2012 Thesis Booklet

K at e B o les . Michael B r itt . Alex a Bus h . S a r a h C a n c i e n n e J a c k C o c hran . Brian D avis . Doug D icke r s o n . S e t h D e n i z e n M at t G odfrey . Sila s Ha s lam . Cooper Jo n e s . N i c o le K e r o a c k J en Ly n c h . M aure en McGee . Marie Mil le r . O s c a r Ob a n d o A nn e l i s e Pitts . Ch arl es Spa r kman . Kat h e r i n e T r e p p e n d a h l

de si gn res e arch the si s 2012

c ontents presentation schedule for may 10, 2012

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Hypernature: exaggeration using juxtaposition 7 Kate Boles advisor: Kristina Hill ecoMOD South: 8 Sustainable, Affordable, Prefab Housing in Virginia Michael Britt advisor: John Quale A Productive Retrofit: 9 Tactical Approaches to Catalyzing Post-Industrial Urbanism in Detroit’s Post-Residential Landscapes Alexa Bush advisor: Beth Meyer industrial | park Sarah Cancienne advisor: Nana Last Tierra Plastica Brian Davis advisor: Beth Meyer

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The Eighth Approximation: Urban Soil Taxonomy in the Anthropocene

Seth Denizen advisors: Nana Last & Jorg Sieweke

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Urban Aquaponics: Production and Education Doug Dickerson advisor: Bill Sherman

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The Position of Dwelling Matt Godfrey advisor: Peter Waldman

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Urban Dissonances: 15 Restructuring the Waterfront in Fener Istanbul

Nicole Keroack advisor: Peter Waldman Re-Inhabitation: re-claiming our forgotten industrial sites Marie Miller advisors: Maurice Cox & Daniel

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THE URBAN LABORATORY OF PARIS AND THE INSTITUT DU PAYSAGE Charles Sparkman advisor: Peter Waldman

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Hedonistic Ecologies: Strategies for Good Clean Fun Katherine Treppendahl advisor: Nana Last

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de si gn res ea rch the si s PResentat i on scHed u l e May 10 2012 G r o up a A1 8:30-9:30 rm 305 Oscar Obando advisor: Nana Last A2 9:40-10:40 rm 205 Kate Boles advisor: Kristina Hill A3 10:50-11:50 exhibit C Seth Denizen advisors: Nana Last & Jorg Sieweke

l u n ch 12:00-12:50

A4 1:00-2:00 elmaleh gallery Brian Davis advisor: Beth Meyer A5 2:10-3:10 rm 205 Jen Lynch advisor: Beth Meyer A6 3:20-4:20 rm 205 Alexa Bush advisor: Beth Meyer

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Group B

G r o up c

B1 9:00-10:00 elmaleh gallery Charles Sparkman advisor: Peter Waldman

C1 9:20-10:20 rm 405 Michael Britt advisor: John Quale

B2 10:10-11:10 elmaleh gallery Matt Godfrey advisor: Peter Waldman

C2 10:30-11:30 rm 305 Jack Cochran advisor: Bill Sherman

B3 11:20-12:20 rm 405 Marie Miller advisors: Maurice Cox & Daniel Bluestone

C3 11:40-12:40 rm 305 Doug Dickerson advisor: Bill Sherman

lun ch

1:00-1:50

12:30-1:20

B4 1:30-2:30 rm 405 Nicole Keroack advisor: Peter Waldman

l u n ch C4 2:00-3:00 rm 153 lobby Katherine Treppendahl advisor: Nana Last

B5 2:40-3:40 rm 305 Silas Haslam advisor: Peter Waldman

C5 3:10-4:10 rm 153 lobby Cooper Jones Maureen McGee advisor: Nana Last

B6 3:50-4:50 rm 205 Annelise Pitts advisor: Peter Waldman

C6 4:20-5:20 rm 153 lobby Sarah Cancienne advisor: Nana Last

discu ssi on 5: 30-6 :3 0 p 6

Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo to Oke Owingeh Pueblo (became first permanent Spanish settlement in 1598) to Los Angeles, CA

