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Ulterior Ruins

Part 2 Project 2022
Brook Boughton
Pratt Institute | USA
Ulterior ruins, an adaptive reuse of a derelict 1920s coal power plant, acts as a new home to the community’s dynamic climate and social justice groups while activating the space with cultural activity. Combining archaeological archival spaces with oyster and algae production, putting them together in a setting of industrial ruins flattens the typical hierarchy, which usually places the societies’ artistic and engineering pursuits above that of nature. This new heterarchy approach is an equalizer where the visitors that come to the site, will see that ecological production can exist side by side with leisure.

The concept of time in relation to the climate crisis is precious and is becoming increasingly so with every new dire report. By constructing the appearance of abandonment, or ruins, it is reflecting that if action is not taken, buildings and possibly society will fall to decay. Yet there is a possible more holistic solution when we consider how environmental production can coexist with leisure activities and the conservation of our built industrial past can be recontextualized to address and offset the damage that they have caused to the local ecosystems and their contribution to our current crisis.


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2022
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