Displacement Ecologies
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This thesis defines displacement as the occupation of infrastructural voids for collective use. By calibrating patterns of appropriation, I propose displacement as a formal strategy for leveraging issues of demand. The discipline of architecture is becoming arguably subsumed by "sustainability"- an agenda which responds to demand with increased efficiency. Instead, this thesis ask how might systems of efficiency be leveraged for new modes of collectivity? Specifically, this project re-appropriates growing energy needs by proposing a pumped storage facility in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Current technologies accommodate the storage of energy through the physical displacement of water: a spatial exchange that I leverage to increase the city's collective space. Displacement reorganizes mass:void relationships. What if we design all voids? The Void:Void condition is a matrix of containers - some filled with people and others with water. Adjusting to changing energy and programmatic demands, displacement occurs as one void appropriates another.
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Highfill, Brantley Frederick. "Displacement Ecologies." (2011) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/70261.