Robert Peebles | Ontological Liberation: Hybrid Infrastructures for the Anthropocene

ONTOLOGICAL LIBERATION HYBRID INFRASTRUCTURES FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE

By Robert Peebles May 2021

Committee Chair: Michael Mcinturf Comittee Member: Elizabeth Riorden

Itztapalapa | @santiago_Arau - https://www.instagram.com/santiago_arau/

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01

Abstract

4

02 01

Metropolitan Scale

6

03 01

Constructed Relation of Water and Land

10

04 01

Site Selection

18

05 01

The Urban Plan

26

06 01

Architecture Objects

44

2

Mexico City’s Wealth Gap | Millefoto/REX - https://www.shutterstock.com/

ABSTRACT

At the dawn of the first urban century in human history, we are coming to understand the undeniable consequences of our occupation that has changed the record of geology and ecosystems on a planetary scale. Persistent and irrefutable marks providing evidence of these changes are the artefacts of the Anthropocene – a new geologic epoch born out of human’s ability to inflict ecological damage able to be seen through the lens of Deep Time. The Anthropocene thesis provokes designers to reevaluate fundamental attitudes, theories, and practices inherited from modernity. The term has fostered questions about the relationships and autonomy of politics, culture, and nature questioning the ontological structure of our urban environments. The previous models of urban construction prioritized the wellbeing of humans above all other factors – and placed the modes of production, productivity, agriculture, climate, water, and energy outside the bounds of the city. Bringing these concepts back into the core of the urban diagram represents a shift to create a Flat Ontology City. Restructuring the diagram’s core away from a concentric allocation where all nodes flow to one point – and instead, create a decentralized cloud where nodes previously found outside the city model take equal footing with human life.

De-ontologizing our world view presents new understandings of the non-human agents that comprise our world and shows how these objects are entangled in a mesh to our own existence.

Mexico City represents an excellent opportunity to test the design of this new diagram due to the inextricable link of the non-human actors (geology & the water cycle) the city has; and how it suffers from design’s refusal to acknowledge or incorporate these elements. Modern hydrologic infrastructure has become massive in scale, often taking traditional infrastructural forms, and blowing them up to monumental proportions but designed as a static single use object. When considering design as the creation of a static object, this notion becomes problematic when confronted with actors that operate as a mesh of relations to non-human objects. Objects within these interconnected sets of relations create a networked assemblage that opposes the modern idea of categorical distinctions and organizes hybrid subjects. This hybridity extends beyond questions of philosophy and extends to the assemblage that is architecture itself and how it shapes they city and landscapes. The infrastructure of the Anthropocene seeks to define an architectural subject beyond the human that creates an assemblage that addresses multi-scale territory and organic and inorganic actors producing opportunistic infrastructure that positively integrates with natural processes rather than disrupting them. This thesis seeks to formalize a monument and iconography that creates the Lake Chalco-Iztapalapa system’s physical manifestations and mark a change in the relationship to nature and emerging architectural hybridity with infrastructure that responds to the hybrid subjects of Mexico City’s Anthropocene period.

