Title: Risk Topographies
Location: Cape cod, MA
Date: 2014
CATEGORY: PAPER
Project Type: RESEARCH
Program: remediation landscapes
RECOGNITION:
Published in Visual communication for Architects and Designers: constructing the persuasive presentation (Routledge, 2020)
Narrative (Synopsis):
We are interested in the fertile intersection between the opportunities of sea-level rise vis a vis its interaction with kettle ponds—such as Ashumet Pond and Johns Pond—and the inherent risks in polluted groundwater plumes. In other words, as the sea level rises, the freshwater lens will be pushed upward, and the polluted ground water plumes will consequently discharge into these kettle ponds. This will permit these ponds to become fertile testing grounds for biological, chemical and vegetative remediation techniques. So, instead of trying to mitigate the inevitable force of sea-level rise or trying to “restore” these ponds to some ecologically balanced, pre-settlement state, we are dispelling with some of the fallacies of ecological remediation and instead converting these ponds into functional sites of testing and remediation—the ponds as both trash bins and laboratories for waste removal and cleansing.
