Project received the Thomas Byerts Social and Community Design Award, given in recognition of outstanding final degree project involving social and/or community service as awarded by the USC School of Architecture Thesis Review Board.
2025
Asante Microfarm is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to grow food locally on unused spaces within the city to fight socioeconomic food injustice and lessen reliance on the carbon-intensive food supply chain.
Their largest barrier is lacking ownership of land that could be developed, as seen in this example, using their front planter space as an area to be transformed.
2050
In this more ambitious, replicable urban scheme, I am taking advantage of the nature-supporting technologies we have at our disposal, to support and draw attention to these spaces of ecological service.
Water travels through the bioswales and permeable pavements to the catch basin, allowing it to be reused for the agricultural section and urban micro forest, while the stormwater overflow directed to the dry well allows for groundwater percolation.
In working with the city and systems that we have now, we can create small moments of this natural ecological chaos within a larger system that produces for us systematically..
Taking advantage of the largest network in the city, how might we go from the hostile streetscape we have now, to an adapted, habitable, eco-friendly street system?
In this mini replicable urban scheme, I am taking advantage of the nature-supporting technologies we have at our disposal, to support and draw attention to these spaces of ecological service.
BANHAM AND THE FOUR ECOLOGIES
Banham’s imagination of a Los Angeles with no cars might elude to a more ambitious version of my small, realistic, urban scheme..
We could reimagine Banham’s Autopia, as instead a spacious opportunity.
2100
All road networks in the city could be transformed into a looped system that provides ecosystems, crop production, groundwater replenishment, and water reuse, all while using a new public transportation system taking up much less space, and cutting down on emissions while saving lives, time, money, and the planet.
