JUNKTOPIA

from YingyingYan Portfolio 2023_UCL Application

by yingying yan

CLIMATE MUSEUM

Academic work, Carnegie Mellon University

Year 4 Semester I, 2021

Location: New York City

Partner: Jasmine Lee

Professors: Hal Hayes

JunkTopia is a fantastical urban theme park, showing the role of humans in the greater cycle of waste, and exposing the inner workings of waste transformation to the public eye. Our project responds directly to the past of Gansevoort Peninsula as the site of both a waste incinerator and a proposed marine transfer station, which was scrapped due to objections from new residents. Junktopia will make the hidden infrastructure which supports our society visible, highlighting the responsibility of humans in the waste cycle and environmental inequity by allowing the users to view, experience, and take part in the many mechanical processes interpreted in the park. In a micro scale, JunkTopia connects individuals to the greater whole of the waste cycle and passes on the green philosophy while connecting back to the district’s historical functions. In a macro scale, JunkTopia also aims to create a ripple effect through social ecology by shifting people’s value through their experience of the park and establish a community of concern about dark ecology. Ultimately, JunkTopia will become a catalyst of change, where even people who might not have been to it will come to know its name.