San SanIldefonso IldefonsoPueblo Pueblo PojoaquePueblos Pueblo Pojoaque Pajarito Plateau

Los Alamos Pueblo Cuyamungue Pueblo

Old Spanish Trail / Route 66 Scenic Byway Apaches

Tesuque area

Tesuque Pueblo

Pit Houses under Federal Courthouse , at Diker Site in downtown, at Kearney Partners site in downtown

Kwapoge Village El Peublo de Santa Fe

Caja del Rio

Agua Fria Schoolhouse

Pindi Pueblo Arroyo Negro

“Agua Fria Corridor” (many settlements along the Santa Fe River)

Cochiti Pueblo Tierra Contenta Santa Fe Trail Scenic Byway

Pecos Peublo

La Bajada Pueblo La Cienega Pueblo

Cieneguilla Pueblo

Santo Domingo Pueblo

Burnt Corn Pueblo

San Marcos Peublo

8.7 miles

El Camino Real Scenic Byway

to Independence, MO

to Zacatecas, Mexico

Hypernaturally Dewatered River

Hypernature: exaggeration using juxtaposition Kate Boles / MLA 2012 advisor: kristina hill 0

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4 miles

I’ve been working on a case study based investigation of hypernature as a design strategy. The term “hypernature” is relatively new, and was popularized by MVVA. Michael has described hypernature as, simply, “exaggerated nature”. Beth built on this description in “Sustaining Beauty” by calling hypernature “an exaggerated version of constructed nature” and “a distilled and amplified sense of nature”. For me, hypernature takes its definition from parsing the word.

The prefix “hyper-“ defines the relationship of “hypernature” to the root “nature”. “Hyper-“ means, more or less, “exaggerated,” so hypernature can then be thought of as “exaggerated nature”, however you define nature.

The Santa Fe River in Santa Fe, New Mexico currently exists in a hypernatural state: it is a dry sand “river” that occasionally experiences massive flash floods. The Santa Fe River has been essential to the founding and development of the semi-arid city of Santa Fe, but due to changes over the years the river now mainly functions as a stormwater ditch and is a barrier to pedestrian movement. My design proposal exaggerates the existing wet and dry hypernatural conditions of the river to re-assert the river as an integral corridor and destination within downtown Santa Fe.

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ecoMOD South: Sustainable, Affordable, Prefab Housing in Virginia Michael Britt / M.Arch 2012 Advisor: John Quale

Since 2004, in an effort to find sustainable and affordable solutions for affordable housing organizations, interdisciplinary teams of UVA students have been working with the ecoMOD project to design, build and evaluate low-cost energy efficient housing prototypes. The ecoMOD project is a design-build-evaluate program led by Professor John Quale at the School of Architecture at UVA. The program focuses primarily on producing affordable, sustainable and energy-efficiency homes using prefabricated, modular home construction techniques.

Since August of 2011, a small research and development team funded by the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Revitalization Commission has been investigating designs for commercial units based on the ecoMOD4 prototype (completed and occupied in 2010). In collaboration with Cardinal Homes Inc., SIPS of America, Southern Virginia Higher Education Center and a Passive House consultant, the team is researching alternative building techniques, materials, systems and off-site construction strategies in order to construct four affordable, energy-efficient homes for low-income families. By September of 2012, the four units will be delivered to the affordable housing partners: People Incorporated, and Southside Outreach based in Southwest and Southside Virginia, respectively.

In an effort to more effectively understand our priorities throughout the design process, the team has created an analytic model to assist in decision making and discussions with community partners. The model attempts to quantify a wide range of parameters on a number of different scales, ranging from general project goals to manufacturing processes of individual building products. It is our hope that this model can be used in the future to assist in the continued project development for the possible next phases of research funding and use in future ecoMOD projects.

