply Line

Bouy Farms: New Surface Ecology

Staging Aqua-culture

Strategies for populating healthy and unpredictable ecosystems of hydrological and technological infrastructure

119

Following the regulating lines projected from the city and into the shipyard allows for the unexpected population and superimposition of water features and ecologies. The green areas are neighborhood public spaces that become ecological reserves dependent on the structure of the flooded canals.

Puget Sound Navy Yard Projections

5 mi

Extending the restricted boundaries across the water

120

flooded areas elevated platforms street connections dry docks

shipping lanes

Puget Sound Navy Yard Projections

Infrastructural adaptability and multiplicity

121

Puget Sound Navy Yard

Lines of engagement facilitating new ecologies between ground and water

122

Manufactured Mound / Burial Formations

Ecologically rich grounds form along the current restricted boundary of the Puget Sound Navy Yard

123

Territorial Formations

124

Speculative Ground Morphology, Seattle

Physical model, cnc milled 125

charleston

memory to morphology

Detyens Shipyard, Charleston, SC, 2016 Former Charleston Shipyard with original cranes being used for modern manufacturing

North Charleston Aerial, 1967

View towards the southeast showing infrastructural differences between the North Charleston neighborhood and the larger networks of the Shipyard 128

Charleston Navy Shipyard, 1941 View north towards the dry docks and Noisette Creek; (Cooper River shown on right of image) 129

Charleston Navy Shipyard Warehouse, 1941

Building No. 59, Shipfitterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s layout shed, Exterior looking southeast 130

131

Charleston Navy Shipyard, 1946

Construction of piers for Berthing 16th Fleet, Naval Base, South Carolina 132

Charleston Navy Shipyard, 1944 Building No. 59, Shipfitterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Layout Shed, East Extension looking southeast 133

Fuel Oil System, Charleston Navy Shipyard, 1941

Boiler house and tank location looking south 134

Fuel Oil System, Charleston Navy Shipyard, 1942

Boiler house and tanks, looking towards the south 135

Shipyard Manufacturing Region, 2012

This region near Noisette Creek houses the most preserved collection of buildings in the entire Shipyard while, the Shipyard Park superficially wipes away its past 136

CNCRA & Memorial, 2016 The Charleston Naval Redevelopment Authority occupies an original officers house amongst highly preserved willos and adjacent to the Shipyard Memorial built 2006 137

Shipyard Manufacturing Region, 2012

Along the northern edge of current shipping practices, a series of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;artifactsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; remain, including housing, a naval hospital, and various warehouses for manufacturing 138

Warehouses in Production, 2016 Various historical warehouses within the manufacturing zone remain in use by the current tenant, Detyens Shipping 139

Shipyard Manufacturing Region, 2012

Ever since the major development of the Charleston Shipyard in 1945, the street and infrastructure maintains its presence through the second half of the 20th century 140

Cranes & Dry Dock, 2016 Still today, many of the original equipment and infrastructure remains active. including the double boom cranes, flooded dry docks, and floating cranes 141

Piers and Federal Land, 2012

After shipyard construction halted in 1996, the grounds redistributed within the U.S. government for other agencies to utilize the regional location 142

Federally Owned Property, 2016 Between the southern wetlands and manufacturing sites to the north, the U.S. federal government occupies vast regions for FLETC, NOAA, and officer training 143

Southern Wetlands, Charleston Shipyard, 2012

Former wetlands until, post-WWII shipyard occupation, followed by plans for re-leveling the entire Southern tip between Shipyard Creek and Cooper River 144

Southern Wetlands, Charleston Shipyard, 2016 Current construction, leveling of ground, and ground importation from around the Charleston Harbor for the newly planned Shipping Container terminal 145

146

Detyens Shipyard Warehouse, 2016 Wooden framework to house military warfare inside an updated warehouse from 1945 147

charleston

memory to morphology After never truly recovering from the Civil War, in 1900 Charleston, South Carolina perceptively persuaded the United States Navy to construct its new Naval Complex and Shipyard facilities along its coastal wetlands of the Cooper River. Successfully, the Charleston Navy Yard employed hundreds of thousands of military and civilian personnel, building 256 vessels, and stimulated the area of Charlestonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy over the course of its life. Upon closure in 1996, along with other navy shipyard closures in the mid-1990s, the Shipyard is made up of dispersed ownerships from private shipbuilding, institutional research facilities, and embedded with restricted federal lands. With varied new developments including a memorial park, active shipbuilding, and the damaged wetlands, the Charleston Shipyard provides an incredible legacy moving from historical and economical memory to behaviors of extra-urban geospatial territories of highly disparate landscape morphology. _____________________

Wetlands Transformed The elaborate working grounds of the Charleston Navy Shipyard were constructed on a wetland connected to a broader extension of the estimated 6.4 million acres of South Carolina 148

Charleston Shipyard, ca. 1950â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s View looking north towards the two original dry docks

149

wetland landscapes. This massive landscape was considered to make up 32% of the entire stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s footprint, comprised of coastal marshes, riverine swamps, isolated bays, and the palustrine wetlands with sandy peat soils and woody shrubs known as pocosins. Subsequently, patched along the South Carolina coast contains the incredible series of 4,000 bay inlets each contributing to a much larger ecosystem.1 Rich in soils, the landscapes encourage natural drainage systems for large-scale agricultural purposes.2 Each with their own unique oval-like or elliptical depressions cultivates rich biodiversity throughout the grounds and waterways enabling species to thrive on such lush landscape. Coincidentally, the opportunities for drainage systems and biodiversity are supported by the same wetland compounds, and ironically are the cause for its declining ecologies. As agricultural systems and former industrial enterprises captured much of these fertile grounds by using the natural drainage strategies and connections to marine transit networks, the larger ecosystems are left damaged. It is estimated South Carolina contains 11,000 miles of permanently following rivers and streams and ranks fifth in the nation in wetland acreage (expressed as a percent of surface 150

area) across the municipal boundaries of the state.3 By illuminating such extensive territories marked by the coastal wetlands of South Carolina establish an ecological framework for our investigation here in the Charleston Navy Shipyard legacy. The earliest instances of drainage systems utilizing the landscape for agricultural purposes came in 1754 when the state of South Carolina authorized drainage in Cacaw Swamp.4 This drainage system was not the only solution. Proper irrigation systems and dikes could be coordinated to increase efficiencies in production primarily in agriculture fields such as rice cultivation. By the mid 19th century, South Carolina became the largest producer of rice in the United States. However, not only was the rice operations a key factor in the stabilization in the state, the forested wetlands were ripe for timber harvesting. The two, rice and timber harvesting have peppered the state landscape. The coastal wetlands and bay inlets were both the wetland ecology of natural grounds for harvesting and the economic means of greater national power. More recently, as development grew, capital increased, and populations rose, rice operations have declined over the last 50 years while timber harvesting has not. Forested wetlands in the southeastern United States

are highly productive ecosystems because of the episodic surges of flood impact.5 This is interesting for a two reasons. On one hand, the rice operations have diminished due to increase pressures on urbanization, marina construction, and industry all of which attempt to defend against flood and storm surge with bulkhead construction; while, on the other, forest wetland successes necessitate intermittent flooding. Although management practices are being used to monitor the drainage, clearing, and ditching of forested coastal wetlands, it is extremely difficult to alleviate the damaged caused by such practices. The typical length of time requires a timber growth rate cycle of 30 years; the transformation to the wetland is overwhelming. Of the total area in SC that was originally forested wetland, some has been drained and converted to upland silvicultural uses, the practice of managing forests to support diverse needs through establishment, growth, composition, and health, some has been logged and replanted or regenerated naturally, while other areas have been cleared for agricultural production or urban development. The poorly drained soils that made up many of the original wetlands in the southeastern US are some of the most intensively managed forest sites in the world.6 Commercial operations and development

