L I F E : P R O P A G A T E D
new ecosystem in abandoned limestone quarry
GSAPP ADVANCED 5 STUDIO FALL 2022
CRITIC LINDY ROY
PARTNER MYUNGJU KO
SITE TOMKINS COVE, NEW YORK
SOFTWARE RHINO + ENSCAPE + AI + PS
Just as humans accelerated existential change to our world’s ecosystem, this project hopes to accelerate the regrowth of life, propagating and creating a symbiosis between humans and nature. We are taking a stance of welcoming the entropic process as part of the natural cycle of life, which creates a constantly changing and emerging new nature. “Life: Propagated” will act as a substrate which allows organisms to live, grow, and exist in its reemerging life sustaining environment.
As a result of the limestone mining, new microclimates are distributed inside the terracing quarry, defined through three factors that shape the habitats for new lives, which are sun exposure, soil pH, and humidity. Through increasing entropy, the microclimates create a new order and new life ecosystems.
As much as possible we try to avoid disturbing the microclimates by designing spiraling paths around the existing levels of the quarry that also connect vertically through staircases, and allow natural growth for flora around the paths. The quarry is quietly alive, growing, flooding, constantly changing, and flora and fauna species slowly adapt with the water level change and propagate to higher ground as time goes by.
We also mapped out the possible life cycles of different threatened fauna that can live in symbiosis in one big ecosystem. Each species has its own lifecycle and habitat needs.
The birds feeding off of the dragonflies, and the dragonflies needing some humid soil shallow waters to reproduce, and butterflies feeding off of the flowering plants nectar and reproducing on the oak trees, also microorganisms in the soil and waterfowls feeding off of aquatic vegetation.
For the building, our approach is to reorganize, redistribute, and reconfigure these existing resources on the site. By carving in and building around, we aim to reorganize new negative spaces for humans and species to inhabit, interact and observe. At the same time new mounds will be made out of dug out soils from the site.
The 3 levels of our building, the roof level, ground level, and underground level, will be for flexible use but we are proposing that it can facilitate and invite:
- aquatic and land biology researchers
- local communities
- flora and fauna species.
By embracing nature to reclaim the land, we hope that our project can be a model where humans and nature can live in symbiosis, and where significant change in our mindset can be implemented, away from human centric design but towards a life centric design.
