Strange Works: Hybrid Military Landscapes and Infrastructural Opportunism

STRANGE

WORKS

Hybrid Military Landscapes and Infrastructural Opportunism A proposal for Mare Island Naval Shipyard

M I C A H B U R G E R CED M.ARCH THESIS 2 0 1 2

Strange Works | Hybrid Military Landscapes and Infrastructural Opportunism

Micah Bernheim Burger Masters of Architecture Candidate, 2012

Adivsors: Tom Buresh | Department Chair, Professor of Architecture Rene Davids | Professor of Architecture and Urban Design University of California, Berkeley College of Environtmental Design 230 Wurster Hall #1820 Berkeley, CA 94720

FINAL THESIS BOOK Submitted to the Department of Architecture in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.

May, 2012 Š 2012 Micah Bernheim Burger All Rights Reserved 2 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract...............................................5 Introduction.........................................8

Theoretical Framework Site Precedent Analysis.............................14

Landschaft Park Duisburg-Nord

Crissy Field Site Analysis........................................22 History Maps Location

Infrastructure Networks Pollution Ecology Design..................................................52 Concept

Site Strategy

Building Strategy

Animation Stills Bibliography........................................81 Photography Supplement...................83

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Abstract

This thesis explores the overlooked potential of decommissioned, derelict and contaminated military landscapes. During the twentieth century, the US experienced a boom in military infrastructure. With the end of the Cold War, this infrastructure has become redundant and inefficient. These infrastructures remain unused in their contaminated landscapes, waiting for city, state, and federal governments to raise money for redevelopment. In the few instances where redevelopment has taken place, it has been a misguided attempt at mixed-use communities modeled on the New Urbanism framework. What results are placeless landscapes that turn their backs to the complex and layered histories of their sites. This thesis proposes infrastructural interventions that respond to the physicality and destroyed nature of military landscapes. Taking existing military infrastructure as a foundation, this project proposes to bundle new systems and processes within the exisitng networks to create new spatial experiences and infrastructural systems. This is not an attempt to re-design an entire military base, rather to design select systems and nodes and allow the city to fill in around it. It is a project that responds to dynamic and fluxing post-industrial territories. It is a project that responds to the historical flows, energies, and rhythms of its site. It responds to data, geography and climate. It responds to the economy, processes of environmental transformation, and the current and future needs of our rapidly changing society. This thesis is a test for a new way of addressing post-military, post-industrial landscapes.

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“The relationship between the absence of use, of activity, and the sense of freedom, of expectancy, is fundamental to understanding the evocative potential of the city’s terrains vagues. Void, absence, yet also promise, the space of the possible, of expectation.”

Ignasi de Sola-Morales Rubio (Terrain Vague) 6

“The ‘natural landscape’ has taken on an artificial patination. Alien materials interrupt the process of growth and decay. New and evolving features created by man are to an extent, absorbed by the fluid and yielding nautre of our surroundings. What results is a hybrid environment, a utilitarian topography, a sustained artifice.”

Smout Allen (Augmented Landscapes)

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INTRODUCTION

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9

Introduction | Theoretical Framework

Physical manifestations of America’s “war machine”, military landscapes present us with signs of the advanced engineering and complex systems of industrial production that made construction of these landscapes on such a large scale possible. America’s military, economy, and built landscape are inextricably linked. Fordist production systems allowed for the extremely efficient, calibrated production machines that powered America through two world wars and into economic dominance. The infrastructures that supported these war systems are pure systems of utility, engineered for the movement, storage and production of energy and materials. They were the backbone for over a century of military production, but today they lay fallow in their contaminated landscapes.

The challenge that we are presented with today is how these redundant infrastructures, with so much embodied energy and resources, can be adapted to create new infrastructural systems that address current and future economic and environmental milieus. As Stan Allen writes in Infrastructural Urbanism, “Infrastructures are flexible and anticipatory. They work with time and are open to change. By specifying what is fixed and what is subject to change, they can be precise and indeterminate at the same time (Allen, 55).” Military infrastructure, however, presents unique challenges in re-purposing for civilian use. The massive scale, unique functions, and contaminated nature require the imagination and creativity introduced by the practice of design. The way that we think about infrastructure, typically immune to formal debates, must be rethought. Coupling these infrastructures with spatial experiences creates the frame for a new type of city and ecology to fill in around them. Allen continues, “[Infrastructural work] allows for the participation of multiple authors. Infrastructures give direction for future work in the city not by the establishment of rules or codes (top-down), but by fixing points of service, access, and structure (bottom-up)(Allen, 55).” These bottom-up systems must address a new urbanism, one inextricably linked with ecology, that deals with the contaminated nature of their sites. They must address environmental degradation and climate change. They must address future systems of de-industrialized production and global supply chains. These systems must address these fields while remaining flexible enough to deal with environmental, resource, and societal uncertainties. This thesis explores the potential for a new urbanism structured around the redundant military infrastructure that is so pervasive in America. It does this by introducing formal and spatial strategies into future infrastructural systems that are flexible and responsive.

