the megastructure

prototypical machine for the remediation of post-oil towns
port arthur, texas

Iso of Mat Megastructure and rail infrastructure

Aggregation Models–Structural Logic, Material economy, Structural economy

Module Aggregation (Copy)

planes can be grafted to create large spans underneath, and new landscapes above

Module Aggregation (Copy)

Cluster and Growth

Module Aggregation (Copy)

Cluster and Growth

Module Aggregation (Copy)

Cluster and Growth

Module Aggregation (Copy)

Cluster and Growth

Elevations of Single Module–Easily adaptable characteristics

Section Through Coastline/ Water Remediation

Study Models (Copy)

Megastructure Over Time (Copy)

Year 2100

Megastructure Over Time (Copy)

Year 2021

Megastructure Over Time (Copy)

Year 2025

Megastrucutre Over Time (Copy)

Year 2045

Megastructure Over Time (Copy)

Year 2070

Initial Models (Copy)

Module Study

Initial Models (Copy)

Module Study

Study Model (Copy)

Module Studies

Initial Model (Copy)

Module Studies

Initial Model (Copy)

Module Studies

Initial Model (Copy)

Module Studies

Interior Scenes (Copy)

Megastructures have historically sought to further densify already metropolitan areas, and failed to propose a way to sustain social and economic mobility. Rather than relying on bigness as a means of urban densification, the megastructure becomes a means of suburban remediation. This thesis offers an alternative to current ideas of zoning and challenges past ideas of the generic “technocratic” human through the design of megastructures that are to serve as a network for working, living, and playing built upon the infrastructure of the mineral extraction industry, and the town that emerged as a result. This reclaims the territory, protects against natural disaster, and provide new spaces of production and leisure. The thesis also poses the question of style, with many. megastructures of the past relying on industrial aesthetics, these megastructures push against the hegemony of past proposals and of the current built environment. designing for varying, but specific audiences. This new scale is to be the testing ground of how architecture can contribute in creating new models of post-human sustainability that will create new environments that allow for the introduction of different non native species, using both animal and human labor, localized agriculture, and facilitating the sustained cohabitation of human and nonhuman life.

Selected Reference Texts:

Banham, Reyner. Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past. New York: Monacelli Press, 1975.

Rudofsky, Bernard. The Prodigious Builders: Notes Towards a Natural History of Architecture. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition (1958), chapters “The Human Condition” and “The Public and the Private Realm”

Uexküll Jakob von. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: with a Theory of Meaning. Minneapolis: Univ. Press, 2010.

Hayden, Dolores. Seven American Utopias: Landscapes, Dwellings, and Towns, 1790-1940. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976.

Nixon, Rob. “The Anthropocene: The Promise and Pitfalls of an Epochal Idea,” at Edge Effects

http://edgeeffects.net/anthropocene-promise-and-pitfalls (2014)

Previous Material Presented 03/03/2021 Below

Networks (Copy)

Megastructures

Networks (Copy)

Existing Railways

Networks (Copy)

Water

Networks (Copy)

Flood Map

Megastructure 01: The Ranch, Site plan and section.

Megastructure 02: Seawall site plan, connection to railyard

Construction Process (Copy)

Concrete base and sea wall, water collection

Construction Process (Copy)

Cores and follies

Construction Process (Copy)

Netted skin

Site Plan of Megastructure Chunk along the coastline. Algae farm growing outwards onto sea. Remediates 100,000 Gallons of water a day

Construction Process (Copy)

Cores are built

Construction Process (Copy)

Mass custom CLT Scaffolding is put inn place

Construction Process (Copy)

Final formwork installed

Construction Process (Copy)

The previous steps are all repeated to construct the base

Construction Process (Copy)

Floor is constructed

Construction Process (Copy)

Inflatable Greenhouses are secured

The Megastructure (Copy)

Previous Material Presented 03/03/2021 Below