Project by Raven Huang and Shiki Xu
This project is a deep architectural reverie stemming from the history of the Gowanus Canal and the pervasive impact of artifacts on its ecology. In studying the Atlantic ribbed mussel, we uncovered an incredible resilience that is truly visible only through the lens of deep time.
Consequently, our proposal is founded on the understanding that building is a continuous process on this expanded scale.
We perceive decay as a methodology and a generative force rather than a passive resistance, reserving space for the project’s decomposition to design the undesign.
Our methodology responds to urban crises by pushing them to imaginative extremes, demonstrating how our selected Agents unleash their latent power in this context.
By expanding the definition of Species by Time, we enlist these non-human actors. Led by the mussel, these Agents are reorganized within a designed framework along the canal’s “"murderer-dredger”“ edge. They form a floating Coupling Body, an entity that evolves over long durations, integrating into the continuous building process.
