Stranded: Altering the Paradigm of the Leftover Landscape

Abstract

This thesis concerns itself with identifying and remediating the issues of leftover landscapes within the urban plane. By associating the depleted capacity within the twin theories Junkspace and Drosscape, this thesis dissects and relinks the strands of these prominent theories in relation to their wider conceptual context. Identifying the core issues of each, this thesis critically examines the implications for both of these conditions in relation to their contributions to the urban void. The architectural intervention of this research is to ultimately explore remediation and repair for these landscapes by developing a methodology to convene simultaneously at urban and architectural scales. Through the process of research, critique and dissection, a spatial application of layering three emergent theories is determined. Stim, the architecture of attraction and consumption, Dross, the by-products and requirements of the city and Biome, the ecological integration between architecture and landscape. After exploring these conditions in theories and precedents a series of layers are superimposed, synthesized and edited to form a methodology by developing the theories in relation to each other. The by-product of this process is a urban exploration where four points are identified as intersections to disrupt the site’s stagnant flow and introduce an architectural consistency to the three concepts. These four nodes are developed and examined as an exploratory architecture. The process utilized within the thesis reveals a mode of layering several tangential elements to form a collected imposition. This informed the writing’s sequence, analysis of the theories and joining of academic links between Drosscapes and Junkspace. The production of the writing and spatial processes is a precursory intervention of the four nodes, presented as a scheme for the city. The layering and editing process informs a methodology applicable to future projects and a metamorphosis within the practice of the author as their architecture develops to critique theoretical and contextual issues.