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Introduction | Site Mare Island, 30 miles north of San Francisco, is an ephemeral, raw, utilitarian landscape scarred by over 150 years of occupation and exploitation. The once pristine wetlands and mudflats of the San Pablo Bay were overtaken with industrial military infrastructure, transforming the landscape into a manufacturing powerhouse, the origin of generations of warships and munitions. The military and civilian populations of the island were in constant flux, but the toxic by-products of their operations remained behind, saturating the ground and infiltrating the waters. Mare Island was a symbol of America’s military dominance, a testament to the strength of our nation’s defenses. It exemplified our manufacturing prowess, at one point manufacturing warships at the rate of one every 18 days. It also was an example our control of the natural environment. Waters were dredged, levees built, and new lands constructed. The usable acreage of the island almost tripled during the island’s occupation. Dry-docks and bunkers were carved into the topography. Today, on this derelict island, the natural is reclaiming its territory. The solidity of the military infrastructure has become brittle in face of the unyielding forces of nature. Rot and decay are pervasive. Mare Island has become a “hybrid landscape”, both natural and artificial. Decay has generated a landscape of new forms, orderings, and aesthetics. It is melancholic and expectant, dystopian and utopian.

Mare Island, as it is today, is beautiful. It is a hybrid landscape, between industry and nature. There is a blurring of borders and loss of order. Melancholy hangs heavy over the ground. The intense contrast of colors and textures create an ethereal landscape, one that is both fearful and expectant. It could be argued that Mare Island should be left alone in its dereliction. Any interruption of the natural processes of growth and decay would be a violent act upon the site. It could be argued that its beauty lies in its abandonment, the lack of everyday life that allows the memories of the past to predominate.

The city of Vallejo, in conjunction with private developers, has developed a reuse plan for the island that acknowledges “economic development and preservation” as mutually inclusive goals.

The island has been designated as both a federal and state historic landmark and neighborhoods and specific buildings have been deemed significant enough to preserve. The plan places a strong emphasis on preserving the past as much as possible and permitting development that fits into the existing fabric. Preservation, rehabilitation, restoration and reconstruction have been proposed for “historically important” buildings to depict an important time period in the history of the island. New construction should not “destroy historic materials, features, and spatial relationships that characterize the property. The new work shall be compatible with the historic materials, features, size, scale and proportion, and massing to protect the integrity of the property and its environment” (Specific Plan, Appendix B).

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Introduction | Site This approach, while respectable in its ambitions, runs counter to the historical evolution of the island.

Such preservation, by fixing certain periods in the built environment, interrupts the utilitarian development of the landscape. Mare Island developed out of necessity and the need for utility. Structures were constructed without regard for their aesthetics or place in the built landscape. They are pure structures of utility, their form a direct manifestation of their particular function. Their orientation was a direct manifestation of their relation to the water and rail lines. This produced a disordered landscape. It produced a landscape in flux, constantly morphing to adapt to the changing nature of technology and warfare. The proposed development, as Sola-Morales argues in Terrain Vague, disrupts the continuity of the flows, the energies, the rhythms established by the passing of time and the loss of limits. He puts forward that we should “treat the residual city with a contradictory complicity that will not shatter the elements that maintain its continuity in time and place (Terrain Vague, 123).�

I am proposing an intervention that responds to the physicality of Mare Island and processes of environmental transformation. It is an intervention that responds to the historical flows, energies, and rhythms of the site (Augmented Landscapes). It responds to data, geography and climate. It responds to the economy and the current and future needs of our rapidly changing society. This thesis proposes infrastructural interventions that take existing military infrastructure as a base and bundles new systems and processes within existing networks to create new spatial experiences and infrastructural systems.

This is not an attempt to re-design an entire military base, rather to design select systems and nodes and allow the city to fill in around it. It is a test for a new way of addressing post-industrial, post-military landscapes. It is optimistic, but not utopian.

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Introduction | Analysis Montage

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PRECEDENT ANALYSIS

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Precedent Analysis | Landschaft Park Duisburg-Nord

The Ruhr Region was once the industrial heartland of steel and coal production in Germany. For over a century, coal mines and steel mills in the 800 square kilometer region powered Germany through two world wars and the “economic miracle” during the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s, with the changing structure of international markets and the slowing of Germany’s industrial boom, industries in the Ruhr began to shut down. What was left behind was a landscape scarred by environmental degradation. The prevalence of mining had led to widespread subsidence, forcing the industry to construct above- ground, open-air channels to carry industrial and human sewer systems. A century of steel production resulted in small mountains of slag heaps that dotted the region. The Ruhr, a region of over 2 million people, had unemployment rates upwards of 15%.

In 1989, the government of North Rhine Westfalia founded the International Building Exhibition (IBA) to address the “ecological, economic and social regeneration” of the region. The Emscher Landscape Park was the central project of the initiative. The objective was to take an ecological approach to brownfield restoration. It was proposed to create a 70 kilometer long regional network of parks to link the environmentally degraded sites of the region, preserve existing open spaces, and retain the industrial heritage of the region. Nature and environmental processes were incorporated into the immense and raw industrial infrastructures of the region. These infrastructures remain as architectural relics of the past, reminders of the processes that defined and shaped the region.

