A selection committee of industry experts and foundation representatives has chosen Terrain Work to be part of the Walton Family Foundation's Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program. “By partnering with visionary architects, landscape architects and urban designers, we aim to support ambitious projects that leave a lasting impact on the region’s future,” said Meredith Bergstrom, senior program officer at the Walton Family Foundation. “The Design Excellence Program is committed to creating welcoming public spaces that reflect local culture and foster a sense of belonging.” To learn more about the Walton Family Foundation's Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program click here.
West Harlem Going Wild
West Harlem Going Wild transforms a vacant asphalt lot on 128th Street in Manhattan into a planted respite. The design addresses issues that urban environments face in the wake of climate change, such as: reducing the heat island effect, improving air quality, breaking up the urban soil profile to allow for water percolation into the ground, and upcycling materials onsite to reduce waste and emissions associated with the construction industry. Working with limited resources on a shoestring budget, the design utilizes discarded construction materials and plant species that spontaneously occur in the urban environment that have historically been considered “weeds” to form a grass roots solution to these global problems. As a prototype for future urban landscapes, the site will be continuously monitored for species performance and longevity over time.
As we grapple with the deepening climate crisis that threatens humanity, novel and incremental solutions to combat this complex problem are desperately needed. It requires both broad level policy changes from governments as well as grass roots movements from individuals to address the myriad causes of climate change. In this spirit, West Harlem Going Wild was born. West Harlem Going Wild is a model of how underutilized and marginal urban spaces can be adapted to become productive and thriving landscapes with a limited budget. Learn more about West Harlem Going Wild by clicking here.
Terrain Work Selected to Exhibit in the Seoul Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism
Terrain Work with collaborative partners - MMK+, Strange Works Studio, Emergent Studio, and Dongsei Kim, NYIT - were recently selected from an international competition to exhibit in the 2023 Seoul Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism : A 100 Year Master Plan. Our proposal, Productive Han-Ga-Ram: Han River as Madang of Culture and Ecology, reimagines the Han River as Seoul’s central public space by transforming its thirty bridges and river front into a productive and performative infrastructure that helps to mitigate the effects of climate change while offering new venues for public recreation. Learn more about the Seoul Biennale here and stay tuned for our proposal in September!