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FOUND WALKINGAN IMMANENT APPROACH TO A DERELICT POST INDUSTRIAL SITE
m i c h a e l a l l e n l e w i s SS
S S S
lewisS
S
At once repulsive, and yet surprisingly alluring, derelict post-industrial sites are common
entities on the edge of urban cities. They are an in-between, characterized by overlap and
flux, where life and entropy challenge the assumptions of progress and time. What began
by entering an apparently vacant site became a dialog with place through the embodied
approach of walking. Walking was explored as an immersed investigation of a site and a
physical meandering through the philosophies of place, experience, and immanence. Relying
on movement and observation, this research is an account of the continual unfolding of the
mutual resonance of both self and site, which are bound through the concept of place.
The observations and findings are described as they applied to the process and approach of
design. By walking a site as an extended series of visits, it is perceived as an encountered
relationship of mutual becoming. Based on the series of visits, the design process is equally
immersive and open-ended. The resulting proposal embraces the transitional relationship
through a process of long-term iterative design.
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ITE
FOUND WALKING:
An Immanent Approach to a Derelict Post Industrial Site
Michael Allen Lewis
A thesis
submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
University of Washington
2010
Program authorized to Offer Degree:
Landscape Architecture
University of Washington
Graduate School
This is to certify that I have examined this copy of a master’s thesis by
Michael Allen Lewis
and have found that it is complete and satisfactory in all respects,
and that any and all revisions required by the final
examining committee have been made.
Committee Members:
_____________________________________________________
Thaisa Way
_____________________________________________________
Lynne Manzo
Date:__________________________________
In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master’s degree at the University of Washington, I agree that the Library shall make its copies freely available for inspection. I further agree that extensive copying of this thesis is allowable only for scholarly purposes, consistent with “fair use” as prescribed in the U.S. Copyright Law. Any other reproduction for any purposes or by any means shall not be allowed without my written permission.
Signature ________________________
Date ____________________________
University of Washington
Abstract
FOUND WALKING:
An Immanent Approach to a Derelict Post Industrial Site
Michael Allen Lewis
Chair of the Supervisory Committee:
Assistant Professor Thaisa Way
Department of Landscape Architecture
At once repulsive, and yet surprisingly alluring, derelict post-industrial sites are common entities on the edge of urban cities. They are an in-between, characterized by overlap and flux, where life and entropy challenge the assumptions of progress and time. What began by entering an apparently vacant site became a dialog with place through the embodied approach of walking. Walking was explored as an immersed investigation of a site and a physical meandering through the philosophies of place, experience, and immanence. Relying on movement and observation, this research is an account of the continual unfolding of the mutual resonance of both self and site, which are bound through the concept of place. The observations and findings are described as they applied to the process and approach of design. By walking a site as an extended series of visits, it is perceived as an encountered relationship of mutual becoming. Based on the series of visits, the design process is equally immersive and open-ended. The resulting proposal embraces the transitional relationship through a process of long-term iterative design.
i
Chapter 4: Experience ....................................37 [a] Generic .................................................38 [b] Figure/Ground ......................................41 Separate ................................................41 Gradient .................................................42 [c] Becoming .............................................45 [d] Emergence ...........................................48
Chapter 5: Methods .......................................51 Wandering .................................................51 Open Inventory ..........................................53 Photography...............................................53 Sketchbook.................................................55 Spectrum Coding........................................59
Chapter 6: Design ...........................................63 Emergent Design ........................................63 Sedges ...................................................64 Edges .....................................................67 Glass Walls .......................................67 Silo Gateway .....................................68 Wedges .................................................68 Narrative ...............................................69 Design Reflection ..................................70
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ............................................ ii
Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................1
Chapter 2: Literature Review ............................7 Attention to the Derelict ..............................9 Defining Place ............................................11 Experience of Place .....................................14 Dialectic Place and Body .............................15 Immanence and Unfolding Experience ......16 Challenging the View ..................................18 Walking in Place ..........................................19
Chapter 3: Precedent Studies .........................25 Gas Works Park ..........................................26 Duisburg-Nord ...........................................27 Herring’s House .........................................29 Robert Smithson ........................................30 Spiral Jetty .............................................30 Rundown ...............................................33
Chapter 7: Narrative .......................................73 She .............................................................75 He ...............................................................79 We ..............................................................83 Narrative Reflection ...................................85
Chapter 8: Reflection ......................................87 Questions ...................................................87 Deeper Understanding ...............................88 Design Process ...........................................89 Challenge Assumptions ..............................91 Self Reflection ............................................92
Bibliography ....................................................93
ii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Images cited in text are referenced in the Bibliography. All others were created by the author, Michael A. Lewis
Figure 1: River .................................................. 1Figure 2: Overlap. ............................................ 3Figure 3: Flux ................................................... 5Figure 4: Potential. .......................................... 7Figure 5: Uncertainty. ...................................... 9Figure 6: Explore. ........................................... 11Figure 7: Inhabit. ........................................... 13Figure 8: Relationship. ................................... 15Figure 9: Desire.............................................. 17Figure 10: Touch. ........................................... 19Figure 11: Beckon .......................................... 21Figure 12: Habitat. ......................................... 23Figure 13: Precedents. ................................... 25Figure 14: Gas Works View. ........................... 26Figure 15: Gas Works Kite. ............................. 27Figure 16: Duisburg-Nord View...................... 28Figure 17: Duisburg-Nord Form. .................... 28Figure 18: DuisburgNord-Space. .................... 28Figure 19: Herring’s House Park. ................... 29Figure 20: Herring’s House Park Marsh. ........ 29Figure 21: Spiral Jetty Form. .......................... 30Figure 22: Spiral Jetty. ................................... 31Figure 23: Great Salt Lake. ............................. 32Figure 24: Entropy. ........................................ 32Figure 25: Stills from Spiral Jetty film. ........... 33Figure 26: Asphalt Rundown. ........................ 34Figure 27: Patially Buried Woodshed. ........... 35Figure 28: Partially Buried Woodshed fall. .... 35Figure 29: Clarity. ........................................... 37Figure 30: Harbor Island to West. .................. 38Figure 31: Harbor Island to Northeast. .......... 38Figure 32: Harbor Island to Southeast. .......... 38Figure 33: Harbor Isaland. ............................. 39Figure 34: Generic Site. ................................. 39
Figure 35: Early Sketches ............................... 40Figure 36: Separate Figure/Ground Site. ....... 41Figure 37: Figure/Ground. ............................. 41Figure 38: Separate........................................ 41Figure 39: Opportunists. ................................ 42Figure 40: Moss. ............................................ 42Figure 41: Derelict. ........................................ 42Figure 42: Graffiti. .......................................... 42Figure 43: Searching. ..................................... 42Figure 44: Figure Interacting with Ground. ... 43Figure 45: Gradient Egde. .............................. 43Figure 46: Gradient Figure/Ground Site. ....... 43Figure 47: Steps. ............................................ 44Figure 48: Graffiti above Toy Bin. ................... 44Figure 49: Moss and Mushrooms on Concrete. ................................. 44Figure 50: Deconstruction. ............................ 45Figure 51: Becoming-Site. .............................. 46Figure 52: Tracks. ........................................... 47Figure 53: Train and Fence............................. 47Figure 54: River View. .................................... 47Figure 55: Danger. ......................................... 48Figure 56: Coin Washer. ................................. 48Figure 57: Perched. ........................................ 48Figure 58: Emerging Design ......................... 49Figure 59: Walking. ........................................ 51Figure 60: Some Mapped Wandering. ........... 52Figure 61: Inventory Samples. ...................... 53Figure 62: Between-Places. ........................... 55Figure 63: Between-Moments. ...................... 56Figure 64: Traces and Marks. ......................... 57Figure 65: Coding Spectrum. ......................... 58Figure 66: Observation Sample. .................... 59Figure 67: Difference Spectrum ..................... 61
Figure 68: Silos. ............................................. 63Figure 69: Emergence. ................................... 64Figure 70: Novel Path. ................................... 64Figure 71: Concrete. ...................................... 65Figure 72: Concrete. ...................................... 65Figure 73: Sedges. ......................................... 65Figure 74: Fence and Shrubs. ........................ 66Figure 75: Armored Shore. ............................ 66Figure 76: Warehouse Wall Alternative. ........ 67Figure 77: Glass Wall early Iteration. ............. 67Figure 78: Glass Walls, Silos, and Warehouse ............................ 67Figure 79: Wedge Section. ............................. 68Figure 80: Wedge Plan. .................................. 68Figure 81: Desire Line. ................................... 69Figure 82: Desire Line. ................................... 69Figure 83: Wedge. ......................................... 69Figure 84: Wedge Section .............................. 71Figure 85: Sedge Section. .............................. 71Figure 86: Found View Section. ..................... 71Figure 87: Gradient Site Plan. ........................ 71Figure 88: Becoming. ..................................... 73Figure 89: Emergent Path. ............................. 75Figure 90: Found View. .................................. 77Figure 91: Night Edges. .................................. 79Figure 92: Center of the Edge. ....................... 79Figure 93: Becoming-Shore. .......................... 81Figure 94: Immanence. .................................. 83Figure 95: Becoming-Place. ........................... 85Figure 96: Reflection. ..................................... 87
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge and extend my heartfelt gratitude to the following persons who have made the completion of this thesis possible:
Foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my committee chair, Dr. Thaisa Way, for her vital encouragement and support throughout these past three years, and especially for her guidance during the thesis process. I would like to thank Dr. Lynne Manzo, also on my committee, for her guiding interest and motivation on the subject. Thank you to my classmates; particularly those willing to spend hours walking and talking. In addition, I would like to thank my friends and family, and especially my wife, Mandie; I couldn’t have done this without you.
iv
Lewis, Michael
1Figure 1: River
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
It is a great art to saunter. –Henry
David Thoreau1
I travel not to go anywhere, but to
go. I travel for travel’s sake. The
great affair is to move. –Robert L.
Stevenson2
It is easy to get carried away with the
novelty of technologies, but this is often done
at the expense of experiential approaches
to design in the landscape. As new tools
of technology are adapted to site analysis
and design, new horizons for landscape
1 (Thoreau, Rogers & Pforzheimer Bruce Rogers 1906, p. 253).2 (Stevenson 1909, p. 63).
2
architecture have arisen. It has been argued
that technological implements are extensions
of ourselves and have fueled new expressions
and outlets for design (Merleau-Ponty 1962,
p. 261). However, it can be argued that these
same tools risk isolating the designer from the
fundamental intimate experiences of place
that are so critical to the creative process,
and to the field of landscape architecture as
a whole. To abandon the richness found in
direct physical engagement of a site is a loss
of vital significance in the design process. As
Rebecca Solnit writes in Wanderlust, “When
you give yourself to places, they give you
yourself back; the more one comes to know
them, the more one seeds them with the
invisible crop of memories and associations
that will be waiting for you when you come
back…” (Solnit 2000, p. 13). It is my intent in
this thesis to explore an intimate experiential
approach to understanding a site and design
to underscore the importance and intensity
of personal encounter for effective landscape
design. This will be done by physical and
theoretical exploration of both my analysis and
design process for a derelict post-industrial
site.
I became interested in embodied
experience because it is a primary way of
knowing the world (Casey 1997, p. 224), and
how I best relate to the experiences I invite
through design. No matter how reliant on
tools I have become, both traditional and the
new more technological, direct experience
of a place remains central to my research
and understanding of a landscape. As a
designer interested in having others share in
my appreciation for the outdoors, I found it
fitting to practice as I preach, so to say, and get
outside and walk. This thesis is an exploration
of the power of walking as an approach to
site analysis and as a method for design. It
is necessarily transitional, spontaneous, and
creative.
Some of the greatest American
environmental literature, including Silent
Spring by Rachel Carson and Sand County
Almanac by Aldo Leopold, embrace the power
of experience, and rely on the simple act of
walking to know the world. It is ordinary,
slow, and common, and therein lies its power.
Walking is intimate, and immersive; it can
also be spontaneous. Taking inspiration
initially from authors such as Henry David
Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel
Carson for their reliance on walking, and
their understanding of the deep connection
to place that it provides, I present, in this
thesis, a personal account of a series of
walks. However, my interest is not limited
to wilderness or of loss of habitat, like these
authors, but in the richness of places that
may otherwise be considered consumed
and worthless. I write of the splendor of life
3Figure 2: Overlap.
Lewis, Michael
found within a derelict industrial site along the
lower Duwamish River in Seattle, Washington.
Walking here is like finding life in what Carson
might call a ‘silent spring’, but even in silence
there is much to be heard.
This thesis is about process and
flux in a general sense. More specifically,
this exploration is about the process of an
experience of place within the framework
of what Deleuze and Guittari have called
“becoming-other” (Deleuze & Guattari
1987, p. 161). This framework of becoming-
other is a dynamic state of “between-times,
between-moments” (Deleuze & Boyman
2001, p. 29) that I embraced for its emphasis
on the importance of movement, flow,
and relationships. It is an experiential
phenomenon of transitions, opportunities
and potentialities that inspired me to frame
experience as an unfolding continuum of
exploration. Place, which I understand as an
overlapping of self, community, culture, site,
and process, is held back when categorized too
rigidly. Rather than stifle that complexity of
overlap and interaction, I acknowledge through
this framework that the chosen site is in a state
of flux. Therefore the notion of becoming-
other is especially suitable for my approach
to site analysis and design in this particular
context.
Using the experience of walking, I will
describe a series of experiences to explore the
power of a physical open-ended engagement
in a site as a part of the design process of
landscape architecture. In accordance with
James Corner’s statement that “landscape
is understood as an ongoing project, an
enterprising venture that enriches the cultural
world through creative effort and imagination”
(Corner 1999, p. 1), I strive to embrace and
nourish this ongoing transitional nature of the
landscape addressed in this thesis. I embrace
process at multiple scales and situations.
Accordingly, both the concepts of place and
experience are equally transitory and dynamic.
Transition is important in my personal
explorations. Walking is a way to amplify the
unfolding experience of mutual becoming, for
as noted above, to do so means to physically
engage the dynamic overlap of place and
experience. In this way my understanding of
place continually emerged through multiple
encounters and responses to novelty and
difference.
As a place to explore, I was drawn
to the challenge of walking what some
might consider the antithesis of nature. I
wandered by foot along an industrialized
river with the intent to discover what might
be found through the same methods that
have inspired such spirited reverence for
the natural walking experience. I knew this
would not be equivalent to Muir’s first walk
4
into the woods, but I had a hunch that there
was something to discover. I was lured by the
landscape’s relative invisibility. Rather than
brush it off as an archetype of industrial waste
and degradation, I wanted to suspend my own
prejudice and explore.
Holding the belief that we are not so
removed from the world that we can design
without experience of a place, I explore the
questions:
1) How might an embodied experience of
walking, as an engaged mode of site inventory
and analysis, convey a deeper understanding
of the complexities inherent in a post-industrial
site?
2) How can this embodied knowledge enrich
the design process in landscape architecture?
3) How might such an embodied knowledge
challenge or compliment conventional
assumptions about post-industrial sites?
James Corner’s theories of landscape
as an ongoing process support my perspective
of place that I embraced through my own
embodiment of place and exploration of the
sensual experience of first-hand unfolding
encounter. Revealed through walking, and
supported by the writing of the environmental
authors already mentioned, direct engagement
with site and process creates a deeper means
of place connection and understanding
(Blakemore 2000). Walking as a process
of analysis is, for my purposes, a means to
resonate with the dynamic character of place
directly.
Walking serves as an embodied
example of emergence, in which movement is
a creative force (Careri 2002; Colebrook 2002;
Wunderlich 2008). Walking is not just a mode
of transportation. It is an endeavor in itself,
not merely an endured movement between
points of significance. While conducting a
series of walks for this thesis, I embraced the
landscape and initiated a dialog of design
explorations, in which my proposals were
never deterministic, but rather intended
as gestures of potential and multiplicity.
Ultimately, the proposal (see Chapter 6) is
equally dynamic, and instead of refining a final
plan, I clarified a dialog between potential
users, the site, and me. Based on questions
from my experience, the first phase of design
is a minimalist mark that encourages the
emergence of a site response. My intent then
is to hear the site’s voice in my dialog with
place.
The following chapters describe
my thesis process of discovery and design
in greater detail. Together, Chapters 2
and 3 will address specific literature and
precedents pertinent to the study of the
5Figure 3: Flux
Lewis, Michael
engaged experience of movement through
a post-industrial site. Chapter 2 reviews
literature on post-industrial ruins, place, and
walking. Chapter 3 includes precedent studies
pertinent to a design approach to design
both physically and conceptually. Chapter
4 describes my experience and transitional
understanding of place that emerged from an
extended series of site visits. These findings
are based on excerpts and reflections from
the notes kept in my sketchbook during my
walks. Chapter 5 describes my methods of
exploration, inventory, interpretation, and
design that percolated from my desire to
wander an industrial region and apply the
lessons gained from place. Based on my
experience and methods, the proposed design
strategies emerge in Chapter 6. The strategies,
influenced by the observation of graffiti, desire
lines, and theory surrounding walking, are my
intentional mark to mediate a response from
the site in the form of traced movement. The
traces that emerge will in turn inspire novel
reactions for future design insertions. Chapter
7 is a narrative presentation, through a variety
of perspectives, of the site to explore the
potential of walking following installation.
The thesis is concludes, in Chapter 8, with a
reflection on the process and application I
investigated through this thesis.
The final product of the thesis is an
exploration of walking and its relationship to
my understanding of a derelict industrial site,
and an argument for an embodied approach
to site and design. The specific design is
an application of becoming and emergence
found through site visits and is inspired by
a combination of a deeper sense of place
nourished by walking, writing and reading
related to time and ruin, and the notion
that creativity is an unfolding result of novel
encounter. Rather than create a design that
objectively resists or endures use, this site
will actively participate in a dialog of the
emergence of place.
6
Lewis, Michael
7Figure 4: Potential.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
The world is made of the very stuff of
the body. –Maurice Merleau-Ponty1
Through a review of literature, this
chapter frames walking as a powerful approach
to site design in general and to my method
for a site within the industrial region of the
lower Duwamish River in particular. I explored
the state of knowledge and scholarship in the
area of walking as it applies to the experience
and perceptions of process and place. Some
designers, as will be shown, are unsatisfied
with pure reclamation and call for a deeper
understanding of sites to embrace a greater
1 (Merleau-Ponty 1964, p. 163).
8
potential of design opportunities. Walking is
a means to develop a deeper knowledge and
challenge the preconceived perceptions of a
“derelict” post-industrial site. Ideas of process,
movement, and understanding of place are
important to the subject of walking and they
have framed the explorations and conclusions I
have drawn in this thesis.
Industrial sites no longer characterized
by their intended or past use have been
referred to in a variety of ways, but typically
having a negative connotation of a problem in
need of repair: drosscape, brownfield, derelict
site, toxic site, manufactured landscape,
terrain vague, loose space, abandoned site,
disturbed site, and a host of other labels. In
this thesis exploration, the site is an overlap of
an “abandoned” cement distribution facility,
a “vague” gravel expanse under a bridge, and
a small “brownfield” park, all in proximity
to active shipping and industry along the
Duwamish River. Development of such a
site has become a major focus of landscape
architecture design practices, and one I was
drawn to investigate. This literature review
begins to unravel the importance of walking
in the practice of site design in this context
by first discussing the state of knowledge
about post-industrial site design and then
considering how walking as an approach to site
analysis develops a particular framework of
understanding place through movement.
I will review pertinent philosophical
considerations of experience and place
that inspired me to consider walking a
“derelict” site as a key means of site analysis.
Concepts of place situate the method and
analysis of walking within a lived experience
perspective, and highlight the importance of
walking as a principal means. This requires
an overview of how self and environment
interact. In addition, contemporary concepts
of place establish, for my exploration, that
the perspective of process and flux are an
opportunity for alternative interpretations of
experience. The main concept for this thesis
focuses on walking as a transitional experience
that embraces the various perspectives of
place and understanding described below. It
has been my intent to grasp inspiration as it
unfolds, embrace transition, and follow the
emergent experience.
Walking may seem like a straight
forward activity, but there is a distinctly
profound and complex relationship between
self and site that can be realized through
the act of walking. Walking is a physical
and metaphorical means to travel through
space, literature, ontology, perception, and
communication. I focus on the walking
experience specifically, but am ultimately
meandering through this larger milieu of
walking as a metaphor to think and describe
my understanding of processes. This
9Figure 5: Uncertainty.
chapter reviews key concepts relevant for
an experience within a post-industrial site
that is intended to be spontaneous, loose,
and multifaceted. Together the literature
presented in this chapter forms a foundation
that helped me to understand how the
everyday act of walking is a unique and
informative approach to site and design.
ATTENTION TO THE DERELICT
Uncertainty is a primary attribute of
“derelict” post-industrial sites. The concept
of post-industrial refers to the absence of
production and manufacturing. This absence
of clear and defined understanding is easily
answered by assumptions and generalizations,
including my own generalization of
abandonment and dereliction. The
circumstances of each site are unique,
but there is a general air of failure and
abandonment associated with “disturbed
sites”. Depending on the sites previous use,
there may be structural hazards, or residual
toxicity, along with an entropic patina of
wear. These present a wide array of both real
and perceived obstacles to overcome. No
longer considered suitable for their previous
exploit, the sites seem abandoned, or perhaps
lay in wait to be revitalized, reclaimed, or
redeveloped. This state of elusiveness of
“derelict” post-industrial sites has detracted
many designers from even approaching them,
but the challenge has brought some pragmatic
individuals to try to reestablish order in the
name of progress. The disorder is seen as a
problem to be fixed, but there is an alternative
perspective; one that recognizes the value and
inevitability of uncertainty. Generally assumed
wasted, and in need of drastic changes, these
industrial sites may rest vacant for some time,
which contributes further to the hurdles
of redevelopment (Edensor 2005). These
sites then, are a difficult reality of urban and
industrial places.
