Displacement Ecologies
by Highfill, Brantley Frederick, M.Arch., RICE UNIVERSITY, 2011, 66 pages; 1498816

Abstract:

This thesis defines displacement as the occupation of infrastructural voids for collective use. By calibrating patterns of appropriation, I propose displacement as a formal strategy for leveraging issues of demand.

The discipline of architecture is becoming arguably subsumed by "sustainability"- an agenda which responds to demand with increased efficiency. Instead, this thesis ask how might systems of efficiency be leveraged for new modes of collectivity?

Specifically, this project re-appropriates growing energy needs by proposing a pumped storage facility in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Current technologies accommodate the storage of energy through the physical displacement of water: a spatial exchange that I leverage to increase the city's collective space.

Displacement reorganizes mass:void relationships. What if we design all voids? The Void:Void condition is a matrix of containers - some filled with people and others with water. Adjusting to changing energy and programmatic demands, displacement occurs as one void appropriates another.

 
AdviserNeyran Turan
SchoolRICE UNIVERSITY
SourceMAI/ 50-01, p. , Aug 2011
Source TypeThesis
SubjectsLandscape architecture; Civil engineering; Architecture
Publication Number1498816
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