A current exhibition at the Museum of London entitled ‘Postcards from the Future’ attempts to imagine how climate change will affect London.  The illustrators, Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones touch on issues such as the food crisis, rising sea levels, informal housing, etc. to give a vision for types of adaptation.

[Scenario: As the Gulf Stream slows a mini ice-age brings temporary relief to heat-weary Londoners. Winter skating becomes London’s most popular sport and Tower Bridge is a favourite spot. The scene harks back to the 17th century when artists loved to paint London’s Frost Fairs. Then, the Thames froze over because the river flowed sluggishly. Now, the river flows quickly but every winter the temperature falls to new lows. Image © Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones. Background photography © Jason Hawkes]

There are a few observations that can be deduced upon examination of the postcards. Firstly, the city will be succeeded by ‘nature’, further blurring the boundaries of the contemporary metropolis.  Secondly, infrastructure and (select) monuments will be some of the last remaining elements in such a metropolis; and thirdly, that housing will take the form of dense informal settlements or ‘slums’.  If one were to use these postcards as warnings, they would suggest more current design emphasis on infrastructural deployment, housing, and incorporating productive nature into the city.  More importantly, the extreme visions reveal a lack of resilience in the city.

[Scenario: Buckingham Palace shanty town. The climate refugee crisis reaches epic proportions. The vast shanty town that stretches across London’s centre leaves historic buildings marooned, including Buckingham Palace. The Royal family is surrounded in their London home. Everybody is on the move and the flooded city centre is now uninhabitable and empty – apart from the thousands of shanty-dwellers. But should empty buildings and land be opened up to climate refugees? Image © Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones. Background photography © Jason Hawkes]

While these images are certainly provocative, they give little evidence of actual researched scenarios of climate change.  The two typical depictions of such crises often are utterly utopian or dystopian (think archigram vs. archizoom), both of which are problematic.  It is difficult for all to understand the exact ramifications of climate change, and that being said, I am interested on the role of nature and infrastructure depicted within these images.  ‘Nature’ is presented as a violent force (ice, floods) or a productive element (the rice paddies, tidal energy), both of which co-exist within dense urbanity. Infrastructure is rendered as a centralized point condition (Kew Nuclear Power Station) or as a distributed field (Tidal/ Wind) in the absence of people (through the photomontages).  These various depictions of both nature and infrastructure not only exist today but also are fairly traditional. Some of the more innovative postcards examine the merging of nature, infrastructure and the public in new ways.  In this regard, the distributed field of infrastructure and the productive use of nature are interesting because they both embrace a larger surface condition, and therefore a notion of landscape.  But this isn’t a picturesque or formal landscape of the English or French Gardens; it is a multivalent condition that could provide more resilience to the future metropolis.

[Scenario: Thames Tidal Power. The river remains a focus of power generation, just as it was for the great coal-powered power stations of old. Around the old Thames Barrier a number of new tidal power stations are using the tidal flows up and down the Thames to generate electricity for thousands of London businesses and homes. Image © Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones. Background photography © Jason Hawkes]

The provocative images are on display from October 2010 to March 2011.

[Scenario: Parliament Square rice paddies. This view across Parliament Square shows paddy fields running up to the walls of the Palace of Westminster. The land that once housed political protest is now part of the city’s food production effort. In this scenario London has adapted to rising water tables in radical ways. Managed flooding is now the name of the game, as is self-sufficiency in food. Central London is a network of rice paddies – and Londoners’ diet is largely rice-based. Image © Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones.]

Increasingly, carbon emission issues will need to be addressed at a very large, even regional and urban, scale to offset a downward spiral. And nowhere is this more pressing than in parts of rapidly-developing China. London Metropolitan University’s Unit 8, led by CHORA (Raoul Bunschoten) and Tomaz Pipan is exploring just such an initiative in a studio titled “Urban Incubators.” They write that “Energy is the city’s new design force.” Unit 8 investigated this by inviting students to develop a energy map of an area of Xiamen, documenting it as a “cohabitation of processes.” Index maps and scenario-modeling, techniques and methods well demonstrated in much of CHORA’s work, provides a catalyst for a prototypical urban approach. Each proposal was held accountable to 4 criteria: branding, earth (site prototype), flow (processes and exchanges), and incorporation (development strategy). The scale of thinking is powerful and ambitious.

There are many fantastic provocative projects that emerged from the studio – though we thought to only highlight a few here, as the website itself is very effective. Proposals range in terms of implementability, scale, and degrees of publicness. Below is Patrick Fryer’s “Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure.” This project strategically inserts a vein-like network organization of agriculture in a site of expanding industrial lands. Aquaponic greenhouses form the primary agent in site, with a complementary matrix of composting and other ground-based agro-processes. The center spine is host to an intensive nutrient flow system, integrating the greenhouses. Intermittently strung along the spine are public programs including housing and schools.

[Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure - Branding, by Patrick Fryer.]

[Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure - Earth, by Patrick Fryer.]

[Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure - Flow, by Patrick Fryer.]

[Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure - Incorporation, by Patrick Fryer.]