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A Productive Retrofit: Tactical Approaches to Catalyzing PostIndustrial Urbanism in Detroit’s Post-Residential Landscapes Alexa Bush / mla 2012 Advisor: Beth Meyer

The large scale depopulation and abandonment of Detroit’s residential fabric over the past 60 years has left the city unable to provide basic services to its current residents, or to manage the additional 14 square miles (3,625 hectares) of land that has come under its control. This project proposes that these residential landscapes could be retrofit to become productive landscapes that would better suit the needs of existing residents by providing essential ecological, social and economic infrastructures that could catalyze new, more resilient forms of urbanism in the post-industrial city. It explores interventions in three neighborhoods of Detroit to suggest how different tactics could be adapted to existing block and street structures with different spatial organizations and scales of vacancy.

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INDUSTRIAL|PARK

sarah cancienne / M.Arch 2012 Advisor: nana last This design critiques ageing 1970’s industry as short sighted, short-lived, deadly to public space, and environmentally exploitative. It proposes integration of public and industrial space designed to work symbiotically with natural systems. The program is a public pool combined with a distillery, located on the southern bank of Richmond in an industrial area known as Manchester. The building is sited between a 1970’s floodwall, an old rail line, and a historic canal that had previously been used for electricity generation but now lies stagnant. Initial site readings suggested that the most productive use for the canal was to generate potable water (as opposed to electricity, the original use of the canal). The only active industry on the site isa large barley storage facility, the primary ingredient in single malt whiskey.

The scope of this proposal depends on an urban-scale intervention of large constructed wetlands as a water-cleaning machine. These wetlands are fed by the canal, which runs through the distillery/poolhaus and is released back into the James River at a small tidal wetland and fish nursery. Part of this large urban site plan repurposes an abandoned rail line that connects directly across the river to downtown Richmond. It bridges across the James River and closes a large gap in Richmond’s vital park system.

The building weaves together overlapping programs of water cleaning, whiskey distillation, swimming pool, courtyards, and whiskey tasting bar; it terraces and ramps up and over the 30 foot floodwall providing access to the river, to views north towards downtown Richmond, and south towards the Manchester water park. The tectonics and geometry of the building reflects a braided response to the linear infrastructure of the site, using the floodwall as a platform for public space.

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Tierra Plastica

Brian Davis / mla 2012 Advis0r: beth Meyer The Riachuelo is an industrial river-canal-port complex running through the heart of the greater Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area [AMBA]. During 200 years of operation the historical tow path has been colonized and appropriated by various private operations. This tow path is to be recovered as a public landscape as part of the Integrated Plan for Environmental Remediation, administered by the inter-jurisdictional water basin authority [ACUMAR].

Initial phases of this recovery have worked towards traditional landscape typologies including the promenade, the playground and the park. My project proposes that by focusing on the relationship between instruments (forms and their intentional effects) in the design process, I might be able to suggest a way toward new synthetic landscape types that create the conditions for both industry and recreation.

Industrial shipping canals offer an important window into ongoing dialogues surrounding the discipline of landscape design. These places combine natural and constructed objects and systems, and their site histories are at the core of our social, economic, and environmental legacies of development, toxicity, and labor. The Riachuelo is one of the most polluted rivers in the world, a fact that has serious environmental and economic ramifications for the five million people living in its basin.

Tierra Plastica focuses on the remediation operations of sediment dredging and biofiltration of river water. I am proposing adapted instruments for these processes and will show design techniques that help me to consider the form and effect of these instruments as they influence a range of possible activities and relations that exist at different temporal and spatial scales. My methods will implicate instruments from the clamshell dredge to massive sediment loads to the humble water hyacinth and chain link fencing as instruments.

