A World of Waste
In The Architecture of Waste: Design for a Circular Economy, edited by Caroline O’Donnell | 2020A video game, Katamari Damacy, where a diminutive hero must reconstruct a universe in physical disarray is an apt metaphor for the task of redesigning a world made from waste. The unprecedented composite materials and hybrid urban landscapes of the Anthropocene prompt a new understanding of the relationship between matter and place. Surveying the uncanny and unequal landscape reformations of Paris in the 19th century and New York City in the 20th century, this chapter posits an alternative history of urbanization as a process of both making space from waste and making waste from space. These histories, and the metropolitan landscape of 21st century New Jersey, a product of waste’s accumulation and facilitator of its global circulation, prompt designers to approach waste management as an uncertain and uneven spatial practice.
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Environment, Writing
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