These hulking, rusting “industrial monuments” stand in contrast to the natural systems that are taking back over the region. 580 kilometers of cycling and walking paths now snake through the region, allowing visitors to interact with these formerly toxic sites.

Source: wikipedia.org

Source: wikipedia.org

In addition to the setting for a new landscape and park system, the industrial infrastructure is also being reused to house cultural programs. The Oberhausen Gasometer, a massive 400- foot tall and 220- foot diameter structure once used to store gas produced by nearby gas furnaces, now houses exhibition spaces. An elevator takes visitors to the top of the structure, providing sweeping views of the surroundings.

The Zollverein Colliery was once one of 16

Source: wikipedia.org

Precedent Analysis | Landschaft Park Duisburg-Nord the most famous symbols for the mining industry in Germany. Founded in 1847, the complex housed mining and coking activities. The most iconic structure, Shaft 12, was constructed in 1928. This structure became the standard for future mining facilities in the region and became a symbol for the region’s industrial strength. Today, the buildings have been reused to house a museum of coal production, an exhibition space, a “citizens’ center” and a restaurant. Cycling and walking trails connect the complex to the surrounding communities.

Landschaft Park Duisburg-Nord allows us to reconsider how we think about the interaction of nature and culture, past and present. Peter Latz, the architect of the park, explains our prior conception of nature. “For the past 200 years, the ideal image of nature has been a symbolic, transformed, and man-made landscape, typified by idealized areas of agricultural production. Such idealization led to the creation of unique parks, but as symbols of a past romantic ideal, these landscapes cannot now be restored (Manufactured Sites, 158).” Duisburg-Nord accepts and embraces the “destroyed nature” of the site, utilizing the existing structures for new uses. A level of playfulness is used in repurposing these hulking industrial infrastructures through the lens of a park. Nature is utilized as a process rather than scenery. Natural processes of both growth and decay are present on site, providing clues to past uses and contaminated land. These processes will continue throughout the lifetime of the park, not solely as a framework for its creation.

While Duisburg-Nord was developed in hopes of attracting new investment in the region, the park itself is not a generator of economic activity. The construction of the park generated local jobs, as workers in the region were able to utilize their manufacturing skills. However, now that the park is in operation, it is not generating new jobs for the region or economic development. With little revenue generating opportunities developed (lack of housing, retail, office space, etc.), it would be hard to develop the park with private funding. This makes it harder for a project like this to be undertaken in other communities. By incorporating revenue-generating programs into the park design, private developers would have more of an incentive to undertake projects of a similar nature. At a time when public funding sources are down, private developers offer an important avenue for this type of development.

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Source: germany-tourism.de Source: coolbreaks.com

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Precedent Analysis | Landschaft Park Duisburg-Nord

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Source: wikipedia.org

Precedent Analysis | Crissy Field Crissy Field is a 100-acre site on the northern edge of the Presidio, a 1,600- acre former military base in San Francisco. Military forces occupied the Presidio, now part of the National Park System, for over 200 years, before the land was turned over to the public as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure Act in 1994. Crissy Field was originally 180 acres of back dune tidal marshes. By 1800, the army began to fill in the marsh to provide level staging and training grounds.

Over the course of 200 years, this land would contain a landing field, shooting ranges and polo grounds.

As the grounds were quite polluted, the Army agreed to clean up the pollutants on site. Over 380,000 cubic yards of soil were dug up and repositioned on site after treatment. Paving was ground up to be reused for walkways and landforms in the redesign of the site. All of the soil was treated on-site by a process called Low Temperature Thermal Desorption (LTTD). In this process, soil was baked in a 700 degree Fahrenheit mobile kiln, essentially extracting the polluted organic compounds in the soil. Six months worth of excavation of contaminated soils can be processed in six weeks through this process.

In the redesign, there were two conflicting goals that were presented to Hargreaves Associates, the firm selected by the National Park Service (NPS) and the Golden Gate National Parks Association (GGNPA). On one hand, the NPS and GGNPA wanted to restore the landscape to how it was before military occupation, a naturally occurring back dune tidal marsh. On the other hand, there was a desire to maintain the cultural history of the site, specifically the period of 19191925, identified as the most historically significant period of the site. This was the

Source: hargreaves.com

Source: nps.gov

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Precedent Analysis | Crissy Field time period during which most of the documented development of the site took place. The goal was the restore the “culturally significant” grass airfield that was located in the same place as the original tidal marsh location.

Here emerged a conflict between natural and cultural restoration.

One of the largest components of the redesign was the restoration of the tidal channel, the mechanism through which the marshes would be sustained. The size, location, configuration of the original channel could not be reproduced exactly for a variety of reasons. The NPS, hoping to use this site as an educational opportunity, required that the channel look and function like a “natural” channel should. A concrete culvert, which would have done a better and more efficient job of sustaining the marshes, would not be considered. As for the airfield, it was reconstructed as a landform, “remade into a sculpture about the airfield.” With this, the NPS argues, the site is both “natural and cultural.” The project resulted in 20 acres of the original 100 acres of marshland being restored.