CNCRA Shipyard Archives, 2016 The Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority houses the largest collection of materials, maps, and naval database. 151

practices diminish local wetlands and simultaneously deplete life cycles of its primary generators for healthy ecosystems, the ground and the water systems. The brief histories of the coastal wetlands in South Carolina illuminate how expansions of other markets, economies, and agricultural politics create immediate impact on the landscapes. Historically, and still today, many of the former wetlands remain damaged due to rice production and timber harvesting causing disruptions in the biodiversity, which originally made up a third of South Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s terrain. The range of impacts is not exclusive to the land itself. Instead, global capital markets initiate effects across much larger territories of influence. The boundaries of site no longer are the limitations of territorial and operational modes. The extraction, transmission, and consumption of our global connectedness exaggerate, expand, and often fragment our lens of territory. Not so different than the agricultural processes stretched across South Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coastal wetlands, the 1.7 square miles of naval operations in North Charleston contain remnants of a geopolitical territory. However, this territory expands beyond the regional boundaries of estuaries and has become 152

exaggerated by the historical fragments, process of shipbuilding, and dispersed ownership and redevelopment initiatives. The ground, military history, and changes in programmatic distribution may enable a rich awareness of an extra-urban territory and military impact, moving from memory to future morphology. _____________________

The Shipyard and its Ground As early as 1767, the United States began construction on the first shipyards along the northeastern coastline, including Portsmouth, Philadelphia, and Boston.7 The processes of manufacturing and assembly greatly depended upon the geographical position of the shipyard and the capacity to transform topography. As technologies and military systems advanced, the ground became an important medium for enabling shipbuilding and assembly processes for U.S. Navy forces. According to the National Technical Information Service document from the U.S. Department of Commerce, shipyard design and conditions for ideal situation and methods for ground manipulation are outlined with extreme precision.8 It even goes so far as to specify â&#x20AC;&#x153;the site topography is

assumed to be a few feet above sea level with an average tidal range of…”, thus delineating a zone in which outfitting and transfer of equipment between water and ground is optimized. Additionally requisite in the siting of a shipyard is a “shoreline to a depth of 35 feet at a distance of 700 feet offshore” so as to allow adequate navigation between water and earth. The report continues to describe with incredible detail the building of docks, bulkheads, as well as other coastal hard structures. The contents of the document range from riverbed dredging depths to warehouse floor slab elevations. Site-specific topography is viewed as disadvantageous to maintaining optimal shipyard organization, suggesting “… significant variations in site development and dock costs could occur with different site conditions”.9 The guidelines given by the NTIS document suggest parameters that enhance performance and economic efficiency. For example, on the process of outfitting the text dictates “two level luffing cranes that serve the building dock and the outfitting wharf for installation of masts, stern ramps, and outfit” and “the top of the fitting out wharf is at a high level, approximately the elevation of the main deck of the FDL”.10 The nuances of

shipbuilding do not have to be understood to conclude the relationship between process and ground. The leveling of ground is highly measured, and associated with the physical terrain regarding site configuration. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports on low water levels and future dredging requirements, which indicate the necessity of moving ground. The perpetual cut-and-fill treatment of ground significantly redefines coastal geographies. Tracing the water’s edge over time from Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and San Francisco reflects an alteration of the water’s edge and subsequent damage sustained on wetlands and other coastal ecologies. _____________________

Military Logistics Landscape

and

Impact

By 1907, the United States Navy had constructed a 16-ship fleet that toured globally as a deterrent to threats and a demonstration of American might under President Theodore Roosevelt. Named the “Great White Fleet”, this flagship fleet exhibited the far-reaching impact of the shipping industry, from local production 153

Charleston Navy Yard, 1909

Initial development and ownership of the shipyard grounds existed along the Cooper River just south of Noisette Creek 154

to mobility in international waters. Military logistics and global politics participate in shaping the landscape beyond the means of a fluid boundary. In Ecologies of Power, Pierre Belanger describes the impact of military logistics as a “field of influence that consists of both the operational environment and the flows of operations”.11 Belanger clarifies by stating “the contradictory and paradoxical double-entendre of ‘landscape’ [is] expressive of different media and modes of power, both operative and emergent, simultaneously fixed and fluid, inscriptive and descriptive, projective and receptive,” illustrating a contradiction in our understanding and the role of territory with that of terrain, or ground.12 This paradoxical enterprise of landscape marks a primary theme for this work—the inactive shipyards offer operational tools of systematic manufacturing and become catalysts for a dynamic topography. As the U.S. Navy evolved into the national first line of defense, shipyard construction proliferated, which in turn created fluctuations in local economies. Charles Waldheim’s position on the industrial and post-industrial landscape argues, “these logistical zones are hardly recognizable as city forms, yet produce and provide a

Charleston Peninsula, 1918 As the Southern tip of Charleston peninsula developed into a recovery economy based on tourism, the shipyard to the north established a new highly productive and economic advantage for the region 155

base to the economic activity that supports contemporary urban development”.13 The grounds of the inactive Navy Shipyards may be considered an expansion of Waldheim’s speculation on post-industrial landscapes, where the ground itself becomes the currency influencing economy and productivity. More specifically, docks, outfitting wharf, and assembly buildings become a measure of growth and military development.

The Charleston Navy Shipyard is geographically situated between the South Carolina coastal flats and the coastal zone. This wetland ecology that defines the shipyard location is part of a substantial loss of wetlands due to inland urban development as alluded earlier. On one hand, amongst the largest population centers in South Carolina, the Charleston Navy Shipyard is cause for immediate economic profit—on the other; it is cause for major damage to the once thriving soils and wetland ecologies along the Cooper River prior to 1909. Initially designed to revitalize the local economy after the Civil War, the Navy had become the primary driver for Charleston’s economic foundation throughout the last century, with a peak employment of 36,700 people, (23,500 Naval and Marine personnel and 13,200 civilians) in 156

1983. However, the stability relied heavily on episodic durations of war. Threats of nuclear attacks, lulls of global turmoil, and changes in the federal administration play key roles on inherent impact on the economy and landscape. South Carolina began construction on the Charleston Navy Shipyard in 1901 in an attempt to revive its economy in the wake of the aftermath of the Civil War. Civilian employment reached 5,600 during World War I in civilian workers alone. The presence of the Navy brought employment not only for shipbuilders, but also workers at the Naval hospital, clothing factory, training camp, torpedo warehouse, Machinist Mates School, and an ammunition depot. Doubling the size of its original footprint, the Navy purchased nearly 95 acres from the city of Charleston from the adjacent property northwest of the existing site. It was here that the Naval hospital was constructed in 1909, which eventually expanded to 33 buildings within its facility—a reflection of its significance. The inclusion of these peripheral programs generates several different boundaries of what can be interpreted as the extents of the shipyard. Although successful in its endeavors of

reviving a flagging economy, “in just a few decades, the maze of marshlands and trees were transformed into a compact industrial city”.14 The direct ecological impact was catastrophic due to the extreme scale requirements, connections to railway infrastructure, and manipulation the waterfront. By 1922, the Charleston Naval base was slated for decommission. Luckily, the escalating conflict in Europe in the late 1930’s generated more work for Charleston, including the construction of two new dry docks, four new shop buildings, two new piers, and the purchase of an extra 196 acres. At the peak of WWII, employment levels rose to a staggering 25,948 personnel. In order for the Naval complex to accommodate such growth, new resources had to be included, such as new educational facilities, day-care centers, and 20,000 new units of housing. In fact, production had increased so much that 229 ships were constructed during WWII, 114 of which were built in 1944 alone. After experiencing such radical fluctuations in production, resources, and personnel throughout the 20th century, by the 1990’s the Charleston Navy Shipyard gradually ceased operations until permanent closure in 1996, signifying a loss of 16,000 military and 12,000 civilian personal jobs.15 This leads now to a highly dispersed distribution of landscape,