Abstract | 4

MEXICO HYDROLOGICAL DRAINAGE BASIN

CDMX CDMX MUNICIPALITIES 1

MILPA ALTA

20km

30km

2

TLALPAN

3

MAGDALENA CONTRERAS

4

ALVARO OBREGON

5

CUAJIMALPA DE MORELOS

6

MIGUEL HIDALGO

7

AZCAPOTZALCO

24 8

20

22

21 7 6

24 8 9

11

4

5

23

10

19

12

18

14

13

24 16 3

15 2

CDMX CDMX METROPOLITAN AREA Locating Mexico City

24

1

17

GUSTAVO A. MADERO

9

CUAUHTEMOC

10

VENUSTIANO CARRANZA

11

BENITO JUAREZ

12

IZTACALCO

13

COYOACAN

14

IZTAPALAPA

15

XOCHIMILCO

24 16

TLAHUAC

CDMX METROPOLITAN AREA MUNICIPALITIES 17

VALLE DE CHACLO

18

LA PAZ

19

NETZAHUALCOYOTL

20

ECATEPEC

21

TLALNEPANTLA

22

ATENCO

23

TEXCOCO

24

CHIMALHUACAN

10km

20km

30km

PROJECT SITE

10km 10km

The Valley of Mexico

Metropolitan Scale | 6

3

Landmarks of Mexico City

14

1

BASILICA OF OUR LADY GUADALUPE

2

PLAZA OF THE THREE CULTURES

3

AIRPORT

4

ZOCALO

5

PALACIO DE BELLAS ARTES

6

ANGLE OF INDEPENDENCE STATUE

7

CHAPULTEPEC CASTLE

24 8

13

CASA ESTUDIO LUIS BARRAGAN

9

FRIDA KAHLO MUSEUM

10

UNAM

11

XOCHIMILCO

12

LAKE CHALCO

13

LAKE TEXCOCO

14

EL CARACOL

PROJECT SITE

12

10km 10km

Metropolitan Scale | 8

Locating Mexico City

1350

1520

1750

1850

1950

2010

1910

1950

1970

The Valley of Mexico

1990 Constructed Relation of Water and Land | 10

Strategies of Incarceration for Water

1350 DIKE OF NETZAHUALCOYOTL

1520

GRAN CANAL DEL DESAGUE

1750

2010

Section of the Lakes Over Time

TUNEL EMISOR ORINETE

Constructed Relation of Water and Land | 12

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Geologic Section Cuts of the Valley of Mexico

LACUSTRINE AND ALLUVIAL DEPOSITES

BASALTIC AQUIFER

AQUIFER IN LACUSTRINE DEPOSITS

GRANULAR AQUIFER 1

BEDROCK

VOLCANIC ROCKS OF THE LOWER TERTIARY

2

3

5 4

6 7

Geologic Map of the Valley of Mexico

Constructed Relation of Water and Land | 14

F

R ATE W M

O RO OF

R

STO

AL

N CA O T IN

S

E AG WE

SE

AIN DR

ET

R ATE W M

RE FST

O

R STO R ATE W ES VID TS O PR CKE U A B PIP

UA AQ

RAS

G NE

RA

D AIN

M

Informal Settlement Water Cycle

GE INA

OU

F TO

Y

CIT

HIDALGO STATE

MEXICO STATE

MEZQUITAL VALLY

MEXICO STATE

MICHOACAN STATE

Mexico City Outside Itself

CUTZAMALA SYSTEM Constructed Relation of Water and Land | 16

TER WA

N

O ATI ILTR

F

UN

IN TER A DW

O GR

E

NC

E SID

B

SU

STO

GY OLO

GE

E

TUN

R

ISO

M LE

N

SS MA

O ATI IGR

M

N

O ATI Z I N

OLO

C ISH

N

N SPA Mexico Cities Hydrologic Mesh of Realtions

AQ

X

RE

E UIF

O CTI A R T

IMP

GE OR AL

AN DC

AN GR

LB

A RM

O

INF

ING

D UIL

O

TEN

N

TLA

TI CH

IC

TOR HIS

RA

GE INA

D LEY

BED

E

G DIN

O

FLO

E LAK

H HIG

CE RFA

R ATU R E P

TEM

SU

VAL

R ATE W D

RTE PO

Site Selection | 18

01

ECOLOGICAL RESERVE OF PEDREGAL DE SAN

02

LA CAJA DE AGUE

03

TUNEL EMISOR ORIENTE

04

MOLIONO DEL REY

05

INTERCEPTOR PONIENTE

06

GRAND CANAL DE DESAGUE

07

SAN JOAQUIN RIVER

08

EL CONSULADO RIVER

09

LA PIEDAD RIVER

10

EL CARACOL

11

LAKE CHALCO

12

LAKE TEXCOCO

Typologies of Water Infrastructure

Systems Diagram of Water Infrastructure

2

5

24 10 3 8 6 7 4 12 9

1

PROJECT SITE

11

Site Selection | 20

A VOLCANIC MOUNTAINS B SLOPES C LAHAR SLOPES D WEST BASIN - FRESH WATER E EAST BASIN - SALT WATER F XOCHIMILCO

D C

E

B

F

A

STORE AREA OF POROUS DELAY VOLCANIC VOLCANIC ROCK SLOPES WHERE RETAIN OFFERING RUNOFF PICKS HIGHEST START OF URBAN UP SPEED AND INFILTRATION AREAS, SLOPES BEGIN IS UNABLE TO BE TO LEVEL OUT AND RETAINED GEOLOGY GRADIENTS BETWEEN VOLCANIC ROCK AND OLD LAKE B C A BEDS RAIN

