Date of Award

Spring 5-30-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Architecture (MArch)

Department

Architecture

First Advisor

Daniel Ibanez

Second Advisor

Damian White

Abstract

Cities are full of risk-mitigation infrastructure to protect ourselves from floods, erosion and threatening natural disasters. These infrastructures include underground retention tanks, dams and channelized river. They are purposefully hidden away because they are under highways or underground. Most of risk-mitigation infrastructures are under-utilized ninety- five percent of the time. They only serve one function for two weeks every year. They are empty most of the year. Is there an alternative project to consider these risk-mitigation infrastructures while they are completely mono-functional and under-utilized?

Along with my inquiry to utilize risk-mitigation infrastructures, I am critiquing the “blackboxing” and “under-utilization” of processes that happen in infrastructures. “blackbox” is a term used to describe processes or progressions which are not accessible to public, or presented without transparency. Therefore, “blackboxed” processes reject systemic alteration. How the risk-mitigation infrastructures run, when it runs and related processes are blackboxed. These processes include as sweat labor, commodification cost of raw materials and embedded energy. I aim to open blackboxes which are inherent in risk-mitigation infrastructures.

This directed resarch project aims to not only reveal the number of processes that are blackboxed today, but also to propose alternative imaginaries for under-utilized infrastructures to be visible, hybrid and functional all around the year.

Included in

Architecture Commons

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