Super-Mega-Ruralistic
Super-Mega-Ruralistic responds to the industrialized notion of landscapes as systems to be engineered and controlled, a concept rooted in the ‘machine in the garden’ narrative exemplified by the Tennessee Valley Authority's 20th-century ambitions. In an era of climate change, we reimagine agriculture and landscape as interdependent, adaptive systems that can respond to environmental shifts and challenges.
The design sites technologized landscapes of high-value crops on a series of raised platforms to mitigate the risks of flooding and its implications for infrastructure, and ecosystems in the region. These elevated structures provide a new inhabitable datum for farming and habitation whilst restoring depleted ecologies and low impact farming in ground level riparian habitats.
Central to the project is the concept of "luxoir," a term that parallels the notion of terroir in winemaking. Just as terroir defines the characteristics of wine based on its origin and environmental conditions. Using precision agriculture, luxoir shapes the identity and quality of crops through UV modulations based on the fluctuations of localised renewable energy production, thereby serving as both an ecological and productive force. Drawing from the TVA’s historic experimentation stations and model farms, we merge innovation with sustainable practices, climate resilience and new modes of living.
This project responds to ‘Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley’ a project run by the University of Tennessee, College of Architecture and Design, featuring speculative design proposals that address the region’s history of large-scale public works on the theme of regenerative regional futures for the Tennessee Valley.
The project is represented by a series of drawings varying in scale from the territorial to the domestic, and by two models which illustrate the ‘luxoir’ concept and its fluctuating frequencies of light emanating from greenhouse landscapes. The second model shows a community of farm buildings inspired by cantilever barns, elevated to mitigate flood risk and integrated with the ‘helping hands’ of automated agricultural technologies.
Super-Mega-Ruralistic has been exhibited at :
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Exhibitors include RVTR + POST, The Open Workshop, and UT faculty members. 5 November - 4 December 2024.
Solo Exhibition: MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture + Planning Keller Gallery.
Group Exhibition: ‘the Sixth Somewhat Annual Meeting’ at A83 Gallery, 83 Grand Street, New York. Buy the folio ‘Records of the Sixth Somewhat Annual Meeting’ or individual plates here.