Reclamation is the attempt to alter
a site in order to make it inhabitable. A
variety of post-industrial site proposals have
argued for extensive reclamation to eliminate
potential exposure to toxins and provide a
clean slate for redevelopment (Kirkwood
2001). This is often done by knocking down
old structures and shipping out any hazardous
material, or burying the whole problem under
a fresh surface of soil (Hardy 2005). Driven
by fears of public perception, fears of safety
and accountability, and potential profit,
reclamation of post-industrial sites tends to be
a drastic approach to site and design.
There is prospect, however, to be
found in the complexities of industrial sites.
Architect and Landscape Architect Richard
Cass, in Creating Multi-functional Landscapes:
A More Enlightened Approach to Land
ATTENTION TO THE DERELICTLewis, Michael
10
Reclamation, calls for a creative approach to
maximize the public and client satisfaction
of the radical changes characteristic of many
reclamation projects (Cass 2003). Landscape
Architect Elizabeth Meyer, also finds that
“disturbed sites” provide opportunity for
design innovation (Meyer 2007). Not satisfied
with merely making a place acceptable,
Meyer writes that these sites, if designed
effectively, can engage users, influence current
perceptions, communicate potential hazards,
and develop a greater connection to the
urban fabric. For Meyer, “disturbed sites”
have a character of place already instilled in
the site that has a potential to influence a
greater community awareness. The presence
of disturbance, if incorporated into design,
can be associated with larger issues of
consumption and production that is part of our
collective culture. As Meyer writes, “disturbed
sites are risk materialized, spatialized, and
temporalized” (Meyer 2007, p. 67). This is
an entirely different approach that brings the
public face to face with otherwise abstract
and distanced risks of consumer culture.
Reclamation, as she writes, is important, but
that it misses the potential depth available in
alternative methods of design (Meyer 2007).
Meyer argues that there is a greater web of
social and cultural significance to these sites,
and we can embrace disturbance as a key
component for creative opportunity. These
are places with stories and pasts from which to
learn.
Others similarly find opportunity in
“disturbed sites”. Geographer Tim Edensor,
author of Industrial Ruins: Spaces, Aesthetics,
and Materiality, describes industrial “ruins”
as valuable. Edensor, however, goes even
further and counters the premise that
these places are even wasted. Instead, their
character of disarray is an asset as found.
Edensor adventures into a variety of “derelict”
locations to discover what lies within them.
Edensor argues that sites of industrial ruin are
places already embedded with spontaneity,
creativity, novelty, and the freedom to indulge
a variety of transgressions (Edensor 2005).
This almost sounds fun. Edensor’s exploration
of post-industrial sites complements Meyer’s
stance on the value of the “disturbed.” Each
of these three perspectives, though distinct,
offers a way to explore alternative and stirring
strategies to address industrial ruins, and see
dereliction, decay, and entropy as positive
opportunities for new understandings through
design.
Preconceived assumptions about
a site can hamper imaginative design and
encourage premature “solutions” before any
real understanding of the site can be obtained.
Old industrial facilities, due to their unique
physical and cultural complexity, are at risk
11
of oversimplification, and the overwhelming
trend in a consumer culture would be to erase
the mistake and move on. It is not enough,
according to Meyer and Edensor, to merely
restore each of these sites to some arbitrary
state of historical or functional convention. It
is futile to “keep it like it was” (Abbey 1976).
Meyer warns that industrial ruins should not
be “heroicised” for their past grandeur, but
that a balance to reflect who we are is instead
necessary.
Historical preservation would be
an equally limited solution in that it only
represents the history of production without
revealing the results of consumption. It is
important to recognize the risks of the extreme
dichotomous actions of preservation and
reclamation (Meyer 2007). Alternatively, the
path that led to the present is significant and
should be continued as a process.
There is, accordingly, a need to
embrace the scars as a means to heal
holistically. The apparent blemishes challenge
perceptions of beauty, progress, and society by
admitting the past in the process to move into
the future as lessons are learned. The mix of
attractions and repulsion that Meyer identifies
has the potential to better communicate the
“cultural agency” of landscape, and collectively
influence behaviors of individuals –that is, the
social, historical, and cultural significance of
place (Meyer 2007).
DEFINING PLACE
It is important for this thesis to
address the concept of place, which I have
understood as dynamic and changing, for the
consideration of walking as a design approach.
Place is not a simple concept to define and
can be experienced and understood in endless
ways. I have therefore included a summary of
philosophical explorations of place that have
informed my understanding. My interpretation
is constructivist and admittedly changes in
response to my experience and reading of
this literature. There are subtle distinctions
between authors on the subject, occasionally
contradictory. I am not concerned with
arguing their validity and am instead interested
in how the concepts support walking, and
challenge me to explore new lines of thought
as I encounter them. My use of the term
‘place’ can best be understood as a region
inhabited. Whether my stance on inhabitation
is ultimately physical, virtual, or spiritual is not
essential, but still interesting to consider and
so I point it out.
The interpretation of place, although
apparently simple, has continually evolved
as a rather complex concept. Edward Casey,
in The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History,
Figure 6: Explore.
DEFINING PLACELewis, Michael
12
summarizes the various perspectives of place
as defined by various philosophers. This thesis
relies on his discussions of the philosophical
frameworks for understanding of place. Casey
established the significance of meaning and
perception in an intimate understanding
of place. That is, he demonstrates how
consistently across writings about place it is
the human experience of place that emerges
as critically important to a full understanding.
This literature, which I will describe in more
detail below, reinforces the significance
of experience for understanding place,
and inspired multiple ways to engage and
understand experience.
In exploring place in particular, Casey
reveals the importance of experience. Founder
of the field of phenomenology, Edmond
Husserl, argued that experience is the source
of knowledge. Doing is therefore essential in
understanding.
Building on this, philosopher Martin
Heidegger describes the significance and
intimacy of face-to-face encounter. It is
in nearness, according to Heidegger, that
dwelling occurs (Casey 1997, p. 238). In both
cases, the contact of the body with the world
is of primary significance for knowing. Direct
contact with objects and places in the world
inform consciousness and the process of
understanding. Notably, Husserl identifies the,
“altogether mundane experience: walking,” as
a means to link the lived body and the lived
place (Casey 1997, p. 224). Walking, according
to Husserl, provides space with the dynamism
necessary to become place. The body finds as
well as founds place. It is therefore the action
of a lived body that acts as the central agent in
seeking and creating the concept of place. The
body and place are distinct in this matter, but
are ultimately tied together in the everyday
experience.
By blurring the distinctions of the
body and environment, French philosopher
Maurice Merleau-Ponty redefined place as
potential. According to Casey, Merleau-
Ponty describes “place as an ambiguous
scene of things-to-be-done rather than of
items-already-established” (Casey 1997, p.
232). For Merleau-Ponty the potential and
the actualized are distinct in occurrence, but
both are ultimately real. In this context, a
place is not only felt physically, it is also known
and understood in a virtual field of potential.
Place, therefore, has a way of influencing an
event without our mind dictating the entire
scenario, but there is still the insistence on the
body entering and acting. Inhabiting a site
through action, in this case, makes a place a
lived place. It is therefore important in this
regard to act in a space to fulfill its being a
place. Both of these approaches rely on the
idea of a being that acts in relation to the
13
environment.
Two other philosophers – Bachelard
and Deleuze – according to Casey, do not
rely on Being, but instead focus on transition
(Casey 1997). Philosopher Gaston Bachelard,
for example, introduced the notion of
“intelligible place,” which is a place that is
not sensed entirely, but rather projected and
fleeting. Casey writes, “The sense of place
that counts here is not that of place as it
contains and perdures but as it lights up with
the sudden spark of a single striking image,
like a shooting star in the dark abysm of night”
(Casey 1997, p. 288). For Bachelard, place can
be a flicker that is beyond the range of the
previous concepts of place as concrete and
lasting. Accordingly, place can be immaterial
and imagined. It is in this interpretation
of space as a transitional projection that is
especially relevant to my thesis.
For Bachelard the accumulation of
place encounters is how intimate encounters
develop, and I would argue this happens
best through repeated encounters of a site
by walking and allowing for the emergence
of place experience to unfold. The needed
process, much like a developing relationship,
is gradual and progressively more intimate.
One result of this intimacy, according to
Bachelard, is that place materializes more
fully in the virtual realm of the mind and frees
one to daydream and expand beyond physical
confines and perceptions. It is through
intimacy and continued interaction that
Bachelard describes the emergence of place as
an understanding. This is not an impersonal
habitation of dwelling or acting, but rather
a sensual process of new connections that
can inspire creative explorations. Familiarity,
not necessarily of repetition, is therefore
conducive to a deeper understanding of place
that is open to creative exploration.
The concept of place put forward
by philosopher Gilles Deleuze has also
influenced my thinking for this thesis. His
concept of “smooth space”, for example,
has been especially influential. For Deleuze,
smooth space is something which is
transitional and nomadic. Smooth space
is immersive, subjective, transitional, and
“can only be explored by legwork”(Casey
1997, p. 304; Deleuze & Guattari 1987, p.
78). It is both, “body based and landscape
oriented” (Casey 1997, p. 306). Nomadism,
as Deleuze characterizes smooth space , is
not concerned specifically with measure, but
rather in the process of encounter with the
vast opportunity of immersion (Casey 1997,
p. 306). Relationships, as opposed to the
experience of definite form, are important. It
is an intermediary realm between distinct and
ordered “striated spaces” (Casey 1997, p. 301).
Striated space for example can be an urban
Figure 7: Inhabit.
Lewis, Michael
14
core in which the built form defines spaces,
location, and activity. In comparison, smooth
space can be found in the outskirts where this
order begins to break down.
Deleuze writes that without the
restrictions of form, forces dominate smooth
space. Forces, in this case, are processes of
change and movement as relative trajectories
through space among landmarks. Movement
is therefore understood to be transitions
through space in a general relationship
rather than a measured course demarcated
by increments of progress between specific
points. Place, or at least smooth space, is
not so much comprised of the individual’s
experience of structure, form, and order,
but by movement and interaction. It is this
approach that I adopted to explore the post-
industrial site I selected for my thesis for such a
site lends itself well to Deleuze’s interpretation
of smooth space.
These descriptions of place emphasize
the complexity of place as a concept and a
lived phenomenon. The primary reliance
on Casey for this description has been his
study of place through history in the minds
of philosophers. Place has been argued to be
bound, open, physical, virtual, and transitional
as well as a host of other descriptions.
Common among the descriptions is the
importance, either central or peripheral, of
experience. Experience is a means to engage
a site through first-hand physical encounter.
Walking is one specific mode of experience
that is everyday, familiar, and transitional.
Therefore, walking is a means to embody the
concepts of place presented above. Walking
is an everyday means to continually and
repeatedly encounter a site. It is an excellent
way to encounter smooth space. It has the
potential to create a lived place, provide for
dwelling, inhabitation, increase familiarity, and
emphasize transition.
EXPERIENCE OF PLACE
While Casey provides a useful
framework, work by other scholars provides a
more specific description of the significance of
intimate experience of place. Reflecting on the
importance of place and meaning, Geographer
Edward Relph in Place and Placelessness ,
describes a wholeness of experience in a
relationship to the built environment. He
writes that, “to be human is to have and
know your place” (Relph 1976, p. 1), and
that an erosion of the self has resulted from
a tendency toward placelessness. He further
argues that the experience of modern society
in this case is a negative experience of bland
empty meaning that has only worsened in
the context of globalization. It is therefore
important to understand the significance and
uniqueness of local places as an important
EXPEREINCE OF PLACE
15
asset. An implication of Relph’s argument
is that design of the landscape should take
careful account of the particulars of place.
Care should therefore be taken to investigate
what is unique for a given place. I would argue
that this essential understanding of place is
best understood through repeated encounters
with site to allow aspects of site to unfold.
Not just something in itself to
witness or encounter, place is something
more. Geographer Donald W. Meinig, In The
Beholding Eye: Ten versions of the Same Scene,
Meinig writes, “Thus we confront the central
problem: any landscape is composed not
only what lies before our eyes but what lies
within our heads”(Meinig 1979, p. 34). The
experience of place is not merely an external
construct to see; it is embedded with meaning
that is also felt and understood. Meinig
implies that the landscape bears weight on
our understanding and concept of place. He
further argues that the understanding of
place, though in part a communal construct, is
riddled with the particulars of the individual.
It is therefore important for my thesis to
challenge my presupposed assumptions of
a site and pursue my desire for a gradual
courtship of deeper understanding. In other
words, an extended series of site visits is
intended to better understand the dynamic
between the landscape and myself.
Place is a unifying concept that binds
people and the environment. Philosopher
E.J. Malpas identifies place as a necessity of
experience in which people and place inform
each other. In citing ideas of Martin Heidegger,
he states that the concept of “being-in-the-
world” has become an important concept
bridging the self and the other (Malpas 1999).
As the divisions of self and other dissipate it
becomes clear that place, body, and mind are
threaded together. They become, from this
perspective, essentially dependant. Being
is not just thinking and place is not merely
a location. An active experience is a means
to highlight the unified character of mind,
body, and environment. The implications of
experience and place are that care should
be taken to embrace place as found and to
make conscious efforts to understand the
environment one intends to design or alter.
This strategy of understanding characterizes
my intent to build my connection to place by
actively engaging it before I make proposals to
alter it.
DIALECTIC PLACE AND BODY
Although it is easy to misinterpret the
body’s seamless ability to function without
constant attention as grounds to ignore it, the
descriptions of place above reveal that the
body is an integral link between the mind,
place, and environment. The body is apt at
DIALECTIC PLACE AND BODYLewis, Michael
Figure 8: Relationship.
16
disguising itself. Imagine, for instance, how
easy it is to drift into thought whilst walking.
That our body can function so efficiently
without much thought is a reflection of its
power to maneuver and engage with a world
regardless of our conscious intent (Johnson
2007). Movement, according to philosopher
Mark Johnson, is of “monumental” importance
when considering experience. It is a
continuous part of being (Johnson 2007).
My intent to partake in a series of walks is
therefore not intended to be repetitive, but
meant as an approach to embody the site
through the act of movement.
Johnson argues that the study of
aesthetics is essential in the exploration of
the experience of meaning and thought.
Meaning is more than thought; it is a lived
experience (Johnson 2007). Often ignored,
or left only to the arts, Johnson relies on the
study of aesthetics for an understanding of
meaning that is applicable to other fields.
With the distinction between body and mind
is removed, meaning, as implied by Johnson,
is bound through experience. Inspired by
Johnson’s descriptions of aesthetic experience,
in this thesis, the experience of place is a
lived aesthetic encounter of meaning through
movement. Johnson focuses on the deeper
emotive forces that precede cognition. In
other words, understanding is not entirely
cognitive and I therefore value instinctual
feelings that underlie much of my intentional
interpretation. Johnson looks to thresholds,
not as boundaries, but as areas of overlap
(Johnson 2007). This perspective of thresholds
as overlapping is particularly important for
this thesis, especially when combined with his
emphasis on movement and transition.
IMMANENCE AND UNFOLDING EXPERIENCE
An interest in movement again draws
me to Deleuze. Like Johnson, he obscures the
distinctions between mind/body/environment
by emphasizing process and relationships.
Three prominent concepts relevant to
experience and the built environment that
Deleuze, with various collaborators, addresses
are immanence, becoming, and emergence
(Deleuze & Boyman 2001; Deleuze &
Guattari 1987, pp. 149-66). Immanence is an
embedded state without distinction between
mind, body, and environment. It “dispenses
with an external or transcendent viewpoint”
(Due 2007). I was inspired by this concept
of “immanence” on my movement through
the ether of experience. The implications of
immanence have given me the inspiration to
interpret my understanding of place as the
compression of mind, body, environment onto
an equal plane of emergent experience.
Another philosopher, Alfred North
Whitehead, writes that immanence is “the
IMMANENCE AND UNFOLDING EXPERIENCE
17
doctrine of the unity of nature, and of the
unity of each human life” (Whitehead 1933,
p. 187). The individual then is not necessarily
separate and acting in response to the external
world, but is a part of a network of reactions
and connections. In this state of open-ended
process and evolution, I found an interest
in the site as a setting of becoming. This
state, as described in Deleuze’s text The Body
without Organs and Immanence: A Life, results
in experience that is necessarily immersed,
thought that is essentially biologic, and place
as a field of emergent occurrence. “Becoming”
in this sense reveals the evolving character
of site and experience. The notion of a “pure
immanence,” as an immersed, biologic and
emergent experience of the environment, has
inspired my exploration of place as a medium
of interaction on the same plane as flesh and
thought. One way to explore this plane, for
me, was to walk and explore my experience as
an immersed process of emergent experience.
This process perspective resonates with my
consideration of a site that is characterized
most appropriately by its transitional state of
becoming.
Process is a key factor in
understanding place and experience.
According to philosopher David
Woodruff Smith, in Mind World: Essays
in Phenomenology and Ontology, Alfred
Whitehead establishes a fundamental
ontology of process and flux which can be
seen as a state of “becoming” (Smith 2004,
p. 212). Smith refers to “becoming” as a
process of multiples becoming one. I find that
the implications of becoming are commonly
applicable to ideas of landscape. The current
focus on ecological function reinforces this
perspective of process. Martin Prominski
and Spyridon Koutroufinis, authors of Folded
Landscapes, also find that the connection
between a philosophy of process, and the
weight of ecological concern in landscape
architecture suggest important connections
and opportunity (Prominski & Koutroufinis
2009).
Deleuze is noted for his interest in
process. Philosopher Alain Badiou writes
that the main method of Deleuze was to
“take things by the middle,” not in the vein of
succession, but purely as a state of transition
(Badiou 2000). In an introduction to Pure
Immanence: Essays on A Life, John Rajchman
writes that Deleuze, “introduce[s] movement
into thought rather than trying to find
universals of information” (Deleuze & Boyman
2001). According to architectural theorist
Andrew Ballantyne, Deleuze understood living
as a process of becoming, rather than a static
concept of a complete Being (Ballantyne 2007).
The language and perception of process as
a central character of life can help to break
further from the confines of static design, and
Lewis, Michael
Figure 9: Desire.
18
how landscape designers approach place.
Important to my endeavors has been
the pursuit of a foundation that encourages
an imbedded perception of experience
that embraces the greatest potential for
spontaneous and novel encounters. One such
concept has been emergence. Ballantyne
writes that immanence and emergence
are different sides of the same process.
Accordingly, the two are addressed together.
Immanence is within things, as opposed to the
withdrawal of transcendence. Rather than an
outside force organizing the occurrence, the
event emerges from the situation (Ballantyne
2007, pp. 29-32). For example, in a process
such as the flocking of birds, a complex
swarming might emerge from a very simple set
of rules immanent to the event. An individual
bird’s desire to fly forward together without
crashing keeps the flock together. Add a third
player such as a hawk, and the pattern of
flight becomes rather magnificent. There is no
outside organizational process orchestrating
the event, merely the emergence of complex
patterns resulting from the immanence of life.
This does not disqualify the subjective nature
of experience, but rather for me, it inspires an
insight into the potential to understand place
as a space to embody emergence through
relationships. Place has the potential to be a
setting of rules. When left to run, the rules
serve as an immanent force for emergence.
To use the words of author James Williams,
the resulting event is an “experience of
variations, as opposed to an experience of
identity” (Williams 2000, p. 212). In my design
approach, place is not a thing, but recognized
as an experience of an emergent process of
becoming.
CHALLENGING THE VIEW
The visual and views have dominated
the field of landscape architecture in both
design and representation, but there is a
battery of other senses to embody in design
(Bann 2003; Howett 1985; Johnson 2007).
Architect and theorist Juhani Pallasmaa, in
The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the
Senses refers to this dependency on the
visual as “oculacentrism” (Pallasmaa 2005,
pp. 19-22). This has left other senses almost
entirely ignored. Modernity has compounded
the problem, serving to distance the body
from reality and encourage knowing through
universals of abstraction and mechanization
(Jacks 2004). There is a need, therefore,
to challenge “ocularcentism” and find
opportunity in the greater faculties of
embodied multisensory experience.
Even in current trends, and the
interest in ecology for example, a new
functionalism has been appropriated, often
at the expense of multisensory experiences.
CHALLENGING THE VIEW
19
The public concern for ecological health
has given the designer a sense of scientific
obligation directed to foster the social good,
but it has come at the cost of truly innovative
design (Meyer 2007). To say this has gone
unchallenged though would miss an entire field
of design that has embraced a richer sense of
experience and deeper understanding of place.
As a critique of the emphasis of the
visual, Pallasmaa writes, “Touch is the sensory
mode that integrates our experience of the
world with that of ourselves,” and that, “All
the senses, including vision, can be regarded
as extensions of the sense of touch – as
specializations of the skin” (Pallasmaa 2005,
pp. 11, 42). Enriching the senses is vital, but
while Pallasmaa sees the skin as a boundary,
I see it as a semi-permeable membrane,
or better yet a gradient medium between
flesh and place. Place is not necessarily
something outside the body embedded
with given meaning, but is intimately woven
into the physical interaction of experience
and knowing. The body is an intimate
means to experience and potentially reduce
the tendency of transcendent thought by
instilling an immersed connection to the
world of relationships. Movement is a way to
emphasize the sensual contact of experience,
and walking as a primary mode of experience is
one way to increase the awareness of contact.
