"‘Instant’ Ecology Factory"

—2013

An exuberant attempt to organize “the city” around its hidden hydrological systems. In reference to the “Four Environmentalisms” thesis from 2020, this first thesis probably falls somewhere between the “Machine” and the “Prosthetic”. Notably, how it functions as an autonomous Machine is unclear, if only finding legibility in its structural aesthetic. It does clearly do work to daylight and connect local hydrological systems and so might succeed by the rubric of the Prosthetic. However, the project as a whole somewhat falters when confronted with the question of what the “Architecture is doing” compared to the programs it houses. Like many environmental projects from the oughts, this building “does things” primarily through what it contains (green houses, civic events, unseen filtering beds) rather than through Form, Tectonics, Phenomena or measurable Performances.

A field condition of parts which reproduce an urban hydrological network are originally held inside a central building that makes the largest necessary leap for the system: across an interstate.

The architecture therefore functions as a generic frame that contains these moveable programs. For its own localized purposes, this frame system does contort itself somewhat to the specificities of the site.

If all goes well, the vital programs of this project leave the central building, proliferating along the ecological corridor they have fostered, leaving the original structure empty, a playscape for future generations.

Very 2013.