Another provocative project is “Algal Economies” by Tom Down. This project recognized that much of China’s “urban villages” have limited access to land and have struggled to find agency other than as a overcrowded hub for transient populations. Instead, this proposal offers biofuel, specifically algae harvesting, as a new economy for the residents. Scaffolding-like structured farms are integrated into the village architecture in semi-public and semi-private spaces, such as roofs, patios, and courtyards. Banks of algae production line these structures, offering a new produce for the new city: renewable energy.

[Algal Economies - Earth, by Tom Down.]

[Algal Economies - Flow, by Tom Down.]

A third project is “Bamboo Components” by Benjamin Walton. This proposal capitalizes on the wasted land that has emerged through the combination of rapid development and land ownership laws of Xiamen. These sites are then tested for intense bamboo farming.  Bamboo is harvested for engineered timber construction in newly constructed production towers.

[Xiamen Bamboo Components - Earth, by Benjamin Walton.]

[Xiamen Bamboo Components - Flow, by Benjamin Walton.]

Editors Note: File under Feedback: Architecture’s New Territories, an InfraNet Lab seminar at Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design / University of Toronto. Guest post and images are by Gerard Gutierrez.

———–

The four species of Asian Carp, Bighead, Black, Silver, and Grass, have become a menace in the Mississippi River basin as desperate attempts have been made to stop its entrance into the Great Lakes. Its seemingly insatiable appetite has endangered many local species by consuming much of the local food sources as different Asian Carp species feed on aquatic grasses and various types of phytoplankton. The fish can reach a length of 4ft long and weigh up to 100lbs. This extreme size has also become a danger to recreational boaters and fisherman as the fish can jump up to 6ft out of the water when startled by incoming watercraft.

[Carp tracking since 1972. The US and Canadian Governments formed the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in 1955 specifically to battle sea lamprey, which had devastated the fishery.]

The initial introduction of this invasive species to the United States occurred in 1973 as Bighead, Silver and Black Carp from Taiwan were first introduced to the U.S. by an Arkansas fish farmer who used his own stock of Grass Carp as an experimental weed control agent. In 1979, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, working with a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), utilized Silver and Bighead Carp as an experimental cleaning agent in sewage treatment plants around the state. By the 1990s, a large population of Silver and Bighead Carp escaped into the Mississippi River when Southern aquaculture facilities became flooded. This event started the migration of the fish up the Mississippi River and has resulted in the great proliferation of the various species, especially bighead and silver. At its most extreme concentrations, the Carp has accounted for over 90% of the total biomass within certain stretches of the Mississippi and Chicago river systems.

[Tests for an electric fish barrier in Chicago.]

The Chicago River system has become the final battleground for preventing the Asian Carp from entering Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes at large. Numerous attempts have been made to prevent the carp’s movements, amongst these has been the installation of two underwater electric fences by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2002 and 2006. These experimental barriers soon proved to be a failure as fish were found upstream from the fence. When the barriers needed maintenance, a poison was dumped into the river to stop the fish as vital work was completed. Most recently, extreme measures have been proposed that would close the Chicago Shipping Canal as a last resort to stopping the Carp from entering Lake Michigan.

[Bow-hunting Carp as kill sport.]

Many entrepreneurs are currently developing new ways of utilizing the carp. The most obvious has become turning the many carp into a viable food export to various parts of Asia and certain parts of North America. Other emerging uses include processing the fish into animal feed, omega-3 oil and even using the fish as a source for bio-fuel. With these emerging uses, the fish can be envisioned as a lucrative future commodity that can be farmed on a large regional scale. In a future where the Asian Carp has entered the Great Lakes ecosystem, can large-scale Carp-farming help control the rampant growth of the invasive species? Certain stretches of the Great Lakes shores can be converted to large fish farming beds while many parts of the Mississippi River system can also become fish farming areas that would capitalize on the abundance of Carp that would be processed for food export, animal feed, omega-3 oil, and bio fuel.

Also from the Feedback seminar:
Corn Belt 2.0: Syncing the Starchscape, Matthew Spremulli
Re-Link: The Physical Network of Data, Ali Fard
Border Economies: the Maquiladora Export Landscape, Juan Robles
Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, Fei-Ling Tseng

Excess typically implies in addition to what is required, a by-product, or residue.  The continual growth model of our economic system produces a vast amount of excess.  Could excess become part of a larger productive system if it was put to work?  This meaning, is there an ecology of excess?

This notion of Ecologies of Excess was the premise of an intriguing studio taught by Eva Franch Gilabert at Rice University, that I had the pleasure of reviewing last week.  According to Franch, the ideological succession of machine for living by organism for living perpetuated the same social, political and environmental dilemmas of the previous century.  Franch envisions a new movement, Ecologies of Excess, during the 22nd century that "provide us with a guide to thinking, designing and building based on what we, human beings, produce without measure: endless amounts of energy in social [crowds], political [wars], and environmental terms [pollution].  In sum: Excess"

Set in the year 2101, the studio centered on the design of a Worlds Fair Exhibition Pavilion, deemed "Great Exhibition of the Works of Excess of All Nations".  Each studio participant was to site their project in a different country and analyze the productive aspects of excess.  The studio produced fascinating results, two projects of which are highlighted below.