Cooper River Hydrology Map, 1909

157

ownership, and activity. The shipyard and its operations have directly impacted the landscape. After obtaining the Navy Yard, Charleston began dredging channels up the Cooper River to strategically position the shipping processes away from the coastline but connected to the globe. Having altered the ground, above and below the fluctuating water line we find the shipyard to mark its territory well beyond the boundaries of the property lines. Just as the shipbuilding industry brought an increase of other jobs and facilities, the impacts from the industry expanded into other adjacent landscapes, including the aqua systems connected across the massive South Carolina coastal wetlands. The line of influence is not drawn from the edges of shipbuilding practices from material acquisition, processing, assembly, and outfitting, as discussed in Chapter One, “Production”, but rather continually shrinks and expands according to the geopolitical effects across the globe. The decisions and conflicts in a military logistical frontier tend to have immediate imprint on the shipyard site itself. Particularly leaving traces, or residue, in the extra-urban territory of geospatial and geopolitical locality. It is the ecology of the coastal wetlands and 158

the local economic community assuming the majority of consequences caused by the actions of military super-power. As we have seen from the NTIS report, the landscape is occupied without concern for the environment it consumes, unless its definitions allow for greater efficiency in production. For example, establishing operations along the geographical specific coastal terrain up river for mitigating the ocean currents and turbulence at the bulkhead. Outlined in Chapter Four, “Grounds”, the manufactured ground imports its own synthetic tapestry of production for most efficient and safe operations in the landscape. However, the inclusion of leveling land, introducing oil tanks, extended railway infrastructure, dredging soils in the river, and engineering the waters edge, greatly alters the ground as a territory once connected to larger waterway systems across South Carolina. The ecological territory is now broken, while the historical and cultural boundaries exist the former edges of the Charleston Navy Shipyard property and reach far beyond the regional purview. This alteration of physical ground marks evidence of continual fluctuations affecting the economic stability of the region. By 1996, when the shipyard officially closed its U.S.

military operations, the landscape began to divide into various ownerships and tenants. Since this time, developments have struggled to find investment strategies profitable for renovation and new construction. Although a couple companies and not-for-profits have been founded to support and protect the legacy of the Charleston Navy Shipyard, the memorial park and redevelopment have over-characterized the production and occupation of shipping processes. Coincidentally it is the shipping industry, federal operations, and local municipality who have found the post-shipyard settlement valuable. _____________________

the Noisette Company, which is dedicated to maintaining exemplary standards at the intersection of sustainability and the economy. For over a decade, robust management has correlated with a dramatic narrative of convalescence for local ecosystems. At the same time, great care was taken to create a sustainable economy as an opportunity available to anyone and everyone in the community. The result of their work has resulted in a large amount of investment from private developers, and the area continues to benefit from their strong commitment to both environment and economy.

The site as it is currently configured served a multitude of different functions, ranging from military activities, private ship contracting, and research to recreational space, a container terminal, and federal lands. In the following brief index of site programs, movement generally occurs from north to south across the site, except where noted otherwise.

The Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission is responsible for the park space that hugs the Noisette Creek as well as the Marina at the southern tip of the shipyard. A humble waterfront park pays homage to the history of the shipyard through the installation of a monument detailing the history of the militaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presence in Charleston. A nearby stage structure exhibits a shipbuilding vocabulary in its symbolic construction, also alluding to the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s naval history. The marina is a source of recreation for those who enjoy taking to the water, boasting a variety of different watercraft to choose from.

At the Northernmost edge of the shipyard lays

Also in the vicinity is the Charleston Naval

Current Status and Land Distribution

159

Complex Redevelopment Authority, which is an entity devoted to preserving and restoring historical components of the site in various states of disrepair. The group conducts research regarding the historical use, construction, and materiality of buildings on the site and proposes their revitalization while minimizing alienation. The shipbuilding components of the shipyard were turned over to the City of North Charleston following the closure of the naval base in 1996. The current tenant of these spaces is Detyens Shipping, which carries out private shipbuilding contracts for the military as well as other clients. Federal lands are inaccessible to the public, gated and guarded by military personnel. The facilities housed within this area includes FLETC, NOAA, the US State Department, and Homeland Security. The most recent examples directly impacting in and around the periphery of the Shipyard include landscape alterations made to accommodate a new complex for Boeing as well as a new shipping container terminal. The South Carolina Port Authority has intentions of constructing a new Container Terminal 160

at the southern tip of the site, adjacent to the marina. The site for construction is only possible because of the manufacturing of landâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;taking sediment from elsewhere and using it as infill to make land where there was once water. Clemson maintains a research facility on the shipyard geared towards energy innovation. Ironically enough, the same territory is slated for the construction of a new shipping container terminal, which has an antithetically adverse impact on the environment counter to the principles governing the research at the institution. Make a note about Clemsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Zucker Family Graduate Education Center to the construction of the Shipping Container Terminal. Ironically both are in the same territory, but each fundamentally operating on the opposite spectrums related to impact on the environment, one hand focusing efforts on transmissions and shipping transportation as a new fuel for economic growth, and the other enabling conversation research and support explorations in energy innovation.

-- 42 ft

-- 36 ft

7 ft

108 ft

115 ft

410 ft

459 ft

492 ft

569 ft

Countries hosting U.S. base / troops

US Military Prescence Worldwide

Charleston Naval Shipyard

Forested wetland distribution <5 % coverage 10 - 24 % coverage 25 - 49 % coverage 50+ % coverage

37.5%

33.3%

29.2%

25.0%

20.8%

16.7%

12.5%

8.3%

1% 1790s

4.2% 1850s - 1860s

1890s

1910s - 1920s

1940s

1960s

Expenditures as % of GDP

% of total population

Streams/reservoirs

2000s

U.S. Military personnel + Expenditures 1790 -

Territorial Expansion

Dimensions of the Shipyard Landscape identifying crane technology, South Carolina regional ecosystem, and global maritime connectivity

161

_____________________ ENDNOTES 1. Richardson, C.J. and J. W. Gibbons. “Pocosins, Carolina Bays and Mountain Bogs”. in W.H. Martin, S.G. Boyce and A.C. Echternacht (eds.). Biodiversity of the Southeastern United States: Lowland Terrestrial Communities. (New York: John Wily and Sons, Inc., 1993), 257–310. 2. Kovacik, C.F. and J.J. Winberry. South Carolina A Geography. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 235. 3. Beasley, B.R. D.A. Lange, K.T. Newland and W.C. Brittain. South Carolina Rivers Assessment. Report No. 164. (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Water Resources Commission, 1988) 249. 4. Beauchamp, K.H. A history of drainage and drainage methods. In: Pavelis, G.A. (ed.), Farm drainage in the United States — history, status and prospects. (Washington, D.C.: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication No. 1455, 1987), 13–29. 5. Taylor, J.R., M.A. Cardamore and W.J. Mitsch. “Bottomland Hard- wood forests: their functions and values”, in J.G. Gosselink, L.C. Lee and T.A. Muir (eds). Ecological Processes and Cumulative Impacts, (Chelsea, MI: Bottomland Hardwood Wetland Ecosystems. Lewis Publishers, Inc.,1990), 13–86. 6. Allen, H.L. and R.G. Campbell. “Wet site pine management in the South- eastern United States”, in D.D. Hook, W.H. McKee, Jr., H.K. Smith, J. Gregory, V.G. Burrell, Jr., M.R. DeVoe, R.E. Sojka, S. Gilbert, R. Banks, L.H. Stolzy, C. Brooks, T.D. Matthews, and T.H. Shear (eds.). The Ecology and Management of Wet-lands. Vol 2. (Portland, OR: Timber Press, 1988), 173–184. 162

