Black Bridge: Reclaiming the Public Ground

Date
2022-04-22
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Abstract

The construction and the removal of big urban forms are operated by massive quantities of human labor and material movement, but their presence in the city has been mostly erased. The workers often live in these uncharted grey zones at the city’s periphery. In return for their labor and production, what the migrant workers get in their temporary shelter is urban debris - landfill, sand mining pit, or a makeshift coal yard. It is where the city dumps its dirt.

Studying Black Bridge village, a “work-site” that has been removed, and following the trace of the dirt, might reveal an alternative imagination of what urban life could be. Taking inspiration from the communal experiment at Black Bridge, the project imagines a heterogeneous community consisting of layers of occupiable structures of different permanency that supports programs including permanent collective housing, workspace, and public space of various enclosures that would recognize the marginalized people’s unmovable place in the city and become a space of resistance.

Description
Degree
Master of Architecture
Type
Thesis
Keywords
PUBLIC SPACE, HETEROGENEOUS COMMUNITY, URBAN FORMS, SPACE OF RESISTANCE, DISPLACEMENT, MATERIAL MOVEMENT, VERSATILE STRUCTURES, INFRASTRUCTURE, ARTSPACE
Citation

Cui, Jianing. "Black Bridge: Reclaiming the Public Ground." (2022) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/113558.

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