[Top: The floating, tangled settlements of trash facilitate the spread of invasive species (like mussels, barnacles, invertebrates, and pelagic crabs) across the ocean. Middle: Invasive species often attach to floating plastic settlements, affecting the oceans oxygen, phytoplankton, and zooplankton production, to the detriment of native ecosystems. Bottom: The average cubic centimeter of ocean water holds about one million phytoplankton-producing-bacteria; however, if this bacteria attaches to plastic, it creates biofilm colonies on the surface of the ocean, depriving lower depths of an even distribution ocean nutrient cycling. Images Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

Polymergy Waterscapes by: Igraine Perkinson

Polymergy Waterscapes looks at the garbage gyre written about by InfraNet Lab last year.  The great pacific garbage patch is comprised of floating plastics that swirl within slow winds and ocean currents.  Entitled Polymergy Waterscapes, Igraine envisions a future typology that builds upon and with this trash.  Igraine states:

Whereas traditional patterns of urbanity sought to settle away from trash, Polymergy Waterscapes creates a floating aquatic society that inverses this relationship, using garbage as a generative device for new urbanism. The pavilion adopts a labyrinthine open system of channels that brings the trash to its proximity by disrupting the clockwise currents of the gyre. These systems grow by means of compaction, reducing debris by a factor of ten.

[Siting Strategy. Top: The gyre occupies an area of slow wind currents; as a result, fishermen and sailors rarely travel through it—hence, a lack of awareness of its presence. Middle: Warm water from the south crashes into cooler water from the north, creating a spiraling current that collects the floating garbage. Bottom: Each season affects ocean water temperatures, pushing the location of the gyre about 1000 miles north and south every time. Images Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

Sited at an opportune location for gathering garbage – where winds and currents are slowest – Polymergy Waterscapes not only raises awareness of this emerging continent of garbage, but also incorporates programmes that can take advantage of garbage – spas (heat generated by recycling process), research labs, and various recreational activities of play.  The accumulation or densification of the island over time slowly clears the larger mass of water.  Here, garbage is the unit of growth and the subject for occupation.

[A labyrinthine strategy of open water channels collects trash by disrupting the clockwise currents of the gyre, following a specific path typology that relates to process and program. Image Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

[Accumulation Legs, View of Model. Image Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

[Each program zone architecturalizes collected garbage uniquely (zone1 ex: accumulation wall, soft square, synthetic dunes, garbage whirlpool) constructing collective aspirations that result from the design process. Image Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

[Sections. Top: Other water channels empty debris into the collection ponds and topography terraces of Plastic Laboratories, which can then be closed off and left to dry in order to store contents for energy or research. Bottom: Polymergy Spa is an underwater refinery that melts plastic and converts it into energy, releasing mist as a result of the process, and adding a layer of privacy for each user—the relaxation seeker. Image Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

Species Indetermina by: Ashley Johnson
Species Indetermina tackles the issue of species migration in ballast water.  As globalized markets put increasing pressure on shipping, ballast water becomes a large issue.  This water is typically polluted (with the residue of the cargo) and often contains alien species, which are dumped in ports far from their origin.  These alien species often alter and eliminate parts of the local ecosystem.  Ashley Johnson takes advantage of these alien species in her project, Species Indetermina, by containing the ballast water and creating core samples of wildlife and landscape from different parts of the globe.  These contained ecosystem core samples essentially create a new zoo typology that is curated by shipping routes and alien ballast water.  Johnson sites her project in New Zealand, where she notes,  "in 2010 twenty new species of algae were discovered from samples taken in Auckland Harbour labeled species indetermina".

[Placement of a single port outside of Auckland Harbour where Ballast Water is typically dumped. Image courtesy of Ashley Johnson]

[Plan of Port at low tide. Image courtesy of Ashley Johnson]

Her containment port located outside the harbor would allow "The people of New Zealand to sail five minutes off their own coast and enter exotic new environments, on sea level with the new life, as well as up above in restaurants and observation decks." What is interesting about this scheme is that while sited in New Zealand, it could provide a prototype for dealing with ballast water at all international shipping ports across the globe.  A travelling network of contained (and contaminated) ecosystems, which introduce the public to new exotic worlds.

[Proliferation of exotic life. Image courtesy of Ashley Johnson]

[Exploded Axonometric showing public layers hovering above container. Image courtesy of Ashley Johnson]

Festival season is starting. In particular, we are excited about a slew of films that are part of the Canadian International Documentary Festival, nicknamed HotDocs, that runs April 29 – May 9, 2010 here in Toronto. With so many fascinating accounts represented in this edition, we thought it best to profile them here, for safe keeping. The tales we have selected chronicle landfills, clean energy wars, and land use ambiguities.

Waste Land, directed Lucy Walker (UK / Brazil)

[Waste Land, directed by Lucy Walker, shows May 1 and May 5.]

Lucy tracks artist Vik Muniz and his work with pickers of recyclable materials in Brazil’s Jardim Gramacho, arguably the world’s largest landfill site.

Land, directed by Julian Pinder (Canada)

[Land, directed by Julian Pinder, shows May 2 and 9.]

Burnt-out baby-boomers, Sandinistas, and ex-lefty capitalist developers clash in a wild-west showdown over land in a bucolic Nicaraguan seaside town.

Gasland, directed by Josh Fox (USA)

[Gasland, directed by Josh Fox, shows April 30 and May 2.]

Flammable tap water, mysterious ailments, poisoned land and livestock, Sundance prize-winner Gasland exposes the environmental calamities and cover-ups caused by natural gas drilling.