How people move through space
has been an important subject of landscape
architecture. Narratives and allegories have
served as organizing frameworks for site
design and the experience of landscape for
many years. Often for entertainment, leisure,
and status, these stories are relayed through
walking as scenes experienced in a sequence
(Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History
of Landscape, Conan & Dumbarton 2003).
Other less explicit subjects could be found in
strolls and rambles, reflected, for example, in
the work of landscape architect Frederick Law
Olmsted. Strolls in Olmsted’s work thread a
relatively continuous experience of walking,
but the picturesque, which dominated his
work, is epitomized by the dominance of
view. His body of work reflects an early
influence from his walks through England
(Olmsted 1852). To reestablish the importance
of experience of movement in its entirety, I
plan to delve deeper into the space between
apparent points, which I find to be the walk.
WALKING IN PLACE
By “walking in place”, I am alluding to
a mode of walking to inhabit a space without
the desire to reach a destination. As noted
in this chapter, walking is an essential way
of learning a landscape. In addition to the
physical qualities of connecting to a site, it
is a critical means to experience a site and
WALKING IN PLACE
Lewis, Michael
Figure 10: Touch.
20
understand the intricacies of place, but more
significantly for this thesis it is a way to explore
the embedded experience of immanence. A
“derelict” and potentially hazardous site may
not seem a likely environment to walk and
explore, but it is my intention to challenge
this assumption and to discover what might
otherwise be missed in this particular type of
site that typifies much of the industrialized
world. Reason would tell me to stay out,
but curiosity draws me forward. “Derelict”
sites, no matter how distant they seem,
connect directly to my life through material
and ecological means. I intend to confront
this reality directly. Walking is a first-hand
experience to observe and relate to a site,
develop my knowledge of place, and explore
the implications of immanence. A landscape
is changing, and as a becoming it suggests
an equally transitional approach to best
understand it. By walking, I intend to resonate
with a site already in transition, and build a
relationship through movement and a shared
experience.
To pursue the meaning of walking is
a pursuit of what it is to be human. According
to cultural historian Rebecca Solnit, walking
permeates the various facets of the human
experience and that “on foot everything
stays connected” (Solnit 2000, p. 9). She
recognizes, through a study of philosophers
and poets, a layering of mind, body, and
environment through walking that was
particularly inspirational to my exploration.
Quick to notice the general tendency of
individuals to underestimate this power of
walking, Solnit describes examples in which
walking was poised as an essential aspect of
exploration, discovery, and understanding
(Solnit 2000). These characters of walking, so
ubiquitous to human experience and capable
of unifying apparently disparate entities, drew
my attention as an approach to site and design
in this thesis.
Architect Ben Jacks, in Reimagining
Walking: Four Practices, asserts that walking
has become obsolete and therefore subversive
and rebellious (Jacks 2004, p. 5). It is a
rebellion against technology, efficiency, and
hierarchy. Walking, this everyday mode of
experience, has been all but eradicated.
Luckily, though, there is a stronghold of
leisure and function that has preserved the
walking experience. Walking is therefore not
necessarily an everyday experience and can
be quite exceptional when emphasized. As
for design, walking can be a method to create,
inspire, and explore.
Author Francesco Careri, in
Walkscape: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice,
looks at walking as a specific art embedded
in history and fundamental to the human
experience. Careri traces pivotal transitions
21
in art history in which walking emerged as
part of a paradigm shift in perception. In this
case walking is no longer restricted to the
everyday and is identified as an exceptional
experience with intention and meaning.
Two significant shifts cited by Careri include
the transition from Dada to Surrealism, and
Minimalism to Land Art. These shifts, Careri
points out, reveal a shift in the way the city is
used and interpreted. It can be seen in land
art and contemporary artists, such as Robert
Irwin, that this progression has continued
to evolve. Careri refers to Richard Long and
his contemporaries as examples of walking
as an aesthetic practice. These artists began
to highlight walking as a method to explore
“the archaic origins of landscape and the
relationship between art and architecture”
(Careri 2002, p. 22). Realizing that the
everyday has meaning, artists at that time
began to explore through walking what the
path meant in a real scale of experiential
dimensions. These artist make an important
connection described earlier that philosopher
Mark Johnson claimed between experience
and meaning and reinforces my understanding
of walking as creative.
Referring to the encounter of the edges
of a city, Careri says, “In this space of encounter
walking is useful for architecture as a cognitive
and design tool, as a means of recognizing a
geography in the chaos of peripheries, and
a means through which to invent new ways
to intervene in public metropolitan spaces,
to investigate them, and make them visible”
(Careri 2002, p. 26). This is a crucial argument
for this thesis. Walking is at once experience
and creation. It not only allows one to read a
site, but simultaneously write upon it (Careri
2002).
Walking is also an experiment of
marking. While walking the observer becomes
an actor, or rather an artist with the same
ephemeral qualities of nature itself. Being
in a place makes an individual a part of its
story. This is an intimate relation between
the observer and the observed in which both
are experiencing and acting simultaneously;
a reference to immanence. Spatially as well,
walking in the industrial region along the edge
of Seattle is a valuable tool that, in the words of
Careri, helped me to recognize the geography of
the periphery.
Careri highlights that walking is a
particularly valuable human experience. It has
both function and meaning. It is a crossroad
where the interdisciplinary realm of architecture
and experience collide. The path, as he calls it,
is both an object and a process. It is process
in which one experiences life and can find
meaning. It is a line left by movement traced
on the ground during the walk. A walk builds
understanding that is particular to a place.
Lewis, Michael
Figure 11: Beckon
22
Filipa Matos Wunderlich, in Walking
and Rhythmicity: Sensing Urban Space,
focuses her attention on walking as a rhythmic
experience. According to her, walking is a
performance to unify with the city. Similar
to Careri, Wunderlich recognizes the creative
force of walking as rooted in direct experience.
It is a mode to experience a sense of place
and it is “…through walking that we immerse
ourselves and dwell in the representational
and lived world” (Wunderlich 2008, p. 127).
Walking threads “being” into the world. I
share Wunderlich’s and others’ interest in the
significance of walking. By recognizing walking
as creative, and accepting it as an immersed
experience, a deeper connection to place is
achievable.
This thesis is a call to do primarily
what I, as a designer, want users to do: to go
outside and walk. Walking has the power to
build connections and test ideas. Ben Jacks
writes that “walking narrows the traditional
Western division between mind and body,
a split that is so often expressed as the
difference between the rational and the
irrational” (Jacks 2007). Place experience has
the dual effect of internalizing the significance
of that place, as well as physically activating
and reinforcing its significance as a place.
Walking can flip expectations and build new
links. Place is fittingly seen as a process of
transitional significance that changes through
and with an emerging experience. Place is
a becoming. A place is not just the terrain,
and not merely the people; it is a mind-body-
environment, all embedded on the same field
of opportunity.
Walking is a uniquely immersive
experience. To walk a place, is to potentially
know a place in a direct, intimate way.
Walking, seemingly quantifiable as a series of
individual steps over a measurable distance, is
rather an analog of continual experience and
movement. Walking brings the body, through
experience, into an emergence of a path.
Anthropologist Tim Ingold, in Lines: A Brief
History, writes that “an ecology of life, in short,
must be one of threads and traces, not nodes
and connectors” (Ingold 2007, p. 93). A walk,
as Ingold describes it, is a continuous process
of linear trajectory. A walk is a process, it is a
becoming.
Both body and site are activated
through movement, embracing forces that
underlie experience and the intimacy of a
continued engagement. Forces, consciousness,
and the flesh mingle. I contend that place and
experiences are necessarily transitional, and
that there is a role of subjective interpretation
in the understanding of place and design. In
addition, fleeting attempts to shift to the
purely immanent plane, which presupposes
the categories of subject and object, effectively
23
inspire new understandings of the unfolding of
experience. In this manner, from transitions
of pure immanence emerge new trajectories.
The walking experience is a continual process
of movement and becoming, open to the
unfolding of situations and interpretations,
with the intent of a deeper understanding
of the site. Based on this knowledge of site
experience, I planned to find a foundation for
design appropriate to the significance of place.
Lewis, Michael
Figure 12: Habitat.
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25Figure 13: Precedents.
CHAPTER 3: PRECEDENT STUDIES
In the previous chapter, I provided
an account of the literature that framed
my stance on experience and knowledge
of place that, in turn, informs my approach
to design. The philosophy and theory in
Chapter 2 grounded my method, walking, as
an approach to site analysis. This chapter will
cover precedent studies that were influential
to my walking experience and design process.
Based on my interest in experience, place,
and walking it was important to me that I
ground my exploration in a physical experience
in a specific place. The chosen site is an
“abandoned” industrial site on Harbor Island
on the banks of the lower Duwamish River in
the midst of an industrial region of Seattle.
The following precedents are projects for
similarly “disturbed” sites.
The following precedent studies
were influential to my walking experience, site
selection, and design proposal. Gas Works
26
Park is a Seattle, Washington example of place-
based industrial reuse. The site embraces
the aesthetic and cultural value of historical
preservation. Landschaftpark Duisburg-Nord,
in the Ruhr Valley of Germany, is an example
of a post-industrial park that embraces the
iconic history of an industrial past. Herring’s
House Park, as a counter example, embraces
a reclamation approach for an industrial site.
The park is situated along the Lower Duwamish
just south of Harbor Island. Additionally, three
projects by earthartist Robert Smithson are
explored in depth, as his work entails a similar
interest in the exploration of place, history, and
process in the context of “disturbed” sites. His
work has been influential in my exploration of
the selected derelict Seattle site.
GAS WORKS PARK
In the 1970’s, the 20.5 acre Gas Works
Park (Fig. 14 and 15) was opened in Seattle at
the northern end of Lake Union. Gasworks
Park was, and remains for me, an innovative
park design. Landscape architect Richard
Haag fought to create a park that sustained
the cultural and historical significance of this
previously industrial site. The innovative
use, by Haag, of much of the old gasworks
structures as artistic forms gained Gasworks
Park notoriety and attention that continues
today (Carr et al. 1992) . Gas Works Park
is an important early example of a post-
industrial site that has inspired my interest and
approach.
The most notable aspects of the park
are the towering gas towers, the climbable
warehouse of machinery, and the large kite hill.
The steel forms serve as a towering landmark
that can be seen from around the adjacent
lake. They are a unique element that makes
a powerful statement about the previous life
of the site, and marks the area as a place of
significance in the surrounding neighborhood.
The warehouse also houses elements
reclaimed from the industrial past and have
been preserved and reutilized. No longer
functioning as motors, conduits, and gears, the
collection of artifacts serve as sculptural forms
to interact with and climb upon.
Kite hill is a revelatory form. Encased
below the hill is much of the contaminated
soil excavated from the site. Now a popular
place to lie in the sun or fly a kite, the hill
collects into one massive form the scale of
contamination. The remaining contamination,
though capped, has been a source of
contention. While some, including myself,
see capping as a means to reflectively confine
the contamination to its site of origin, others
contest the safety of having contamination in
such close proximity to the public.
At the time it was created, Gas Works
GAS WORKS PARKLewis, Michael
Figure 14: Gas Works View.
27
Park brought the “wrath” of many in the local
community upon Haag for his inclusion of
the industrial ruins. The structures challenge
perceptions of aesthetics, serve as a reminder
of the previous use of the facility and of the
effects on the lake (Howett 2002). It is easy
to understand the community’s uneasiness.
To many the industrial heritage embraces the
troubles that the aging facility had posed.
Haag however, not easily deterred, was able
to work with the community to build support.
Rather than erase the past, the elements were
seen by Haag as sculptural forms unique to this
place and history.
From my experience on the site,
sunny days are met with a park full of visitors
flying kites on top of the hill, children climbing
over brightly colored gears and motors, and
picnickers enjoying the breeze coming off Lake
Union. As intended by Haag (Carr et al. 1992,
p. 127) , there are a variety of opportunity for a
mix of passive and programmed activity.
Haag is quoted saying that “I haunted
the buildings and let the spirit of the place
enjoin mine. I began seeing what I like and
then I liked what I saw –new eyes for old” (Carr
et al. 1992, p. 127). This idea of haunting the
site summarizes my approach. In addition to
my interest in Gas Works Park as an example
of post-industrial landscape architecture,
there is a deeper inspiration I have gleaned
from Richard Haag. For Haag, this transitional
awareness of understanding allowed him to
see new uses inspired from his observations.
The items he found inspired him to project
a process of reuse for his design proposal.
Most notable for me in his approach was the
concept of ‘haunting’ a site. Rather than look
to the site specifically as a means to reinterpret
the objects I encounter, as Haag had, his
words inspired me to embrace the process
of change that dwelling in a place embodies.
An extended encounter with place, as Haag
implies, alters the relationship experienced on
site. I walked to weave myself into the site and
to embody this connection of self and site in a
place, as Haag alludes to.
DUISBURG-NORD
A later and much larger scale project
is the Landschaftpark Duisburg-Nord (see
Fig 16-18). As a central piece to a larger
redevelopment project, landscape architect
Peter Latz systematically reused, repurposed,
and reprogrammed the site as a vast, 570
acre, playground made of ominous structures
recycled from the old steel and coal works
(Reed & Museum of Modern 2005, p. 124).
The landscape park, like Gas Works, is an
example in which the traditional conceptions
of public open space, and of toxic remediation,
were challenged (Reed & Museum of Modern
Art 2005, p. 25).
DUISBURG-NORD
Lewis, Michael
Figure 15: Gas Works Kite.
28
Latz writes that the old blast furnaces
symbolize the park, and that each preserved
piece compliments a narrative of the past that
underlies the current uses he has programmed
such as climbing, swimming, and festival
events (Latz, Peter 2001). It is apparent that
the programming of the site is a primary
approach to envisioning new uses for specific
elements. Similar to Haag, Latz mines the
forms as a resource for new utility, value and
meaning while simultaneously preserving an
aesthetic of the industrial past. Like Haag’s
process of imaging new futures, Latz even
went as far as creating mythical pasts. For Latz,
the experience of finding industrial ruins in the
landscape has an emotive force that is deeper
than the rational. At Duisburg-Nord there is
the connection to a real past by encountering
old steel towers, and countless industrial
structures and objects, and yet there is also
the instinctual reaction to these forms due to
their scale and state of decay (Reed & Museum
of Modern 2005, p. 26).
The heroic landmarks embody a past
that may otherwise have been buried. The
ideas that both Haag and Latz have built upon,
the value of experience, imagination, and
reuse, inspired me to venture to similar sites.
It is important in the design of the landscape
to investigate underlying value as found and
not entirely camouflage the past (Hardy 2005;
Latz, Peter 2001; Latz, Partners 2005). This is
particularly true of post-industrial sites whose
structures and past uses are a part of a larger
narrative of land use. As Latz writes, abolishing
the current essence would be a travesty equal
to the original insult of natural degradation
(Latz, Peter 2001, p. 157) On the other hand,
Landscape Architect George Hargreaves
warns that Duisburg-Nord is “perhaps a
troubling celebration of the industrial sublime”
(Hargreaves 2007, p. 165). Hargreaves is
questioning the narrative told. And yet he
recognizes the value of these structures when
he refers to them as sublime.
An important lesson from Lat’z is
the idea that relinquishing control can be a
powerful design approach. For Latz, issues
of scale encouraged him to do just that. The
nearly six hundred acre site inspired Latz to
take on a process approach in which nature
was embraced as a welcome resource to alter
and assist the remediation process (Reed &
Museum of Modern 2005, p. 25). I agree
that process is important, however, I contend
that it is so at multiple scales. In this thesis
therefore, even at a smaller scale, the concept
of transition is intentionally harnessed as a tool
of knowledge and design.
Duisburg-Nord, similar to Gas Works,
serves as an example of the success of linking
historic structures to a contemporary program
for public space. Saving old forms is one
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Figure 18: DuisburgNord-Space.
Figure 17: Duisburg-Nord Form.
Figure 16: Duisburg-Nord View.(Spekking 2006)
(masteruser1999
(McCown 2010)
29
means of referencing the historical narrative of
site that is particularly valuable in the story of
place. Both of these projects share the reality
of an entirely displaced industrial function.
They have been remade as public space for
the surrounding residential population. The
following example, however, is a restoration
project within an otherwise active industrial
region.
HERRING’S HOUSE
Herring’s House Park (Fig 19) serves
as a contemporary design along the lower
Duwamish River which is just upriver from
Harbor Island. For the design of Herring’s
House Park, restored shoreline habitat
greatly outweighed any concern for historical
preservation or cultural narrative. In this
situation, reestablishing some resemblance of
the historic shoreline process was paramount
and serves as an example of the general
approach to landscape design along the Lower
Duwamish River (Fig. 20).
In addition to habitat, history is only
revealed through name. Herring’s House
was an important native Duwamish place for
fishing. However, there is little connection to
culture and history otherwise. For example,
the Seaboard Lumber Mill, an early Seattle mill
located in this site, is no longer a part of the
narrative of the site (Dolan & True 2003). As a
restoration, then, it is apparent that ecological
process and function, though almost entirely
engineered, is the primary concern. The mill
history, seen as part of the industrial hazards,
is not. Erasing the history of the site almost
entirely and establishing a naturalistic fishbowl,
I contend is not an ideal solution. Ecological
concerns regarding habitat for endangered
species fueled the drive to create this eddied
wetland. Though it functions as a tidal respite
for habitat, it has nothing otherwise to do with
the natural structure of the historic river. It
is now a patch of tidal estuary surrounded by
industry.
Herring’s House Park is a reclamation
site for ecological restoration. As such, great
efforts were taken to restructure the landscape
into a fictional past and replicate a desired
ecological function. Besides the place name,
there is no readily discernable connection to
the years of human use, both good and bad.
Gone, is an important history of land use in
which various peoples interacted with each
other and this place. This physical history
is all but lost in the naturalized aesthetic of
the restored site. As the trees grow in, it is
unlikely that visitors will even be aware that
the site has been so heavily constructed to
camouflage its industrial past, and I wouldn’t
be surprised if some thought it was a preserve
that had eluded development. I contend
that this masking of the past is as arrogant of
HERRING’S HOUSE
Figure 20: Herring’s House Park Marsh.
Figure 19: Herring’s House Park.(Edelstein 2001)
Edelstein, Ian. Herring’s H
ouse Park. A
pr 2001. Online Im
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Lewi, M
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30
an approach to place as the initial industrial
construction. While this is a current approach
to an industrial landscape along the Duwamish
River, upon reviewing this precedent, I realized
that this is not an approach I intended to take.
ROBERT SMITHSON
SPIRAL JETTY
I am not the first to identify with
the work of Robert Smithson in the context
of Landscape Architecture, and still I am
indebted to his influence on my work (Reed
& Museum of Modern 2005, p. 25). Rather
than focus on his similar interest in sites of
industrial disturbance, I want to address
concepts explored in his earthworks and
writing: dialectics, sites of time, and entropy.
Johnson, argues that the study of aesthetics is
essential in the exploration of the experience
of meaning and thought (Johnson 2007), and
accordingly I have looked into some of the
work of Smithson.
Projecting from the shore on The
Great Salt Lake in Utah one can find, though
not easily, Robert Smithson’s coiling earthwork,
Spiral Jetty 1970 (Fig. 21). Repeated from a
revolving helicopter above, Smithson describes
the work as, “mud, salt crystals, rocks, water”
(Smithson et al. 2004, p. 113). It is a spiraling
pile of basalt and earth piled into the sea. The
actual work, like much of his explorations, is a
dispersed collection of various media. Spiral
Jetty is a film, an article, various photographs,
and the earthwork (mud, salt crystals,
rocks, water). Spiral Jetty, in addition to its
various formats, is the combination of form,
process, and setting. It is, in other words, a
combination of the figure and the ground; a
concept I borrow and carry through my walking
experience to design.
Smithson, for me, has served as the
artistic experiment in meaning that I have
found guidance in approaching my site. The
overlying lesson I have gathered from his
work and maintained through this thesis has
been the importance of process. Lessons
from Smithson challenge many concepts of
landscape design. As Robert Shapiro writes:
We should note that Smithson’s
earthworks are in many ways the
opposite of the English garden. They
are often not easily accessible; they
do not exist for the sake of pleasure
and escape; they are explicitly
entropic rather than creating the
illusion of timelessness; they make
manifest the work that has gone into
their production; and they involve a
theoretical critique of the humanism
that is essential to the garden’s
aesthetics (Shapiro 1995, p. 119).
The work of Smithson provides an alternative
Smith
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SPIRAL JETTY
ROBERT SMITHSON
Figure 21: Spiral Jetty Form.(Smithson 1970)
31
to the ideals of Eden, and instead acts as
a commentary on culture, perception, and
experience. One does not transcend to
perfection, but rather dwells in the reality of
place and time, free of a predetermined ideal.
In Spiral Jetty, the film, the reflection
of the sun on the water within the Spiral Jetty
earthwork refracts into multiple specters
of light (Fig. 22). The monotone voice of
Smithson quotes, “Gazing intently at the
gigantic sun, we at last decipherered the riddle
of its unfamiliar aspect. It was not a single
flaming star … It was, in fact, a vast spiral
nebula of innumerable suns.” (Montcenis).
