Comments on: “the parrot, the weed, and the sludge mat”

By: unknown unknowns – mammoth // building nothing out of something

unknown unknowns – mammoth // building nothing out of something — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 01:52:24 +0000

[...] which tilt market dynamics in favor of farming cash crops. Thus Iowa might be said to be an agricultural freakology (the ecoregion it is in is named not for a defining natural feature — like the [...]

By: everyday structures – mammoth // building nothing out of something

everyday structures – mammoth // building nothing out of something — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:45:16 +0000

[...] favorite things at the moment, “everyday structures” deals with the quotidian material conditions of landscape, posting both readings from Sanford Kwinter or Henri Lefebvre and snapshots [...]

By: colonnade park – mammoth // building nothing out of something

colonnade park – mammoth // building nothing out of something — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:15:10 +0000

[...] ecologies, acknowledging and subsuming lo-fi practices, the D.I.Y. aesthetic, wild urban plants, freakologies, cryptoforestry, ecological performance metrics, labor-intensive restoration practices, gardening, [...]

By: architects without architecture – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:24:12 +0000

[...] the infrastructural city: a town that excavates itself turning into a series of giant holes, a river that will disappear if its restored to its natural state, the re-watering of a desert lake, and so on. The book’s value in my mind—and what I am [...]

By: future forests of the infrastructural city – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:31:39 +0000

[...] But, I would add (and this seems much more important to me): the rise of the performative tree will also be seen in the acceptance and valuation of “crypto-forests”, “cosmopolitan” plant communities, and invasive species. Techentin says: “Wild nature, or what may be left of it, seems all but removed from collective experience.” Despite this collective remove, though, there is wild nature in the city, only it is invasive and post-human, growing in legal and physical spaces of abandonment: a fence on property line, a sliver of land between two properties deemed to have no value as real-estate, the concrete bed of a channelized river. [...]

By: Lory Pallanes

Lory Pallanes — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:26:30 +0000

Theories about the “end of the world” or things like that have been found all over for centuries, though these days the interenet tends to spread them even more. The latest version that has become quite popular is that the world will end on December 21, 2012. Much of this is based on the last date of the Mayan calendar, which is December 21, 2012.Also, the ancient philoshopher Nostradamus predicted disaster around this date as did many cultures also participated in this belief.

By: matt lucas

matt lucas — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:12:39 +0000

The ecologies that are currently thriving around the LA river reminds me of Mike Davis’ title essay in Dead Cities. A bombed out berlin had fireflowers growing in the ashes, these fireflowers eventually helped to create a new ecology.

I think its silly to think you can go back to some sort of original pure landscape. Its like the asinine arguments of primitivists. That said capital does create toxic environments and its important that we deal with it in some way. The small teams of people going out if not solving the problem, the problem of capital, are at least engaging in interesting experiments.

By: lo-fi seed dispersal – mammoth // building nothing out of something

lo-fi seed dispersal – mammoth // building nothing out of something — Fri, 07 May 2010 04:05:06 +0000

[...] “indigenous” mean in such a thoroughly transformed condition? As Fletcher says in “Flood Control Freakology”: “…the native versus exotic debate is oversimplified: the landscape assemblages should [...]

By: faslanyc

faslanyc — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:09:29 +0000

second that.

By: faslanyc

faslanyc — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:08:10 +0000

good points, and seeing how good some of the folks on that team are, i am sure they worked to put some teeth into the report, and perhaps the renderings just reflect expectations/preconceptions. that is another strategy, perhaps a good one- push progressive policy while using the renderings as essentially a “marketing” or “visioning” tool to buy some time until policy (new ways of using water, organizing community, etc) can take effect.

Of course, then there is the risk of furthering discontent when things don’t end up looking like a rendering. In all likelihood, the renderings are not that disingenuous, but merely reflect the lcd-effect.

still love the essay though.

By: rholmes

rholmes — Thu, 06 May 2010 22:04:51 +0000

I love the project. I’ll admit, though, that I rather dislike the name. The constant use of portions of the word “architecture” (and “-scape”) as prefix or suffix for naming architectural projects is kind of a pet peeve. I think it indicates lack of verbal imagination.

By: rholmes

rholmes — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:59:59 +0000

I think that’s exactly how you reconcile it — I see no reason to think that Fletcher isn’t aware of the conflict between the renderings and his interest in “freakology”, particularly when the plan has fourteen — really, fourteen — teams of primary contributors.

It is probably necessary to have such freakishly large teams to do work on the scale of the entire Los Angeles River watershed, but when your team grows large enough that it could accurately be described as a bureaucracy in and of itself, then it becomes really important that the bureaucracy you create deals with the myriad of public agency-related issues you talked about in your recent series.

My guess, from a superficial reading of the report, is that the Los Angeles River team wasn’t really able to do that, and got bogged down, hence the lowest-common-denominator feel.

I suppose there’s an alternate possibility, too, and that’s that while the plan might be lowest-common-denominator in the ways you identified in your post, it might also be interesting or challenging to the status quo in other places (maybe something related to future water availability, for instance), that don’t necessarily show up in the renderings, but involved pushing hard against bureaucratic inertia? That’s totally baseless speculation, though.

By: Peter Nunns

Peter Nunns — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:45:31 +0000

Oyster-tecture! I love it!

By: The Los Angeles River | Heterotopias for Art « dpr-barcelona

The Los Angeles River | Heterotopias for Art « dpr-barcelona — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:43:40 +0000

[...] quote is perfect to go on with the “blogiscussion” around The Infrastructural City orginized by mammoth, that this week is focused on the the [...]

By: faslanyc

faslanyc — Thu, 06 May 2010 01:22:49 +0000

uh oh.

you had a great point about the “rooted in bucolic aesthetic expectations, demanding a return to — or at least a simulation of — the pre-urban condition of the river, typically understood to mean restored flood plains, daylighted streams, un-channelized river banks, and re-established populations of native flora and fauna.”

actually, one of the things I’m having trouble reconciling is fletcher’s essay and his involvement in the masterplan. i am chalking it up to the fact that a lot more factors/people were involved in making the master plan and that he wasn’t necessarily able to communicate his idea effectively (and this may get back to your point about the term/perspective of freakology).