I have chosen these two operations because of the variety of scales they engage- dredging cycles of three months to five years, a rain storm, a sheet pile bulkhead, evapotranspiration. The ability to think across these scales and develop methods which both choreograph operations and leave space for the generative capacity of the landscape draw from the rich history of landscape practice. For this project I am influenced by people like Lawrence Halprin and Walter Hood and I draw from thinkers such as Bruno Latour and Graham Harman in order to develop and integrate methods for taking on a variety of human and non-human actors. The results are conflicted and possibly interesting, much like the Riachuelo itself.

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The Eighth Approximation: Urban Soil Taxonomy in the Anthropocene seth denizen / mla 2012 Advis0rs: nana last & jorg sieweke

Completed in 1972, the Seventh Approximation created a system for mapping and classifying soils that has since been adopted around the world. The curious limitation of this system, is its inability to classify urban soils or soils that are produced as the result of human action. This hole in its taxonomy appears larger and larger as the part of the world that can be convincingly called ‘non-urban’ gets smaller and smaller. The Eighth Approximation is the unwritten update to one of the world’s largest taxonomic projects, which takes human intervention as a precondition for classification, rather than a disqualification. In the Eighth Approximation, soils are defined as the geological product of cities and the humans who build them. http://anthropocenesoil.wordpress.com

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Urban Aquaponics: Production and Education Doug Dickerson / M.Arch 2012 Advisor: Bill Sherman

The industrialization of food networks has substantially reduced the transparency between producer and consumer. And in most instances, food is traveling thousands of miles before it reaches the household plate. In addition to the carbon output associated with these distances, a significant amount of energy is used within distribution, packaging, and storage facilities that can have a building footprint in excess of 600,000 square feet. “Urban Aquaponics� offers an alternative method to the existing means of producing and distributing. A more transparent method – one that will ask the community to consider pressing issues surrounding food consumption through education and relocalization. The proposal, based in Charlottesville, introduces an aquaponics facility to be located on West Main Street, which connects the University to downtown.

Aquaponics, which combines aquaculture and hydroponics, allows for a closed-loop system in which fish and vegetables can grow in a symbiotic, controlled environment. With the limited amount of available land for agriculture, vertical farming is a necessity to provide food for the increasing population. Not only will this reduce travel distances, but it will also put the consumer in direct contact with the producer.

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The Position of Dwelling Matt Godfrey / M.ARCH 2012 Advisor: Peter Waldman

The spaces we inhabit involve a sequence of transitions, from the public street front to the seclusion of a individual room. Through a study of Le Corbusier’s Unite d’ Habitation and its smaller prototype, the Pavillon Suiss, I investigated degrees of scale and privacy within the building. Inspired by the crowded section of an ocean liner, Corb creates a density of habitation that is balanced by communal spaces. My project follows Pavillon Suiss, establishing a new residence for the Cite Internationale Universitaire, near La Villette. Each student room includes a tectonic window to the city and adjustable wall panels, allowing the space to accommodate not only daily routines, but also production and research. International students, in residence for varying degrees of time, take ownership of a single space for both living and working, and may share their work and ideas in the adjacent common spaces. The scale of the city is reflected in the double tower form that respects the adjacent corridors and masses of the block. The base of the building includes a theater within the ground that provides a transition between the city and the human inhabitant. The private corridors are composed in two towers, supported on the structure and program of the public theater and connected at the top with a common library space. In modeling the spaces for temporary housing and student living, the density of the units is increased beyond a typical residence, but the individual is provided with both flexible private spaces and a variety of adjacent public fronts, creating a hybrid dwelling of both communal and personal activity.

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Urban Dissonances: Restructuring the Waterfront in Fener Istanbul Nicole Keroack / M.Arch 2012 Advisor: Peter Waldman

Fener is a neighborhood on the brink of transition. Located on Istanbul’s historic waterfront, this industrial community has largely fallen into economic and social decline. Due to its occupation by minority groups, the area has been neglected and marginalized for decades.