Spiral Jetty is at once many things, just as this
quote he uses from the science fiction novel
The Time Stream implies. Not at first obvious,
but communicated most directly in the film,
the focus of Spiral Jetty moves to the edge, and
the periphery is hence centralized, spiraling the
figure and ground together with a multitude of
scalar realities of reference. The combination
of the image and the quote make it clear
that the reflective water and refracted sun
bear great significance, while the jetty itself
becomes more of an organizing framework.
Spiraling to the central void in the film there
is a reflection out to the cosmos that suggests
that the negative space is essentially the figure,
and the earth fittingly the ground.
The significance of Spiral Jetty in
my work has been Smithson’s exploration of
relationships. Rather than focus only on the
sculptural object or prominent form, there is
an emphasis on the surrounding environment
and tangential connections. There is an
alternative to form that is much more
dependent on interaction and connections.
This became important as an alternative
means to address the forms that apparently
dominate post industrial sites in general, and
my site of interest in particular. Rather than
focus only on the abandoned objects as ties to
the industrial past, Smithson here has inspired
in me an additional interest in other marginal
relationships. It will be clearer later, but this
dialectic of figure and ground, or center and
periphery, informed my walking experience
and my sensitivity to relationships and
connections.
Another concept I have found useful
in Smithson’s work is the idea of ‘sites of time’
which I find to be inspirational both physically
and philosophically. Spiral Jetty serves again as
an example. Shapiro writes that,
The “sites of time” are those locations
that manifest the forces of growth,
change, decay, spoliation, mixture,
and drift. They confirm rather than
contest the temporality to which they
(and we) are subject. (Shapiro 1995,
p. 120).
Baker, G., Cooke, L., &
Kelly, K. J. (2005). Robert Sm
ithson: Spiral Jett
y : True Fictions, False Realities. Berkeley, U
niversity of California Press.
Figure 22: Spiral Jetty.(Baker et al. 2005)
32
This consideration of time recognizes that a
variety of forces are at play, and that linear
progression is not a necessity. Progress implies
an advance from the past in a linear march
toward perfection, but I see in Smithson’s
work other forces contrary to this traditional
notion of progress that are equally meaningful.
Smithson, in the multiple mediums of Spiral
Jetty, challenges the rational progression
where the past follows one line through the
present and on to the future.
Stephen Clucas, writing on the
theories of Michel Serres, helped me grasp
the implications of Smithson’s explorations.
Stephen Clucas writes that “Serres suggests
theories of time ‘to draw us away from the
tempest’ of this culture of fire, with its violent
oscillations between extremes” (Clucas 2005,
p. 79). Accordingly, a slower restful state,
which Serres describes as a slow meandering
river, would serve as a stronger conceptual
understanding of time. Progress, according to
Serres, is relevant, but not the only valuable
framework of being. I see this in the work of
Smithson as well. In A Sedimentation of the
Mind: Earth Projects, Smithson writes “One’s
mind and the earth are in a constant state
of erosion, mental rivers wear away abstract
banks, brain waves undermine cliffs of thought,
ideas decompose into stones of unknowing,
and crystallizations break apart into deposits
of gritty reason” (Smithson & Holt 1979, p. 82).
At first, forces opposed to progress may seem
negative, but as shown in Smithson’s body
of work, and those of landscape architects
such as Latz and Haag, other processes
communicate equally valuable meanings.
Rational linearity assumes that time builds
layers up, but there is this other more naturally
dynamic play through a variety of forces.
Fitting for a study of the lower
Duwamish River is the notion of time as a
stream that is, “both progressive and entropic”
(Clucas 2005, p. 81). Serres concludes these
two variables of time, progress and entropy,
together reveal a third modality made of
both, a spiral. The combination creates a
semicircular causality, or “a spiral in three-
part time, the reversible time of isonomy, the
irreversible time of drift, and the productive
time of compensation” (Clucas 2005, p. 81),
that parallels the foundation and form of
Robert Smithson’s work.
The centering of the periphery of
process and of the site results in a ‘site of time’,
“and it is as a proposition about the passage
of time- its shape, course, and implications
for history- that Spiral Jetty interacts most
profoundly with its site” (Roberts 2004, p.
97). The lake contains what Robert Smithson
called a collection of “modern prehistory.”
The saltine lake is desolate, secluded,
and dispersed with remnant vehicles, and
Smith
son,
Rob
ert,
et a
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Sm
ithso
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Uni
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Smith
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Sm
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Uni
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Figure 24: Entropy.
Figure 23: Great Salt Lake.(Smithson et al. 2004, p.119)
(Smithson et al. 2004, p.119)
33
abandoned sheds that lay testament to a
passage of time and change (Fig. 23 and
24). The periphery of site, construction, and
process are brought forward to be experienced
on the frame of the center which is the spiral.
The experience is like that of an eddy
of turbulent time. It is a vortex, as philosopher
Michel Serres might say, where vast expanses
of time are brought into close quarters much
like a thought that floats a memory to surface
in a present experience (Fig. 25). According
to Smithson, the site“…must instead explore
the pre- and post- historic mind; it must
go into places where remote futures meet
remote pasts” (Smithson & Holt 1979, p.
91). The film, also a spiral, overlaps the
events of construction and completion. The
act of dumping the stones into the sea is an
important feat; a part of its past brought into
contact with the form and the accumulating
salt.
RUNDOWN
Entropy can be beautiful. Think of
the mountains and the rivers that course from
them, reaching ceaselessly to the sea. The
water scours the mountain in a continuous
effort to pull it down grain by grain, loading
the water with sediment. Water and gravity
in geologic time tirelessly carry the mountain
toward the shore to be fanned out and layered
in the shallows. The following two examples by
Smithson are “entropy made visible;” Partially
Buried Shed and Asphalt Rundown provide
insight into Smithson’s exploration.
Entropy is a force that standard
assumptions of constructed order resist.
It counters the control assumed by many
efforts in the built environment which, in
general, resist disorder and decay. It would
first seem contrary to the expectations of
a builder to build structures that age. In a
disposable society, as items wear and degrade
their value is lost, and they are discarded
for a new replacement. Robert Smithson
refers to Humpty Dumpty as the general
consensus about entropy. Once broken, there
is no putting him back together (Smithson
& Holt 1979, p. 194). Not just a final state
of uselessness though, entropy is a process
of erosion, settling, wear, and collapse; all
destined to a resting state. It is the running
down to a more stable position.
According to Shapiro, “The resistance
of earth, what Heidegger calls its self-
sheltering and concealment, bears the name
of entropy in Smithson’s writings” (Shapiro
1995, p. 138). This resistance was revealed
in another of Smithson’s works entitled
Asphalt Rundown, Rome 1969 (see Fig. 26),
by dumping a truckload of asphalt down
a steep eroding quarry bluff. According to
RUNDOWN
Smithson, Robert, et al. Robert
Smithson. Berkeley: U
niversity of California Press, 2004.
Figure 25: Stills from Spiral Jetty film.(Smithson et al. 2004 p. 172)
34
eyewitness accounts and images, the pour
followed the grooves of the slumping quarry
cliff. In an experienced moment of the pour,
layers of entropic process are highlighted.
The quarry wall previously eroded and fluvial,
was left slumping down to wear away. The
asphalt followed this path and dried, in a loss
of momentum. The entropic release of heat
brought it to rest and allowed it to harden.
Entropy in this case halted the asphalt, which
in turn temporarily protected the soil below
from further entropic erosion. Entropy was
encouraged to highlight and subsequently halt
entropy (Smithson 189-196, Shapiro 49). The
process here was the focus of the work.
In Smithson’s words, “I am for an art
that takes into account the direct effect of the
elements as they exist from day to day apart
from representation” (Smithson & Holt 1979,
p. 133). Smithson was attempting to separate
himself from the work and let it be what it
was. It was his attempt to decenter himself
from the work, a move to abandon the siteless
nature of modern sculpture and have the place
and its physicality dictate how the work would
ultimately unfold (Krauss 1979). Place is a
significant aspect of Smithson’s work.
Rosalind Krauss categorized another
of Smithson’s works, Partially Buried Shed
(Fig. 27 and 28), created at Kent State
University in 1970, as a “site construction” in
an “expanded field” of sculpture (Krauss 1979,
p. 41). Krauss in this assertion is recognizing
the overlapping quality of Smithson’s work as
it progressed into other design fields. In this
installation, Smithson piled earth on a shed
until its center beam fractured. Similarities
to Asphalt Rundown can be seen in Partially
Buried Woodshed in the alluvial forms of soil as
gravity tries to pull down a slope. Eventually
the structure collapsed and only traces of
the foundation remained (Shapiro 1995, p.
57). The object itself was not the focus of this
work, though it is physically central. Entropy
was pulled into the core of the project. Rather
than his construction efforts, or the particulars
of the structure, it is the forces of structure
and gravity interacting that embodied this
construction.
The shed was built to stand,
but time would inevitably pull the shed
down. Smithson, through the intentional
manipulation of the site (piling it on the shed)
increased the pressure on the structure to
speed up the results of time, weathering, and
decay. His “site construction,” as Krauss refers,
manipulated the earth into a pile to take the
structure down with it as gravity reduced the
potential energy of ordered matter into a
resting pile of eroded debris. The shed and
earth, no longer the center of attention, were
merely left to be acted upon by the process of
entropy. Life, in terms of everyday peripheral
Smith
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Figure 26: Asphalt Rundown.(Smithson. 1969)
35
experience, became a central concern.
These works by Robert Smithson
highlight an abandonment of the modern and
offer a dependence on site and force. Krauss,
in addressing the concept of monument writes
that “It sits in a particular place and speaks
in a symbolical tongue about the meaning or
use of that place” (Krauss 33). Though not
monuments in the general understanding,
Smithson’s work reintroduces the background
in art, and of the forces at play in a site,
becoming something of a champion of place in
his time.
The lessons I have garnered from
studying Asphalt Rundown and Partially Buried
Woodshed are that the force of entropy can be
a powerful realm with which to work. These
two projects exemplify a perspective I valued
in approaching the “disturbed” site on the
Duwamish River, and it inspired a personal
interest in exploring underlying processes and
entropy.
The precedents described in this
chapter –Gas Works Park, Landschaftpark
Duisberg-Nord, Herring’s House, and the
landart of Smithson –were central to my
approach to the lower Duwamish River.
Each contributed to my understanding of
past approaches to post-industrial sites, and
influenced how I proceeded with a design
process. I had understood from Gas Works
and Duisberg-Nord the power in new meaning
from past form, from Herring’s House the
potential sacrifices of ecological restoration,
and the significance of process and time from
the works of Smithson. Inspired to discover
the value inherent in a specific derelict site on
the lower Duwamish, I embarked on a series
of site walks. Together, these projects helped
to situate my approach among other designers
with similar values and faced by similar
challenges.
Figure 28: Partially Buried Woodshed fall.
Figure 27: Patially Buried Woodshed.
(Smithson et al. 2004, p. 186)
(Smithson , R. Partially. 1970)
Smithson, Robert. Partially Buried
Woodshed: det.: exterior. 1969.
database online. ARTstor. A
ug 2010. <htt
p://library.artstor.org/library/se-cure/View
Images?id=8CJG
czI9NzldLS1
WED
hzTnkrX3kvcFNyeC4%
3D>
Smithson, Robert, et al. Robert
Smithson. Berkeley: U
niversity of California Press, 2004.
36
Lewis, Michael
37Figure 29: Clarity.
CHAPTER 4: EXPERIENCE
The findings presented in this chapter
are an interpretation of my understanding of
the site through qualitative descriptions of my
experience. Motivated to nourish a deeper
knowledge of site, I “haunted” the area I
chose for my thesis exploration. I wanted to
explore the site as an integral part of it and so
I wandered the site to foster the relationship
of mutual becoming (Holland 1998). My
exploration of the site was an evolving
process in which the walk served to embody
an intellectual and physical wandering.
That wandering was a gradual process in
which novel encounters precipitated from a
flow of lived experience unfolding through
the situation. This process should not be
construed as an aimless wandering, though. It
was rooted in my recording and interpretation
while remaining open to intuition and
cognizant of my own grounded experience and
background.
38
As will be described below, a series of
site visits influenced me to progress through
several stages of perception and experience. I
began the approach with the assumption that
I would land on a [a]generic site characteristic
of the generalities with which I associate the
Lower Duwamish River. By walking the area,
however, I discovered a unique “derelict” site
within the Lower Duwamish that I defined as
a [b]figure/ground bound by a distinct lined
edge. As I began to interact with the site more
intimately, that edge dissolved and I connected
with the site as a mutual [c]becoming in
which movement and process expanded the
boundaries of the site and my explorations.
This transition of understanding occurred while
simultaneously nourishing the [d]emergence
of various design explorations through
sketching, rendering, and writing. Not entirely
distinct, these phases overlap and continually
informed each other.
[a] GENERIC
My first impression of the site,
which at this stage was not yet identified
and so entirely theoretical, was based on
the industrial character of the region (Fig.
30- 34). I assumed the Lower Duwamish
River was industrial, and almost uniformly
so. Armed with this generic understanding
of my potential site as industrial, I set out on
foot to find a site that would satisfy my desire
to investigate place through an embodied
method of investigation. I use the term
generic, as opposed to context, intentionally
because at this stage of my findings the specific
site was not yet defined or known. Generic
is a useful term because it is spatially and
thematically inclusive rather than exclusive.
A generic concept of site, as I am using it,
refers to both the site and context as a general
region. The site of study therefore is some
space within this generic site. The site in this
phase is therefore defined by a great deal of
assumptions and uncertainty. By walking, I set
out to continually challenge my generalizations
of site and place with particulars of immersed
experience.
Immersed in the generic site, I
explored the industrial character of the River
and recorded my observations. Walking on
the shore proved extremely difficult. Factories,
barbed wire, rubble, abandoned automobiles,
steal shrapnel, warning signs, riprap, and
fences made trekking along the water not
only restricted, but often dangerous. I set out
on foot to walk along this “waterway.” My
observations were disjointed and dominated
by obstacles and hazards. Chain fences barred
access to much of the shore, and security
was always quick to point out that I was on
the wrong side of such barriers. I therefore
understood the generic to be almost entirely at
odds with my desire to walk.
[a] GENERICLewis, MichaelLewis, Michael Lewis, Michael
Figure 32: Harbor Island to Southeast.
Figure 31: Harbor Island to Northeast.
Figure 30: Harbor Island to West.
39
Walking a heavy industrial sector
seems unappealing. It is difficult, discouraging,
dangerous, and often confusing, but walking
promotes opportunity, surprise, and creativity
and it was therefore how I set out to find a
site to inhabit. I wanted to experience what
walking could bring to my understanding of a
site that I would otherwise be inclined to see
as disturbed and wasting.
An important framework of my
understanding of the area upon entering
the region was the work of environmental
and community groups who describe the
shore through a narrative of degradation
and ecological injustice. In response to the
ecological and cultural impacts of industrial
activity, including the designation of the five
mile portion of the river and upland areas as
a superfund site, there has been a patchwork
of restoration and environmental mitigation
in the area. Herring’s House Park and North
Wind’s Weir are two nearby examples of
contemporary habitat restorations. I began
with the perception that this river was a source
of conflict and was poised for change between
two dichotomous states –species habitat and
industrial use. I understood the generic site
of study as an industrial superfund site on a
path to becoming a reclamation project for
shoreline restoration. Having yet to identify a
specific site, my imagined designs mirrored the
current standards of design on the river.
Continued walking however revealed
to me that there was more going on here
than I had assumed. The juxtaposition of
the river, warehouses, residents, and parks
became clearer to me. Knowing that the lower
Duwamish River, including the floor, banks, and
upland, has been designated a “superfund”
site, I was surprised by the proximity of these
various uses. Superfund is a label that places
the river amongst the most toxic sites in the
United States (http://yosemite.epa.gov/
R10/CLEANUP.NSF/sites/hi). Fearful of what
this means, I found myself hesitant to even
touch the water or soil. It was obvious to me,
however, that individuals work and live within
this area and their exposure is clear. Moreover,
there is a growing movement among the
community and government to increase public
access to the water, reduce toxic hazards, and
increase regional habitat which only serves to
increase contact with the industrial waters.
The toxicity of the soil and water, concern for
salmon, and pockets of ecological restoration
made it clear to me that the region is in flux
and need of innovative design approaches,
including first-hand investigations made
through walking. A variety of interests are
layered in this sector and how they proceed to
relate is an important consideration.
It appeared industry and production
along the river are slowing, but in no
immediate threat of halting. For example,
Coetzee, Derek. Aerial view of Harbor Island in Seattle. April 2010. Online Image. Wikimedia Commons. May 2010. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial_view_of_Harbor_Island_in_Seattle.jpg>.
Lewis, Michael
Figure 34: Generic Site.
Figure 33: Harbor Isaland.(Coetzee 2010)
40
even as I observed the bustle of activity such
as the unloading of shipments, the crushing
of salvaged automobiles, and the hustle of
employees, it was clear that the facilities and
equipment acquired a fair amount of wear. I
found paint peeling from multiple surfaces.
Amid odor of petroleum and cement I could
sense the oxidized iron now exposed to the
saline air. Not only could I see it, but the
rust seemed to resonate within my skin and
through my lungs. Sloughing as a fine powder
into the wind, the tensile strength of steel was
slowly being eroded by the entropic force of
time and salt air. I could almost taste it.
Peering through the slats of a wood
fence I saw carefully categorized piles of
steel forms of unknown purpose left to the
elements. Previously essential technologies
of production were left parked perhaps for
future uses, re-uses, or abandoned entirely.
The objects were portrayed part of the life of
this place, which was visibly still unfolding,
even if in unforeseen ways. Entropy typifies
the river and continues to challenge the
ideals of progress and production. The items
I found reflected a spectrum of patinas that
I interpreted not as a sign of degradation,
but as utilization and endurance. I sensed
a span of time eroding on most surfaces I
encountered along the river. The wear is a
trace of life leading through to the present.
The traces told a story in the present marked
from movements of the past. As I walked and
pondered, I thought of time as an active force
that preservation and restoration both attempt
to disguise. Preservation is an attempt to halt
time, and restoration to erase it. Entropy,
however, relentlessly counters both regardless
of the extreme efforts to prevent it.
Entropic considerations of time, the
sedimentation of a meandering river, the
persistence of tides (Serres & Latour 1995),
and the extreme efforts to channelize the
Duwamish River, coupled with the surrounding
neighborhoods made this a dynamic place to
investigate. The ‘running down’ is alarming at
first, but contains a depth of life that is both
tied to the past and a clear character of the
present (Shapiro 1995; Smithson & Holt 1979).
Entropy has a life, and it is in that wearing,
peeling, rusting, and crumbling in which I saw
opportunity to understand how process might
be otherwise understood as both a natural and
human phenomenon.
At this stage of walking ideas of design
were simultaneously loose and expectant (Fig.
35). Fueled more by my understanding of
precedent studies, I found myself hoping to
find a site to rival Emsher Park, or to explore
ideas inspired by landartist Robert Smithson.
My doodles were primarily sketches of
factories on the opposite bank with notes to
try to get there later. In general, my ideas were
Lewis, Michael
Figure 35: Early Sketches
41
fleeting and expressive, but limited to their
connection to my walking experience in the
generic site along the river.
[b] FIGURE/GROUND
After a series of exploratory walks
along the river, I focused on a specific portion
of Harbor Island as a site of study. Already
walking for hours along the river, I came
upon what appeared to be yet another
restricted industrial space. However, I
could not discern any activity from within
and it became obvious that this site was no
longer functioning as an industrial facility; it
was apparently an “abandoned” site in the
context of an industrial region, or rather a
distinct figure (site) defined separate from the
ground (context). This clear definition of site
surrounded by context, however, was short
lived and continued to transition through this
phase of my walking experience. At first clear
and separate, various details and encounters
encouraged me to reconsider the edge dividing
the figure/ground as an ambiguous gradient of
continuous interaction.
SEPARATE
I walked the contour of the fence
that surrounded the site and peered in at the
towering silos that, from outside, seemed to
be the dominant landmark within. My initial
understanding of the site in this phase was that
this edge acted as a boundary to differentiate
the interior from the exterior. Rather than the
encompassing generic site considered in the
last phase, this phase begins by distinguishing
an object, the site, in space (Fig 36).
Upon my first approach to what
eventually precipitated as my site of focus, I
found signs along the edge that warned of a
variety of consequences for given behaviors,
essentially saying “stay away,” “do not enter”
and so on. The combination of barbed fencing
shrubs (Fig. 37), and warning signs (Fig. 38)
marked a clear boundary that emphasized the
division between the apparently “abandoned”
site the surrounding industrial context. It
appeared, therefore, to be a space of complete
dereliction resting securely within the bustle
of surrounding activity and production. At
this stage, I defined the site by the property
boundary which was clearly outlined by the
fence.
Fortunately for me, the fence ran only
to the bluff at the shore with just enough room
for me to swing around it at the river’s edge.
I followed a subtle path already trampled in
the gravel up to and around the fence. Upon
entering the site I was greeted by a bright
yellow warning sign. Expecting yet another
feeble warning against my intended infraction,
I was surprised to find something else entirely;
a hazard sign warning of the health risks
[b] FIGURE/GROUNDSEPARATE
Lewis, MichaelLewis, MichaelLewis, Michael
Figure 38: Separate.
