Category F.A.D. works
Suites of New Elemental Landscapes
[Map of Upper Klamath Lake, Southern Oregon. The lake is approximately 80,000 acres in surface area and is seen here during a summer bloom of cynaobacteria called Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, or ‘AFA’. AFA feed upon copious amounts of phosphorous in the nutrient-laden water, caused in part by extensive landscape transformations and subsequent shifts in water flow […]
Making the Geologic Now
[Aerial view of Amwaj Island, Bahrain, where 2.79 million square meters have been reclaimed from the sea. The foundation of these islands and its surrounding breakwaters are made of geotubes, sausage-like casings of geotextile fabric that have been pumped full of 12 million cubic meters of dredged ocean sediments recycled from navigation channels and marinas. […]
Invitation to DredgeFest NYC
[Left: The British Headquarters Map, circa 1782, considered one of the most detailed surveys of Mannahatta’s early topography and ecology. Right: Mannahatta map illustrating the differences in the island’s elevation between 1609 and today. Grays and blacks indicate increases in elevation, mainly waterways that have been filled in, while browns indicate decreases in elevation, such […]
Staring at Goats IX: the Para-normal
[Lyn Cassady, former secret U.S. military psychic soldier (…or was he?) tests his interrogative prowess by attempting to stare a goat to death. His successful attempt is authentically recorded by the video camera at his side. We, as viewer, see this as filtered through memories created prior to Cassady’s transformative ‘Jedi’ training, in which his […]
Talking Dredge at Studio-X NYC
If you are in or near NYC later this month, our cohorts will be presenting some of our recent research at Studio-X NYC: “For the first LI@SX of 2012, Studio-X NYC is delighted to welcome Rob Holmes and Stephen Becker of Mammoth and Tim Maly of Quiet Babylon, three-quarters of the Dredge Research Collaborative (with […]
Landscapes of Dredge
If you are in the D.C. area, I’ll be giving a presentation at Virginia Tech’s Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center this Friday at 4pm EST. As part of a soft landscapes mini series, we will be presenting our recent research into what we like to call the dredge cycle. Rather than a linear act of industrial engineering, […]
Staring at Goats VIII: the In-situ Field Guide
[Anonymous text at the Belmont field, as we saw it just prior to the return of the goats. We are fond of this sign’s shrewd use of materials consisting of a plastic 3 ring binder with the back ripped off and its binder clips retooled as clasps. Delivered without punctuation, it has a wonderfully ambiguous […]
Staring at Goats VII: Feral and Very Urban
[Canadian Thistle, Cirsium arvense, up close (above) and in its urban habitat (below). Along with Bull Thistle, this plant likely made its accidental introduction to North America from Eurasia and North Africa through contaminated seeds or hay. Extremely difficult to eradicate, Canadian Thistle was one of the first plants listed on the U.S. Government’s noxious […]
Staring at Goats VI (Version 2.0)
[Click the bottom image for a much larger view] As of yesterday, the Goats on Belmont project is now in its second trial run, merging urban ecology experimentation with land management strategy and urban event. If you are wondering what we are talking about and/or missed our series of posts that ran concurrently with our […]
Urban Field Manuals
“In considering novel urbanisms, it is important not only to investigate new urban processes and kinds of organization, but also to re-evaluate the methodologies by which we intervene in urban systems and spaces. The traditional tools of the urbanist are the capital project and the contract document; the capital project originates with a major initial […]
Free Association Design 