Thesis Statement Take 1

Since the industrial revolution mankind has developed the capacity to shape the world around us. This has become ever more evident with the age of globalization. We are able to achieve levels of comfort never before imagined. However with this new found ability we have also gained the ability to cause insurmountable damage to the environment we depend on and we have remained ignorant to the impact our daily rituals have on our planet. Now we are entering an new age in which “being sustainable” is becoming the latest trend. However, we are still trying to realize what this means and how we can possibly maintain the level of comfort we have grown accustomed to if not dependent on.  It’s an incredible folly that we choose or are forced to destroy the planet we need to survive in order to maintain this comfort. The question I seek to answer in this thesis is can we use architecture act as a means to heal some of the damage we have caused.

I’m split between two areas to focus on. One is the industrial corridor on the North bank of Portland and the other is around the old stockyards in Chicago. The stockyards used to be a slaughter house in which the unused animal carcasses would be thrown into the river which is now named “bubbly creek” because it literally bubbles due to the poison that has been thrown into it. The stockyards are no longer functional but there has not been a widespread effort to clean the river that is now a toxic pit.

I would like to focus on remediation as the primary function of the building. I think that a school of sustainable technology would be an appropriate program to facilitate this function. I would like to focus on water remediation, agricultural production, or sustainable material manufacturing, or a mixture of these purposes as the focus of the school.