Date of Award
Spring 6-2-2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)
Department
Landscape Architecture
First Advisor
Leslie Lee
Second Advisor
Claire Fellman
Abstract
The research starts with an interest in waste management in New York City which is the most wasteful city in the world. The city spends extra energy and creates more environmental and social problems by transporting them out of the city and dumping them in the landfill.
With the original question of how to bring the waste back to the city and how to get people close to the waste, Phase I investigates the composition, quantity and mobility of the waste management in New York City and raises the objective of bringing waste back into the city within the broader emotional experience of the sublime. Phase II scopes down to organic waste and explores the potentials of vacant lots inside of Lower East Manhattan. Phase III proposes a composting park on the East River that cooperates with the community gardens across the community and engages residents in different phases of waste management.
The research project is about how to connect urban residents to the magnitude of collective waste and to the phenomenon, process and power of the biome to transform organic waste back into soil, into food, and into a new life cycle. In the future of the Anthropocene and the era of the city, waste facilities and infrastructure are considered as opportunities to re-imagine the urban landscape and the relationship between human and nature.
Recommended Citation
Pei, Yu, "Wastescape : stitching the process of natural decomposition back into the public realm" (2018). Masters Theses. 265.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/265
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