2021.x
The 21st Century has brought with it a recognition of humanity’s responsibility for stewardship of the planet. Great ecological problems have, in the past, been placed out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and at the peripheries of civilization. Such is the case for uranium disposal cells, expansive, low-lying holding containers for toxic remnants, scattered in rural locales across the Southwest of the United States. These giant modern mounds form piles of tailings that are placed in the ground and then covered with soils, clays and plastics, intended to mitigate the toxic impact on the surrounding landscapes and persons for the next 1,000 years. In our age of the late anthropocene, the removal of accountability from entities who generated these terrain vague is inexcusable. This thesis speculates on a second generation Disposal Cell (Mound 2.0) wherein domestication of toxicity challenges and makes visible contemporary ethics as it relates to environmental injustices on native lands.
The thesis asks: if we had a chance at a do over, could we harness and remediate unreclaimed soils. The vacant Orphan Lode Mine at Grand Canyon National Park offers an inaccessible location within that canonical American landscape, a blank spot amidst public lands. This project proposes a process of cleaning up the contaminated soil through the reuse of soil in temporary protective materials that would allow inhabitation once again. The resultant form calls for two wings of program set into a landscape scraped clean from contaminants. Provocations surrounding current debates on indigenous land use and reparations are made by providing spaces for tribal and federal entities that serve both distinct and collaborative purposes. The longevity of toxicity contrasts with the temporary programming and the impermanence of the dismantlable structure on the site, suggesting a fluid approach towards land ownership.
These current generation mounds follow an architectural trajectory established in the writings of Adolf Loos as he referenced mounds as an origin point for architecture, acknowledging the technics and tools involved in their formation as well as their precognitive presence (through their form and knowledge of use) as the most foundational encounter of the objective and subjective qualities of an architecture. The project aims to reverse the perverse problems of the disposal cell. At its origin a sacred object, the weight of modernity inherent in the extraction of Uranium suggests that mounds be humanized again. The question of the mound is a question of three reversals; the reenchantment of the image of the mound corrupted by its associations, the subversion of current narratives surrounding remote land use through the intertwining of indegenous and federal programs and the reworlding of toxic landscapes through their proximity to inhabitation.
Keywords: Mound, Remediation, Toxicity, Public Lands, Landscape, Permanence
The 21st Century has brought with it a recognition of humanity’s responsibility for stewardship of the planet. Great ecological problems have, in the past, been placed out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and at the peripheries of civilization. Such is the case for uranium disposal cells, expansive, low-lying holding containers for toxic remnants, scattered in rural locales across the Southwest of the United States. These giant modern mounds form piles of tailings that are placed in the ground and then covered with soils, clays and plastics, intended to mitigate the toxic impact on the surrounding landscapes and persons for the next 1,000 years. In our age of the late anthropocene, the removal of accountability from entities who generated these terrain vague is inexcusable. This thesis speculates on a second generation Disposal Cell (Mound 2.0) wherein domestication of toxicity challenges and makes visible contemporary ethics as it relates to environmental injustices on native lands.
The thesis asks: if we had a chance at a do over, could we harness and remediate unreclaimed soils. The vacant Orphan Lode Mine at Grand Canyon National Park offers an inaccessible location within that canonical American landscape, a blank spot amidst public lands. This project proposes a process of cleaning up the contaminated soil through the reuse of soil in temporary protective materials that would allow inhabitation once again. The resultant form calls for two wings of program set into a landscape scraped clean from contaminants. Provocations surrounding current debates on indigenous land use and reparations are made by providing spaces for tribal and federal entities that serve both distinct and collaborative purposes. The longevity of toxicity contrasts with the temporary programming and the impermanence of the dismantlable structure on the site, suggesting a fluid approach towards land ownership.
These current generation mounds follow an architectural trajectory established in the writings of Adolf Loos as he referenced mounds as an origin point for architecture, acknowledging the technics and tools involved in their formation as well as their precognitive presence (through their form and knowledge of use) as the most foundational encounter of the objective and subjective qualities of an architecture. The project aims to reverse the perverse problems of the disposal cell. At its origin a sacred object, the weight of modernity inherent in the extraction of Uranium suggests that mounds be humanized again. The question of the mound is a question of three reversals; the reenchantment of the image of the mound corrupted by its associations, the subversion of current narratives surrounding remote land use through the intertwining of indegenous and federal programs and the reworlding of toxic landscapes through their proximity to inhabitation.
Keywords: Mound, Remediation, Toxicity, Public Lands, Landscape, Permanence
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︎ with
︎︎︎ Zeina Koreitem (thesis advisor)
︎︎︎ Anna Neimark (thesis prep advisor)
︎︎︎ John Cooper (cultural critic)
︎︎︎ Jasmine Benyamin (cultural critic)
︎︎︎ Marrikka Trotter (about mounds)
︎︎︎ Zeina Koreitem (thesis advisor)
︎︎︎ Anna Neimark (thesis prep advisor)
︎︎︎ John Cooper (cultural critic)
︎︎︎ Jasmine Benyamin (cultural critic)
︎︎︎ Marrikka Trotter (about mounds)
Special Thanks To
︎︎︎ Artem Panchenko
︎︎︎ Charite Carballo
︎︎︎ Yash Mehta
︎︎︎ Lana Yuan
︎︎︎ Tianze Li
︎︎︎ Omid Dorrani
︎︎︎ Yara Kamali
︎︎︎ Lieven Baert
︎︎︎ Sean Gorton
︎︎︎ Casper Clausen
︎︎︎ Artem Panchenko
︎︎︎ Charite Carballo
︎︎︎ Yash Mehta
︎︎︎ Lana Yuan
︎︎︎ Tianze Li
︎︎︎ Omid Dorrani
︎︎︎ Yara Kamali
︎︎︎ Lieven Baert
︎︎︎ Sean Gorton
︎︎︎ Casper Clausen