The Crissy Field project shows the conflict between natural and cultural restoration. In this case, natural restoration meant returning the site to conditions of pre-military occupation. Cultural restoration meant restoring the site as it was between 1919-1925. These goals were in conflict both temporally, but also spatially, as the airfield occupied the same land as the original marshes. It also raises the question of what restoration means.

It was claimed that the tidal channel was restored to its natural state, but when compared to the original tidal channel, it doesn’t seem natural at all. Not only does the new channel differ in form, size and location, but the original channel was a flexible and shifting process, whereas the new channel is fixed in place.

There is nothing natural about this site. It has been completely shaped and altered by human intervention.

Nature and culture are synonymous in this case. What does this mean for restoration? Maybe restoration isn’t the right word to use in this case.

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Source: nps.gov

Precedent Analysis | Crissy Field

Source: nps.gov

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SITE ANALYSIS

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Site Analysis | History Mare Island is four years younger than the state of California. It has seen the evolution of ships from sail powered, to coal, fuel oil, and nuclear.

Mare Island was founded during the military occupation of California following the ceding of the land from Mexico in 1848. The Navy bought the island in 1853 for $83,491 (PR&P Architects, 9). Seen as a way to maintain stability during the chaotic years of the gold rush and to act as a stabilizing force in the development of the west coast, Mare Island’s initial functions were to service commercial and military ships and store munitions for ships docking for repairs. The Navy had a strong presence in the Pacific Ocean, protecting US merchant, whaling and fishing vessels and exploring and making maps (National Register). A floating dry dock was manufactured in New York and shipped in sections around Cape Horn. Commander David Farragut, the Navy Base’s first commandant, stored the munitions at the southern end of the island, behind the 300-foot tall bluffs.

Ships arriving at the island for repair could conveniently unload their munitions at this spot and the bluffs created natural protection from explosion for the dock area and workers.

In 1872, with an increased focus on the defensive significance of a strong Pacific fleet, the Navy constructed a stone dry-dock on Mare Island, the second in the nation and first on the west coast. Mare Island experienced rapid growth during the Spanish-American war and into the early 1900s. With Europe and Asia increasing their military arsenal, congress repeatedly appropriated money for the expansion of America’s naval bases. During World War I, Mare Island became known as a powerhouse for ship- building as it constructed dozens of ships for the war, from small riverboats, to destroyers, and even a battle ship.

In the years leading up to World War II, Mare Island became the main building and repair facility for the Navy’s fleet of submarines. During the 1930s, the acreage of the island was doubled as the Navy filled in the tidelands of San Pablo Bay with soil dredged from Mare Island Straight. Mare Island experienced another period of expansion during World War II. The number of industrial buildings alone increased from 323 to 525 during the war years (PR&P Architects, 7). In the frantic rush of expansion, many of these buildings were constructed as temporary buildings using light wood-framed construction. Nevertheless, the entire island was transformed with more permanent structures, mainly catering to advanced ship building technologies. The ammunition depot also expanded rapidly during this period. By 1945, the island had increased in size from just over 600 acres to 1,500 acres and contained four dry-docks and eight ship building ways. During these years, Mare Island was also home to the second-largest naval prison in the country.

24 Source: Mare Island Cultural Landscapes Report

Site Analysis | History The Cold War era saw the shuttering of the hospital and prison and a substantial drawback in shipbuilding as the population of the island declined from over 40,000 to about 10,000 personnel (City of Vallejo, 11). Efforts turned to the building and repair of nuclear submarines.

Beginning in 1989, the island’s workforce began downsizing due to a number of factors.

Defense spending was being cut to help reduce the national deficit, modern warships and submarines required less maintenance, and the end of the Cold War required less defense facilities and operations. Between 1989 and 1993, Mare Island’s population dropped from 10,000 to 5,800.

In 1993, The Base Closure and Realignment commission recommended the closure of Mare Island to President Clinton. The shipyard was officially closed in 1996. Over its lifetime, Mare Island’s shipyards produced nearly 400 vessels and 17 nuclear submarines.

The Navy has transferred much of the island to the city of Vallejo and private entities.

The city of Vallejo, with the developer Lennar Mare Island, LLC, generated a plan to transform the island into a mixed-use civilian community. Vallejo, which declared bankruptcy in 2008, sees the revitalization of Mare Island as a way to create jobs and economic development opportunities for the struggling city. The Source: Library of Congress online catalog

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Site Analysis | 1869 Historical Map

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Source: commons.wikimedia.org

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Site Analysis | 1899 Historical Map (above)

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Site Analysis | 1916 Historical Map (below)

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Site Analysis | History development plan calls for economic development and historic preservation as mutually inclusive goals.

MARE ISLAND LANDSCAPE

Mare Island’s development was shaped by the base’s primary purpose of shipbuilding. Industrial activities, topography, circulation and accessibility also contributed in shaping the island’s landscape. William Sanger, an engineer with the Navy, drafted the original plans for Mare Island based on site observations he made in 1852 (PR&P Architects, 10). The topography of the island influenced the locations of naval functions.

Munitions were stored on the south end of the island, where natural bluffs protected the rest of the island from the volatile ordinances.

