Beautiful Chaos- R.M.Drake — I love this poem!
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A flutter. A beat. A flush of the skin.
Your presence ignites a passion in me
That can be described only as love.
The warmth. The comfort. The room filled with laughter and absurdity.
You’ve made me. I’ve made you.
We have lived and lied and shed many tears. We have screamed and hid from ourselves and others to once again find ourselves wrapped in each-others’ arms.
Your smile, your laugh, your kiss on the forehead makes me feel your love and let’s me know you care.
To quote one of my favorite movies…
“I hate the way you’re always right
I hate it when you lie
I hate it when you make me laugh
Even worse when you make me cry
I hate the way you’re not around
And the fact that you didn’t call
But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you
Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all”
-10 things I hate about you
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i don’t know where this image originates, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately. finger prints and tree rings. identifiers of life lived.
we are all connected in some way. Truth and proof right there
Proof that we have lived…
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Conversations have swarmed the idea of the post-industrial landscape for decades now. As the industries move out of the country or phase out completely, landscapes of opportunity emerge. Though many conversations are giving solutions to what we must do after the industry has been extinguished yet there are very few people discussing how we phase planning strategies into this process of de-industrialization.
On the waterfront of Cleveland, Ohio, giant mounds of iron ore lie dormant, leaching mercury and other harmful chemicals into the soil and water surrounding the site. Twenty-two acres of opportunity lie in the blank space on the master plan for the waterfront redevelopment. One white mask covers the site and indicates a fear or inability to even ponder the work that needs to be done to transform this para-industrial landscape into a lively, ecologically vibrant landscape again. Since the early 1900s, the waterfronts of many water-side cities have become marred with the remnants of industrial processes. From piles of raw material to scraps and even trash, these waterfronts have transformed from landscapes for the people to landscapes for industry.
The process of transformation will take decades but we shouldn’t put off planning until the industry moves away… it would be too late then. We will have missed an incredible opportunity to think about the temporal opportunities embedded within the years of planning. The site should be working towards more sustainable practices of storage and shipment of the raw materials such that it decreases the impact on the landscape.
What if we think about this landscape as a temporal process of phased development that responds to the need of the site to become rejuvenated and occupied once more. At present, large fences keep people out which the processes occur. Sunflowers grow wildly attempting to harvest the chemicals and metals from the landscape. Through a seven year cycle of planting and harvesting poplar or quaking aspen trees, we can accumulate the pollutants on the site such that the landscape becomes inhabitable.
The first building on the site would be the ACTIVE archive. A new storage technique freeing up the landscape to become a tree farm. The trees are hyper-accumulators which extract the toxins from the soil.
The second architectural intervention is the ecological laboratory. Processes of remediation are carefully observed and calculated to regulate the work being done and the rejuvenation process.
The third, fourth and fifth intervention was a series of housing complexes. These allow for people to come and see the processes of remediation. The air, the soil and the water are important to the process of understanding the ecological issue.
This is the beginning of a potential article to be posted about industrial landscapes. Now… to find a place to get it published.
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Wandering reestablishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.
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Today I truly understood after many many years that the act of submersing oneself in love means to drown out all the noise of the world. Inside this embrace of love, we find ourselves as one cradled by the knowledge of our potential happiness that each new day may bring. Stronger than ever, we stand together. Love.
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i feel the tug.
in just a few short weeks
it will rip.
just a phone call away
she says
with a subtle tinge of hopelesness
you’re leaving… anyway
she says
i need someone to take care of me
she says
as i selfishly walk out the door
get in my car and drive off
tears fall rolling off round cheeks
i plunge into the depths
where i all i hear are mumbles
words that mean nothing
swimming in my head
love. happiness. care.
blinded by the pools in my eyes
i seek shelter
wrapped in the lack of embrace
her arms nevermore
her cries fall upon straining ears
ears separated by time and distance
denial has been here too long
though it has taken root in my soul
tearing through the shreds of sanity
burying itself deeper inside
the fragile layers of my mind
she needs me
i say
with tears streaming down my face
hiccuping for air
as if my chest will never settle again
i never knew how much i needed her
she keeps me sane
now. NOW. it is madness that i feel
piercing pain shoots through my chest
the TEAR - the rip
the TEAR - the river of emotion
I gasp for air
and choke on saliva.
weeks until she may be gone forever.