Into Eternity, directed by Michael Madsen (Denmark, Sweden, Finland)

[Into Eternity, directed by Michael Madsen, shows May 5 and 7.]

The scientific minds behind Finland’s massive underground nuclear waste storage facility, Onkalo, where radioactive waste must sit untouched for at least 100,000 years to neutralize its potential danger, are probed in Into Eternity.

Wistful Wilderness, directed by Digna Sinke (Netherlands)

[Wistful Wilderness, directed by Digna Sinke, shows May and 8.]

The island of Tiengemeten is getting a makeover. Originally tamed to serve as agricultural land, its now being left to the elements to revert back to wilderness. Filmmaker Digna Sinke documents 15 years of transformation.

Tankograd, directed by Boris Bertram (Denmark)

[Tankograd, directed by Boris Bertram, shows May 4 and 7.]

Chelyabinsk, Russia, once the site of a top secret Cold War atomic bomb factory, is now the most radioactively polluted city in the world. Its residents live with the consequences of catastrophic leaks and dumped toxic waste as cancers, auto-immune diseases, and undrinkable water flow freely. But the city most foul sprouts a most unlikely growth—the vibrant, inspiring Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theatre.

Dreamland, directed by Þorfinnur Guðnason (Iceland)

[Dreamland, directed by Þorfinnur Guðnason, shows May 2 and 4.]

With its hydroelectric and geothermal power surplus, Iceland’s clean energy initiatives have attracted heavy industries whose pollution decimates natural vegetation. A tale of sabotage from the frontlines of the green revolution.

I Bought a Rainforest, directed by Helena Nygren and Jacob Andren (Sweden)

[I Bought a Rainforest, directed by Helena Nygren and Jacob Andren, shows May 2 and 4.]

Jacob Andren, like over 400,000 other Swedish children, remembers raising money to help save a rainforest. Twenty years later, wondering if his efforts made any real impact, he visits Costa Rica to see whether this piece of land remains preserved.

They Come for the Gold, They Come for it All, directed by Pablo D’Alo Abba and Christian Harbarak (Argentina, Chile)

[They Come for teh Gold, They come for it All, directed by Pablo Abba and Cristian Harbaruk, shows May 6 and 8.]

In a small town on the border of Argentina and Chile, the residents of Esquel are conflicted over a lucrative bid from Canadian mining company Meridian Gold. On the one hand, the mine will provide much needed work for residents, half of whom live below the poverty line. On the other hand, the gold and silver extraction requires large amounts of water and cyanide.

You can access the complete listings–time, locations, details–here. Enjoy.

The melting of the polar caps will not only open up new shipping routes such as the North-West and Northern Passage, it has the potential to connect existing communities in the Arctic to a larger network of distribution.  Presently, most Arctic communities depend heavily on imported goods which are largely distributed via air.   As shipping routes emerge, local economies are enabled by producing and distributing goods both locally and regionally.  The following project, developed by Amrit Phull and Claire Lubell, in the Frozen Cities/ Liquid Networks studio at the University of Waterloo, examines how new infrastructure can be produced in the Arctic that allows for the transference from air to shipping logistics and, while doing so, addresses the issue of food production and coastal erosion in the Arctic.  It questions how remote coastal communities throughout Canada’s Arctic can establish self-sufficiency in anticipation of economic and environmental fluctuations.  As stated by Lubell and Phull:

The proposal seeks to provide a hard infrastructure which responds to the  immediate needs of the community, but is also the root of growth in a context where change in landscape, resources and community occurs at varying speeds. In particular the project examines the potential development of Port Churchill as well as a major international port in the Northwest Passage and how this can create a network of small ports, at existing communities, along the west coast of Hudson’s Bay.

[Systems Diagram showing the relationship created between the new infrastructure and community, cultural programmes, food production and energy. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Permafrost - current and projected showing areas of predicted coastal erosion. Freeze/ Thaw maps outlining new transportation routes. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull].

Many Arctic communities are currently serviced weekly by combi and turboprop aircraft, which are expected to be obsolete in the next decades.  These communities also rely on seasonal service by Sealift operations from Churchill and Montreal.  Many families eagerly await their seasonal shipping container of goods – whether food, clothing or cars.  The proposal by Lubell and Phull focuses on the community of Igloolik, situated at the opening of the Fury and Hecla Strait.  Igloolik is poised to be an ideal regional port that is opportunistically sited between the NW Passage (and its associated future international shipping ports) as well as local ports along the western edge of the Hudson Bay.  Igloolik currently has a populace of 1600, and home to centres of research and cultural programmes such as film and circus production companies.  Over the next five years, Igloolik has a projected population growth of 6800 – requiring vast amounts of resources for the increasing population.  The project is more specifically sited on the Northern shores of Igloolik, to reduce the coastal erosion in this vulnerable area.

[Ideal Siting of Igloolik to be a regional port that interfaces with an International and Local Ports. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull.]

[The difficulty and problems of imported food in the Arctic. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull].

[Typical Logistical Process for Food in the Arctic. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Delivery Process of Food. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[The delivery process of food - Detail. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

Paved airstrips are an immediate necessity to service these remote settlements, while port facilities will address the future changes in the Arctic – longer shipping seasons coupled with rapid population growth and their associated servicing.  In fact, as the melting ice sheds infrastructural isolation of these communities, air servicing will no longer be practical.  Phull and Lubell begin by designing an airstrip with a planned second life.  They ask:

How can the airstrip, a mark of every arctic community, become a highly integrated meeting place for different avenues of infrastructure? How can it provide the necessary framework to grow as a port and eventually be absorbed into a spreading community?