Occupying the Gradient

D

F

REUSE HEAVY URBAN ZONES, WITH LITTLE POROUS GROUND LEFT. SOIL IS BUILT UP FROM LAKE BEDS AND FLOODING AND OFFERS NO INFILTRATION. AREAS MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO SUBSIDENCE

E

Creating an Autonomous Water Zone

PROJECT SITE BREAK THE DRAINIAGE INFRASTRUCTURE BREAK THE DRAINAGE INFRASTRUCTURE

Site Selection | 22

Iztapalapa | Photo Beto - https://www.istockphoto.com/

Filling Cistern | Dario Lopes-Mills Associated Press - https://therevelator.org/mexico-politics-water/

Boy Checks Roof Cistern | Josh Haner New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/ interactive/2017/02/17/world/americas/mexico-city-sinking.html

Site Selection | 24

2

LAKE CHALCO

1

CONTAINED DRAINAGE BASIN

3

SEWEAGE FILTRATION

5

DAM

4 6

VOLCANO BASIN

NATURAL TERRACE FILTERING

7

CLEAN WATER LAKE

8 CLEAN WATER AQUEDCUT

10

AQUIFER INFILTRATION

9

STORM WATER COLLECTION

7 6

4 5

3

2

The Iztapalapa - Chalco System Componenets

Urban Plan | 26

Iztapalapa as it Exists Now

Urban Plan | 28

3

1 2

Proposed Urban Plan for Iztapalapa

1

TRANSIT/ AQUEDUCT

4 2

3

SCHOOL

PEDESTRIAN / AQUEDUCT

4

SERVICES / DRAIN

Urban Plan | 30

SCHOOL

5 MINUTE RADIUS

INTERSECTIONS

DISTRIBUTION ZONE

Creation of Water Provision Districts

SCHOOL

5 MINUTE RADIUS

INTERSECTIONS

DISTRIBUTION ZONE

Urban Plan | 32

Distribution of Water Provision Districts

Urban Plan | 34

WALKING ROUTES

TRANSIT LINES

Overhead Water Supply Diagrams

10Om

TRANSIT LINES SUPPORT SPACING

24m

WALKING ROUTES SUPPORT SPACING

30m 27m 24m 21m 18m 15m 12m 9m 6m 3m 0m

Urban Plan | 36

Overhead Water Supply Transit/Pedestrian Plan

Urban Plan | 38

1

2

3

3

L

OO

H SC

6

4

LK WA

1

3D Axon of a Water Provision Distrcit

4

5

6

E AG

AIN DR

LS

NE

TUN

ES

IN IT L

S

N TRA

5

Y DR

UN / LA

M

O RO H T BA

S ATH P G

KIN

2

Urban Plan | 40

Location of On-the-Ground Interventions

Urban Plan | 42

CISTERN REFILL

VERTICAL TRANSITION

BATHROOM/ LAUNDRY

Typologies of the Itztapalapa - Chalco System

SCHOO

OL

AQUEDUCT/ PREDESTRIAN

AQUEDUCT/ TRANSIT Architecture Objects | 44

LAUNDRY

BATHROOM

FILTER BEDS DRAIN TO TUNNEL SYSTEM STORM WATER COLLECTION

Bathroom/ Laundry Typology

Architecture Objects | 46

Architecture Objects | 48

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

STAIRS SUPPORT FRAME ELEVATOR

DRAIN TO TUNNEL SYSTEM FILTER BEDS

Vertical Circulation Typology

STORM WATER COLLECTION Architecture Objects | 50

Architecture Objects | 52

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

WATER TAP

CANOPY

DRAIN TO TUNNEL SYSTEM

CISTERN FILL LOCATION

Water Provision Typology

Architecture Objects | 54

School / Water Provision, Storage, and Filtration / Public - Private Bathhouse Typology

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

TRANSIT LINE

SCHOOL

GROUND PLANE INTERVENTION

Architecture Objects | 56

BATHROOMS CHANGING ROOMS SHOWERS

SEQUENTIAL FILTER BEDS PUBLIC BATH STORM WATER RETURN ELEVATOR CISTERN FILL LOCATION PUBLIC ASSEMBLY SPACE PRIVATE BATHS

AQUIFER INFILTRATION POINT OPEN AIR MARKET / STORM WATER

Architecture Objects | 58

Architecture Objects | 60

Architecture Objects | 62

Architecture Objects | 64