Figure 37: Figure/Ground.
Figure 36: Separate Figure/Ground Site.
42
associated with consuming fish from the river.
It said nothing of the legality of fishing, but
instead informed me of the potential toxicity of
fish and shellfish living in the river.
Drawn forward by the silos, I made
my way through a staggered stretch of
opportunistic plants (Fig. 39). Gridded across
the site through cracks in the concrete, the
scrubby plants had emerged where there was
access to soil, water, and sun. Shaded surfaces
were covered in moss, and plants that could
handle salt sprung from the gravelly shore.
Even on the top floor of the tower, I discovered
moss growing on the handrail (Fig 40). The
apparent lack of tending within the site felt
markedly different than outside the dividing
fence.
The site was no longer a place of
productive industry, and seemed abandoned
(Fig. 41-43). The warehouse was vacant and
littered with papers from an upturned file
cabinet. Light fixtures from the ceiling were
either pulled to the ground or shattered in
their perches. The surrounding sheds held only
a scattered display of rusted artifacts. I found
the silos to be eerily empty with little more
than the maddening sound of a low drip falling
from the roof of the tower. My solitude began
to consume me as I prowled stealthily through
the site.
Besides the slow dripping of water
coming off the tower and my cautious steps,
there was no other apparent sound or
movement from within the site. In response
my senses grasped for stimuli from the
adjacent site context. The site seemed to
consume sound produced from beyond the
fence. The noise of traffic felt safely distanced
but made its way effectively to me. Growing
more attuned to the sound of surrounding
traffic I became much more aware of the
relationship this particular site had with the
context.
GRADIENT
My reconsideration of the site as
a separate entity came from the constant
sound that was being directed toward me
from beyond the fence (Fig. 44). In addition to
the constant rushing of automobiles, I heard
trucks, ships, hammering, and the occasional
flock of ducks. The silence within the fence
created a relative void for sound to enter from
beyond and it created a gradient of experience
immune to the presence of a fence. Intrigued
by this relative transparency of the fence, I
began to reflect on my previous experience as
well. My experience was not merely isolated
to my immediate environment.
At the edge, according to philosopher
Gilles Deleuze, “…interior and exterior are
Lewis, Michael
Lewis, Michael
Lewis, Michael
Lewis, Michael
Lewis, MichaelFigure 42: Graffiti.
Figure 41: Derelict.
Figure 43: Searching.
Figure 40: Moss.
Figure 39: Opportunists.
GRADIENT
43
equally a part of immanence in which they
have fused” (Deleuze & Guattari 1987). In
other words, the edge is where interaction and
unification mesh together; it is the contour
line that unites the figure and ground. I
reconsidered this specific site to rest at the
center of the edge where the distinctions
of figure and ground, or rather the site and
context, are interwoven and dependent. It
is the periphery where, as Deleuze would
say, nomadic deterritorialization may occur
(Ballantyne 2007; Deleuze & Guattari 1987).
Deterritorialization, in this case, is a reference
to the transitional quality of loose space that is
freed of rigorous control. As a peripheral loose
space, movement and interaction characterize
this site at multiple scales. Walking the
boundary of land and sea, home and industry,
attraction and repulsion, industry and post-
industry, site and context revealed to me the
fluctuating interaction of deterritorialization
through this overlapping region.
Thinking back to my traversal of
the perimeter fence described above, it was
obvious from the pedestrian tracks along the
crumbling bluff that I was following the steps
of others. The boundary was readily breached
as my later discovery of bent gates and cut
holes would reveal. Not only had I found it
easy to enter the site, but the strategically
placed hazard sign regarding toxic fish (see
fig. 38) reveals that my access point was a
known entrance by others hoping to reduce
community exposure. In addition to the
location reinforcing my new consideration
of the permeability of this edge, the sign’s
content hinted at another violation. It
dawned on me that there was a very real
risk of absorbing environmental toxins found
throughout the river.
My observations of chaos and ruin
were also evidence of continued inhabitance
of the site (see Fig 39-43). I also began to
consider plants as an indicator of transport
across the fence which would do little to
prevent spores, and seeds from moving into
or out of the fenced area. Such evidence
revealed the movement and action of
continued use. My consideration of the site as
a figure/ground therefore became less defined
and continually looser. Instead of two distinct
spaces, I began to look closer at the dialogs
that occur across apparent boundaries (Fig. 44-
45). I considered the figure and ground at this
time to be dynamic and integral to each other
(Fig. 46).
Although I first considered the site
abandoned, I found evidence of intrusion and
activity that reinforced my new perspective
of a fluid gradient (see Fig. 47-49). Graffiti,
although found elsewhere, was relatively
concentrated within the fence. It is almost as
if the graffiti escapes this place and disperses
Lewis, MichaelLewis, MichaelLewis, Michael
Figure 46: Gradient Figure/Ground Site.
Figure 45: Gradient Egde.
Figure 44: Figure Interacting with Ground.
44
out. More likely however, it is people from
elsewhere converging within this one site for
its reclusiveness. I found empty bottles and
cans piled in corners and along appropriated
seating. Piles of garbage including newspaper,
magazines, and food packaging, were
scattered about. I began to realize that people
frequented the site by continually fluctuating
in and out of the space. I considered that
much of the character that caused me to label
the site originally as abandoned was actually
a testament of its inhabitation (compare Fig.
47-49 with 39-43).
I began to explore the relationship
between the site and surroundings as a rather
dynamic process of interaction at the edge of
the figure and ground. I felt at this point that
the site balanced a peculiar state of being both
within and separate from the buzzing activity
and that the edge was much more malleable
than the apparently static line created by the
fence. The boundary of the site does not
remain restricted to the property line. I took
the liberty to embrace the idea of the edge of
the figure/ground as a dynamic interface freed
of the static delineation of defined boundaries,
and continued to explore it through walks and
design studies.
My study of dynamic edges was not
limited to the edge of the site, but included
various surfaces as well. The towering silos
serve as an example. The looming forms,
which drew me to the site because of their
prominent form, were subdued in significance
by my continued exploration. Through time
they became less of an object of reverence or
curiosity and were increasingly understood by
me as a general landmark among which I found
myself moving near, or through. By walking,
I became increasingly tuned to the process of
permeability and exchange through and among
them. The silo became a wall that defined the
open space, a gateway to cross into the site, or
a set of stairs to ascend.
My designs took shape in response
to my experience of the site as a discrete
object embedded in its surroundings. At
first, captivated by the silos and the derelict
state of the site, I deconstructed the forms in
hopes of finding some new significance to the
prominent landmarks (Fig. 50). I thought that
these unique features would foster a design
particular to this place. The figures could be
recycled within the existing context to bring
new meaning to the site.
As the edges became more obscure,
however, I tested alternative ways to utilize
the dialog I was considering between the site
and context. I considered methods to enhance
the interface of the site with that of the
surrounding hustle. For example, I considered
the site as a uniquely human scale from which
Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael
Figure 49: Moss and Mushrooms on Concrete.
Figure 48: Graffiti above Toy Bin.
Figure 47: Steps.
45
to connect users to the industrial activity
surrounding it. The asylum of the site resides
close enough for one to feel the industrial
pulse and yet distant enough as to avoid being
assaulted by it. Rather than settling on the
boundary as an edge to define the site, I was
now exploring a fluid gradient of exchange to
the greater surroundings. In other, words, the
edge was seen by me as an expansive space
of vitality and overlap rather than a precise
division.
Embracing this loose boundary, I
imagined the site could be an initial respite
at the edge of Harbor Island that would be
the first in an initial submersion of users to a
larger network of increasingly direct industrial
experiences. For the purposes of this thesis,
I wanted to restrict my attention to walking,
and therefore, did not address this more
regional concept any further, but did however
continue to explore my new appreciation for
process and interaction. The following section
is a continued exploration of movement
and change which I am referring to as a
“becoming.”
[c] BECOMING
As described in the literature review,
“becoming” is an open-ended state of
transition. The type of walking I considered
during my experience is gradual, nuanced, and
meandering. I moved through the landscape
not in a channeled abstract grid, but coursed
to and fro in direct response to the site and
unfolding events. Walking in this fashion was
not a repetitive endeavor to trace an abstract
grid of measured paths between designated
points and bumping into objects as I move
through space, but was rather an experience of
becoming in which the site and I were a shared
process. In this manner both self and site
were in an open-ended transition of increased
familiarity; referred to in an earlier chapter as a
mutual unfolding of becoming-place.
Becoming is characteristically
transitional (see Fig. 51). My descriptions are
appropriately shifting as I continued to revisit
the site. There are a series of train tracks
that follow the fence and trace the eastern
edge of the defined site (see Fig. 52). Initially
I understood the tracks as an obstacle to site
access and fell just outside the contour of
the figure/ground. I would cross the tracks
and picture the hazards that a train passing
would cause for public access to the site. I
imagined the train as a nemesis that might be
best to ignore, but considering the site as a
“becoming” encouraged me to expand my site
boundary and embrace the train and tracks.
Not until the fourth visit, did I have a direct
encounter with a moving train (see Fig. 53).
Upon this encounter I felt the train first as a
rumble in the ground followed by a bursting
[c] BECOMING
Lewis, Michael
Figure 50: Deconstruction.
46
approach
south gradient
southwest edge
core site
general site
north gradient
Figure 51: Becoming-Site.
Lewis, Michael
47
horn. At the time I was planning to leave the
fenced site but the train lurched slowly past
and blocked my route. What emerged from
the encounter was both a new trajectory
for walking as I was forced to pioneer a new
course, as well as a fresh string of design
explorations.
Passing the train, I wandered below a
nearby bridge just south of the site, and to my
surprise, stumbled on a view of Mount Rainier
(Fig. 54). A fortuitous layering of weather,
rail schedules, courses, worked together to
provide a spectacular opportunity during
that one visit. The train encounter gave me
reason to again wander beyond the fenced
site defined previously, but now with a new
interest in the process of experience. Having
the train interrupt my path unexpectedly
was an encounter entirely different from the
abstract knowledge of routes and schedules for
the train. Walking forced a physical encounter
and reaction. This experience modeled what
others could possibly encounter while walking
in this place.
Based on maps and observations
described in the previous section, I had first
defined the site by the fence. I considered the
tracks as they might reinforce this stationary
understanding of edge. However, my new
appreciation of a loose edge and the train
encounter inspired me to include the tracks
as an essential process of site experience.
Having veered from my intentional route in
response to my train encounter, I explored
the neighboring terrain with new motive.
In addition to embracing the tracks, this
path that I was pioneering guided me to
envelop portions of the adjacent sites which
I had previously eschewed as part of the
context (Fig. 51). The boundary of the site,
as I understood it, was also engaging in
“becoming.” No longer defined by the static
border of the fence, I found that the site had
taken a transitional character of place that
was becoming organic and responsive. The
site, through the movement of the train, had
influenced my course. My response was to
explore new terrain, which then became part
of my definition of the site. This alteration of
perception encouraged me to consider the site
and my experience as a process of “becoming.”
Looking back, entering this site each
time, for me, was a process of relinquishing
absolute control and allowing the experience
to dictate a loose scenario of encounter and
engagement. This release was freeing to me
as a means to flow through the experience and
recognize the dynamic at play between the site
and me. Rather than stand back and observe,
or dictate the scenario, I embedded myself
in the unfolding of the situation. Walking
became fun, and often transgressive. There
was an immediacy in which I could no longer
Figure 54: River View.
Figure 53: Train and Fence.
Figure 52: Tracks.
Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael
48
resist the desire to touch, turn, dig, kick, break
and open whatever was accessible.
When I left, it was an entirely
different experience than I had expected
upon arrival (Fig. 55-57). I walked without
any specific direction or particular intent,
but spontaneously moved in imaginative and
unpredictable ways throughout the site and
surroundings (Casey 1997; Edensor 2005).
These walks were about expanding the
possibilities of experience and therefore my
imagination and creativity. Together, the site
and I were in a state of “becoming.”
In addition to this freedom to act in
ways I might otherwise subdue, the site had a
direct influence on my response. Intentionally,
I am addressing the mutual agency that this
scenario of letting go and walking enhances. I
had the power to alter the site, and it too had
power to alter me. I would argue that the site
had agency to manipulate through experience,
and in this method especially I experienced site
as an equally animate participant in a flow of
encounters made possible through my walks.
The site therefore, as a place of physical and
cultural significance, had a direct influence on
my movement and understanding. The site, I
found, was not merely a thing, but a dynamic
process that acts and reacts.
As a process of “becoming-other,”
according to philosophers, there is a state of
flux that does not have a definitive outcome.
There is no requirement in this understanding
to resolve a walk in order to progress to a final
outcome, or satisfy a particular desire, but the
act is in essence an ontological perspective
that embraces flux and becomes fulfilled in a
state of transition. Philosopher James Williams
writes in regard to Deleuze that, “the ontology
of “becoming” turns against progress, defined
in terms of the move towards ideals or lost
origins” (Williams 2000, p. 203). Accordingly,
it is the process of movement, not progress,
which is important. This perspective is not
characterized as a journey from an origin to
some final ideal, but in my case of walking.
I walked and designed because it is the
process that is fulfilling, not necessarily the
result. For my project this meant that process
takes physical and creative precedence over
subjects, objects, points, and paths.
[d] EMERGENCE
It is from this understanding of
becoming that my designs of process emerged.
As a continued dialog of transition, my design
explorations began to consider and question
experience as a process of site design.
Discussed more in Chapter 6, I explore how my
discoveries of a site as a becoming influenced
my conceptual framework for an emergent
design (Fig. 58). As with my approach to
[d] EMERGENCELewis, MichaelLewis, MichaelLewis, Michael
Figure 55: Danger.
Figure 56: Coin Washer.
Figure 57: Perched.
49
walking, my proposal relies on the repeated
visits of others to the site and actively engages
their movements as a trace for others and me
to read and respond to.
The designs at this phase were
inspired by my understanding of place as
a process. My proposals are intended to
highlight to others the relationships of people
and place, and in particular to this place as
a becoming. I was inspired by the site as an
organic and active force to explore how the
agency of the site might best be encouraged,
how continued traces of movement could
be clearly read, and in how my particular
experience continues to influence my designs.
Lewis, Michael
Figure 58: Emerging Design
50
Lewis, Michael
51Figure 59: Walking.
WANDERING
CHAPTER 5: METHODS
Simply put, the primary method
of investigation for this thesis was walking.
This chapter will outline my particular
method of walking and its implications for
observation, recording, analysis, and design.
Using a mixture of photography, sketching,
and journaling, I documented my walking
experience as a creative endeavor (Ballantyne
2007). Walking, for me, straddled the dual
aspects of investigation and performance
and nourished a rich connection to the site.
While sketching, photographing, and designing
are acts of creativity that supported my
exploration, I gave primacy to walking as a
method of site investigation.
WANDERING
Initially inspired by American
environmental writings, I became fascinated
with walking and the particular connection
to place that it fosters. As noted in Chapter
52
2, the literature explored the importance
of developing a personal connection to the
landscape and of the significance of qualitative
description of experience. Drawing on the
literature, and supporting concepts of place
and process, I actively engaged the physical
practice of walking the site, thus engaging
a praxis of theory, doing and knowing. In
particular, I took a series of walks (Fig. 60)
in order to study how my understanding
of experience, site and place transitioned
through increased familiarity. The discursive
walks, as Filepa Wunderlich (2008) refers to
them, were engaged rambles during which
I recorded personal reflections on the place
and my emerging experience through notes,
sketching and photography. I used the records
from the walks to study my interaction and
understanding of the site. This emergent
approach to understanding through experience
was ultimately applied to a phased design
strategy (see Chapter 6).
I utilized Christophe Girot’s (1999)
trace concepts: landing, grounding, finding and
founding to help describe my design process.
Girot’s concepts, in addition to systematizing
a method of investigation, require a longer
interaction with place to challenge the
limitations of short encounters. Landing is an
initial state of interaction prior to the designer
knowing anything about the site. Grounding
is a second stage consisting of research and
analysis. Finding is the process of searching
for and discovery of aspects of the site and
experience. Founding is the synthesis of the
other three as a generative response. Rather
than rely on this method as a progressive
system, I recognize the four trace concepts to
be cyclical, with each taking turn as a dominant
aspect of my experience through walking and
design. The result of my revisiting the trace
concepts was the increased experience of
wonder, excitement, and novelty described
for each. The phases I identify in Chapter
4 (generic, figure/ground, becoming, and
emergence) associate to a retracing of Girot’s
concepts throughout my experience.
Walking, though seemingly
quantifiable as a series of individual steps, is
understood for the purposes of this exploration
as an analog of continual experience and
movement (Ingold 2007). My process was not
a series of measured steps or linear routes, but
rather a flow of relational trajectories. In other
words, I was not interested in the specific
route between any particular points; rather I
took a more appropriate record of transition
as interaction of force and proximity. In this
manner walking was a mode of open-ended
sensual experiences based on a sustained
desire to pursue the slow unveiling of
occurrence. I mapped a series of these walks
and was surprised how sporadic the routes
seemed in comparison to the fluid unfolding I
Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael
Figure 60: Some Mapped Wandering.
53
felt at the time. Wandering an emergent route
made sense on the ground as an intentionally
fluid experience, but in comparison appears
irrational as plotted.
Regardless of weather, I scheduled
one walk on the site per week, making
additional visits when time permitted. I
participated in at least two visits a week,
and often three at various times. This was
an arbitrary scheduling and was meant to
ensure that I walked the site through at
various times and durations, but not overly
rigorous as to stifle the spontaneity I desired.
Brazenly subjective and ultimately haphazard,
I explored the way I knew best; I wandered.
I trampled about in an effort to trace how
weaving my own experience into the site
informed my interaction and understanding of
it. As described in Chapter 4, walking the site
through a series of visits resulted in a shift in
my experience which I recorded in a variety of
ways.
OPEN INVENTORY
With each walk of the site, I
conducted an open inventory of my
experience. This is a record of all observations,
conclusions, assumptions, and creative flights
during my walking experience (Fig. 61). I
refer to it as open because it includes a wider
range of data than I would otherwise have
recorded had I not made the conscious effort
to challenge my own assumptions. In other
words, I included a wider scope of data so
that new connections might emerge for the
purposes of design. The inventory served as
record of personal observations and insights
collected as a list of notes, short descriptions,
considerations, questions, narratives, and
assumptions supplemented by sketches and
photographs. The goal was to maximize
the variety of data collected as it became
apparent. Through this process of open
inventory, I remained prepared for unforeseen
horizons.
Each form of recording was an
intentional process I facilitated in order to
appreciate the composition of experience and
creativity. They are imaginative expressions
of flow serving to mediate what lies between
moments; that elusive “plane of immanence,”
also called “becoming.” Movement, thought,
and creativity were integrated in a variety
of ways into my approach. Photography,
sketching, and journaling were a means to
inform interventions appropriate to the site
and my understanding of it as a place.
PHOTOGRAPHY
The collection of photographs I took
during each walk was used to document
the site and my experience and served as a
OPEN INVENTORY
PHOTOGRAPHY
Lewis, Michael
Figure 61: Inventory Samples.
54
medium for creative exploration and design
composition. In reviewing these images I
noticed that they portrayed the relationships
between structures and site elements,
provided me a record of material details and
close ups, captured portions of the views that
drew me forward, and mapped a perspective
storyboard of my walks. Although some of
the photographs were careful compositions
intended to instill an aesthetic reaction, many
were quick snapshots that later exposed
hidden aspects of my experience that were not
intentionally documented. Going back to the
images and reexamining them revealed that
they were becoming more than a catalog.
Following each visit I would catalog
them chronologically and cross reference them
by themes or concepts. The chronological
sequence helped me to interpret how my
focus changed across disparate walks and
provided an easy way to remember the
general sequence of my experience. One
collection of images grouped together the
visible traces from the ground surface (see Fig.
64). Organized together I was able to see the
relative importance of this particular subject.
Other collections were collated by themes of
shape, color, and composition. This process
allowed for quick reference and a continual
reflection of what themes were present in my
walking experience.
While shuffling through the
photographs I explored new connections
from my walking experience through the
juxtaposition of various images. For example,
I grouped images of common forms as an
experiment to find patterns on the site. I was
able to link, through photographs, relatively
disparate images through this method.
Another activity was the pairing of similar
photographs to imply subtle movements
between the images. My goal in this exercise
was to investigate the resonant encounter of
two images as a metaphor for the literature
on becoming and process (Fig. 62). These
pairs echo each other, not to imply a direct
movement from one moment to the next,
but to reveal an infinite depth in the invisible
process that lies between them (see Fig. 63).
These new compositions helped me to explore
the ideas of process philosophy through a
physical medium and to better grasp the
potentials of understanding process.
In addition to the photographs of
views, materials, and spaces, I captured
particular frames in an effort to communicate
the site as an experience of “becoming” (see
Fig. 64). Certain compositions were intended
to give an indication of my physical presence
and movement, users’ movements, and still
other compositions were to imply imagined
events (see Fig. 10). This was done by framing
spaces and relationships and blurring through
55
movement and depth of field, rather than
concentrating on the composition of objects.
Through these photographs I investigated ways
to communicate my understanding of walking
the site. The photograph collection helped
me connect space, scale, and experience to
theories of place, process, and becoming.
This connection helped me to approach
design as a transitional experience. With
each consideration of photographs, the
new connections were reflected upon with
emerging design ideas created both by hand
and digitally.