[Phasing Diagrams. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

Phase 1 – 2010 to 2015

Building of pneumatic silos, piles and airstrip deck of 1100 meters in length accommodates current ATR combi aircraft. Sealift vessels can dock and unload cargo onto the deck using their own cranes and cargo can be driven back to the community.

Phase 2- 2015 to 2020

Second deck is built in two stages: first the community warehouse and marina then the barge docks, large cargo dock, and under water research center / film and circus school. Barge docks can be used as ice fishing platforms in the winter. The airstrip deck still accommodates atr combi as sealift operations are still infrequent but ATR’s are aging (they were built in the 1960s)

Phase 3 – 2020 to 2040

ATR combi aircraft are reaching obsolescence, therefore only 600 meters of airstrip is required to accommodate small passenger aircraft. At the same time as phasing out food mail deliveries by air, food production connected to the barge docks and heat pump is phased in. The hydroponic greenhouse consists of a permanent portion and expands in the summer in both directions to include a community greenhouse. These expansions are appropriated for hockey, an indoor market, and extra port warehousing during the winter.

Phase 4- 2040 to 2100

Once aircraft are completely phased out other silos are built up to house formal community programs such as health care, library, and museum/archives, while smaller ones serve as general warm spaces in an open field. Paint markings on the airstrip tarmac encourage informal activities such as outdoor markets, a drive-in theatre, small recreational areas attached to the warm nodes, etc. The airstrip becomes an open public space with a few grounding amenities as the community grows towards it.

[Exploded Axonometric showing programmatic, energy and infrastructural assembly. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull].

This cohesive infrastructural typology could be emulated in similar communities and takes the form of a permanent intervention bridging between land and water as well as local and regional communities and products.  The port integrates all scales of marine traffic (cargo, container, cruise, barge, ferry, fishing) with various programmes focused on promoting self sufficiency within the community, including food production.

[Plans/ Sections of the various layers of the project. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Plan and Section Detail. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Transverse Section showing layering of infrastructure, energy and food production with Community Programmes. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Rendering of New Infrastructure Typology. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

The current relationship between community and the goods they rely on is faceless, and with the decline of subsistence hunting due to changing migration patterns, the connection to food is disappearing.  The project emphasizes this connection through on site food production which promotes trade between communities, not to mention decreasing reliance on the south for fresh goods and associated dependence on air infrastructure (which is both expensive and largely consuming of jet fuel).  The (air)port effectively acts as an infrastructural hub for bringing together local community around production, as well as connecting this community to larger regional networks through shipping.  The Greenhouse coupled within the port takes on different functions in the non-growing season, and is complimented with a market and cultural programs.  This not only connects the local community to their food but reintroduces the inherent skills of sharing and traditional cultural rituals.  The exchanges in this new infrastructure are manifold – economic, cultural and logistical.

[View of Interior. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

All images courtesy of Amrit Phull and Claire Lubell

[The amphibious landscape of Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories]

At 4,200 kilometres in length, the Mackenzie River in North-western Canada is one of the longest rivers in the world (11^th). Its watershed, 1.8 million square kilometres in size, drains one-fifth of the country. The River, whose headwaters begin in the Peace and Athabasca rivers, flows north, across the Arctic Circle to the Beaufort Sea, a territory rich in oil and natural gas resources.

[Mackenzie River Basin]

Landjacking, by University of Waterloo students Virginia Fernadez and Meaghan Burke, is a project which deals with the confluence of significant ecosystems, hydrological systems and resources.  Burke and Fernadez write: “The Mackenzie Basin is just one incidence of a major Arctic river coinciding with significant oil or gas deposits. Such sedimentary basins – where over time marine organisms have been deposited, and decayed to form oil or gas – are also found in the Russian Arctic."

By 2050, environmental pressures will increase melting ice and precipitation, increasing the annual discharge of the northern rivers such as the Mackenzie by 12-20 precent. This freshwater flows into the Beaufort Sea, becoming salt-water at the Delta. Collecting, treating and distributing just 4% of this excess water annually would produce 3 trillion m3 of water, enough to satisfy the annual water needs of 2 million Canadians.

Burke and Fernadez explain: “The existing Mackenzie Gas project is proposing an infrastructure for extraction and processing facilities and housing; all centered on a finite resource, natural gas.

[The river has served to gather several settlements and extraction sites along its length, to service the projected gas pipeline which is to run parallel to the river for approx. 1220km.]

Landjacking seeks to hijack the construction of the pipeline and build a water pipeline alongside the gas infrastructure, introducing a new renewable resource to the region’s economy. The river delta presents the opportunity for co-opting the natural lake system, to develop a freshwater industry that would promote local economies with longevity.”

Located close to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, the project profits from the relatively immunity from rising sea levels and storm surges while still collecting water from the river’s highest runoff.