This was also the least developed area of the island, a relatively natural landscape dotted with munitions storage sheds. The relatively flat stretch of land along Mare Island Straight was a logical place for the shipyard. The shipyard was the densest and most developed portion of the island, consisting of large industrial buildings and smaller work and tool shops. Being one of the earliest developed parts of the island, it has buildings dating back to the 1850’s and is the heart of the currently zoned historic district. Access to the island from San Pablo Bay and Mare Island Straight informed development patterns. The plan was organized around accessibility to the docks on the east side of the island along Mare Island Straight. The island was divided into three bands running north to south. The eastern band consisted of industrial activities related to ship- building. The middle band was designated as “park spaces” and separated the industrial uses from the third band, which was zoned for residences.

Rail lines initially dictated the internal circulation on the island. Major lines circled the island while shorter spurs connected industrial buildings to the main lines. The street grid was laid out to create connections

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Source: Library of Congress online catalog

Site Analysis | History between the shipyard along the eastern edge with industrial facilities to the west. Several east-west streets were laid out to create this connection and connected with long northsouth streets that ran the length of the island and parallel to the water. This orthogonal grid was maintained in most future development, but broke down at the southern end where the topography necessitated roads that navigated the natural topography. During World War II, when residential densities could not be accommodated within the original grid, curvilinear streets were introduced into the orthogonal grid.

HISTORIC DISTRICT Certain portions of the Island are designated as a National Historic Landmark and a State Historical Landmark. In 1999, the City of Vallejo designated the Mare Island National Historic Register District, which includes 65% of the island including 661 buildings, structures and sites. 396 of the buildings and sites designated as being a “contributing resource” are located within the area slated for reuse.

Vallejo identified 42 buildings as landmarks.

(Specific Plan)

Source: Library of Congress online catalog

Historic District Property Types: • Single-family residential • Residential garage/shed • Duplex and multi-family residential • Small industrial garage/ shed/ pump house/ electrical facility • Bomb shelter • Latrine • Other infrastructure • Landscape • Masonry industrial/ ordinance storage/ warehouse

Source: Library of Congress online catalog

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Site Analysis | History • Wooden industrial/ ordinance storage/ warehouse • Metal-clad industrial/ ordinance storage/ warehouse • Masonry industrial shops • Wooden industrial shops • Metal clad industrial shops • Masonry administrative, institutional or commercial • Wooden administrative, institutional or commercial • Metal-clad administrative, institutional or commercial • Berths/ quays/ causeways

PLAYERS IN THE GAME Federal Government • United States Department of the Navy: Retains ownership over certain portions of the island. Normally the lead agency with responsibility for environmental review and adoption of the Environmental Impact Statement, the Navy has delegated this responsibility to the City of Vallejo.

• United States Army Corps of Engineers: Jurisdiction over all wetlands and other waters 32

Source: Library of Congress online catalog

Site Analysis | History of the United States on Mare Island.

• United States Fish and Wildlife Service: Protects endangered plant and wildlife species and their habitat from disturbance.

• United States Department of the Interior: Has transferred responsibility for historic resources to the City of Vallejo.

State of California • California Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Toxic Substance Control: Responsible for overseeing environmental remediation.

• California State Lands Commission: Jurisdiction of some land transferred from Navy.

• California Office of Historic Preservation: Responsible for the administration of federal and state historic preservation programs in California.

• California Department of Transportation (Caltrans): Jurisdiction over state route 37 interchange.

• San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission: Jurisdiction of over all development within 100 feet of high water line of the San Francisco Bay. • San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board: Regulates state water quality standards.

City of Vallejo • Development Agreement: In 2001, Vallejo entered into a development agreement with Lennar Mare Island LLC, a private developer.

• City Staff: Reviews all projects in accordance with development agreement.

• Architectural Heritage and Landmarks Commission: Reviews and acts on projects requiring a certificate of appropriateness under the Vallejo Municipal Code.

• Planning Commission: Reviews and acts on projects requiring discretionary permits.

• City Council: Reviews Machine shop interior and exterior

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Site Analysis | History appeals.

(Specific Plan) Summary Development Program • Mixed-use (non-residential): 6,265,772 sf (Office/ R&D, light industrial, retail, warehousing) • Industrial (heavy industrial): 1,537,126 sf • Education/civic: 1,254,698 sf o Total Non-Residential: 9,057,596 sf o Total Residential: 1,400 units • Open space (large parks and recreational areas): 463 acres o Vallejo city standards: 4.25 acres neighborhood park space per 1,000 population • Wetlands/Inactive Dredge ponds: 3,787 acres (Restricted to open space, conservation, and managed wetlands uses)

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Bomb shelter

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Site Analysis | Location

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Site Analysis | Location

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Site Analysis | Infrastructure Networks