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May 11. 2027.
It was the night of the storm I will never forget. Rains beat down on the shingles of the house with blue siding. Our steps that provided escape were blocked by the creeping water. Earth shook as the ground cracked open to reveal the depth of the urban surface. Layers of time, palimpsest, bricks rock and soil, that serve as markers of our existence. Waters rushed, carving way for the mass of flood behind them. On this night, we were thankful we lived on 236’. Everyone that lived on 234’ and lower… were submerged. The first floor became a cistern as the waters sent people scrambling for higher ground.
This is a story about a catastrophe and how it changed the face of Memphis, TN. We sit idly by and watch our natural systems get conquered by engineering feats. Controlled nature becomes angry and will revolt. This project is an attempt to reconcile this potential conflict with a responsive urban intervention that anchors us in the fluid landscape. Architectural solutions become the grounding mechanisms that connect deep earth to the ephemeral nature of the clouds. The architecture of the ground plane undulates to encapsulate space and weave through the series of rooted structures, breathing air back into the stifled city horizontally and vertically.
The project is a landscape of critique, an urban gesture of connection and a series of architectures of engagement. It questions the paradigms put in place over the past century that privileges the need for stability within the urban landscape and explores the potential of the fusion of many forces to create unified woven habitat for both people and urban fauna. A landscape of butterflies and birds, otters and tall grasses weaves through the urban landscape, holding, diverting and allowing water to soak into the porous ground.
1. Prepare the ground.
2. Resurface the city
3. Weave a new ‘scape
4. Connect earth to sky
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Folds and flows. To understand more of the movement of water as an urban phenomenon, this exploration takes watercolor and folded paper and allows gravity the freedom to play.
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Opportunities to observe these qualities have diminished as visible water has almost disappeared from everyday life, much of it diverted through pipes and culverts for domestic use and agriculture, or transformed into virtual water by the food processing and consumer products industries. The absence of water from the public realm has been accompanied by the realization that fresh water is itself a precious commodity, scarce or in limited supply throughout much of the world, and a growing awareness of the importance of conservation, as well as the preservation and restoration of water resources in natural ecosystems.
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Bernd Becher, Hilla Becher. Water Towers. 1988.
Throughout the landscape, signifiers of a new water paradigm, there are water towers. The water towers become beacons to the new paradigm. A shift from the stifling ways of the past to a resurgence of our dependence on the importance of our connection to the aquifers that lie hundreds of feet in the ground.
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Memphis in the Gulf.
A series of maps showing how the world would change as a result of the polar icecaps melting overnight.
Source - National Geographic
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Orvieto Well.
a. St. Patrick’s Well. Photo: Getty Images
b. M. A. Ray, Orvieto, plan & section
c. M. A. Ray, Orvieto, photocollage.
Deep into the earth, the wells of the cities come alive. The walls glow with the light of reading lamps. Echoes travel up into the chamber and resonate, reminding us of our place within this world.
Wells. Towers. A perpetual archaeological dig. The earth erupts, cracks, collapses beneath our feet, water rushes past our feet, smooth stones silently rest slick with wear.
well. a place of deep engagement with the depths of the urban surface.
tower. our connection to the sky. the clouds. the heavens.
the dig. an excavation. a disturbance of the terra firma. a quake. collapse.
zone x is a liquid ground. the anchors are what root us in place. they allow us the freedom to move up and down within the city, to engage with the depths of place and the ephemera of the sky.
clouds.sky
water.surface
rock.earth