7. “U.S. Naval Shipyards: Supporting the Fleet Today and Preparing for the Future” in Naval Sea Systems Command. (NavSea Public Affairs, 2016). 8. Andrews, Benjamin, et al. Conceptual Deign of a Mechanized Shipyard for Fast Deployment Logistics Production. (Stanford Research Institute, 1965), 55. Distributed by National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce. Ground manipulation outline site conditions for ideal siting and processes of ground manipulation. 9. ibid. 10. ibid. 11. Belanger, Pierre and Arroyo, Alexander. Ecologies of Power. (Cambridge: MIT PRess, 2016), 25. 12. Ibid, 41. Is used here to avoid the common confusions or overlooked complexities associated with notions of land, terrain, territory, and territoriality. “To the military, territory is topographic features conditioning tactical and strategic considerations as well as distance or space to be played with; occasionally it is also resources in terms of local supplies. To the jurist, territory is jurisdiction and delimitation; to the specialist in international law it is both an attribute and the spatial extent of sovereignty. To the geographer, it is the portion of space enclosed by boundary lines, the location and internal characteristics of which are to be described and explained. To the specialist interested in political geography…territory appears as a material, spatial notion establishing essential links between politics, people, and the natural

setting. Under a purely analytical approach, the notion of territory would break up and dissolve into a multitude of different concepts such as location, natural resources, population density, settlement patterns, modes of life, and so forth. The important aspect of territory as the unit in the political organization of space that defines, at least for a time, the relationships between the community and its habitat on one hand, and between the community and its neighbors on the other, has been little explored.” 13. Waldheim, Charles. Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016). 14. Welsch, D.J., D.L. Smart, J.N. Boyer, P. Minkin, H.C. Smith and T. L. McCandless. Forested Wetlands: Functions, Benefits and the Use of Best Management Practices. (Radnor, PA.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. NAPR-01-95, 1995), 63. 15. “Naval Base History”. City of North Charleston http://www.northcharleston.org/Visitors/ Attractions/Greater-Charleston-Naval-BaseMemorial-(1)/Naval-Base-History.aspx. Accessed Nov. 15th, 2016. Charleston resumes post WWII and instead of production site becomes location for submarine overhaul. Workforce stabilizes to approximately 5,000. In 1951 Korean War wartime employment increases again, although slightly, up to 8,000. Then in Post-Vietnam era, workload significantly reduces, and rebounds once again due to the closure of Boston yard in 1974.

163

South Carolina Geography

coastal zone

Flora: 1-Palmetto 2-Beech 3-Bald Cypress 4-Lauryl Oak 5-Sweetgum 6-Wiregrass 7-Coastal Saltgrass 8-Duckweed 9-Sawgrass 10-Cattail

Fauna: 1-White-Tailed Deer 2-Black Bear 3-Red Fox 4-Mockingbird 5-Carolina Wren 6-Carolina Heelsplitter* 7-Shortnose Sturgeon* 8-Wood Stork*

South Carolina Ecological Zones

The identification of flora and fauna help support our understanding and implementation of ecological attributes along our regional topographic section. 164

-- 42 ft

-- 36 ft

7 ft

3 ft

115 ft

108 ft

410 ft

459 ft

492 ft

569 ft

1,650 ft

charleston

coastal ďŹ&#x201A;ats

Wetland Loss & Metropolitan Area, 1989 Losses of wetland due to upland urban development across the state of South Carolina

Wetland Resource Areas, 1989 Areas designated as wetlands within the state of South Carolina 165

Charleston County Department of Transportation, 1999

Regional context positions the Charleston Navy Shipyard upriver, away from major commercial and container maritime traffic 166

167

Wetland & Building Footprint, 1909/1945

Overlay describes major changes and impacts made on the landscape throughout WWI and WWII 168

Building Footprint, 2016

Including streets and rail access

Noisette Map, 1933

169

dry dock 1 dry dock 2 dry dock 3

pier c pier d pier f

pier g pier h pier i pier j pier k pier l pier z pier m pier n pier p

Building Footprints, 1945

170

Piers & Drydocks, 2016

Noisette Company SPAWAR

Chas. Co. Parks (PRC) Noisette Company CMMC

City of North Charleston SPAWAR Neal Brothers Chas., Inc. Charleston Water System Clemson University Research Institute Seacrest Investments City of North Charleston Seacrest Investments SC State Port Authority Veterans Terminal

FLETC NOAA US State Department

SC State Port Authority Container Terminal

Chas. Co. Parks (PRC)

Parcel Ownership, 2016

171

speculations

curating unpredictability

Ecological Engagement Projecting a landscape full of diversity, both ecologically, and productively, by allowing the conflict and collision of shipbuilding, manufacturing, and environmental unpredictability

speculations

curating unpredictability The processes in military tactics during wartime directly impact modes of manufacturing in shipyard landscapes. Corresponding increases in production inflate local economic fluctuations. Expanded production and employment, altered site configurations, and political consequences generate a stratified landscape. Historical and ecological stratification leave physical imprints on the globe, in this case by ship assembly production and residue. However successful economically, the landscape of the former Navy Shipyard in Charleston, South Carolina has endangered its local coastal wetland ecology and continues to deteriorate its natural terrain. Contrary to dismantling a historical past and only harvesting a natural landscape, LANDYards seeks to paradoxically enrich the environment by manufacturing ecologies and enable design alternatives in a porous and unpredictable future. _____________________

Polynucleated Urbanism The work of Kevin Lynch from the 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s defined the city as an assortment of disassociated singularities unaffected by one another; essentially viewed as a distributed collection 174

CHARLESTON, SC

Landscape without Manufacturing If the ground would have not been re-configured for shipbuilding, the ground would have remained malleable and porous through the nature of wetland ecologies 175

Shipyard Diagram (site)

Ideal site configurations for shipbuilding assembly 176

of isolated moments in the city. Lynch’s five “city elements; paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks” catalogs Classical organizations and effectively present platonic references for city elements to be evaluated.1 Though, upon further review of the contemporary megalopolis, these isolated platonic elements ineffectively provide a more sophisticated awareness in complex interactions and exchanges across the urban spectrum. Moreover, the notions of a rapidly developing “polynucleated city” has driven for a more sensitive model for both analysis and urban design processes. Even beyond the simplicity of formal orders, the contemporary city “must also result in a more complicated pattern and a more comprehensive life for the region.” 2 This is not to say we have not seen such complex interactions previously, though it is now our understanding and simulated modeling which has altered our capacity for design endeavors. Camillo Sitte’s urban design principles were based upon such irregularities within evidences of medieval town outcomes of self-organization.3 These principles can be applied now as simulated strategies of generative evolutions and behaviors. The work described in this paper is an investigation for the findings and analysis of such generative evidences, and the

development of morphological adaptations back into the continuously changing urban fabric. Previously, the urban hierarchy had founded its spatial organization based upon the “uniform nature of social composition and concentrated political power” as a stable, static structure. The status of the contemporary city has now “liquefied into a dispersed urbanity” of various nodal configurations and reverberations between these so called “polynucleated attractors”.4 Rather than the city elements be divided and cataloged as explicit platonic references, the theory of Gilles Deleuze offers a more sensitive evaluation of differences amongst a collection of components.5 By assuring the relationships between disparate elements as potentialities, a series of oscillations occur. At the urban scale of speculative design work, these so called, feedbacks, or as Gilles Deleuze refers to as “reverberations” of potential, allow for registering levels of urban sensitivity as generative models populate amongst the topographic urban fabric.6 Meekly defining large urban organizations through complexity presents superficialities. This work considers the varying potentials of differentiated ‘sensitivities’ as an employed