[Geography of the Mackenzie Delta with its existing lakes, and proposed walls and canals networking the lakes into a new ecosystem]

The project essentially consists of three walls totalling 114km in length, which encircle 700km2 of territory near the Mackenzie Delta – a landscape ‘pock-marked’ with endless lakes. The project proposes to co-opt some of the lakes to act as natural wetlands to treat water flowing northward in the Mackenzie River.The water of the Mackenzie is polluted as various points downstream by mining, oil and gas works.

[Elements of an amphibious landscape: Existing lakes; River tributaries, New Flood walls; and Canals supplying and diverting water to lakes]

A combination of mechanical treatment and a gravitational network of collection, cleaning and storage lakes treat the highest water volume in the summer, and are supplanted in the winter by an entirely mechanical system. Smaller systems of wastewater management, aquaculture, snow collection and electricity production are connected to the water treatment diversifying the output of the system.  The clean water is then sent back south for irrigation and general consumption.

[Chemical and mechanical water treatment, as well as housing, recreation, services and transportation are embedded in the walls.]

The project is composed of a collection wall along the river where primary/initial water treatment occurs, and two secondary treatment walls linking the river with the land, all connected to the wetland system through pipelines and canals. The walls act as a levee shielding the wetlands from salt water and further pollutants when the water level rises, while perforations controlled by sluice-gates allow the maintenance of the natural hydrological and ecological systems.

[Inhabiting the infrastructural water landscapes]

The wall changes its width responding both to program and landscape. Transportation, pedestrian paths and pipelines span the wall merging water and human networks. A port for small barges coming along the Mackenzie, a road connected to the Dempster highway and four, four meter diameter pipelines are the connections to rest of the world.

[The Arctic''''''''''''''''s great water wall?]

A modern day Hoover dam, the project is a colossal infrastructure that seeks to find a way in which it might co-exist with its surrounding landscapes, albeit in an altered state. One might imagine this enclosed Arctic landscape like a modern Lake Mead – a natural landscape transformed, but supporting recreation, economies, and newly emerging ecologies.

Dr. Benjamin Richardson conceived of a city of health called Hygeia in 1876. Dr Richardson is an M.D., and he calculated a death rate for Hygeia of 8 per 1,000 in the first generation and 5 per 1,000 in the second generation. The current rate at the time was approximately 20 in 1,000. Hygeia anticipated a population of 100,000 in 20,000 houses on 4,000 acres, or about 25persons/acre. Hygeia was of considerable influence to Ebeneezer Howards Garden City (whose trajectory can easily be traced through to modern planning and urban design).

Here is Dr. Richardsons description of Hygeia in terms of food, water, animals, and the dead:

Our model city is of course well furnished with baths, swimming baths, Turkish baths, playgrounds, gymnasia, libraries, board schools, fine-art schools, lecture halls, and places of instructive amusement. In every board-school drill forms part of the programme. I need not dwell on these subjects, but must pass to the sanitary officers and offices.

There is in the city one principal sanitary officer, a duly qualified medical man elected by the Municipal Council, whose sole duty it is to watch over the sanitary welfare of the place. Under him, as sanitary officers, are all the medical men who form the poor law medical staff. To him these make their reports on vaccination and every matter of health pertaining to their respective districts; to him every registrar of births and deaths forwards copies of his registration returns; and to his office are sent, by the medical men generally, registered returns of the cases of sickness prevailing in the district. His inspectors likewise make careful returns of all the known prevailing diseases of the lower animals and of plants. To his office are forwarded, for examination and analysis, specimens of foods and drinks suspected to be adulterated, impure, or otherwise unfitted for use. For the conduction of these researches the sanitary superintendent is allowed a competent chemical staff. Thus, under this central supervision, every death, every disease of the living world in the district, and every assumable cause of disease, comes to light and is subjected, if need be, to inquiry.

At a distance from the town are the sanitary works, the sewage pumping works, the water and gas works, the slaughter-houses and the public laboratories. The sewage, which is brought from the town partly by its own flow and partly by pumping apparatus, is conveyed away to well-drained sewage farms belonging to, but at a distance from, the city where it is utilised.

The water supply, derived from a river which flows to the south-west of the city, is unpolluted by sewage or other refuse, is carefully filtered, is tested twice daily, and if found unsatisfactory is supplied through a reserve tank, after it has been made to undergo further purification. It is carried through the city everywhere by iron pipes. Leaden pipes are forbidden. In the sanitary establishment are disinfecting rooms, a mortuary, and ambulances for the conveyance of persons suffering from contagious disease. These are at all times open to the use of the public, subject to the few and simple rules of the management.

The gas, like the water, is submitted to regular analysis by the staff of the sanitary officer, and any fault which may be detected, and which indicates a departure from the standard of purity framed by the Municipal Council, is immediately remedied, both gas and water being exclusively under the control of the local authority.

The inspectors of the sanitary officer have under them a body of scavengers. These, each day, in the early morning, pass through the various districts allotted to them, and remove all refuse in closed vans. Every portion of manure from stables, streets, and yards is in this way removed daily, and transported to the city farms for utilisation.

Two additional conveniences are supplied by the scientific work of the sanitary establishment. From steam-works steam is condensed, and a large supply of distilled water is obtained and preserved in a separate tank. This distilled water is conveyed by a small main into the city, and is supplied at a moderate cost for those domestic purposes for which hard water is objectionable.