The municipality of Istanbul recently recognized the potential economic importance of Fener and is proposing a controversial scheme for urban regeneration which only cosmetic changes and does not solve the deeper economic and environmental issues.

This proposal re-examines development efforts in historic communities and provides a model for sustainable rehabilitation. The project defines a two-tiered approach: first, to revitalize the productive capacity of the waterfront by developing ecologically and economically beneficial industries (oyster and fish farms remediate the waterfront while providing food and income for its inhabitants); second, the proposal initiates an adaptable, building type that provides the catalyzes robust economies within the landscape. For example, a bridge allows residents to cross the busy highway to the water, a market for the buying and selling of fish, fish growing and processing facilities, a stormwater treatment center, and an area for the washing of rugs. By combining the passive systems of water treatment and the active, engaged systems of fishing and processing, Fener becomes a dynamic, visible, and productive precinct for Istanbul.

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Re-Inhabitation: re-claiming our forgotten industrial sites Marie Miller / M. Arch 2012 Advisors: Maurice Cox & Daniel Bluestone

This thesis investigates the re-inhabitation of an abandoned industrial site east of Atlanta.

The site has undergone several retrofits since it was first conceived as a fertilizer equipment manufacturing plant—most notable of which was a roundhouse for the cleaning and maintenance of Pullman railcars. Throughout the sire’s 100 year history, the campus has served as an economic generator within the community and helped to shape the surrounding neighborhood Kirkwood. However, since the early 90’s the site has been abandoned. While Kirkwood still identifies with its industrial and railroad past, the site’s true potential as a source of production and influence within the community has been lost.

Adaptive reuse of the site provides the opportunity to rejuvenate the site while still remaining respectful of the campus’s original buildings and site organization. Through the investigation of case studies and by re-inhabiting the industrial campus as a culinary arts school, the project seeks to explore these key questions: 1) Can abandoned industrial sites be revitalized and restored to their original glory as centers for activity, economy and cultural production within a community?

2) How do industrial sites respond to occupational changes through time? How have factories and mills influenced change and growth in their surrounding communities?

3) What architectural strategies/typologies are used in adaptive reuse projects? How can a building act as an artifact but still provide relevant services that serve modern needs?

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THE URBAN LABORATORY OF PARIS AND THE INSTITUT DU PAYSAGE CHARLES SPARKMAN / M.ARCH 2012 ADVISOR: PETER WALDMAN

For three millennia, Parisians persistently reconstructed The Beaubourg Plateau, an Urban Laboratory at the “Heart of Paris” to fulfill their utopian imaginations. However, with the construction of the Forum and Jardin les Halles, the site has fallen dormant, caught within the self-referential loop of the “Beaubourg Effect” and neglected by its current generation of inhabitants.

Currently, 800,000 people pass through the site every day, making it the most trafficked transit node in Europe. This population largely consists immigrants who occupy the peripheral banlieues of the city and use the RER//Metro node of Les Halles to access Paris’ historic core and navigate the periphery. While this population represents the transforming identity of Paris and the greater European Union, they remain invisible (only 20% of visitors who pass through the Beaubourg Plateau ascend to the city surface). On the surface, the site remains a vacant urban island with “access interdit” signs encircling its perimeter, lending little support to this fragile, transient population—some of whom have just arrived to the European Union for the first time.

The proposal for an Institut du Paysage on the Beaubourg Plateau reconsiders the surface/ subsurface binary of Paris and reconnects the site—currently an urban island—with the greater city. The proposal reinscribes an ancient, civic procession from the transit gateway of Les Halles to the civic and judicial core at the Seine. Additionally, the Institut, comprised of a vocational school, performance spaces, and the Marche des Champeaux (welcomed back to the center from the periphery) manifests the transient population’s agency on the city and reconsiders the role of an Urban Laboratory in transforming the identity of Paris and the greater European Union.

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