tool for hypothetical urban propositions. Methods of simulated modeling, component logics, and continuous iteration begin to maximize possibility space in order to properly orchestrate the many variables cities provide. As provisional and continual reverberations exist within the reality of city events, these speculative models are not used just as an anecdote, but postulate the “signal-sign” system flexibility field. Deleuze makes the distinction; “the signal is a structure which is divided into differences of potential” while the sign “is that which flashes between two bordering levels, between two communicating series”.7 For purposes in this study, the “signal” can be described as the fundamental organizational rule sets and parametric zone providing for a heterogeneous series of disparate elements. The “sign” enhances the ability for the variable zones to produce outcomes of unexpected, emerged fluctuations. Ultimately, implementations embed back into large-scale urban design propositions made internally based upon sensitive systems of heterogeneity and realities of urban potential differentiations. When considering such fluctuations as described above, populations interact 177

according to a local response mechanism. One component, or entity, is presented with a rule of interaction, while immediately following, the next component responds accordingly. These types of internal, localized responses inform operational and collective populations. In the discourse of urbanity we find collections of un-designed, non-master planned, generative evolutions. Manuel DeLanda explains population behaviors can be recognized at multiple scales and “it is from the interactions within these populations that larger assemblages emerge as a statistical result, or as collective unintended consequences” which evolve internally based upon the series of localized relationships.8 Therefore, we as urban detectives are able to sensibly determine and identify urban agents as generative evolving circumstances. Clearly, we are unable to truly comprehend the totality of the contemporary megalopolis. It is through our understanding of evolutionary behavior which we can evaluate the city in a new lens of emerging and reverberating states. _____________________

Duality and Potentiality Valuable 178

defining

principles

can

found in the city, without pre-conceived interpretation of desire. The strict, idealistic orders fundamentally have the inability to negotiate through urban complexities in the contemporary 21st century city environment. The simulated porosities method explores reconfiguring our interpretation of ‘master planning’. On the contrary, the methods alleviate the aspiration for idealistic global and platonic geometrical modeling practices. Our philosophical meta-narratives are greatly shifting paradigms. From a previous interpretation of essentialism to a world of thinking process grounded by materialist axioms. To clarify, either the world exists independently of our minds, materialism; or it does not, essentialism. These two highly differentiated values have altered our design intention. Thinking our ‘human’ mental capacity is superior to the ‘natural’ systems distracts from the reality of relationships, systems, and structures found in our global environment. Another kind of duality also exists. In the discourse of urban idealistic planning, utopian visions for ‘what the city should be’ necessitates reformation. There are two primary ideological states on where utopian visions focus; rationalism and libertarianism. The rationalist utopian schema is one of

regulation and centralization on both power and global organizational structures. The other, libertarianism, occupies notions of individualized control, especially when it reaches to the political endeavors for freedom. The work here attempts to operate in a position of neither, the organized centralization or the decentralized state. Similarly to the Metabolism movement in Japan during the 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, â&#x20AC;&#x153;these two types of utopias reflected the contradictions between a call for order and a desire for freedom, as well as the tension between a reliance on centralized, large-scale organization and a claim of local autonomy and individual creativityâ&#x20AC;?.9 Exploring the possibility space of between two ideologies allows for an expansive tissue of connectivity. Both structurally and theoretically the status of between two utopian ideals presents a new kind of dystopia of potentiality. The term dystopia is not referred as to brand a negative totalitarian environment. A subtle distinction is necessary. As the work situates between, large-scale influences certainly have demonstrated its impact on local, small scaled articulated states. The reverse occurs as well. Component logics at the small-scale have the authority to distribute and push against such centralized ideological utopian desires. Therefore, we work to pursue the

Charleston Shipyard, Map of 1909 The continuously evolving stratified landscape

179

restricted area

hybrid tangents between the two constructs of natural and human impact on ground, and the duality between rational and libertarian utopian modes to cultivate a new ecological urbanism in a post-human era.

rea ch

noisette cre

navy ya

rd reac

RESI DUE MEM ORY

no r th

arl e

sto n

PRODUCTION

restricted area

clo ch

ea kr

ree

ute

charleston heights

LEVEL/ReLEVEL

numerous ﬂoating moorings in this area (Navy)

l nie nd

isla nd

restricted area

FEDERAL

shipyard creek

E EV

L Re

L/ VE LE

Mapping Programmatic Regions

The diagram identifies regions within the shipyard site to be defined by both context and programmatic legacy. 180

The highly sensitive series of complex interactions and oscillations operating within the context of the industrial realm and ecological consequences also require new models of implementation; such as the ‘signal-sign’ systems offered by Deleuze. Implementations and adaptations within the existing fabric will intensify the opportunities for public-ness, assist in the pressures of ecological longevity, and make for more transformable solutions as meta-narratives and paradigms adjust accordingly. The use and illumination of the theoretical “signalsign” system transpires into a new collective tool of operational response. Moreover, the signal as the structure and the sign as the status of change, generate highly sensitive simulated models to negotiate a new ‘utopian’ shift. It is not the utopian states which are important, but more so, the way in which system reverberates between the two. Collections of organized multiplicity of potential differences, via landscape strategies, we are able to employ methods

to suggest future programming and form determined by the sites history of inherent capacities and tendencies. Although this study uses sites impacted by military shipbuilding and peripheral activity specifically, the employment of such territories and variable ‘spaces of potentiality’ can carve a new proto-type for urban operational and systematic feedback loops, moving from historical culture to ecologically sensitive behavior. This design process brings the theoretical discourse of ‘potentiality’ and self-generative analytical evidences to the forefront of urban design and simulation modeling. _____________________

of flux, a territory incapable to survive successfully. Harvey marks three criteria, or possibly evidences, of such behavior in the territory of capitalism; geographical expansion, innovations in transport and communications, and modes of dependent circumstances. To unpack these criteria, we can consider the situations marked and made on the landscape. First, as noted, capitalism would not be possible if geography was not capable to expand beyond lines of demarcation. The very notion of acquiring and occupying neighboring real estate empowers the interworking of the capitalistic enterprise. This has the opportunity to expand

Rhizome and Territory (From Extraction to Consumption) David Harvey’s narrative on spatial fix becomes critical in our endeavor moving forward. Harvey outlines ‘fixed space’ as a contradiction in development. Not as fixed, anchored, or otherwise, but instead as a necessary evolutionary cycle “in its [capitalism] history only to have to destroy that space at a later point in order to make way for a new spatial fix.10 The nature of the paradox in capitalism describes a territory

