Katelynn Russell
ARCH-4980.3 | Carla Leitao, Adjunct Professor
THOUGHTFUL CATASTROPHE
KATELYNN RUSSELL
The research began with an interest in erosion and self-organizing particles. There are opportunities in transitioning moments where built environments are needed for a short amount of time, helping with the transition and then are no longer needed. We will refer to this transitioning time as the EVENT.
Michael Welland writes in the book, Sand: “The never ending story”, that self-organized criticality is the state in which a very small event can trigger huge consequences, or very small ones. The point where something has the potential to change from two existing states to one by a trigger is also classified as this critical time, needing just a small push in one direction.
The components to lead towards this change to help further accomplish goals of connectivity between scattered centers of activity and program in the site, Detroit, are a series of traveling academic centers and small-scale rural transport. Detroit will use this additional space to include new programs in the school not available to them once before and connect farmers lacking transportation. The spaces will record information from each place visited that can be accessed by the next, eliminating the weak portions of the curriculums and sharing the strengths of other institutions and creating a network for physically unconnected spaces.
By consolidating the isolated pieces of Detroit through a moving network, there is more potential for growth (urban or rural) to seek their potential and use the benefits of both realms to sustain themselves, and create a new system that creates neighboring areas out of physically distant areas within Detroit.
Using the Rio de Janerio Olympics as an opportunity serves as the beginning of a paradigm shift within the realm of stadia of not only being a sports venue but also including the needs and concerns of the local communities. This thesis is to rethink the stadium to be built and assembled as parts with the intention of being separate and mobile as it travels to different parts of the city to stimulate socio-economic growth.