1916 1939 1899

1960

1854

HISTORIC MARE ISLAND

TOPOGRAPHY 20’ INTERVALS

RAIL

ROADS

TOPOGRAPHY 20’ INTERVALS

RAIL

ROADS

1916 1939 1899

1960

1854

HISTORIC MARE ISLAND

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Site Analysis | Networks

1916

1939 1899

1854

NETWORKS | TOPOGRAPHY

1960

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NETWORKS | ROADS

NETWORKS | RAIL

Site Analysis | Networks

NETWORKS | STRUCTURES

Site Analysis | Networks

INDUSTRIAL WASTEWATER PIPELINE

NETWORKS | PIPELINES

IWPS PUMPS

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NETWORKS | SHIPPING ROUTES

NETWORKS | WETLANDS

Site Analysis | Networks

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SAN PABLO BAY

SHIPPING CHANNEL

Site Analysis | Sea Level Rise - Contamination Concentrations AREA VULNERABLE TO A 16 INCH SEA LEVEL RISE

AREA VULNERABLE TO A 55 INCH SEA LEVEL RISE

LOW

HIGH CONTAMINANT CONCENTRATIONS

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Site Analysis | Sea Level Rise - Contamination Concentrations

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LOW

HIGH CONTAMINANT CONCENTRATIONS

AREA VULNERABLE TO A 16 INCH SEA LEVEL RISE AREA VULNERABLE TO A 55 INCH SEA LEVEL RISE

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Site Analysis | Ecological Areas

TIDAL WETLANDS

NON-TIDAL WETLANDS

CONTAINMENT NON-TIDAL AREA WETLANDS

UPLANDS DREDGE PONDS

TIDAL WETLANDS INTERTIDAL MUDFLATS

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DREDGE POND

CONTAINMENT AREA

6” 18”

VEGETATIVE COVER SOIL COVER SOIL DRAINAGE LAYER GEOCOMPOSITE LAYER

24” EROSION RESISTANT VEGETATIVE COVER

FOUNDATION SOIL LAYER EXISTING WASTE MATERIAL

GAS COLLECTION LAYER 60 MIL HDPE GEOMEMBRANE

UPLANDS - Well drained areas above affects of tidal action - Highly disturbed grasslands and shrublands with little remaining native vegetation - Plants most important to supporting wildlife habitat include lupines, coyote brush, and rabbit brush - Assortment of snake species, lizards, frog species, quails, hawks, herons, squirrels, shrews, coyotes, deer, foxes, bats NON-TIDAL WETLANDS - Man-made, created as a result of dredging activities - Subject to temporary inundation during wet periods - Vegetation varies widly across island based on water depth and salinity - Important habitat for migrating birds and resident water birds

DREDGE PONDS - Material dredged from shipping channel and piers - Created by building berms around areas of land

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50 SOIL CAP

EXCAVATION AND DISPOSAL

PHYTOEXTRACTION

$200,000

DATA FROM: National Risk Management Research Labratory, US EPA, Introduction to Phytoremediation, 2000

$600,000

$12,000,000

30 YEAR COSTS FOR 12-ACRE LEAD SITE (1998 DOLLARS)

Site Analysis | Remediation Strategies

Site Analysis | Remediation Strategies

SOURCE: Kuhl, Kaja. From Brownfields to Greenfields: A Field Guide to Phytoremediation. urbanomnimbus.net. 2010

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DESIGN

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Design | Concept This thesis explores reworking the skeletons of the 19th and 20th century war machine to address 21st century environmental and social catastrophes. My proposal for Mare Island is to create a scaffold for a new topography and urbanism. This scaffold, or infrastructure, is both precise and indeterminate at the same time. By specifying certain fixed nodes and introducing flexible armatures for natural growth, I am creating the blueprints for a new techno-nature. Subject to time and the natural processes of growth and decay, these armatures combine architectural ambition with natural habitat. My design proposal is never finished. It is like a parasite, always eating itself and producing new matter, taking itself apart and putting itself back together.

My proposal is a critique of

Current residential development on Mare Island

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PHASE 1 | EXISTING BUILDINGS

PHASE 2 | BARE STRUCTURES

YEAR_2012

YEAR_2012-2015

Design | Concept the re-development practices currently taking place at Mare Island and other decommissioned military installations across the country. Lennar Mare Island, in partnership with the City of Vallejo, has developed plans for a master planned mixed-use community. However, almost every structure on the island is a locus of toxic contamination. Whether it is the acid mixing facility and storage depot, machine shop, welding shop, forging shop, painting plant, bomb shelters, coal sheds, dry docks, foundry, smithery, printing plant, quays and

Current residential development on Mare Island

PHASE 3 | STRATEGIC RETROFIT

PHASE 4 | GROWTH + DECAY 2.0

PHASE 5 | NEW TOPOGRAPHY

YEAR_2015-2020

YEAR_2020-2100

YEAR_2100 +

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Design | Concept piers or one of the dozens of ammunition depots. They make up a network of toxic hot spots that make re-inhabitation near impossible. The current solution has been to dig up millions of cubic feet of contaminated soil and truck off-site to be dealt with elsewhere. Once soils have been replaced and buildings torn down or cleaned, the development plan designates a historic district, preserves and reconstructs certain time periods, and introduces cookie-cutter suburban housing tracts. This type of intervention is a violent act upon the site and interrupts the melancholic beauty and destroyed nature of the island. It is a brutal interruption to the 150 years of utilitarian development and subsequent growth and decay.

