Folding (and Unfolding): A Site-Responsive Strategy for Reusing Construction and Demolition Waste

Author

Jennifer AnsleyFollow

Date of Award

Spring 6-1-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)

Department

Landscape Architecture

First Advisor

Tiago Torres-Campos

Second Advisor

Tamara Kaplan

Third Advisor

Andrea Johnson

Abstract

Discarding—in its most reductive formulation— is a sorting operation that makes distinctions between materials (as well as objects, people, communities, and landscapes) based on perceived value. In her book Waste of the World, Nicky Gregson, therefore, argues for a more careful collection-curation strategy that revalues and re-signifies “waste” to make it available for repair and reuse. Gregson, however, points to limited space and infrastructural capacity as a potential barrier to the development of new material handling strategies. My design responds by proposing a network of walls and paths that operate in each of the sites I’ve identified as an on-site waste collection-curation strategy while simultaneously articulating the historical and material processes that have produced each of these sites in their current conditions via processes of construction, demolition, and redevelopment that have destroyed communities alongside buildings and landscapes. These processes are articulated through the fold as both a concept and formal design strategy that harnesses the waste on site and subsumes it into new forms. Meanwhile, my design works to articulate a staging process for the disassembly of these buildings that makes more material available for collection and reuse, even in a densely developed urban metropolis, like New York City, allowing the history of the built environment to be incorporated into the city’s economic, cultural, and ecological transformation.

Recommended Citation

Ansley, Jennifer, "Folding (and Unfolding): A Site-Responsive Strategy for Reusing Construction and Demolition Waste" (2024). Masters Theses. 1246.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1246

Creative Commons License

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