by Vishnu Balunsat, M.Arch 2020
Advisors: Nataly Gattegno (primary) and Chris Falliers (secondary)
Abstract
In an era of rapid environmental and ecological change due to the collective human behavior of modernized societies, our way of finding shelter must adapt if we are to stay with the trouble. The increase in frequency and severity of wildfires in California alone are creating precarious environments to live in, yet according to studies, 80% of development is happening in wildland urban interfaces, the places most at risk of these catastrophes. This thesis is interested in how human beings can continue to survive in a landscape that is seeing rapid change and how a building’s life can learn from the successive cycles in nature to evolve over time. The project is not a solution to ecological crises, but a provocation to reassess how we play string figure games with ecology, multispecies, and collectivity.
The Cycles of Architecture
A dwelling in the Anthropocene reflects changes in its environment across four different phases and timescales. ['Desolation', days post-fire; 'Propagation', months post-fire; 'Evolution', years post-fire; 'Decomposition', decades post-fire]. These phases and successive cycles reflect phenomena like post-fire mushroom and super-blooms, but also reflect developing practices of forest maintenance that provide lumber for mass timber construction.
The dwelling co-op implies strength in community and identifies how our relationship to shelter changes throughout each phase and cycle. After fires, ‘Desolation’ is a period of recovery. The hearth is revealed as a stone monument that endures. ‘Propagation’ is a moment of reclamation. Shelter is constructed with little resources and humans begin multispecies collaborations. ‘Evolution’, when productivity is at its highest, supports artisanal food production; highlighting a mushroom farm, beekeeper workshop, smokehouse, bakery, and herbalist kitchen. In the final phase of 'Decomposition', the collective retreats into the underground fire refuge that was previously used to propagate mushrooms.
A New Collective Form
The Forest of the Anthropocene is an ontological map of Quincy California that measures the cycles in days, months, years, and decades. It theorizes that a new form of urban development will be much more vested in the way buildings evolve in a changing landscape, but also how humans might think of nature's entanglement in our built environments.