Ben Winn, Occupying the Expanded Edge
Pima County, AZ
If extreme is another word for problematic then the nature of human settlement is extreme in that it creates a binary relationship between nature and culture that is both inefficient and unsustainable.
I am proposing a hybrid landscape within the monocultural cotton fields of Arizona by inhabiting and expanding the edge condition between agricultural and urban, residential and commercial, legal and illegal. This is done through the integration of housing for the migrant farm workers into the cotton fields that they harvest every fall. To accomplish this the intense environmental conditions dictate a need to provide shelter from exposure to the sun and heat during the day, warmth at night, potable drinking water, and a method to filter the site of fertilizers and pesticides.
These issues are approached by utilizing the one resource that the Sonoran desert has in abundance, solar energy. Photovoltaic panels are used to power pumps that collect water from aquifers and place it in solar stills where it is purified through evaporation. As the steam is collected it is stored underground where another pump can send it through exterior roof panels to absorb solar radiation, heating the water which is stored for later use. Solar energy is also used to filter the discarded domestic water through constructed subterranean wetlands which rely on plants to absorb and convert pollutants into benign by-products.
Ali Quade
Victoria Falls, Zambezi River, Zimbabwe, Africa
Cutting a large swath into the continental shelf, the Zambezi is an extension of the East African Rift, the divergent plate system that extends from Lebanon to Mozambique. Located at the boarder of Zimbabwe and Zambia, Victoria Falls is the largest volume water fall in the world . Over the past 100,000 years the corrosive power of its falls has slowly eroded the bedrock receding 18 miles towards Zambia, and leaving the remnants of 7 fall lines in its wake. These geological ruins today harbor some of the world’s most extreme white water conditions, including the highest commercially run rapids in the world. The site for Basecamp Zambezi is along one of the historic fall lines in Zimbabwe, 350 feet above the intrepid waters of the river.
Already a site of pilgrimage for extreme kayakers, the Basecamp works to create an place of exchange between adventure seekers and the local Tonga guides. Similar to the sherpas of Nepal, the Tonga people of the Zambezi have intimate knowledge in guiding and training kayakers. They are seasoned paddlers and under appreciated experts in the adrenaline-filled world of extreme paddling. Like many people in Zimbabwe, they face an uncertain future due to a complicated political situation. This project provides economic stimulus to the local area, safe housing and a place for authentic cultural exchange while treading lightly on an historic site.
Basecamp Zambezi combines permanent housing for the guides, flexible sleeping space for guests, classroom and training areas for kayaking as well as classroom and work space for a field school in the off-season. Negotiating the 350 ft gorge, the Basecamp relies on a tensile structure that adheres to the rock and sand cliff. The armature collects water, provides shade, harvests energy and accommodates sleeping shelters when needed.
Graham Peterson
Uluru, Australia
The Australian Outback is one of the most remote and extreme locations on our planet. This desert terrain hosts some of the rarest plants and animals, and is home to the oldest culture on Earth, the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. In recent decades, the heart of the Outback, specifically Uluru-Kata-Tjuta National Park, has become an increasingly popular destination for tourists and scientists alike.
I propose to design an integrated Outback Research Center [ORC] at the base of Uluru, a World Heritage Site and one of the continent’s largest monoliths. Here, interested students in the fields of GEOLOGY, ECOLOGY, and ANTHROPOLOGY will have the unique opportunity to live and conduct research for periods of six months to a year. Fellows in this program will be privileged to reside in one of the oldest and most preserved sites in the world, while studying the enchanting flora and fauna that habitate solely in this extreme environment.
The metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona is the fastest growing in the nation, with approximately 288 residents added each day. It is currently the 5th largest city in the US and is expected to double its size by 2050, reaching 7.6 million inhabitants. 6 golf courses are built every year and new subdivisions are inaugurated weekly. In this climate of extreme heat and dryness, where water is a scarcity yet golfing greens are meticulously maintained, our studio exploreed the design of a temporal human encampment. We negotiated with the climactic, cultural and programmatic forces surrounding it. Could we rethink the sustainability of this desert urban model? Could already existing systems and processes teach us how such environments might perform?
Every year 250,000+ temporary residents [called ‘snowbirds'] arrive in Phoenix from the Central Plains, Canada and the North, in search of sunshine. These retired sun seekers are a perennial event, peaking from January to April every year. They abandon large tracts of land behind them for 6 months a year, and infuse $1billion into the Phoenician economy. We considered this temporal programmatic fluctuation as an impetus for the design of a dynamically modulated desert colony that will fluctuate in size, accessibility, population and program.
Ultimately we questioned the way our surroundings influence our built environments. We took into account normative programmatic elements, but reevaluated them. We attempted to design finely calibrated, perfectly tuned and extremely sensitive environments – “indigenous” and “native”, but simultaneously exotic and dynamic.
Image: Carrie Norman, UVA
Image: Taylor Burgess, UVA