My proposal utilizes the network of contaminated grounds and structures as the backbone for a new topography. The process works like this: Modified manufacturing equipment and shipbuilding cranes are coupled with the existing 50 plus mile rail network connecting almost every structure on the island. These recycling machines traverse the island, disassembling abandoned and contaminated structures and transporting the pieces to a centralized sorting and cleaning facility. This recycling infrastructure works like an artificial ecology, a term used by Stan Allen in Infrastructural Urbanism. “[This infrastructure] manages the flows of energy and resources on a site, and it directs the density and distribution of a habitat. It creates the conditions necessary to respond to incremental adjustments in resource availability, and modifies the status of inhabitation in response to changing environmental conditions” (Allen, 57). The extreme connectedness afforded by this extensive rail network creates a flexible distribution

Above: Acid mixing facility; Middle: Bomb shelters; Below: Coal Sheds

PHASE 1 | EXISTING BUILDING

PHASE 2 | BARE STRUCTURE

PHA

YEAR_2012

YEAR_2012-2015

YEAR

PHASE 2.1 | MATERIALS RECYCLED glass steel concrete

BLDG. 680 Steel structure Glass + steel skin 256,330 sf 9 bridge cranes Numerous jib cranes Freight elevator RAIL NETWORK MATERIAL COLLECTOR

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Design | Concept system that can adapt to constantly changing resource flows. The rail network manages the flow and distribution of materials, and facilitates the construction of new infrastructures.

Once the materials are cleaned and sorted, they are re-deployed via the rail network to be installed in the skeletal ruins of the contaminated structures. With the natural rhythms of the passing of time, a new topography forms around these nodes. As the waters rise, a new island grows, just as natural, and just as artificial, as what lies there today. This new island becomes a tracing of the troubled nature of the past. Constantly evolving and morphing, but always reminding us of the violent scars we inflicted on the land.

By intervening in specific nodes, and allowing the island to fill in around these nodes, I am avoiding the authoritarian, top-down approach of master planning. Rather than flattening the layers of history embedded in Mare Island, my proposal aims to create new layers of urban and natural spaces and connections. It aims to couple new spatial experiences with infrastructural systems, making inhabitants aware of the history and infrastructures of the site. As Stan Allen writes in Infrastructural Urbanism, “Infrastructure works not so much to propose specific buildings on given sites, but to construct the site itself. Infrastructure prepares the ground for future building and creates the conditions for future events” (Allen, 54). While I suggest possible programmatic uses for this new urbanism, my site strategy and design creates surfaces and shells that can be appropriated for future programs. Using geography as a medium, I am creating a contingent network for a new urbanism.

My proposal challenges the historical relationship between nature and the city. Gary Strang describes this changing relationship in his essay, Infrastructure as Landscape; “In 1964, cultural historian Leo Marx wrote The Machine in the Garden, which explores an inherent contradiction in the American ideology of space. Free economic competition and technological progress are valued equally with the tradition of landscape pastoralism; thus, Marx observed, in our landscape the machine is accommodated in the garden.

Today it is fair to say that the machine is not so much in the garden as it is indistinguishable from the garden; they are inexorably intertwined (Strang, 10).” In my proposal for Mare Island, where building structures become the primary components of a new topography, infrastructure and landscape become almost indistinguishable over time, with hints of the hidden structures piercing through the topography. Infrastructure becomes the armature for urban and natural forms.

This site strategy utilizes the mistakes and problems of previous generations to solve utilitarian prob-

ASE 3 | STRATEGIC RETROFIT

PHASE 4 | GROWTH + DECAY 2.0

PHASE 5 | NEW TOPOGRAPHY

R_2015-2020

YEAR_2020-2100

YEAR_2100 +

surface grows

structure decays productive surface

VERBS OF TIME

DREDGING BARGE ERODE

BURY

DEGRADE

ROT

REORDER

MOVE

TRANSFORM

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Design | Current Site Plan

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Design | Future Site Plan

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Design | Building Strategy lems of current and future generations at a scale not previously addressed. It does so not by disrupting the natural processes of growth and decay, but by creating interventions in the environment that promote and augment these processes, while creating new spatial forms and experiences.

Contaminated, abandoned land. A post-industrial, post-industrial wasteland.

CONTAMINATION

POPULATION

Developer enters and dissassembles derelict buildings. Sorts and cleans materials. Dirt is repositioned.

CONTAMINATION

POPULATION

Re-distribute pre-fabricated productive surfaces manufactured from recycled materials scavenged from island.

CONTAMINATION

POPULATION

Existing structures act as armatures for surfaces. They take hold and new life grows.

CONTAMINATION

POPULATION

As seas subsume the island, the ground has been remediated, stemming the spread of contaminants. A new topography and urbanism is formed.

CONTAMINATION

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POPULATION

Design | Site Strategy

61 

Design | Recycling Process

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Design | Recycling Process

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Design | Recycling Process

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Design | Site Strategy

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Design | Dredge Ponds: Stage 1+ 2

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Design | Dredge Ponds: Stage 1+ 2

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Design | Ammunition Depot: Stage 1

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Design | Ammunition Depot: Stage 2

69 

Design | Dry Dock: Stage 1

Design | Bldg 680: Stage 3

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Design | Dry Dock: Stage 2

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Design | Bldg 680: Stage 1

Source: Library of Congress online catalog

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Design | Bldg 680: Stage 1

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Design | Bldg 680: Stage 2

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Design | Bldg 680: Stage 3

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Design | Bldg 680: Stage 4

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Design | Bldg 680: Stage 5

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Design | Animation Stills

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Design | Animation Stills

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Stan. “Infrastructural Urbanism.” Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. 1999. 46-57.

