Reciprocity

Nautica Edge, Micah Holdsworth Architetcure, Fall 2022

Typha Latifolia (Broad-Leaf Cattail) is a salt marsh weed native to the Chesapeake Bay that, when properly managed, provides both a vital ecological habitat and a valuable building material.The cultivation, harvesting, and processing of cattail as well as construction with it offers an opportunity for a production model of agritourism. As generational tourists and local campers learn to care for the wetland’s health, it provides for them cabins to stay in and a rich ecological experience to learn from. The project was a partnership where all parties contributed design solutions equally. This includes tasks such as idea generating, sketching, rendering, labeling, and project research.

Buildings that I held most design decisions on were the Wetland Health and Research Center, and The Ecology center. Micah Holdsworth held most design decisions on the Production Pavilions and The Cabins, including construction techniques.

TheNatural Environment

“Collectively, the Indigenous canon of principles and practices that govern the exchange of life for life is known as the Honorable Harvest.“

Braiding Sweetgrass, The Honorable Harvest (p.180).

Agritourism in Cherrystone, Virginia has been the method in which the town operates for generations. With Recreational Vehicles at its core, this current model of tourism fragments the landscape, stifling the very natural wetland systems that facilitate the region’s economy of agritourism and farming. The continuous use of recreational vehicles places a strain on the health and wellness of these salt marsh ecologies due to excess pollution from vehicles and agriculture which —without the proper function of natural wetland systems—results in pollutants entering the Chesapeake Bay. In response to these existing issues, Reciprocity proposes a model of tourism where users experience a full embrace of the natural environments on an indigenous level that not only engages users with the wetlands but indulges them level that not engages users with the wetlands but them in a system of exchange with the land; as tourists care for the land through lonng-

Issues 2

Native-Invasive Species

/ nādiv/ - /in vāsiv/ - / spēSHēz, spēsēz/ An invasive species that has been introduced to a particular environment and has lived there for so long that the environment cannot live or function properly without it.

Cattail is an aquatic plant that when overgrown can be detrimental to adjacent ecologies in the environment. Recreational Vehicles are the primary local method of camping.Theyplaceastrain onthelandandlimitstourists toafragmentedexperience of the natural environment.

Opportunity

This native invasive dynamic is an opportunity for people to engage mutualistically with the salt marsh, thinning out the cat-tails annually to keep it at a stable population while benefiting from the harvested raw materials in the production of Typhaboard SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels).With guidance and control, cattail has the potential to be a source that will improve the health and wellbeing of the site and provide tourists with an indigenous experience of the natural environment.

Cabins are pre-fabricated by campers using Typhaboard SIPs made up of hand-harvested and processed cattails stalks. Elevated 8’ off the ground, these cabins allow the environment to flourish undeterred.