Synthetic Geo-scapes
Laboratories of the Anthropocene
The Synthetic Geo-scapes proposal brings an infrastructure of diverse systems that benefit from natural resources to the table, which in return allow the growth of the first micro-ecosystem a park needs to regenerate its life: the bacteria succession. Nevertheless, these systemic operations also respond to a more profound desire, which is the regeneration of the landscape’s idea in the midst of the 21st century. In this case, the answer appears when the new ecologies of nature and human fluxes intertwine, in order to create a grid of complex and adaptable relationships, that ultimately create a resilient public landscape.
These new ecologies don’t occur on the thin layer of soil we as humans tend to think; rather, they emerge from the atmosphere and the geoforms. In order to propose a new landscape from the wasteland Central Park is, the proposal brings bacteria-forming, humidity accumulation, and even air pollution as the main actors over the park’s surface, which are, additionally, accompanied by the laboratories of the Anthropocene era. These labs regenerate life, connect us humans with the land, and link these two ecologies inside and around it. As a result, the human interaction with nature’s resilience and regenerationchanges the paradigm of life as mere vegetation to the natural conditions of atmosphere and the geoforms in the region.
Central Park’s catastrophe is an extraordinary opportunity, yet feared by traditionalists, to reinstate our relationship (as humans) with nature, from an exoneration from the bucolic parks, to an amalgamation with the atmospheric and geologic natures, from where the 21st century park relies on to thrive and sustain.
The park’s integrality is reflected on the understanding of its historic and geological layers, which characterize its natural and horizontal infrastructure while also anticipating the human interactions of this era, such as virtuality, data flux, environmental and climatic preoccupation, whereof it establishes a strongly vertical public space. The aforementioned labs assist invisible and aerial synergies to converge over the park’s reprogrammed surface, they function as recollection gadgets and as architectural pieces themselves, but more importantly, they bring the vertical park of the Anthropocene Era to life.
This project was part of the Landscape Architecture Workshop at
Universidad de los Andes, Colombia; and also my submission entry
for the 2018 LA+ICONOCLAST competition organized by LA+ Journal.
