■ Stratify The stratified ground is conceived as a three-dimensional profile, within which living and dynamic systems - vegetation, flow, microbial action - originate, develop, flow through, or are contained. Its profile extends beyond the top/interface layer to a series of overlapping horizons that interchange resources for reinforcement and symbiosis.
In this chapter, the ground of contemporary landscape is reconsidered as an active agent and a medium of exchange: a singular system that can accommodate multiple processes and programs. Within this framework, Stratify investigates a departure from the concept of ground as an object or a noun (as in surface, paving, soil). Instead it posits ground as a verb, which proposes a series of operations that layer, composite, and aggregate living and nonliving elements to achieve a singular, unified and integrated system, characterized by interchanges and reciprocity between multiple components and properties. Rather than asking what it is, Stratify asks what it does. Stratify re-examines a shift in the ground’s material categorization from a traditional definition, such as surface or soil, to considering its ability to facilitate and accommodate dynamic processes. These processes are often composed of multiple, surging, and overlapping forces, including growth, physical flows, program elements, and weather cycles. The projects featured in this chapter all fold multiple functions into a singular system, and allow issues like drainage, water retention or infiltration, vegetation, and structural load-bearing capacity to become integral to the design rather than addon components. This approach results in designs that cannot be diluted or compromised due to budgetary constraints since the designs are generated with an inherent economic efficiency. As examples, The Maritime Youth House, Safe Zone, and Olympic Sculpture Park all employ single, yet complex systems to negotiate program, topography, contamination, stability, and drainage.
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The stratified ground is conceived as a three-dimensional profile, within which living and dynamic systems - vegetation, flow, microbial action - originate, develop, flow through, or are contained. Its profile extends beyond the top/interface layer to a series of overlapping horizons that interchange resources for reinforcement and symbiosis. Within a composite system materials breathe, exchange nutrients, seal contaminants, facilitate drainage, retain and infiltrate water, contain technological infrastructure, sustain vegetation, provide structural support, and host multiple programs. Transitions between softscape and hardscape, between the shell and the flesh, between biologically active and nonactive elements become systematic, seamless, and “functionally graded” - a term borrowed from material science that describes composite structures with a gradual variation between different material compositions or properties, much like an epidermis. Site becomes a critical aspect in determining the array of requirements and dynamic forces with which the ground has to contend. Within the context of the contemporary urban environment, the ground may not be the ground anymore, but instead be a cutout suspended in midair; on top of a capped landfill or a roof structure; or floating within a watercourse. Such sites give rise to design that expresses the sectionality of the stratified ground: design that exposes or implies the ground’s layered construction, and design that demonstrates adaptations conducted by a single system as it adjusts to dynamic process forces. The High Line project features an exploration of a modular system that can adapt to many uses and configurations. Built on top of an elevated, derelict freight-rail