SKETCHBOOK
The sketchbook was a familiar
medium to record my observations. The pages
were a critical environment to explore my
understanding and begin to draw connections
between site, observations and interpretations.
Most of the pages included quick doodles
scattered with notes and arrows to explore my
passing expression of the situation. I made
quick sketches that were rather expressive,
whereas a few of these included much more
detail and therefore more dedication to
produce. The sketchbook was an important
tool for recording, reflecting and exploring on
my experience and design ideas.
The information in the sketchbook
provided notes and sketches that were
supplemented by photographs. This data was
a necessary record of my experience and a
valuable tool for the expression of my insights
and ideas. Rather than rely strictly on memory,
the sketchbook provided a visual form of
notes. Relying only on photographs would not
have allowed me to record specific thoughts
and moods that were arising in the situation.
These less tangible details became important
for my design process. Recording through a
variety of modes can be a challenge, but had I
relied on only one, my records would not have
been as encompassing.
Throughout the series of walks I
explored various design alternatives. As
described in Chapter 4, the various studies
reflected my phases of understanding. The
designs were represented in doodles, sketches,
and modeled renderings, as responses to
categories such as, restoration, preservation,
deconstruction, overlap, and transition. Not
entirely a progression, I utilized a variety of
ideas from each category in my developing
proposal.
Perspective graphics are a vital
element of my design process. Building from
my emphasis on the physical embodiment of
space and place through walking, my approach
to design is rooted in perspective. The intent
is to highlight and transcribe my ideas through
the spatial format from which I experienced
Lewis, Michael
SKETCHBOOK
Figure 62: Between-Places.
56 Figure 63: Between-Moments.
Lewis, Michael
57Figure 64: Traces and Marks.
Lewis, Michael
58
sun noonriver high
park empty surprisewiggle path
covered benchesstone
painted steelpennieswasher
tipping off edgegrass tall
brown grasshide riprap
traffic noisewhoosh
see jet flyingT18
old terminalfishing string
chip bagdrift wood
concrete rubblepier polestrain bell
hornsink hole
eco blocksslumping gravel
armoredtensequiet
vacantmarginal
weedscracksworn
wettoy car broken
toysexacto knife
broken boardsrope
moss ropecoiled
rustpitting
steal toweryellow paint
elevatedframed
empty shedopen cabinet
cut wireswarning sign
carvedriver
light beamcornered
dark cornersfalling gatehole in wall
step throughlocked door
broken windowlight
plastic tarptripped
drippinggutter
muggy wet airclimblowerraise
pulleystep
shardsperched
telephonegreen funnel
yellow polefilm
descendoutside
stairascendstep up
turnsteal
slipperypool of water in room
dead enddescendcircular
pipessense someone watching
cat ran bycat in tunnel
bloody knuckledrip drip drip
saw shoesleeping bag
pillowhandles to touch
dizzy heightmoss
see towerspectacletrespass
safetyhearing buzzing
my own heart beatsweating
logpaint
broken glassclimb roof
hole in wallslippery metal
skylightbedding
beerpolice stopped to watch
head northgeese
trussesgravel
walking on trackschain link
latchesbalance on rail
engine noisesmells bad
swarming birdsshoreline
crumbling pierrotted woodbirds in pier
waves lappingjet noise
shore birdshear ducks quackchirping honking
steam or smoke across rivercrunch rock
siren in alkaiheron
rebar trippedpebble beach
wetwater sound calming
glad to be away from silencebirds everywhere
sqaukingintrude on birds
slimy mud parking lothungry
hands drysmell rust or blood
earthen fellburied tracksgravel peaks
diagonalwarm sun
long shadowwarning signbarbed wire
walk around fencesun on back
pavement over waterlinear
zig zagsand patchrust stripe
railoil
gasstraw bails
slabs in waterreflection pools
dead endfootprints
loud carexposed open lot
windmillstall wall
prison walltrain tracks
chain linkrumbling ground
cargo shiptug boat pulling
chest rumbleuneven walkkids playing
truck broke downrush of traffic to leave
see downtownsun setting
sidewalk secondarycross road
cross trackscross road
cross trackshuge funnelcold breeze
wall risingtall towers
tunneledchase geese
drivinglost
passed bytent
woman in truck waitingrain
wet benchesriver flow fast
pacingshipyard lights on
eveningriver straight
structure straightpath wiggles
tileswrappers
bottlescans
tall grassduck honk
whoosh of carstrain horn
growl of truckcalm
swarm aroundgeese over water
bell
no smellwide tracksboat motor
metal bellhonk
bridge turningholes lights
delaybarge gone
slow passtrain bridge honk
raindrips
tap tap rainmore train
warning fish toxicnew art
porous crete slabsdoor moved
sense presencegrass on roof
rocks on cementslick moss
hole in fencebroken glass
tap tapahhh a voice
a person yellingslipped
open lotgravel
sandcompact soilunder bridge
steel stairnumb cold
train bridgerust
downtown viewspace needle
dark shadow going westlights
overcasttackle weight
basketballrest on bench
water appears to flow upstreamblackberry
rip rapgeotextile
filldesire line
path to watercandle
waxed curbshore across riverstacked concrete
logmowed grass
water fountaincreak
falling wood walkfeel train
slowdoor prop
wedgeasbestos warning
shelterlow tide
pilingwood plank
plantpower lines
bikesbell
bridge swingcaution buried cable
caution toxic fishgate close
noaabirds
train bridge dropwalk bridge
roller bladerto train
geesecross river
waitcold
distant viewfeather
dead birdsandmoss
clovergravel
train trackflat island
pedestrian bridgepebble
shrubevergreen tree
annual grassrope
logplastic bag
rubber hosepole
copper discsbroken light
shedrusted steelhazard sign
cut fencethorns
trucktrailer
wireceramic triangle
noaapedestrian
squattersleeping bag
pillowempty can
bottleflaked paint
broken glass windownorth wind
scaffoldtide high
tentmoss on steel rail
up highberries
empty paintpants
exacto knifefishing wire
sunrain
screwship gone
electrical pulled outcabinets open
steal laddergrated walk
water in pitssteal cover
drainwiring
wood shelvescurved room
arched openingsteal funnel
gravelpier
sink holeeco straw bags
orange fencestair
bridge gatetower guy
curved pathopen shelters
wet benchvacant
hereladder
dustreflection
beamcrumbling catwalk
jacketdesire line
overpassbridgeswivel
tug boatbolt
shardscardboardpolice car
shippingtrucking
wood dolphinstoy car
rusttelephone
bottlesilo
footprintpools
rectangle slabwater fountain
penniesslow
train bridge upbridge down
turnbalanceseagull
weightsfence
thornsconcrete crack
handlesriprap
skateboardertruck parked
truck leaveman on tower
watcherclack clack clack
new shipunder bridge
bike ridersanother person
birds chirpingbirds not visiblecompacted soil
gravel crunchwalkers on bridge
terracesfenced pillars
riders on bridgebike pathsquatter
no crosswalkcurve road
poor sight linelost bike rider
no crossing visiblepower lines
shadeoverpass sidewalk
nowheresee pier
transitionempty
shelteredMt Rainier
skateboarderjaywalk
ha! minivan caravantrain tracks
slumped soilnew entrance
squeezecave-in
bellsail boat
bridge turnasbestos
distrust asbestosgraffiti
gate lockedwire knot
new graffitiskateboarder clack
creaky woodsoggy unsafe
rottenrail broke
edgeover water
want to jump incold
time
difference
trace
entropy
process
texture
material
relationship
embodiment
view
scale
perception
spontaneity
chronological observations concept example
Figure 65: Coding Spectrum.
Lewis, Michael
chronological observations concept example
59Figure 66: Observation Sample.
sun noonriver high
park empty surprisewiggle path
covered benchesstone
painted steelpennieswasher
tipping off edgegrass tall
brown grasshide riprap
traffic noisewhoosh
see jet flyingT18
old terminalfishing string
chip bagdrift wood
concrete rubblepier polestrain bell
hornsink hole
eco blocksslumping gravel
armoredtensequiet
vacantmarginal
weedscracksworn
wettoy car broken
toysexacto knife
broken boardsrope
moss ropecoiled
rustpitting
steal toweryellow paint
elevatedframed
empty shedopen cabinet
cut wireswarning sign
carvedriver
light beamcornered
dark cornersfalling gatehole in wall
step throughlocked door
broken windowlight
plastic tarptripped
drippinggutter
muggy wet airclimblowerraise
pulleystep
shardsperched
telephonegreen funnel
yellow polefilm
descendoutside
stairascendstep up
turnsteal
slipperypool of water in room
dead enddescendcircular
pipessense someone watching
cat ran bycat in tunnel
bloody knuckledrip drip drip
saw shoesleeping bag
pillowhandles to touch
dizzy heightmoss
see towerspectacletrespass
safetyhearing buzzing
my own heart beatsweating
logpaint
broken glassclimb roof
hole in wallslippery metal
skylightbedding
beerpolice stopped to watch
head northgeese
trussesgravel
walking on trackschain link
latchesbalance on rail
engine noisesmells bad
swarming birdsshoreline
crumbling pierrotted woodbirds in pier
waves lappingjet noise
shore birdshear ducks quackchirping honking
steam or smoke across rivercrunch rock
siren in alkaiheron
rebar trippedpebble beach
wetwater sound calming
glad to be away from silencebirds everywhere
sqaukingintrude on birds
slimy mud parking lothungry
hands drysmell rust or blood
earthen fellburied tracksgravel peaks
diagonalwarm sun
long shadowwarning signbarbed wire
walk around fencesun on back
pavement over waterlinear
zig zagsand patchrust stripe
railoil
gasstraw bails
slabs in waterreflection pools
dead endfootprints
loud carexposed open lot
windmillstall wall
prison walltrain tracks
chain linkrumbling ground
cargo shiptug boat pulling
chest rumbleuneven walkkids playing
truck broke downrush of traffic to leave
see downtownsun setting
sidewalk secondarycross road
cross trackscross road
cross trackshuge funnelcold breeze
wall risingtall towers
tunneledchase geese
drivinglost
passed bytent
woman in truck waitingrain
wet benchesriver flow fast
pacingshipyard lights on
eveningriver straight
structure straightpath wiggles
tileswrappers
bottlescans
tall grassduck honk
whoosh of carstrain horn
growl of truckcalm
swarm aroundgeese over water
bell
no smellwide tracksboat motor
metal bellhonk
bridge turningholes lights
delaybarge gone
slow passtrain bridge honk
raindrips
tap tap rainmore train
warning fish toxicnew art
porous crete slabsdoor moved
sense presencegrass on roof
rocks on cementslick moss
hole in fencebroken glass
tap tapahhh a voice
a person yellingslipped
open lotgravel
sandcompact soilunder bridge
steel stairnumb cold
train bridgerust
downtown viewspace needle
dark shadow going westlights
overcasttackle weight
basketballrest on bench
water appears to flow upstreamblackberry
rip rapgeotextile
filldesire line
path to watercandle
waxed curbshore across riverstacked concrete
logmowed grass
water fountaincreak
falling wood walkfeel train
slowdoor prop
wedgeasbestos warning
shelterlow tide
pilingwood plank
plantpower lines
bikesbell
bridge swingcaution buried cable
caution toxic fishgate close
noaabirds
train bridge dropwalk bridge
roller bladerto train
geesecross river
waitcold
distant viewfeather
dead birdsandmoss
clovergravel
train trackflat island
pedestrian bridgepebble
shrubevergreen tree
annual grassrope
logplastic bag
rubber hosepole
copper discsbroken light
shedrusted steelhazard sign
cut fencethorns
trucktrailer
wireceramic triangle
noaapedestrian
squattersleeping bag
pillowempty can
bottleflaked paint
broken glass windownorth wind
scaffoldtide high
tentmoss on steel rail
up highberries
empty paintpants
exacto knifefishing wire
sunrain
screwship gone
electrical pulled outcabinets open
steal laddergrated walk
water in pitssteal cover
drainwiring
wood shelvescurved room
arched openingsteal funnel
gravelpier
sink holeeco straw bags
orange fencestair
bridge gatetower guy
curved pathopen shelters
wet benchvacant
hereladder
dustreflection
beamcrumbling catwalk
jacketdesire line
overpassbridgeswivel
tug boatbolt
shardscardboardpolice car
shippingtrucking
wood dolphinstoy car
rusttelephone
bottlesilo
footprintpools
rectangle slabwater fountain
penniesslow
train bridge upbridge down
turnbalanceseagull
weightsfence
thornsconcrete crack
handlesriprap
skateboardertruck parked
truck leaveman on tower
watcherclack clack clack
new shipunder bridge
bike ridersanother person
birds chirpingbirds not visiblecompacted soil
gravel crunchwalkers on bridge
terracesfenced pillars
riders on bridgebike pathsquatter
no crosswalkcurve road
poor sight linelost bike rider
no crossing visiblepower lines
shadeoverpass sidewalk
nowheresee pier
transitionempty
shelteredMt Rainier
skateboarderjaywalk
ha! minivan caravantrain tracks
slumped soilnew entrance
squeezecave-in
bellsail boat
bridge turnasbestos
distrust asbestosgraffiti
gate lockedwire knot
new graffitiskateboarder clack
creaky woodsoggy unsafe
rottenrail broke
edgeover water
want to jump incold
time
difference
trace
entropy
process
texture
material
relationship
embodiment
view
scale
perception
spontaneity
chronological observations concept example
SPECTRUM CODINGLewis, Michael
the site. Rendered perspectives fulfilled that
desire. The use of site maps is therefore
secondary and presented to communicate the
spaces in the greater network of experience on
and around the site.
SPECTRUM CODING
The sketchbook served as a resource
for analyzing the significance of walking as
a series of visits. For example, I created
a coding spectrum (Fig. 65) to reinterpret
my observations. First, I transcribed my
experiential notes into a chronological list (Fig.
66). Wanting to conceptualize the specifics
of my experience within a general framework
for analysis, I tried to code the observations.
I did this by giving my observational notes
conceptual labels that captured the nature of
each observation. This method is similar to the
process of coding for qualitative data analysis
based on grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin
1990). From the list of codes developed, I
distilled my walking experience into thirteen
distinct concepts: difference, embodiment,
entropy, perception, material, trace, process,
relationship, scale, spontaneity, texture,
time, and view. As a graphical exploration
of the process and the concepts, I created
two columns with the list of miscellaneous
observations on the left, and the thirteen
distilled concepts on the right. Using a
color coded schema, I then connected each
observation to the relevant concept with a
line. The primary focus of this exploration
was to determine the relative persistence for
each concept. Like a walk, the story of each
concept, seen in the figure, is more significant
than attempting to hone in on each step. This
stage was particularly important in highlighting
the significance of walking as a series of visits.
The process of analyzing the walk revealed an
underlying pattern I had otherwise missed.
Hidden from the senses of my experiential
observations there resided a significant
conceptual pattern of transitional interaction.
From the coding process, a visual
pattern was formed. As a process of
emergence, a complex pattern resulted from
a relatively simple set of rules (Holland 1998).
In this case, connecting a chronological list
of observations to an alphabetical list of
concepts enabled the relative prominence of
certain concepts to emerge. These patterns
embedded in my walking, and interpreted
through coding, take the sensory recording of
my experience and interpret it from another
perspective. The pattern suggests a deeper
aspect of my reality that I had not consciously
discerned during my observations, but still
embodied through the experience. Although
the visual pattern is constructed through
coding, the process of coding is an attempt
to understand my experience from another
perspective; to see what I was not seeing. Like
60
a body of water, walking seems simple rippling
on the surface, but has a volume below
coursing with a depth of movement.
Rather than focus on the specifics, I
am concerned with the general pattern. The
pattern for the concept difference caught
my attention. The pattern and the way I
interpreted the definition of difference reveal
a subtle alteration in my understanding of
this place that is the result of a continued
relationship with the site. It is, in other
words, the result of me having revisited the
site. It reveals a correlation between time,
experience, the emergence of a pattern, and
my understanding of place as dynamic and
variable.
The cone of black lines (Fig. 67)
depicts a gradient for difference. There were
a few initial outliers, seen as a few sporadic
lines higher on the spectrum that condense
as one proceeds down the graphic. For the
initial observations of difference, the outliers
are observations of the uniqueness of the site.
These lines represent the observation that
the site was unique in comparison to adjacent
spaces. The larger region, for example, is
industrial, whereas the site is post-industrial.
There was a subtle alteration in how I defined
difference in later visits. It transitioned from
difference between site and non-site to how
I understood the site as different from visit to
visit. This pattern plays out in the transitional
analysis already described. Based on a [a]
generic idea of what type of sites I would find
I first became aware of the [b] figure/ground
in which I saw the site as a distinct place.
On later visits I became less attentive of the
distinctions between sites, and instead found
the site as a [c] becoming where difference
occurring within the site felt significant. A
series of walks, as revealed here, is essential to
an understanding of the site and its internal life
of flux because some processes are not quickly
apparent or obvious.
The other twelve concepts I
developed have relatively wide spectrums.
The concepts are more continuous. They
are dispersed relatively even throughout my
observations. Had the spectrum dissipated
through time then I would consider that
only one or a few visits are necessary, but
each concept is characterized by a dispersed
spectrum. This persistence reinforces my
argument that repeated visits continue to
build a knowledgeable relationship with the
site. Familiarity, I found, does not suggest a
complete understanding, but can be seen as a
more informed connection that continues to
grow. Even at the bottom of the observation
list, each concept continues to be represented.
Therefore, after multiple visits significant data
continues to arise. Based on the particularity
of the concept, difference, this information
61
is not merely a superfluous pile of cataloged
date. According to this graphic exploration,
later observations remain valuable and
interesting. It follows that a series of walks
altered my experience and therefore my sense
of place.
The figure signifies an emergence
of complexity from a simple set of rules. It
reflects a process of immanent communication
in which much more than the immediate
encounter is embedded in place experience.
This supports the hypothesis that a series
of walks continues to provide a dynamic
relationship to site. This reinforces Ben Jacks’
statement that, “Only by walking the land, fully
engaged and immersed as we read carefully
and deeply, can we truly know a place” (Jacks
2004). Walking takes time, and the more we
walk, the more we know.
The photographs, sketchbook
contents (both images and words), and
coding strategy helped me to analyze and
communicate my experience in a more
careful, systematic way. Through this process
I learned two primary lessons. On one hand,
the method of walking as wandering created
a more intimate connection to the site as
a place. On the other, the analysis of that
method of walking through coding helped me
to interpret the significance of the experience
and identify concepts of the site that resonated
with me.
sun noonriver high
park empty surprisewiggle path
covered benchesstone
painted steelpennieswasher
tipping off edgegrass tall
brown grasshide riprap
traffic noisewhoosh
see jet flyingT18
old terminalfishing string
chip bagdrift wood
concrete rubblepier polestrain bell
hornsink hole
eco blocksslumping gravel
armoredtensequiet
vacantmarginal
weedscracksworn
wettoy car broken
toysexacto knife
broken boardsrope
moss ropecoiled
rustpitting
steal toweryellow paint
elevatedframed
empty shedopen cabinet
cut wireswarning sign
carvedriver
light beamcornered
dark cornersfalling gatehole in wall
step throughlocked door
broken windowlight
plastic tarptripped
drippinggutter
muggy wet airclimblowerraise
pulleystep
shardsperched
telephonegreen funnel
yellow polefilm
descendoutside
stairascendstep up
turnsteal
slipperypool of water in room
dead enddescendcircular
pipessense someone watching
cat ran bycat in tunnel
bloody knuckledrip drip drip
saw shoesleeping bag
pillowhandles to touch
dizzy heightmoss
see towerspectacletrespass
safetyhearing buzzing
my own heart beatsweating
logpaint
broken glassclimb roof
hole in wallslippery metal
skylightbedding
beerpolice stopped to watch
head northgeese
trussesgravel
walking on trackschain link
latchesbalance on rail
engine noisesmells bad
swarming birdsshoreline
crumbling pierrotted woodbirds in pier
waves lappingjet noise
shore birdshear ducks quackchirping honking
steam or smoke across rivercrunch rock
siren in alkaiheron
rebar trippedpebble beach
wetwater sound calming
glad to be away from silencebirds everywhere
sqaukingintrude on birds
slimy mud parking lothungry
hands drysmell rust or blood
earthen fellburied tracksgravel peaks
diagonalwarm sun
long shadowwarning signbarbed wire
walk around fencesun on back
pavement over waterlinear
zig zagsand patchrust stripe
railoil
gasstraw bails
slabs in waterreflection pools
dead endfootprints
loud carexposed open lot
windmillstall wall
prison walltrain tracks
chain linkrumbling ground
cargo shiptug boat pulling
chest rumbleuneven walkkids playing
truck broke downrush of traffic to leave
see downtownsun setting
sidewalk secondarycross road
cross trackscross road
cross trackshuge funnelcold breeze
wall risingtall towers
tunneledchase geese
drivinglost
passed bytent
woman in truck waitingrain
wet benchesriver flow fast
pacingshipyard lights on
eveningriver straight
structure straightpath wiggles
tileswrappers
bottlescans
tall grassduck honk
whoosh of carstrain horn
growl of truckcalm
swarm aroundgeese over water
bell
no smellwide tracksboat motor
metal bellhonk
bridge turningholes lights
delaybarge gone
slow passtrain bridge honk
raindrips
tap tap rainmore train
warning fish toxicnew art
porous crete slabsdoor moved
sense presencegrass on roof
rocks on cementslick moss
hole in fencebroken glass
tap tapahhh a voice
a person yellingslipped
open lotgravel
sandcompact soilunder bridge
steel stairnumb cold
train bridgerust
downtown viewspace needle
dark shadow going westlights
overcasttackle weight
basketballrest on bench
water appears to flow upstreamblackberry
rip rapgeotextile
filldesire line
path to watercandle
waxed curbshore across riverstacked concrete
logmowed grass
water fountaincreak
falling wood walkfeel train
slowdoor prop
wedgeasbestos warning
shelterlow tide
pilingwood plank
plantpower lines
bikesbell
bridge swingcaution buried cable
caution toxic fishgate close
noaabirds
train bridge dropwalk bridge
roller bladerto train
geesecross river
waitcold
distant viewfeather
dead birdsandmoss
clovergravel
train trackflat island
pedestrian bridgepebble
shrubevergreen tree
annual grassrope
logplastic bag
rubber hosepole
copper discsbroken light
shedrusted steelhazard sign
cut fencethorns
trucktrailer
wireceramic triangle
noaapedestrian
squattersleeping bag
pillowempty can
bottleflaked paint
broken glass windownorth wind
scaffoldtide high
tentmoss on steel rail
up highberries
empty paintpants
exacto knifefishing wire
sunrain
screwship gone
electrical pulled outcabinets open
steal laddergrated walk
water in pitssteal cover
drainwiring
wood shelvescurved room
arched openingsteal funnel
gravelpier
sink holeeco straw bags
orange fencestair
bridge gatetower guy
curved pathopen shelters
wet benchvacant
hereladder
dustreflection
beamcrumbling catwalk
jacketdesire line
overpassbridgeswivel
tug boatbolt
shardscardboardpolice car
shippingtrucking
wood dolphinstoy car
rusttelephone
bottlesilo
footprintpools
rectangle slabwater fountain
penniesslow
train bridge upbridge down
turnbalanceseagull
weightsfence
thornsconcrete crack
handlesriprap
skateboardertruck parked
truck leaveman on tower
watcherclack clack clack
new shipunder bridge
bike ridersanother person
birds chirpingbirds not visiblecompacted soil
gravel crunchwalkers on bridge
terracesfenced pillars
riders on bridgebike pathsquatter
no crosswalkcurve road
poor sight linelost bike rider
no crossing visiblepower lines
shadeoverpass sidewalk
nowheresee pier
transitionempty
shelteredMt Rainier
skateboarderjaywalk
ha! minivan caravantrain tracks
slumped soilnew entrance
squeezecave-in
bellsail boat
bridge turnasbestos
distrust asbestosgraffiti
gate lockedwire knot
new graffitiskateboarder clack
creaky woodsoggy unsafe
rottenrail broke
edgeover water
want to jump incold
time
difference
trace
entropy
process
texture
material
relationship
embodiment
view
scale
perception
spontaneity
chronological observations concept example
Figure 67: Difference Spectrum
Lewis, Michael
difference
embodiment
entropy
62
Lewis, Michael
63
CHAPTER 6: DESIGN
Figure 68: Silos.