The second sanitary convenience is a large ozone generator. By this apparatus ozone is produced in any required quantity, and is made to play many useful purposes. It is passed through the drinking water in the reserve reservoir whenever the water shows excess of organic impurity, and it is conveyed into the city for diffusion into private houses, for purposes of disinfection.

The slaughter-houses of the city are all public, and are separated by a distance of a quarter of a mile from the city. They are easily removable edifices, and are under the supervision of the sanitary staff. The Jewish system of inspecting every carcase that is killed is rigorously carried out, with this improvement, that the inspector is a man of scientific knowledge.

All animals used for food,–cattle, fowls, swine, rabbits,–are subjected to examination in the slaughter-house, or in the market, if they be brought into the city from other depots. The slaughter-houses are so constructed that the animals killed are relieved from the pain of death. They pass through a narcotic chamber, and are brought to the slaughterer oblivious of their fate. The slaughter-houses drain into the sewers of the city, and their complete purification daily, from all offal and refuse, is rigidly enforced.

The buildings, sheds, and styes for domestic food-producing animals are removed a short distance from the city, and are also under the supervision of the sanitary officer; the food and water supplied for these animals comes equally, with human food, under proper inspection.

One other subject only remains to be noticed in connection with the arrangements of our model city, and that is the mode of the disposal of the dead. The question of cremation and of burial in the earth has been considered, and there are some who advocate cremation. For various reasons the process of burial is still retained. Firstly, because the cremation process is open to serious medico-legal objections; secondly, because, by the complete resolution of the body into its elementary and inodorous gases in the cremation furnace, that intervening chemical link between the organic and inorganic worlds, the ammonia, is destroyed, and the economy of nature is thereby dangerously disturbed; thirdly, because the natural tendencies of the people lead them still to the earth, as the most fitting resting-place into which, when lifeless, they should be drawn.

Thus the cemetery holds its place in our city, but in a form much modified from the ordinary cemetery. The burial ground is artificially made of a fine carboniferous earth. Vegetation of rapid growth is cultivated over it. The dead are placed in the earth from the bier, either in basket work or simply in the shroud; and the monumental slab, instead of being set over or at the head or foot of a raised grave, is placed in a spacious covered hall or temple, and records simply the fact that the person commemorated was recommitted to earth in those grounds. In a few months, indeed, no monument would indicate the remains of any dead. In that rapidly-resolving soil the transformation of dust into dust is too perfect to leave a trace of residuum. The natural circle of transmutation is harmlessly completed, and the economy of nature conserved.

The Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UC-SB is presenting a series of fantastic events this year on the theme Oil+Water. With this event they turn to their own backyard: the case of Southern California. Oil + Water commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil spill, and provides an opportunity to examine the impact of these two resources on the history, economy, and culture of California and the world. Interested parties should contact our program and events coordinator, Laura Devendorf (ldevendorf[at]ihc.ucsb.edu), for more information. Below is a schedule of events and activities for the conference.

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Oil + Water: The Case of Santa Barbara and Southern California
April 8 – 10, 2010
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
UC Santa Barbara / Santa Barbara, CA, USA

This conference will explore the ways in which oil and water have created and transformed the history and culture of Santa Barbara and Southern California. Topics will include the Santa Barbara oil spill; the impact of oil on Hollywood; agriculture and marine life; the Owens River Valley; the Salton Sea; cars and car culture; and environmental histories and their lessons.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Oil + Water series, the UC California Studies Consortium, and the Community Environmental Council.

Thursday, April 8
5:00 PM KEYNOTE: Oil Runs Through It: Power, Publics, and the Role of Place
Harvey Molotch (Social & Cultural Analysis, NYU)

Friday, April 9
9:00 AM Introduction
Ann Bermingham (Acting Director, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UCSB)

9:15 AM PANEL: Oil, Water, and Activism: The Case of Santa Barbara
Teresa Sabol Spezio (History, UCD) / Most Congressmen Care Little: The Role of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill in Changing Federal Environmental Laws
Eric Smith (Political Science, UCSB) / What the California Public Thinks About Off Shore Oil Development
Linda Krop (Chief Council, Environmental Defense Center and Environmental Studies, UCSB) / The Environmental Politics of Off Shore Drilling

11:00 AM KEYNOTE: Whales, Noisemakers, and Noise
Jim Nollman

1:30 PM PANEL: Oil+Water: the Case of Southern California
David Maisel / The Lake Project
Mason White & Lola Sheppard / Farming the Salton Sea
Andrew Fitzpatrick / Ocotillo Wells: California Oil History Encapsulated
Kenneth Rogers, Caleb Waldrof and Bill Kelley, Jr. (Third Rail Group, UCSD) / Slow Activism, Dialogical Practice and Environmental Remediation at the Inglewood Oil Fields

3:00 PM KEYNOTE: After Oil!: Petroleum, Media, and the California Experiment
Stephanie LeMenager (English, UCSB)

4:00 PM PANEL: The Culture of Oil
Vanessa Osborne (English, USC) / Celluloid and Oil: Early Hollywood and the Oil Industry in Upton Sinclair’s Oil!
Jean-Paul deGuzman (History, UCLA) / At the Car Wash! Culture and Labor in the City of Angles
Desiree D’Alessandro and Diran Lyons (Art, UCSB) / World Water Shortage vs Golf Consumption and Jake Gyllenhaal Challenges the Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Saturday, April 10
9:15 AM ROUNDTABLE: Oil and Water in the Santa Barbara County Agrifood System
David A. Cleveland (Environmental Studies, UCSB)
With: Ingrid R. Avison, Caitlin Brimm, Heidi Diaz, Sydney E. Hollingshead, Dominique C. Liuzzi, Nora M. Muller, Corie N. Radka, Tyler D. Watson, Hannah Wright.