Stratified Shipyard / Cooper River The continuously evolving stratified landscape offers relief from sea-level rise and opportunities for ecological performativity. 181

beyond lines of property boundaries and extends into new markets across the global domain. Second, increases in technology have allowed for such expansions to occur. The water canal becoming transportation routes, railways carving over terrain, and aviation and maritime routes with the inclusion of new technologies based on traffic algorithms and GIS systems expand our globe like never before. And third, the vary modes of expanding our geospatial territory greatly depends on searching for new frontiers in markets, resources, and production. Therefore capitalisms dependence is our paradoxical consideration in the physical boundary of place. We noticed earlier by described polynucleated urbanism and in the descriptions of paradoxical urban holes in Chapter Two, “Void”, the ever-changing condition of ground is embedded in the premise which requires the urban machine to continue progress. Investments in new production facilities, increases in new labor powers, or changes in political climates significantly impacts the continuous alterations to process, all along the way from extraction to consumption. The dangerous characteristic of this ‘spatial fix’ behavior indicates all territories will be expanded and collapsed, 182

vibrating intensively until reaching economic ruptures in the horizontal urban fabric. However precarious a system of instability may seem, we use strategies in the landscape to enable such fluctuations. Situational considerations are employed through the internal logics of the so-called rules and relationships, or rather capacities and tendencies. More importantly, the populated distribution of development continuously locks and dislodges from contextual anchoring. This negotiation process of historical memory, existing configuration, and future unpredictability is critical in order for systems of urbanism to implement successfully back into the already established historical landscape. Systems of analytical design processes enhance flexibility and become informed by existing behavior of the urban legacy, not simply follow formal aesthetics. As the singularities of form are distributed amongst the large-scale networked simulation, each criterion must abide by the neighboring consequences from one to the next, physical and historical adjacencies. When the unpredictable outcomes present situational and consequential relationships based not on formal states but rather on the behavioral strategies, by nature, the urban fabric will

continue to oscillate and negotiate. The negotiation process is a search simulation, attempting to allow for unpredictable configurations. Systematically the generative evolution positions for possibility space of extend growth and recessed elimination. Compared to the former master planning principles and strict orthogonal grid planning, the population distribution allows for such organizational tools to survive. Similar to biological processes and “as social agents we live our lives within spaces delimited by natural and artificial extensive boundaries” through an acknowledgment and understanding of flexible model simulation.11 Zones of elasticity cultivate “boundaries of which are not defined by spatial limits but by critical thresholds”. The “critical threshold” is precisely the kind of coding necessary for the component logics to search and negotiate as optimal model sequencing. For example, in certain situations, the singular component may need to extend much further than its predecessor. In most cases, the components are not to be thought of as references to the matrix platonic, but rather as an elastic state. More operating similar to a reference to internally influenced urban forces, the component multiplication does not have “beginning nor end, but always a middle”

and distributes according to the principle of elastic extensity. As Deleuze and Guttari state, “the rhizome connects any point to any other point” and has the potential and more directly, a milieu “from which it grows and overspills, [constituting] linear multiplicities.”12 _____________________

Level, Re-level Throughout the last twenty years we have seen projects across the post-industrial landscape reconfiguring possibilities of reuse for a healthier environment. Moving from the brownfield to images of greening landscapes. It originates alongside many substantial contributions through a tapestry of theses such as ecological urbanism, landscape urbanism, or even infrastructural urbanism. Significant innovations and intellectual rhetoric between the disciplines of urban design and landscape cultivated a savvy 21st century agenda capable of establishing public sensitivity to landscape recovery. However, many of these projects fail to recognize the necessary urban fragmentations and dismantled landscapes as participants for evolutionary growth. In order for such reclamation to occur, the materiality of our world rests on the premise of 183

evolutionary behavior. Transforming from one state to another. We are seeing the processes of the city behaving in the same manner as we find in our so-called, natural environment. The ground becomes the palimpsest of productivity moving from one stage of the process to another. For architects, the leveling of ground becomes fundamental in how we position architectural products in our environment. Demolition, abandonment, construction, and landscapes of leftover all fall into a category of productivity bounded by their counterparts of healthy and developmentally productive place. We have evidence of objects and their associated operational plane charging the horizontal fabric to stage its interworking behavior. The level of land maximizes interruptions on the working plane; however, the movement of ground should responsibly plan for the consequences of traversed ground. Just as biological models self-generate and adapt to circumstances of its environment, the clearing, grading, draining, and excavation of ground produces behavior in the city. A behavior as we see in various fragmented landscape processes. In the city, the productivity of ground has been worked many times over, leveled and re-leveled. Post-Modern cities are inherently systems of ecologies, manipulations of productivity, and 184

scenes of developmental and economic forces at work leading to hyper-differentiated states. It is not the products of capitalistic development, but the process leading to such outcomes, such as fragmentation and demolition, which can reveal and describe the reality of our urban landscape. The strategies here define processes of leveling and re-leveling in the city as a critical participant in the generation for designing urban evolution. Ecological growth Existing staged retreating, stim/dross Manufacturing ecologies and landscapes

Attack, defend, and retreat define clear strategies for overcoming the threat of floods. Each with their own advantages, the three create a new formal vocabulary when addressing water-front urbanism, particularly as it relates to ecologically sensitive agendas. Speculating on the shipyards future, design criteria help focus and enable a continuity of the aforementioned fluctuations in manufacturing processes. Similar to

Corner’s “rhizome” and “game-boarding” mapping operations for realizing potential in the landscape, the project begins with the potential of ground.13 After realizing this potential through the evolutions of the shipyard over a hundred-year duration, the design criteria emerge: (1) variable edges, (2) productive porosity, (3) level/re-level, and (4) historical integration. It is not an isolated artifact, but rather a behavioral (continuous interaction, evolving) vocabulary of form into devolution of wetlands and interference with military logistics. _____________________

Programming the Spatial Fix This prediction of spatial fixes encourages the redevelopment of the Charleston Shipyard as a series of programs determined from past production, environmental history, and simultaneously capturing future geospatial expansions. Based upon these uncovered behaviors and criteria, we position strategies from three primary geographical zones in the former Charleston Shipyard landscape; north, middle, and south. While each zone is unique with its own situations, relationships, and program, the methodological strategies are shared across all three.

Intentionally, boundaries are not rendered as hardline edges, like we tend to find in zoning ordinances, but rather the industrial, ecological, and public program may emerge and bleed from one to another as changes in the economic and political states resume. Programs such as micro manufacturing, aquaculture, shipyard infrastructure, and wetland ecologies manage the methods of manufactured ecologies, leveling and re-leveling of ground; strategically allowing the flexible ecologies to nurture regional ecosystems. Once the processes of the traditional shipyard (such as staging and assembly) are understood, then ecological integration can be taken into consideration. Various zones of the site offer varying degrees of engagement. Historical structures are found to be more evident in the Northern edge of the shipyard, while ecological sensitivity of coastal wetlands is more prominently evident in the southern peninsula. This matters, especially in terms of positioning for staging engagement levels. Therefore, the north edge allows for programmatic rejuvenation, historical remembrance, and continued levels of shipyard building. As we move south, the speculation rejects the damaging introduction of the new container terminal 185

and re-institutionalizes marine and climate research facilities, protected habitats, and proposes ecological tourism along the everchanging low-lands of South Carolina’s coastal flats. North Zone: Historic and Shipbuilding / Maintenance Both the historical and economic contributions of the Shipping industry become primary features for envisioning a future landscape morphology made up of historical artifacts, shipbuilding, and controlled water systems such as irrigation, drainage, and flood mitigation. The northernmost district of the Charleston Navy Shipyard juxtaposes relics of its industrial past against contemporary remnants of shipbuilding, ship maintenance, and ship decommissioning—all while celebrating the ecological transformation of an environment perpetually influenced by climate change. The northern border is marked by Noisette Creek, which accommodates various forms of recreation within the rehabilitated landscape. However, certain areas within the vicinity are shaped in such a way so as to minimize direct human interaction, while still allowing a degree of visibility. These zones are dedicated to repopulating and protecting 186

specific native flora and fauna back into the local ecosystem. Directly south of Noisette Creek region, the Charleston Preservation and Redevelopment Authority are responsible for preserving the memory of place in the midst of a rapidly transforming landscape. Through a means of historical tourism, homage is paid to the site’s origins via a number of historical artifacts, which are then assessed by the redevelopment authority and integrated into the new site without diminishing their integrity or character. At the southern edge of the North Zone, shipping practices remain active, albeit within the framework of a private enterprise as opposed to the federal prerogative of the past. The activity maintains the need for the traditional anatomy of the shipyard, at least at the water’s edge, in order to accomplish necessary objectives. The preservation of the water’s edge additionally indulges the nostalgia of the old waterfront, contributing to the site’s efforts for historical tourism. Middle Zone: Manufacturing and Recreation Development

