Projects

Resourceful Networks: (re) Situating Trans-scalar Urban

​

Instructor: Karla Rothstein

Team: Santiago Martinez, Gyeom Chung, Javier Flores

GSAPP Summer 2022 - Summer Exhibition 22’

As the largest city in the world’s most wasteful country, New York City produces approximately 14 million tons of waste annually, equivalent to the weight of 50 Empire State Buildings. 75% of New York City’s garbage spreads to landfills in other states. We seek to change the perception of waste, looking into the concept not as a noun but as a verb, the action when a resource is being squandered, as a way of proposing strategies to see this element not as an urban and environmental problem, but as an asset. The project looks into each category of waste, its distinct characteristics and life spans – currently treated equally and largely sent out of the metropolis – to design a system of in-situ local infrastructures that can turn its current spreading cycle into a full circle. An integrated system, managed through four agents, each aligned with a type of waste, informs an interconnected network of different scales, speeds, and conversions.

We selected the South Bronx’s area of Mott Haven for the prototype of this transcalar project. The neighborhood is one of the poorest areas of New York and also one of the dirtiest due to cuts in the Department of Sanitation. Instead of only designing a more efficient machine, this prototype desires to redefine the current system and New Yorker’s perception of waste, seeking to empower the community through an evolutionary program that promotes creative upcycling as a tool for economic autonomy. This redefinition involves new, multi-scalar interactions between waste and people by incentivising resource management as part of the urban landscape. Giving these materials a permanent but evolving space in the city, the proposal creates new opportunities for community engagements where the cycle of consumption and production occupies a greater role in NYC urban life.