Honor Award

Ephemeral Boundaries

Brennan Baxley, Student ASLA, Florida International University
Faculty Advisor: Roberto Rovira, ASLA

Fathomed as a phenomenological space, the conceptual objective encouraged a natural system brought back to life in order to educate and represent. A reflection of sprawl throughout the site signals engagement. The strategy of implementing boundaries as ephemeral and fluctuating was utilized in the captivating and sustainable ecosystem of the South Florida Everglades.

Currently, the Everglades is located on the west side of Miami encompassing the lower half of the state of Florida. The Site, located approximately between Krome Avenue and Sw 8th Street (Tamiami Trail), sits on the edge of the Everglades boundary, and shares a border with the City of Miami, as it is adjacent to the Miccosukee Hotel and casino. This depleted land is not utilized for any purpose and left to expose the depletion of the Everglades, as it relates to the proximity of the city. The space is a robust marsh, filled with marl, and large amounts of sawgrass. Melaleuca, a thirsty invasive species, surround the site in anticipation to invade even more of the Everglades. On all sides of the site, there are two canals existing as an exit source to continue the “proper” drainage of the everglades. Initially the design was sparked in order to understand the nature and extent of human interaction with the earth's surface. The proposal solicited for a center, called the Center for Land Use Interpretation, where evident and practical research perspectives of land use could be carried out in order to provide a better comprehension of Florida’s natural resource.

Context

The project began with research of the Urban Development Boundary Line. This “line”, or UDB broke the county geographically as well as politically. Acting as a division between the undeveloped land and the continuously expanding urban sprawl of the city, the UDB generated tension constantly. The UDB here, along the west side of suburbia acts as a filter. This filter breaks the grid and expands the use and size of land. From the Everglades, the form is one of freedom, expressing undefined areas, which spread uncontained. When approaching the UDB, the unused green space becomes more defined, digressing into fields of agriculture, and pastures of manufacturing. Once over the line, the grid is divided into smaller, more miniscule streets. The spaces of vegetation and open use become scattered and sparse. The feelings and experiences of natural space are for people to seek experience. The UDB does not only prevent the sprawl of the growing city, but holds back the power of a natural force, already swollen from destruction: the Everglades.

Conceptual Initiation

The design concept was commenced when identifying the key features of the site and its context, producing an active space in which to inform people of the land use of the everglades as a result of the UDB, and yield appropriate education about an ecosystem far despised. While alluding to studies of absorption and impermanence, the project progressed. Absolute transition into the boundaries cannot happen without subtlety. By expressing multiple levels of landscape expansion alluding to the everglades spread, the layers of land bleed and grow outwards. Each plate of land transitions indistinctly through dissipation. Arms reach out from each level, making extensions fragile and ephemeral. As these arms leech drastically, over subtle and abrupt lengths of time, they become absorbed into the landscape, where vegetation soon follows.

The ephemeral boundaries are thus created. The next step included incorporating spaces exhibited both indoors and outdoors by the meandering pathways. Exhibition buildings connect the landscape, stitching the undefined edges. These joints stitch the levels that are overly expanded along the system. As one explores, he is absorbed into points of view when making escapades through the boardwalk, engaged within low and compressed spaces. The pressure-treated boardwalk swims through the field. Points along the boardwalk are sharp and unexpected. Views across the soft-scape are captured occasionally, while other spaces allow one to become personal with the ecological canvas. Juxtaposed spaces are left tight and open to control, yet giving opportunity to expand outwards or back to the intended program. Individuals are able diverge themselves into the system with time for investigation.

Using natural resources, and limited fabricated pieces generally used for the exhibition spaces, the site collected minor materials. Hydrology is restored, along with appropriate native species. water troughs, wetland prairies, sawgrass marshes, freshwater swamps, and hardwood hammocks are placed upon the landscape. The land use interpretation call for using the melaleuca, an invasive species to the state of Florida, as a model for growth. These boundaries could be formed through the use of a fluctuating edge condition that changes over time, according to the natural occurrences.

Impact and Rejuvenation

Though this serves as a model for a better ecological design, it is difficult to go backwards without many years of restoration and participation. To have man undo what he has done to the life of Florida, we must simply construct methods to teach and educate good sensitive design, to live harmoniously with those patterns, and expose the uniqueness of place. Principles and sustainability no doubt serve that purpose. Simple but yet pragmatic, the shift in levels, the density, and the vegetation all compose a canvas — similar to that of a spilt drop of ink, spreading extensively. As time shows vegetation will expand, and with restrictions and subtle transition, demarcation of the sustainable Everglades ecosystem is proliferated and brought back to life.

The strategy followed the idea that the landscape would become a space where people could engage themselves with the natural order of the Everglades. In order to obtain this, studies were taken to parallel the existing qualities that the UDB possesses, including allusions to time as a catalyst in which the soft-scape would become absorbed. The breaking down and splitting into smaller points became the method of making undefined boundaries. The landscape becomes a suggestion of the incremental where only time could demonstrate the qualities of that boundary imagined. Metaphorically the design urges visitors to understand that the land is changing and when the level of each ecosystem reaches its end, it dissipates just as man would disperse the city upon the Everglades.

American Society of Landscape Architects