the

mid-zone

the

Shipyard respects the existing private shipbuilding and maintenance production while implements innovative infrastructural and landscape strategies for enriching the air quality and ground soil remediation. It is here new private manufacturing, agriculture, and aquacultures coincide. The siting for such activity is ideal due to its immediate proximity to both the waterfront access and the heavy rail line; shipbuilding contracts keep the spirit of private enterprise alive. In addition to industrial productive processes, the site is amenable to fish farming in carefully sequestered habitats where the fish are grown and harvested en masse, helping curb the growing demand of seafood in the face of intense over-fishing in global waters. Beyond fish farming, aquatic agriculture returns to the region’s agricultural origins in an endeavor to source the area’s food more locally by means of harvesting crops in water. A flourishing trend in agriculture, aquatic agriculture combines old practices of terrestrial farming with the more prevalent access to water-saturated environments such as the one at the Charleston Navy Shipyard. The vast amount of wetlands is monitored closely by a Wetland interpretive center, a newly established local authority charged

with the steady convalescence of the region’s wetland ecosystems. Within these heavily protected habitats lies existing federal land, protected with the same rigor as the wetland habitats themselves; the presence of the government on the site embraces the transformation of the landscape, as is demonstrated by their deeply intertwined connection. At the other end of the spectrum, waterfront recreation occurs within the robust industrial setting—quite an unfamiliar site, yet precisely the juxtaposition that creates an opportunity to experience and learn about the site in an intriguing, and still safe, manner. Swimming among the cranes and watching the ships pass by puts the human figure in the midst of the shipyards past, production, and future operations. South Zone: Research and Agriculture The southernmost section of the site is dedicated to research and ecological tourism. A marine biology research center studies local aquatic flora and fauna in order to assess progress made by the shipyard to change its habits in a way conducive to the recovery of natural habitats. In addition to the living inhabitants of the natural environment, a rising sea level research zone monitors the 187

rate of climatic impact in order to retain certain flexibility in making adjustments to processes for accommodating the perpetually changing landscape. These findings help inform the agricultural productivity of this portion of the shipyard, which takes after the more traditional terrestrial approach. The local production of food is intended to offset the necessity of imports and to promote a healthier style of living by managing a greater degree of control over what is consumed and how. Set apart from the research and agriculture, a marina and cultural center form a threshold between land and water. The expanded marina doubles as a source of cultural dissemination, which is fitting due to the maritime origins of the site. The waterfront is integral to any and all development of the shipyard. From the cultural center is direct access to ecological tourism, which allows visitors to explore less strictly monitored natural habitats in a non-invasive manner. Departments are dispersed and integrated into the landscape to accommodate the personnel maintaining the infrastructural systems in the zone. This speculative landscape engages in opportunities for desalination, agriculture, 188

and ecological tourism as an extended economic armature to the historic districts in Charleston. Local habitats are protected, simultaneously allowing for landscapes to filter water for agriculture and development. Just as we see the geographical situations specifically indicate, and orchestrate, maintenance and manufacturing for Navy warfare, the future consequences of ground position the optimization of ecology. This spatial fix of elastic and never concluded milieu functions as a projective ecology. We absorb interest in predicting fluctuations in global politics and local economics to shape a new kind of variable reform â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a new ecological productive consequence of unpredictability.

existing ﬁgure/ground

infrastructure deﬁned by boundary

growth pattern

access

productive porosity

level / relevel

historical integration

ANALYTICAL

variable edge

PROJECTIVE

former grounds / future ecologies desalination ﬂood control agriculture defend historic elements

Mapping the Shipyard Analytical (above), Projective (below) 189

_____________________ ENDNOTES 1. Lynch, Kevin. Image of the City. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011). 2. Mumford, Lewis. “What is a City?” In LeGates, R.T., and Stout, F. ed. The City Reader (3rd ed.). (London: Routledge, 1996), 92-96. 3. Collins, G.R., Collins C.C., and Sitte, C. Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning: with a translation of the 1889 Austrian edition of his city planning according to artistic principles. (New York: Rizzoli), 1986). 4. Mayne, Thom. Combinatory Urbanism: The Complex Behavior of Collective Form. Stray Dog Café, Culver City, 2011. 5. Deleuze, G. Plato and the Simulacrum. October, 27, MIT Press, (1983) 45-56. trans. Krauss, R. 6. Deleuze, Plato and Simulacrum. 7. Deleuze, Plato and Simulacrum. 8. DeLanda, M. Deleuze: History and Science. Atropos Press, New York, 2010. 9. Lin, Z. Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement: Urban Utopias of Modern Japan. Actar, Barcelona, 2010. 10. Harvey, David. “Globalization and the “Spatial Fix” in Geographische Revue: Marxism in Geography. (Waake: Institut für Geographie, 2001), 25. Capitalism has to fix space, in order to overcome space… this leads to one of the central contradictions of capital: that is has to build a fixed space necessary for its own functioning at a certain point in its history only to have to destroy that space at a later point in order to make way for a new “spatial fix’ at a later point in its history.” 190

11. DeLanda, Deleuze: History and Science. 12. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. (1987), 7-10. trans. Massumi, B. 13. Corner, James. “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention” in Mapping, ed. Denis Cosgrove (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 213. ”As a creative practice, mapping precipitates its most productive effects through a finding that is also a founding; its agency lies in neither reproduction nor imposition but rather in uncovering realities previously unseen or unimagined, even across seemingly exhausted grounds. Thus, mapping unfolds potential.”

191

Population Behavior

Various processes of deteriorating edges under the anticipation of sea-level rise, and climate change through an interface of ground and water variability. 192

193

Layered Ecological Growth

EXISTING

The site is confronted with a legacy of confrontation between engineered systems for shipbuilding production and the deterioration of edge, which ultimately damage local habitats in the coastal zone of South Carolina.

STAGING AREAS

Developing program into the landscape through attack strategies against flooding and rising sea-level. These staged attacks form island conditions sponsoring protected habitats, manufactured grounds, and reprogramming opportunities for future demand.

194

RETREATING EDGES

Allowing existing edge to fold back into itself in order to maximize coastal ecosystems and for simultaneously, extending water-front access.

ESTABLISHING STIM & DROSS

Emerging porosity in the landsape to cultivate new productive ecologies, fisheries, and enhance productivity within managing future agricultural industries.

195

Manufacturing Ecologies

l ica tor His rism u o T

ing uild ipb Sh rism u To

l& tia en rical sid Re mme Co

ure ult ric Ag hing Fis

ate riv ring w P ctu Ne nufa Ma

y& og iol vel r e B Le rin Sea ente a M ing h C Ris searc Re

l ica

g olo Ec rism u To

te a & en rin l C Ma ltura Cu

d& lan s rsh ilitie a c M a ted al F tec tion Pro crea e R

or gf

ies

? nd c l?? na grou mi Ter oving r ine f m nta s o Co esse ut c bo pro a t the ha W ybe Ma

Layered population of formal behavior negotiation, meandering from both the historical buildings and altered coastal edge. Background map of 1918 by Corps of Engineers U.S. Army, U.S. Coast and Geoderic Survey. 196

a stig

prt

p ds

ile

lsy

lta

u sim

in ow all

vit

cti

tai on

o yt

e? nu nti

Vertical Development Form - vertical Process - private ﬁnancing Function - capital markets

Historical Engagement

Inlet

Form - staged growth Process - ﬁll Function - historical continuation

Form - cut Process - ﬂooding Function - ecology

Lagoon Form - retention pond Process - extraction Function - water ecologies

Ecological Enclave

Isolated Pier Form - horizontal Process - drilling Function - manufacturing production