EMERGENT DESIGN
EMERGENCENT DESIGN
As my understanding of the site
transitioned through experience and analysis,
so too did my application of that information
for design purposes. Particular points of
interest and questions emerged from walking
and influenced my design interventions
with aspects currently salient to the site. I
attempted to base my design strictly within the
confines of direct experience and build upon
the observations, thoughts, and connections
I encountered while walking. This resulted
in a design in which the proposal is, in its
most basic level, a phased reorganization of
the current state of the site as it was found.
This was achieved through a combination of
a physical embodiment of place reinforced
by the artifacts of my direct observation and
analysis of that experience. My goal was to
provide a design that embraced my growing
relationship with place, and to continue the
dialog of the walking experience for further
design interventions. The design is therefore a
64
minimalist set of interventions that clarify the
legibility of transition already embodied within
the site.
The design strategy, as described
in this chapter, is intended to translate my
developing understanding of this place and
to maintain an open-ended experiential
dialog between the site, users, and me. This
understanding of site is inseparable from use,
discovery, and design. They are seamlessly
bound together in an emergence of place.
The strategy for this particular site and
thesis is illustrated in the proposal through
three elements: Sedges, Edges, and Wedges.
Emerging from my personal encounter with
this site, the proposal is a culmination of the
various stages of my understanding of place
(see Chapter 4) and maintains the desire
for further discovery. These elements are
intentionally minimal, yet have powerful
implications. Sedges is the core design
element through which I explored the potential
of a site dialog. It is conceptualized as a loose
blanketing of the site’s ground plane to track
movement on site. The resulting traces are a
legible language inspired by this place. Edges,
that include glass walls and a silo gateway,
reinterpret my understanding of various
figure/ground relationships on site. Wedges,
inspired by my experience of cross boundary
flows, is a restoration strategy for a portion of
the shoreline. These elements are similarly
inspired by my walking the site and can be
seen as increasingly intrusive as the dialog of
movement becomes clearer.
My design is intentionally minimal.
It is a mark upon the site motivated by
observations of various traces left on site. By
orchestrating my designs as a direct response
to the site, they are intended to continue a
dialog of experience and movement of future
users and a way to explore my experiential
insight into place and narrative, and discuss
my own consideration of walking as a method
to approach site and design. The proposal is
not a final design, but rather a reply to the
site ‘as found’(Braae 2010), intended to make
clearer the sustained mediation between
place and experience. Recognizing that I see
this design process as a conversation, the
proposals are not drastic changes that would
risk the interruption of a healthy discourse.
The proposal is, however, subtle in hopes of
fostering clearer communication. In other
words, I do not see this proposal as a solution
to a problem, but rather as a conversation to
maintain a relationship with the site.
SEDGES
My observations of the site revealed
that patterns of movement had emerged in the
landscape as desire lines. These marks were
few, but clear. Through walking, I developed
Figure 69: Emergence.
Figure 70: Novel Path.
SEDGES
Lewis, MichaelLewis, Michael
65
an appreciation of them. For example,
access to the site at the edge of the fence
created a desire line through the perimeter
of shrubs. At first, I moved right through the
path and noted it, but thought little of it. I
focused my attention instead on the deliberate
traces made by visitors, such as graffiti and
shattered windows. My attention to these
observations was driven by the novelty of
such drastic markings. They were rare on
the island otherwise, and drew my attention
accordingly. As the dialog between the site
and I developed, however, my attention moved
to the desire line I had earlier noted only in
passing.
To reflect my design approach as
open-ended and flexible I chose to work
with sedges as a primary medium. Rather
than concrete, sedges are proposed to be
propagated throughout the space. Essentially
this was a strategy “as found”; a means to
leave my own mark that reciprocally traces site
as a “becoming-place.” The field of sedges is
my response to the dominance of concrete,
intermittent desire lines, and markings on
walls. Like the graffiti, I see the field of sedges
as my mark on the site that traces my interests
and observations. As a result, others then
continue to alter and mark the site through
their movements across this new ground plane
(Fig. 69 and 70). I see it is a minimal alteration
that harnesses the life and character of place
and fosters a continued relationship with a site
in transition.
Though my primary design insertion
features one minimal alteration, it has an
intentional depth to inform a dialog of
continued design. The planting scheme creates
a dynamic surface that highlights many of the
subtle characters inherent in the site. It is a
medium to enrich communication with site to
introduce a phased dialog of intervention that
relies on what emerges from the initial phase
to highlight the significance I found by walking
and to initiates an open-ended experiment of
further discovery.
Sedges blanketing the site create a
field of potential on which desire lines can
emerge (Fig. 71-73). The paths will trace a
gradient of movement in which primary and
secondary routes appear distinct. The open-
ended palate of sedges would encourage
alternative trajectories to emerge. Walks
are founding events of generative capacity.
They are creative acts that leave traces for
future intervention (Girot 1999). In this case,
the walk is marked upon the landscape for
others, such as other walkers or designers,
to potentially shape their subsequent
experiences. The ground plane would act
as a medium for communication in which
movement on site would mark the ground for
others to interpret through observation and
Figure 72: Concrete.
Figure 71: Concrete.
Figure 73: Sedges.
Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael
66
interaction. Users would become aware of
their collective immanent connection to the
process. The marking would also serve as a
legible means to interpret and respond to the
site for later design phases. The site, in this
case, becomes a place of movement made
legible through the site itself.
The native sedges, a mixture of
Lyngby’s Sedge Carex lynbyei,and Slough Sedge
Carex obnupta, reflect seasonal variation
through their cycles of dormancy and bloom.
Dispersed among the site through both
planting of plugs and seeding, growth patterns
will be affected by soil variations. These sedges
would not remain one mass of plantings to be
waded through. The situation is intended to
be much more complex and engaging being
spatially variable due to resources such as soil,
nutrients, water, and sun. As this expanse of
seasonal marshland sedges grows and dies
back, the emergent routes would fluctuate in
response. The desire lines then would not just
be traces of how a person intended to move on
the site, but would be traces of the experiential
interaction of an engaged dialog of walking.
For example, an individual may want to walk
in a direct linear route to quickly traverse the
site. However, a vigorous patch of sedges
may provide a wedge to block that trajectory,
therefore causing the path to veer through a
neighboring clearing. Thus a meander through
the path of least resistance is a direct response
to the site (see Fig. 70). The path that emerges
may seem to wander but it is the result of a
few simple marks of traced behavior.
Walks along routes less travelled
would leave lighter traces of use on the
landscape. As with my experience with the
train, unexpected encounters would encourage
a walker to venture off the marked desire line,
and mark their own route of experience and
consequence. This errant path may remain
or dissipate depending on the willingness of
others to follow the pioneered route. The path
is a potential that for a time can be seen and
followed.
Marks, or paths, if overused could be
made into more permanent paths, if necessary.
A formal hardscape path would be a reaction
to the emergence of desire lines. Spaces less
traveled could be augmented by additional
species appropriate to an emerging tidal
estuary. Walking in this situation becomes a
process of clear dialog in the illegible noise
(by noise I am referring to the metaphor of
dissonant messages) of a paved open space.
The sedges act as a medium in which the site
and walkers communicate through kinesthetic
language. Walks in this proposal alter the site.
This new condition could be read by others
who would then respond according to their
preference and experience which the site
would record. The ground of sedges is a plane
Figure 75: Armored Shore.
Figure 74: Fence and Shrubs.
Lewis, Michael
Lewis, Michael
67
of becoming, in which the past, present, and
future open in a plane of immanence where
thought, movement, and the environment are
set out on equal terrain. This plane can be
understood as a conception in which the walk
folds upon itself, the site, the sedge, and the
individual into a process of movement. The
field is an open plane of potential routes, but
it is the act of walking from which a physical
path emerges. The emerging paths trace the
process of movement, and create a deeper
appreciation of the hidden life of the assumed
derelict.
EDGES
In addition to Sedges, I have included
additional constructed elements that emerged
directly from my walking experience. The
dynamic experience traversing the boundary
of the fenced portion of the site (Fig 74 and
75) instilled in me an interest in edges. As
described in Chapter 4, the site is at once
a ‘center and an edge.’ This dialectic is an
integral feature of the site that I hoped to
reinterpret and encourage through design.
There are two features I have included within
the concept of Edges: glass walls, and silo
gateway. The third concept is shoreline
Wedges. Together the two concepts reinforce
the permeability of the site as an integral
gradient of place experienced.
GLASS WALLS
My idea for creating glass walls
(Fig. 78) emerged from a combination of
experiences I had while walking the site,
particularly when I considered how best to
engage the train boundary (Fig. 76 and 77).
These glass art panels, with ghosted tree
forms, would be similar in function to the
current fence, with its cut passages, but would
serve to mark this site more significantly and
artistically. The arrangement as a series of
panels would make for physical and sensorial
permeability, while providing a safe enough
refuge for close encounters. My objective was
to balance access, safety, and risk by providing
a semi-permeable boundary. This is subtle
enough to not entirely alter the character of
the place, but is a definite move to mark the
site as accessible. My intention is that the
interior and exterior of the site are not entirely
separate from one another and that they are
easily traversed. The edge is felt as a gradient
of movement and transition as opposed to a
definitive boundary because it is permeable
and relatively transparent. The scattering of
panels would preserve the experience of being
able to move closely to a passing train. The
panels would enable one to cross the tracks
and edge when necessary, but then provide a
refuge by moving behind a panel when a train
comes through. The glass then serves as a
threshold, an edge, or a focal point depending
Figure 78: Glass Walls, Silos, and Warehouse.
Figure 77: Glass Wall early Iteration.
Figure 76: Warehouse Wall Alternative.
EDGES GLASS WALLS
Lewis, Michael
Lewis, Michael
Lewis, Michael
68
on the circumstance.
SILO GATEWAY
Similar to the fencing, the silos (see
Fig. 78) also have an allusive functional aspect
that is experienced differently depending
on the situation. Again inspired directly by
my site experiences, the silos act initially
as a landmark, but becomes recognized by
walkers as less of an object than a setting
in the landscape and more of a spatial
boundary upon closer encounter. From afar,
the silos appear to be the central sculptural
element towering over the site. Being tall and
distinctive, the silos appear to be the essential
ingredient of form and meaning. Walking
up to the site across the tracks however,
one would grow less inclined to focus on the
entirety of the objects in space and more as
surfaces and spaces in relation to one’s body
and movement. The silo acts as a ‘center of
the edge.’ It is a threshold to traverse, acting
as a beacon from afar and then a catalyst for
continued experience through itself and the
rest of the site.
It is not my intent to glorify the form
or history of this site’s previous industrial
use, but I found it important to acknowledge
that the site is a part of a history that holds
to the current and future understandings of
this place. Rather than preserve the forms
as a testament to a lost past, or tear them
down to make way for a new future, I was
interested in including the silos as a part of the
transitional process of place and experience.
Rather than repurpose or recycle the silos
to fit a future program, I am proposing to
maintain them for what they are: a landmark
that is easily inhabited and readily infiltrated.
Their preservation maintains the character of
movement on site. As a process of experience
it is not entirely discernable what the primary
story is or should be, but there is a clear
indication that there are stories to be found
walking the site.
WEDGES
Wedges (Fig. 79 -83) serves as an
example of how the propagation of desire
lines for Sedges might be approached for
further design interpretation. In this case,
the shoreline on the northern portion of the
area of study is currently armored to prevent
erosion. Lining the top of this rocky drop is a
strip of tall grasses that appear to physically
and visually prevent access to the river.
However, strategic desire lines traverse this
edge from land to shore to be read for design
inspiration. These paths reveal that there is
an interest among the inhabitants to access
the river, and my intent is to facilitate that
movement.
Figure 80: Wedge Plan.
Figure 79: Wedge Section.
WEDGES
Lewis, Michael Lewis, MichaelSILO GATEWAY
69
Considering my strategy of process
design, I read the desire lines through the
barrier of foliage as a clear indication that
people were crossing to the water, and
therefore have proposed a more drastic
alteration of the site. The design is intended
to support this transference of movement
perpendicular to the current boundary. Like
Edges this proposal, Wedges, is inspired my
understanding of figure/ground. I propose
that the contour of the site be seen as an
area of transference rather than an edge of
restriction. This requires the softening of the
armored shore. Not only would the softening
of the edge provide access between the
land and water, it will sway the river toward
naturalization. Softening the shore is not as a
simple intervention as the others, yet it is still a
direct response to my developing relationship
with place. I see it as a reasonable response
to the observed traces of movement. The
desire lines reveal that there is an interest in
a more accessible shore. The intervention is a
response to the visible traces.
As a balance of cultural and ecological
observation, this section of the site is proposed
as a wedge of transitional shoreline. This is
an alternating system of eddies intended to
ease the movement between water and land
while preventing uncontrolled erosion. As a
deconstruction of an edge, I have proposed
that the riprap be removed, a ‘softer’ beach
edge be engineered, and that this boundary
be increasingly blurred and transgressed.
Breaking up the linear flow of the industrial
shoreline, patches of perpendicular access
between shore and river would become
increasingly eased. People, tides, and habitat
would mingle. Movement would overlap in a
narrative of site and experience.
NARRATIVE
My experience of walking, in addition
to influencing the conceptual design, inspired
a narrative series that is evident in the
graphics (Fig. 83 for example). This section
describes the emergence of the illustrated
story recounted in Chapter 7. For me, walking
often resulted in a scattering of thoughts that
might seem obscure, but the imagination,
whether fictional or real, is a potent attribute
of experience.
For better or worse, design is a
personal affair, and I find it interesting to note
that a great deal of the walking experiences
that occurred in my imagination, but can
be found in the work. Like walking, a little
narrative rambling is a powerful aspect of a
deeper personal experience. I felt that this
process of thought was an integral part of my
experience of walking through the site and
is embedded in the physical folding of the
environment into my body and mind.
Figure 81: Desire Line.
Figure 83: Wedge.
Figure 82: Desire Line.
NARRATIVELewis, MichaelLewis, MichaelLewis, Michael
70
This story is primarily a fictional
exploration of walking that fueled the storyline
for my graphic representation of the design. It
is not necessarily the only experience designed
for, but it is a potential that was represented
through image, and now through text as a way
to test how the site might become an integral
character in the life of others.
DESIGN REFLECTION
The design of the site emerged
from my practice of walking, and is similarly
nomadic and changing. That is, the design
strategy I propose is an incremental move
to continue an experimental inquiry into the
emergence of place and to nourish the voice of
the site through a dialog of becoming. Based
on a process approach, I consider design to be
long term, and made as incremental responses
to changes that emerge on site. This proposal
is an initial response to the site to create an
opportunity for the site to engage users, and
together actively respond through movement
and marking. By the site responding, I am
referring to the visible traces of new behavior
likely to emerge from continued use. My
design, as described, is an influential part in a
continuum of site transition that would persist
through continued use, further site visits, and
recurring design.
Sedges is a walking experiment to
support the primary character of the site as
marked by a hidden vitality. I saw the proposal
as a subtle process of marking and tracing
that opens up a new field of potential for
later investigative exploration and continued
design if appropriate. It also has the humbling
capacity to place me in the shoes of others
I intended to design for. Edges are based
on initial observations of conditions of the
core site boundary, my interaction with the
train, and material on site. Considerate of
site conditions, this is an element that shifts
the concept of the space from private to
increasingly public. Less subtle than other
elements, the glass walls and silo threshold
maintain the core experience of a semi-
permeable site boundary, but is a material
relationship common on the site. The mixture
of edge, glass, and foliage was already present,
but I see this as a stronger aesthetic element.
Wedges is a relatively concrete intervention
based on the interpretation of current desire
lines. As a response to the interpretation of
traced movement, this element serves as an
example of how future dialogs may unfold.
This rather sturdy condition should not be seen
as terminal, but a phase in the continued life
of the site. Together, these three elements
provide a glimpse into the conversation
between the place and me, as designer. My
design proposal for this site is a dynamic
system intended to be sensitive to the past,
present, and future, but primarily rooted in my
unfolding experience of place. In this sense,
the design remains emergent and will continue
to change with new movements and novel
uses (Fig. 87).
The goal in this design strategy is not
to transform the site into something entirely
different, but to responsibly encourage a
becoming of place ‘as-found.’ With my design
strategies, I embraced an open-ended future
to initiate an active relationship with the site
that responds to change through a perceivable
trace within the field of immanence. This
tracing, in other words, is a physical result of
the intimacy of walking. Walking is a creative
force on site and gives others the power to
perform, mark, and read movement on site as
well (Careri 2002). Walking is a primary mode
of engagement and communication that was
embraced to establish a deep connection to
site.
DESIGN REFLECTION
71
Figure 84: Wedge Secti on
Figure 85: Sedge Secti on.
Figure 86: Found View Secti on.
Silo Gateway
Sedges
Glass Edge
Shoreline Wedge
Found View
3
5
4
2
1
Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael Lewis, Michael
Figure 87: Gradient Site Plan.
72
Lewis, Michael
73
CHAPTER 7: NARRATIVE
Figure 88: Becoming.
I would be irresponsible not to admit
the peripatetic aspect of thought through my
walking experience. Not entirely focused,
this wandering of my mind emerged in the
composition of the images for this design
proposal. Not only did walking provide for
observation and an extended sense of dwelling
as described earlier, but I often found myself
lost in thought and rather oblivious to what
I was doing. My mind would seamlessly slip
between actual and virtual encounters, or
rather as stories. I would often shudder and
realize I had been wandering for some distance
without any conscious effort in walking. I
was moving for the sake of moving, and my
thoughts were set relatively free to wander.
As Rebecca Solnit notes, the
peripatetic experience links walking and
thinking together. In this state, for instance,
I developed a fictional story that transferred
to my design proposal to build graphic
74
Lewis, Michael
75
compositi ons of the site. It would be rather
easy to gloss over and insist the characters in
these images are merely fi gures for scale, but
they serve to personalize the compositi on of
rendering perspecti ves and highlight the power
of personal input. The fi cti onal narrati ve
serves not as an example of the concrete, but
of the peculiar and personal dialog hidden in
the moti ves of an individual; me. The narrati ve
portrays a clear mood in the images and
helped me to organize the presentati on of the
design.
What appears below is a narrati ve
created through the process of walking the
site, thinking about it, and imagining how
experiences on site could possibly unfold. This
story then is one way in which the site, in an
open fi eld of opportunity, might be marked.
