In New York City, the history of trash and land speculation are intimately linked. The Freshkills landfill in Staten Island was intended to transform the “inhospitable” salt marsh into developable land. However, the scheme quickly ballooned out of scale, accepting 150 million tons of trash before closing in 2001.
However, the extreme height of the trash mounds presents an opportunity. Developing a portion of the mounds can serve as a resilience strategy for local residents of Travis, allowing them to relocate within a quarter mile of their current homes while tapping directly into the landfill’s gas collection infrastructure.
A single-mast cable-stayed cantilever follows the contours of the mound and directs the load of the proposed structure just beyond the fragile polyethylene membrane. A pair of suspended platforms creates three zones. First is the green roof which continues the grasslands onto the structure and plays with the image of the single-family home. Second is the primary living area below, which houses a gradient of increasingly communal living arrangements with large shared amenities. Third is the ground floor which contains the infrastructure needed to recirculate materials on site and helps to foster a form of self sufficiency.