Form - enclave Process - mirco climate Function - tourism

Agricultural Strip

Archipelago

Form - horizontal Process - wild & manicured Function - agricultural

Form - island Process - ﬁll Function - isolated habitats

Typologies in the Manufacturing Environment Previously used for industrial purposes in the shipyard, such devices of machinery are altered to carve, cut, and slice ground to cultivate the production of microecosystems. 197

Populated Landscape Morphology

Existing, Staged, Retreating, and Stim/Dross interrelated as strategies expand the periphery of edge and ecological adaptation. 198

Variable Edge Sloped

Variable Edge Vertical

Level / Re-Level

Agricultural Porosity DNA Level/Re-Level Codes Existing cranes on site are refitted as performers of this process of ecological adaptation in the landscape. 199

1 5

4 5

noisette creek recreation programmatic rejuvenation

historical tourism programmatic rejuvenation

residential zone programmatic rejuvenation

preservation & redevelopment authority programmatic rejuvenation

protected habitats programmatic rejuvenation

shipbuilding & decommissioning programmatic rejuvenation

submarine maintenance & retrofits programmatic rejuvenation

6 6

Northern edge of Charleston Shipyard - continued historic fabric, shipbuilding and maintenance, and future development and industry. 200

300

1500 ft

zone one

201

NORTH Zone - Historic, Shipbuilding & Maintenance

Lagoons + Estuaries Mangroves Warehouse Historic Buildings

Tourism

Development

Residential

Along the northern edge of the site, various shipbuilding warehouses, historic officer houses, and naval hospital lay confronted up against new park and memorial including a softened Noisette Creek edge. 202

landscapes of form

deformation of ground

aquatic morphology

203

NORTH Zone - Historic, Shipbuilding & Maintenance

weeping willow

navy hospital programmatic rejuvenation

navy officer living quarters historical remembrance

spanish moss

live oak

warehouse district continued production

manatee

laurel oak

204

Lagoons & Engagements

The quiet, serene Noisette Sound respects the memory of place. Gentle creatures such as the manatee and humble flora such as the willow indicate a process of healing and rejuvenation. 205

1 1

new private manufacturing programmatic rejuvenation

water-front recreational area programmatic rejuvenation

fish farming programmatic rejuvenation

aquatic agriculture programmatic rejuvenation

existing federal lands programmatic rejuvenation

wetland interpretation center programmatic rejuvenation

1 4

5 6 N

Mid-Zone of Charleston Shipyard - research, performance, and federal restrictions 206

300

1500 ft

zone two

207

PIER Zone - Manufacturing & Recreation

Tourism + Recreation Desalination Pond

Lagoons + Estuaries Cranes Floating Docks

Ship Yard Distribution Drydocks Riparian Forest

Here, in the middle â&#x20AC;&#x153;Pier Zoneâ&#x20AC;? provides both an active manufacturing and shipbuilding industry as well as opportunities to engage more sensitive programs, such as lagoons, estuaries, and cultivation of a riparian forest. 208

landscapes of form

deformation of ground

aquatic morphology

209

PIER Zone - Manufacturing & Recreation

pier research armature

shortnose sturgeon

atlantic sturgeon

bowďŹ n

spotted sunďŹ sh

cattail

sawgrass

federal building protected federal land continued isolation

210

duckweed

Inlets & Piers

Reclaimed wetlands revitalize native habitats that heal the landscape and mitigate pollution. Wetlands help filter and clean the water, islands create new habitats and ecosystems that initiate divergent micro-evolutions and prompt adaptation to new environmental circumstances. 211

3 5 2 1

marine biology research center programmatic rejuvenation

rising sea-level research zone programmatic rejuvenation

4 5

agricultural productivity programmatic rejuvenation

marina & cultural center programmatic rejuvenation

ecological tourism programmatic rejuvenation

eco-tourist offices programmatic rejuvenation

Southern edge of Charleston Shipyard - highly porous, and ever-changing landscape - archipelagos, agriculture, ecological tourism, and infrastructure research bouys. 212

300

1500 ft

zone three

213

SOUTH Zone - Research & Agriculture

Fish farming Desalination Pond

Archipelagos Tourism + Recreation

Seagrass Sytems

Desalination Pond

The Southern-most zone of our shipyard is currently damaged by the new construction of a shipping container terminal. This proposals rejects such leveling of ground, and instead provokes the management of radical cut & fill strategies for desalination, fish farming, and eco-tourism. 214

landscapes of form

deformation of ground

aquatic morphology

215

SOUTH Zone - Research & Agriculture

laurel oak

red fox

white-tailed

carolina heelsplitter

carolina wren

soft edges porous landscape

216

wood stork

Enclaves & Archipelagos

Encroaching waters bring new meaning to waterfront access. The opportunities to strategically manipulate ground and enclaves organize and designate activities of economy, agriculture, and tourism. 217

Perspectives

218

Perspectives

219

The metabolic network of intergration between ecology, production, agriculture, and economies generates a new morphology of landscape and water systems. These systems are capable of continously accepting the changes 220 of flooding, storm-surge, and rising sea levels.

221

The speculative landscape along the Southern tip of the former Navy Shipyard produces an inversion of urban development and reject the construction of a shipping container terminal to support regional ecosystems across 222 the South Carolina coastal flats.

223

LANDYard engages in opportunities for desalination, agriculture, and ecological tourism as an extended economic armature to the historic districts in Charleston. Local habitats are protected, simultaneously allowing for 224 landscapes to filter water for agriculture and development.

225

Development in the mid-zone of the Shipyard respects the existing private shipbuilding and maintenance production while implements innovative infrastructural and landscape strategies for enriching the air quality and ground soil 226 remediation.

227

Both the historical and economic contributions of the Shipping industry become primary features for envisioning a future landscape morphology made up of fisheries, shipbuilding, and controlled water systems such as 228 irrigation, drainage, and flood mitigation.

229

Territorial Formations

230

Speculative Ground Morphology, Charleston

Physical model, cnc milled 231

232

acknowledgements Without doubt, this work is in debt to the continued effort by Lucas Flint. For his keen abilities to quickly uncover significant tangential conversations residing within the historical shipyard landscapes and commitment to extensive revisions in the drawings, design, and edits to the writing portions of this work. Particularly his dedication over the course of a two-year long endeavor, navigating and juggling multiple aspects of this work simultaneously fueled much of the background tasks making this work possible.

and Deb Ryan. Thank you to Michael Swisher for his impromptu conversations in the corridor on military geographies and cartographic delineation.

After having started the work, we decided to bring in the design assistance by Robert Stubbs. Robbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design thinking and sincere devotion to an architectural discipline helped manifest many of the speculative work for Charleston, including its design production.

A special thanks to Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority / Naval Base Museum Authority director and staff as Robert Ryan graciously invited us to visit the Redevelopment Complex facility in Charleston and Sean McDonell for taking time describing aspects of the Shipyard, ownership distribution and full access to the incredible archive of maps and architectural drawings.

Thank you to Chris Jarrett for his administrative support in the Landscape Urbanism course which allowed the initiations of research inquiries and design conversations to emerge. His faith in the research agenda and pedagogical goals staged the seminar successes.

Majority of the research is funded in part by the School of Architecture, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Faculty Research Grant program. This grant support, provided logistics to visit Charleston and Philadelphia for on-site documentation, student support, and model materials.

The students of the Landscape Urbanism course at UNCC, for their innovative abilities to explore and rethink the role of landscape and memory in an evolution of extra-urban conditions, moving from extraction, transmission, to consumption. In addition to the student dedication to the research, we offer thanks to the reviewers of the course materials by Charles Davis, Jefferson Ellinger, Jose Gamez, 233

Scrapped Guns with Boom Crane, Philadelphia, 1923

234

Naval Officers Surveying Shipyard Assembly, San Francisco, 1961

235