SHE
She steps up on the bluff aft er having
spent some ti me watching the river. Her feet
damp, she shakes the drops free with a subtle
kick, and slips on her sandals. She hears the
rumble of tugboats guiding an Alaskan freight
ship upstream. The sound subsides as she
ascends the slope. A faint odor of petrol
waft ing in the air surrounds her in an ether
of smoke that veils the details of her face.
She gracefully stands her bike up from its
side. Jutti ng the bike forward, she begins her
walk. The horizon radiates deep amber. Her
shadow begins to dissipate into the earth as
the evening sky grows soft er. The sun seems to
pause a moment then ti ps below the Cascades
to strike one last blade of blood-red light.
Instantly, the rift on the horizon is gone, but
the sky conti nues illuminati ng a somber rose as
she pushes forward.
She is oblivious to her surroundings.
Details such as the rolling of the smoke, the
waving of grasses in the wind, the transiti on
to night, a murmuring tempo resonati ng up
through her feet, all go unnoti ced as she fl oats
eff ortlessly on in thought. Moving among
the textures of life, she toils with one detail
that remains beyond her immediate senses.
Reality, for her, is bound in thoughts. Although
she is walking, her thoughts are encircled
around encountering him. He was an integral
1 Figure 89: Emergent Path.
SHE
76
Lewis, Michael
77
part of this place and she fi nds herself pulled
toward thoughts of their past here. It was
here they met and here that they spent a turn
of seasons exploring together. It is also here
that she founded the two paths they would
follow apart. Withdrawn in her thoughts, she
eff ortlessly moves along a path in the fi eld.
She trudges in thought as she drift s through
the landscape. Having spent so much ti me
together here, she conti nued to imagine
diff erent encounters that could unfold should
she fi nd him here again. Concerned about
how he would react to her, she longed for
something hopeful, possibly easy.
The surface she traversed conti nued
to pulse, stronger now and growing. A blow of
a horn and he was gone again. She shudders
and realized her path was soon to be blocked
by a train. Unwilling to wait or turn back, she
veers the bike into the thicket of knee high
sedges to fi nd another way.
Now fully aware of her movements,
she pioneers a new course. A trace was
marked behind her as she tramples through
the grass-like blades. She stepped under the
bridge and made her way to a platf orm along
the shore of the river. Startled by the call of
a bird she looked fi rst across the water and
then followed with her eyes the extent of the
industrial presence. The rusti ng ships with
their peeling paint, stacks billowing clouds,
Figure 90: Found View.2
and the arching cranes now sti ll, all struck her
as peculiar when juxtaposed to the river with
Mount Rainier rising in the south. Realizing
the ti me, she turns quickly, and reatt empts her
trip home, the train now having passed.
78
Lewis, Michael
79
HE
All those subtle gestures, words of
seducti on, and projecti ons of a unifi ed future
eroded away with the ebb of a receding ti de.
Those waters falling back only to reveal she
too had rescinded. Walking up to the towering
silo, his head low, he plods on. He found
himself here now without any intent to do so.
He had left home to walk and unconsciously
wandered to this site. This should not be
too surprising considering how oft en he had
walked here.
When he realized where he had
gone, he found himself overwhelmed with
uncertainty. He ached to fi nd her, but was
terrifi ed that he might. He takes a look up
at the silos as he walks up. This was oft en
a comforti ng beacon, but now something
enti rely diff erent. Prominent and erect, the
silos marked a trajectory the two pursued. It
was a signal to an ends, but ulti mately served
litt le more purpose than to bring them to this
place together. Now though, it signals his
solitude. He pauses. Standing there in the
middle of the street below the silo he stops.
Fears that he might fi nd her with another in
this place leaves him dumbfounded. Weighted
by doubt and jealousy, he imagines stumbling
upon them here in their place. In a fl eeti ng
jolt he pictures himself poised at the top of
the tower to embrace an inti mate aff air with
gravity for the sake of love and desperati on.
Startled by the intensity of this fl ash, he
shudders, forces his thoughts to the interior
space beyond the silos, and walks on.
Distressed by his state, and fearful of
what he may fi nd, he moves quickly across the
site and to the shore. Unsure how to inhabit
this place he thought he knew, he conti nues to
linger, again on the edge. To him, this place is
her, or rather the medium through which he
understood her, and so he fi nds himself lost
and eager for something familiar. The water,
the foliage, and the concrete were as much her
as the air that had carried her voice, and so he
sti fl ed his desire to come into this place. This
was their relati onship. The site is now strange
and foreboding. He lurks along the edges.
He is along the western shore. He
hears the rumble of tugboats guiding an
Alaskan freight ship upstream. The sound
subsides as he ascends the slope. A faint odor
of petrol waft ing in the air surrounds him in an
ether of smoke that veils the details of his face.
He gracefully picks up a piece of weathered
drift wood as a walking sti ck. Jutti ng it forward,
he conti nues his walk. The horizon radiates
deep amber. His shadow begins to dissipate
into the earth as the evening sky grows
soft er. The sun seems to pause a moment
then ti ps below the Cascades to strike one
last blade of blood-red light. Instantly the rift
3 Figure 92: Center of the Edge.
Figure 91: Night Edges.
HELewis, Michael
80
Lewis, Michael
81
on the horizon is gone, but the sky conti nues
illuminati ng a somber rose as he pushes
forward.
Stepping along the gravelly
embankment, he watches the lapping of
the slow moving river. Having rarely looked
beyond the immediacy of the embraced
familiarity he had shared here, he was startled
to fi nd that the river was so compelling. To
him the place had been a way to know her.
This place was an extension of him that
immersed the two in each other. This was
part of the language of their experience, but
at this moment he realized that the site is also
something to know regardless of her presence.
It is sti ll part of them, but in a new light.
The wedge shaped shore appears
pulled back into the site as a loosening of the
hard edge. Not merely an armored edge, there
was now a pocket beach he imagined could be
a pleasant place to get to the water and move
through and beyond this place. As he walks he
realized once again that this place, so marked
by its proximity to a complex personal history,
is rather beauti ful. He fi nds himself eased
by this and strolls down to put his feet in the
water.
Figure 93: Becoming-Shore.4
82
Lewis, Michael
83
WE
We sedges fi nd most our pleasure in
the wind, but occasionally we fi nd ourselves
clinging to more. Aft er having sat on the shore
for some ti me, Jane, who had been resti ng
for what felt like a moment but was assuredly
hours, abruptly rose from her resti ng spot.
Jane’s toes, wet from the water, dampen our
roots enough to accept this as her name. Aft er
a swift kick to shake off the water, she slips
on her shoes and picks up her bike. Following
the same trajectory of others before her, she
steps cauti ously through. Already half way
along the course, Jane pauses. There is no
bother asking why, but in her hesitance arose
a sti llness of anti cipati on. Digging her foot
into the soil, she abruptly turns to the side and
submerses herself into our midst. No longer in
the clearing she wades through. Riddled with
the excitement, we reach out. It wasn’t oft en
that we found ourselves so confronted with
movement. Aside from the occasional birds,
she was the fi rst in a long ti me to grace our
desire to be joined in the caress of the wind.
Brushing against the sway of Jane’s hips, we
dance in the breeze through the setti ng of the
sun.
Just as we were joined in the frolics
of Jane, John plods his way from the Silos
toward the shore. His steps are heavy, and
more so than usual. Compared to Jane, John
is, well, not Jane. He moves with short strides
that pound the earth. He made no eff ort to
wander, or pause, but had a determinati on of
movement. His steps felt like a pulse, or rather
a drum that surged through our dance with
Jane. His thundered rhythm coursed through
us as a driving tempo of our lust to cling to
Jane. John reached the shore and paused. Our
rhythm gone, Jane turned back, and so left ; our
dance complete.
Figure 94: Immanence.5
WE
84
Lewis, Michael
85
NARRATIVE REFLECTION
Regardless of the sagas of individuals,
real or fictional, the site in this narrative is an
indispensible part of experience. Others may
assume they strictly act upon it, but it too has
a life and possibly something akin to sense.
Place, as I have considered it, is a medium
of experience with the potential to facilitate
interaction and to actively participate in it.
This story of the couple told above unfolds
neither in a firework reunion nor a catastrophic
plunge, but rather in the slow sedimentary
aspect of topologic time and entropic force
where the complexities of life are driven by
movement and chance rather than fate and
plot. The two worn thin by trudging through
their relationship, these two walk alone while
the site traces their movements as one event.
Their trajectory, motivated by chance in a
field of potential encounters, is real, but the
final outcome is intentionally unclear as they
continue to walk. They move not to ease a
specific desire, but to remain in a process of
fulfilling desire in a state of transition. It is
therefore a life, or rather a “becoming-place.”
The sedges, anthropomorphized in
the narrative, are part of the story regardless
of the individual’s perception of it. The five
scenes of the storyboard serve to visualize
the future of the site according to my design
intent, but they also communicate an
atmosphere reflective of a deeper experience
I had on site. It may seem off topic to detail
the narrative, however this fiction traces the
creative depth that walking not only afforded
me through engaging the site, but is a potential
for how others might encounter the site as
well. It is an important part of my experience
that can be traced directly into the graphics.
My mind fluttered while walking. At times
an embodiment of the environment; without
warning my thoughts would spiral off a line
of thought loosely traced to the reality of
the actual walking experience. This is a trait
of walking that is difficult to describe, and
often emerged in the minutia. This narrative
is a story that may not be necessary, but that
ultimately breathed life back into the process
of my creativity. It resonates as something
personal and profound within the design
process.
Figure 95: Becoming-Place.
NARRATIVE REFLECTION
86
Lewis, Michael
87
CHAPTER 8: REFLECTION
Figure 96: Reflection.
QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS
Much more than a means of
transportation, I see walking is an important
design approach for the field of landscape
architecture, as well as an integral part of my
larger interest in process and place-based
experiential investigation. Through this thesis I
set out to explore the following questions:
How might the embodied 1)
experience of walking, as an
engaged mode of site inventory
and analysis, convey a deeper
understanding of the complexities
inherent in a post-industrial site?
How can this embodied 2)
knowledge enrich the
design process in landscape
architecture?
How might such an embodied 3)
knowledge challenge or
compliment conventional
assumptions about post-industrial
sites?
88
I began with an interest in experiential
design and so set out to investigate these
questions. Along the way, I was swayed
by the inherent connections implied by
Deleuze’s philosophy about immanence, and
by the concepts of process, becoming, and
emergence. I found that walking worked as a
fundamental activity from which to organize
and pursue my thesis exploration. Upon the
conclusion of this thesis, I am still inspired by
walking and plan to pursue my approach to
design as a site dialog. In addition, I hope that
this exploration has a greater influence beyond
me in the sectors of design, research, and
education. Through this thesis, immanence
has served as a perspective of inseparability
in which the approach, the experience, and
the design were understood as one. For
the sake of writing this thesis however, they
were separated into relatively distinct topics.
Below is a synthesis of those steps that I have
recombined through this reflection.
DEEPER UNDERSTANDING
As described in this thesis, there
is much to be gained from the embodied
experience of walking. On the surface,
walking provided me with an organizational
framework from which to study and describe
my experience and understanding. More
importantly, walking provided the motion
necessary to fully inhabit the site, and thus
better understand it. The process was gradual,
changing, and direct, and therefore more in
tune to the relationship that was building
between the site and me.
The general way in which a site is
portrayed and communicated is through
mapping and diagramming. Although those
are powerful tools, maps are an abstraction
of reality. The basis of the relationship we
have with the world is one of immersion and
thus my attention to walking. As an embodied
experience, this was my primary means of
engaging the site. Mapping relies on objects
and boundaries, whereas through walking,
enables an emergence of relationships
based on an unfolding perspective of the
haptic senses which readily crossed through
apparent boundaries. This perspective of
moving through space was subtle, complex,
and variable. The transition between Chapter
5 and 6 highlights the deeper understanding
of place that evolved through a series of site
visits, while Chapter 7 exemplifies a particular
creative exploit found walking. Rather than
begin with an abstraction, walking unfolds
a reality from which new place-based
concepts can then be developed through
representational abstraction. In this manner,
walking builds familiarity through direct
interaction and allows for the emergence of
spontaneity and surprise.
DEEPER UNDERSTANDING
89
I found that walking contributes a
deeper understanding of the complexities of
a post-industrial site, but that this depth also
poses challenges of its own. As a standard
pactice, is can be difficult to visit a site often,
or regularly. To do so, can be time consuming
and potentially costly. However, the benefit
of a deeper understanding outweighs the
costs. Through this relatively simple everyday
act, rather complex insights and processes
become more apparent. What can be learned
or discovered through walking becomes an
open-ended encounter that fuels a perception
of process and becoming. In addition to
developing a deeper understanding of site and
place, the embodied experience of walking has
important implications for design as well.
DESIGN PROCESS
As I continued to walk, my
understanding of site and design wandered
through various strides. In Chapters 4-7, I
revealed the meandering nature of my process
of analysis and design. Walking, in my case,
emphasized the importance of movement
for the process of design. Movement kept
my design iterations in a parallel flux with my
physical and conceptual process of walking the
site. Walking is a mode of learning through
doing, and such a place-based perspective is
prone to novel encounters, and spontaneous
connections. Such wandering of ideas through
experience proved to be inspirational in my
design exploration.
My design proposal, described in
this thesis as a dialog with site, was ultimately
a continuation of my walking experiment.
The design is meant to propagate a new
medium from which to clarify the language
of place through traces of movement on
site. This dialog, in another broader context
might be called a “sustained design.” By
sustained I mean that the design, as inspired
by experience, is not a terminal endeavor,
but one in which the design is a piece of
the transitional process of place. Sustained
design is therefore a model of open-ended
flux in which the inhabitants, the site, and the
designer are all a part of an equal plane of
communication.
The design as a sustained process
would continue to be managed by an unfolding
story of place. This approach to design
emphasizes Deleuze’s notion of immanence in
that the designer is part of place, and as such,
is considered an active agent with the capacity
to make marks and participate in the process
of a living place. Design of this type is an
open-ended experiment that embraces change
rather than stifling it.
The design narrative –Chapter 7 –is
directly inspired by my walking experience.
DESIGN PROCESS
90
The story I described in that chapter was an
underlying narrative that I utilized to convey
various hints of site detail, the dynamics of
process, and a bit of personal revelation.
Walking, as an unfolding encounter, is open to
a variety of creative responses and so includes
narrative and story. In this case, rather than
focus on what I did, that chapter describes my
insights into what I consciously thought while
walking.
Although there is much to gain from
an embodied experience of site for design,
there are potential drawbacks. Visiting a
site as a series of walks would require a
commitment many may be unwilling and
possibly unable to take. A sustained design
also requires a similarly committed investment
of time, attention, and resources following the
initial intervention. It is also apparent from
my exploration that this method, although a
beneficial endeavor, might be taken at the loss
of other paths of understanding. I assume
that had this thesis not been a directed effort
to walk, there might have been other ways in
which to research the site to compliment my
embodied understanding of place.
An embodied process would require
resources to encourge designers to visit sites
repeatedly. A series of site visits is admittedly
more costly. Spending time in a site may even
seem unwarranted or unproductive. However,
as shown in Figure 66 and throughout Chapter
4, revisiting a site continues to be a fulfilling
process of deeper site investigation. Not only
are more data collected, but one’s relationship
with place changes and builds upon previous
visits.
Following installation, the initiation
of a sustained design, or site dialog, too has
an obvious critique. It is apparent that in a
climate of slowed economic growth, however,
that rampant development is no longer likely
and therefore new models of design, such as
this, may prove valuable. The grand “one-
night stands” of landscape architecture might
be best left in the past, and so new methods
for urban ecological design can begin to alter
the strategies of how professionals relate to
the places in which they work. I would argue
that this, as well as other new models, should
be considered as new ways to build stronger
relationships between designers and place.
The current market, as well as the
established ecological values of the profession,
has created an opportunity to find alternative
design approaches and processes that
might better serve the practice of landscape
architecture. One means to survive has been
to practice in areas abroad where growth
continues. I would argue, however, that there
is a need for good design in a local context and
that chasing growth might contradict the urban
91
ecological values of the field as a whole, and
this department in particular. I see this as an
unsustainable model in which the profession
and practitioners remain dependent on forces
beyond their control. As seen domestically,
relying solely on growth has had its drawbacks.
Looking back upon my thesis, though not
my primary motive, I have maintained an
underlying curiosity as to how designers might
otherwise approach the built environment.
Management in some form or another could
be a more sustainable design model. By
sustainable, I am referring to a continuation
of practice without a reliance on the heavy
burdens of growth and development. I find
that the sustained design model, including
a site dialog, has the potential to support a
design profession interested in a sustainable
urban ecological perspective. This gradual
investment nourishes the process character
of place and provides a safety net for an
emergent process of creative exploration.
CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS
Under the impression that novel
approaches to the ubiquitous industrial
hazards of “disturbed” sites are needed, I set
out upon the Lower Duwamish breaking my
first assumption – hazardous sites should be
avoided. Rather than look to second hand
sources for generalities to apply to the river, I
walked right into the fire, per se, and hoped for
the best. I thought the most obvious method
from which to understand place was to face it
directly, and in so doing, established a primary
method and a strategy of openly addressing
my assumptions.
The primary assumptions I found that
were most aptly addressed through my process
and design were the apparently distinct ideas
of the site as wasted, historic, and artistic.
These three ideas are often characterized as
such and so predetermine what the general
outcome of design will be, therefore hindering
much of the creative opportunity that might
arise otherwise. The site as wasted requires
reclamation, and as either historic or artistic
requires either restoration or preservation
depending on the public interest in shine or
patina. Rather than choose one of these three,
or abandon them all for another, I found that
there was a middle ground in the nourishment
of embodied process which superseded these
distinctions.
My decision to challenge the
assumptions of what the site is and what
ought to be done with it, were based directly
on my embodied approach to walking. This
method of repeat visits nurtured my growing
familiarity with the site and appreciation for
its lack of definitive utility. Rather than rely on
what others predetermined concepts of waste,
dereliction, and decay were, I found a naturally
CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS
92
challenging perspective based on my own
intimate connection to place.
The emergent nature of my
experience was however, not always an easy
route. Having no final definition or strong
conceptual guidelines to follow, makes for
unsure ground. It was challenging to remain
confident, or feel assured when faced with
an ever-changing perception. Because of this
challenge, however, the process remained
interesting. Without any real solid moment on
which to rest, learning was continual, and so it
follows that my interpretation and reflection
was also in flux.
SELF REFLECTION
Walking has been described in this
thesis as a way to investigate a site as an
intimately inhabited place, and therefore a
rich basis for design. This strategy is linked
to the pedagogical framework of place-based
learning in which knowledge emerges through
the process of first-hand connection with
the surroundings. As such, lessons I have
learned are appropriate as a self reflection
on how I may best transition toward practice,
research, or instruction, for this thesis was an
investigation into how to embrace knowing as
an unfolding process of physical embodiment.
Not only do have I learned many
valuable lessons from this thesis, but even
more significant I now wish to continue to
pursue in greater clarity the implications of the
approach I adopted here. In the professional
practice of design, I am inspired to continue
to explore in more detail the potential of
a sustained design model. Despite the
challenges such a model might face, I would
be curious as to how it could be successfully
implemented and applied to the larger context
of the built environment.
In an academic context, I find that I
am still driven to further develop and refine
this thesis exploration. This thesis, for me,
has been an introduction into the uses and
values of appropriated space. I have found
a desire to learn more. Through a place-
based experiential model, I am curious about
what else might be learned about the people
and current uses of marginalized spaces. A
“derelict” site along the Lower Duwamish
is just one example of a greater network
of appropriated spaces or loose spaces as
described earlier in the thesis. With neglect as
their commonality, I am curious as to how this
lack of oversight and stewardship plays out in a
variety of sites.
Based partly on this thesis, I have
also been involved in a series of place-based
assistant teaching roles in which I would like to
continue to share parts of what I have learned.
Walking for example was a way for me to build
SELF REFLECTION
93
connections between rather abstract readings
on place and philosophy. Experience allowed
me to bridge theory to concrete examples
of personal relevance, and therefore enable
those theories to resonate more fully with me.
An important concept which I am currently
pulling from this thesis is the concept of
narrative as a method of understanding place
and experience. This thesis is a narrative,
and as such, it is equally part of the story of
experience that has unfolded throughout these
pages. Each heading as such is a fluid step
in a continuous walk. Accordingly, when this
process of writing is over, I will continue to
weave these pages through an immanent field
of whatever comes next.
Cheers, now go outside and walk!
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FOUND WALKINGAN IMMANENT APPROACH TO A DERELICT POST INDUSTRIAL SITE
m i c h a e l a l l e n l e w i s SS
S S S
lewisS
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At once repulsive, and yet surprisingly alluring, derelict post-industrial sites are common
entities on the edge of urban cities. They are an in-between, characterized by overlap and
flux, where life and entropy challenge the assumptions of progress and time. What began
by entering an apparently vacant site became a dialog with place through the embodied
approach of walking. Walking was explored as an immersed investigation of a site and a
physical meandering through the philosophies of place, experience, and immanence. Relying
on movement and observation, this research is an account of the continual unfolding of the
mutual resonance of both self and site, which are bound through the concept of place.
The observations and findings are described as they applied to the process and approach of
design. By walking a site as an extended series of visits, it is perceived as an encountered
relationship of mutual becoming. Based on the series of visits, the design process is equally
immersive and open-ended. The resulting proposal embraces the transitional relationship
through a process of long-term iterative design.
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