Armstrong, Helen. Time, Dereliction and Beauty: an Argument for Landscapes of Contempt, Queensland University of Technology.

Berger, Alan. Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America. Princeton Architectural Press, New York. 2006.

(HT167 .B467 2006) Berger, Alan. Designing the Reclaimed Landscape. Taylor and Francis, New York. 2008.

Bowman, Ann and Pagano, Michael. Terra Incognita: Vacant Land and Urban Strategies. Georgetown University Press, Washington D.C. 2004 Cohen, Stephen and Zysman, John. Manufacturing Matters: The Myth of the Post-Industrial Economy. Basic Books, New York. 1987.

Edensor, Tim. Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics, and Materiality. Berg, New York. 2005.

Infranet Lab/Lateral Office. Coupling: Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism, Pamphlet Architecture 30, Princeton Architectural Press, New York. 2011.

Kirkwood, Neil. Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape. Spon Press, London. 2001.

Kuhl, Kaja. “From Brownfields to Greenfields: A Field Guide to Phytoremdiation.” Urbanomnibus.net. 2010.

Lemmon, Sue, Wichels, E.D.. Sidewheelers to Nuclear Power: A Pictorial Essay Covering 123 Years at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Leeward Publications, Inc., Anapolis, Maryland. 1977.

Lerup, Lars. Stim and Dross: Rethinking the Metropolis. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 1995.

Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/. 2011.

Naja & deOstos. Ambiguous Spaces, Pamphlet Architecture 29, Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

2008.

National Risk Management Research Laboratory, US EPA. Introduction to Phytoremediation. 2000.

Park, Kyong. Urban Ecology: Detroit and Beyond. Map Book Publishers, Hong Kong. 2005.

PR&P Architects, Bradley, Denise. Mare Island Cultural Landscapes Report: Alden Park. 2011.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Smout Allen. Augmented Landscapes, Pamphlet Architecture 28, Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

2007.

Sola-Morales, Ignasi. “Terrain Vague.” Anyplace. Ed. Cynthia Davidson. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995.

Strang, Gary. “Infrastructure as Landscape.” Places 10.3 (1996) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service. “National Historic Landmark Nomination.”

1974.

Vallejo, City of. Mare Island Amended and Restated Specific Plan Project: Final Subsequent Environmental Impact Report. Prepared by Turnstone Consulting. 2005.

Vallejo, City of. Mare Island Specific Plan. 2007.

Weston Solutions. Final Remedial Action Plan Record of Decision RCRA Closure Plan Investigation Area H1.

Prepared for Department of Toxic Substances Control. 2006.

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P H O T O G R A P H Y “Yet by way of the photographic image we receive signals, physical impulses that steer in a particular direction the construction of an imaginary that we establish as that of a specific place or city.�

Ignasi de Sola-Morales Rubio, Terrain Vague

I used photography as a tool for exploring Mare Island. It became a means for me to enter into the project, to investigate the landscape, and pose questions.

Crouching amongst the carnivorous fennel bushes, aiming the viewfinder at a sullen pile of rotting tires and concrete rubble, I become acutely aware my surroundings. The steady breeze coming off of the bay and the lonely sound of the wind clanging tattered blinds against shattered windows. The sweet scent of fennel mixing with the heavy blanket of melancholy that hangs over the ground. My eyes darting back and forth between building debris and cracked pavement and suddenly, a densely layered narrative becomes evident. The many histories of Mare Island reveal themselves in the gutted buildings, the strange monstrous spider webs of steel structures, and the labyrinth of crumbling rail lines that have become a maze of weeds. Each piece of brittle infrastructure, each concrete bunker peaking out from below a mound of dirt and grass tells a story.

S U P P L E M E N T

My photographs attempt to capture the ethereal, timeless nature of Mare Island. They are calm in the face of a disturbed landscape and a violent past. The use of wide-angle shots and post—production processing accentuate the disorienting, empty landscape. Often shot from low angles looking up, I try to convey the dwarfing scale of the island’s infrastructures and the disorientating nature of these scale-less artifacts. Often, these utilitarian ruins are unrecognizable, their intended function a mystery to the viewer. Unsure how to situate them self in relation to these strange works, the viewer is filled with a gnawing uneasiness. The viewer tries to make sense of the landscape by creating stories and imagining 40,000 people building ships and ammunition. The viewer tries to imagine the immense scale of operations and the piercing sounds and acrid odors that saturated the island. The viewer looks for small clues in the landscape that might reveal the original use of an artifact or the last time someone stepped into that scene.

These calm, sad, subdued scenes also offer the viewer a sense of the possible and of expectation. The viewer, a stranger in this land, can experience the “magic of the obsolete” and imagine an alternative, utopian future.

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