Cloudfill
Finalist for the Field Constructs Design Competition
Austin, Texas, 2015
The 180-year history of the Circle Acres site is one of complex manipulation and human intervention. From prairie, to farmland, to quarry, to landfill, to nature preserve, the site has been cultivated, excavated, infilled, and capped, and is just now, with the help of Ecology Action of Texas, gradually returning to a state of minimized disruption.
We propose an intervention that simultaneously recalls this history of manipulation, engages the community in a dialogue on resource allocation and recycling, and provides beautiful transformative public space.
We submit three site-adjusted installations, one to address each of the three distinct natural biomes comprising the ten-acre brownfield site: forest, wetland, and grassland, each created using the same flexible construction module.
In an effort to proliferate the educational mission of the Ecology Action Organization, each piece references an environmental issue affecting its respective biome: deforestation, strip mining, and landfills.
We present to you our comprehension of the site, our vision of its potential transformation, and a novel proposal for the reuse of post-consumer materials in the construction of architectural space. While we have attempted to synthesize our constructions with the existing landscape, they are also strikingly contradictory objects in this serene context, highlighting the inherent uncanny-ness of the site’s many manipulations, calling into question the true meaning of ‘nature’ and ‘landscape.’