10:45 AM KEYNOTE: Near Goleta But Closer: An Unnatural History
Harry Reese (Art, UCSB)

1:30 PM PANEL: Histories of an Unnatural History
Karen Piper (Comparative Literature, Carnegie Mellon University) / Owens Lake: California’s Albatross
Eliza Martin (History, UCSC) / Making Rain, Creating Floods: Expertise and the Manufacturing of Disaster in San Diego’s Flood of 1916
David Zetland, (Agriculture and Resource Economics, UCB) / Joseph Jensen and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
Michael R. Adamson (History, CSU Sacramento) / Oil Booms and Boosterism: Local Elites, Outside Companies, and the Growth of Ventura California

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Hope to see some of you there.

Editors Note: File under Glacier / Island / Storm, a studio run by BLDGBLOG at Columbia University GSAPP. Glacier Edition.

Islands fabricated from ice are becoming more prevalent as offshore oil speculation in the Arctic gains more interest.  Ice has been a strategic building material in the Arctic for the construction of roads, airstrips, housing, and, in the last few decades, as temporary drilling platforms to explore for oil.  Ice islands are formed by spraying ice into cold air (below 20 degrees F), and layering the ice until it reaches a thickened state.  These islands are either grounded at the bottom of the sea floor or are floating structures in deeper waters.  Fabricated in just two months, these islands provide enough stability to support exploratory drilling tools including the rig and attendant equipment.

[Ice Island Fabrication Diagram via. U.S Patent 4699545, 1987]

[Typical Section through an Ice Island, via US. Patent 3863456]

Ice islands emerged from exploratory drilling in the Canadian and US Beaufort seas during the 1970s and 1980s.  Replacing artificial gravel islands, ice islands offered various unique benefits – namely cost and safety.  Typical drilling vessels are vulnerable to sea ice, which is also a concern for artificial ice islands.  As such, constructed ice islands are layered with a thicker outer barrier for protection, essentially creating defensive walls.  Because these islands use the readily available seawater and cool Arctic air, they are a fraction of the cost of gravel islands.

[Ice Island Fabrication Diagram, construction of outer ring & section via. U.S Patent 4699545, 1987]

The Sohio test island was the first ice island, built as a grounded spray island.  The mid-1980s witnessed four successful ice islands that were used as drilling platforms, the first being the Mars Ice Island.  Constructed in 1986 in the Western Harrison Bay in Alaska, it took 898 hours over a 46-day period with over 1 million cubic meters of pumped water to construct it.  The result was an island of 215-meter diameter and depth of 8 meters, grounding it into the seabed below. The downturn in the oil industry in the 1980s slowed the development of Ice Islands for almost two decades.

[One of the few images of the Mars Ice Island]

While the Arctic continues to break up and natural ice islands form from calving, we have no shortage of ice islands.  But manufactured ice islands have several benefits over natural islands – namely, the fact that we can place them where we need them and anchor them to the sea floor. Now that the oil industry has economically invested to develop such technology, are there other applications for ice islands?  One idea, posited as early as 1932, was for massive seadrome landing fields.  The October 1932 issue of Modern Mechanix revealed:
“The German scientist Dr. Gerke of Waldenburg two years ago erected an ice island in Lake Zurich by artificial means, which endured six days after the refrigerating machinery was switched off. His proposal for a mid-Atlantic way station of ice involves the construction of a framework of hollow tubing which; when filled with liquid air manufactured in a refrigerating plant, freezes the water surrounding it into a solid mass.”
The article goes on to state that these islands should also house buildings and offices as well as a landing strip.  Could ice islands be a new nodal infrastructure in the Arctic?  From military bases, to airports and distribution centers, ice islands could strategically be located to go where no land has gone before – sprayed into the air to freeze on the water.

[Clipping from Modern Mechanix, Oct 1932 Issue via. blog.modernmechanix.com]

The other obvious benefit of ice islands, say over traditional islands, is that they float, and therefore can be moved.  Let’s take from a different technology used by Arctic oil companies – this time in Hibernia.  Hibernia boasts a massive concrete gravity base to counter bergy bits and larger ice sheets.  Still, however, they monitor the surrounding waters and put a call out to ‘arctic cowboys’ to lasso the large ice islands out of the path of the gravity base.  A 3,600-foot long, eight-inch thick polypropylene rope is used to move the ice islands into a different trajectory; effectively keeping the waters clear around the oilrig.

[Moving Ice Islands, via Hibernia Management & Development Co.]

Technologies to both fabricate and transport ice islands open up a series of potential uses – far removed from drilling oil.  Can fabricated ice islands be used to house communal infrastructure that is mobile?  Can ice islands host new cities, or be tourist resorts?  Can we use the technologies in creating ice islands to harvest ice fields?  Can Ice Islands be used as large shipping platforms that are set into motion along various ocean currents?  Ice Islands could be a true soft infrastructure that may allow for ecological urbanization in the Arctic.