The Paradox of the Boundary [2010 - 2011]

Throughout the technological advances of humanity, architectures have been a means with which we can consider previous generations, understand their priorities, trials and ethics. Places with past look to buildings to tell their stories; however, what is to be said for those environs that cannot be understood in the same contextual dialogue. What sort of translation is necessary to register changes and developments in geomorphologic and socioeconomic energies over time?

Throughout millennia, the meandering courses of the Mississippi River have scoured the surfaces of the earth, repeatedly shifting, leaving traces of geological histories embedded within the state. The actions, thoughts, ideals, and regulations fundamental to its territories lie suspended in these layers. Each particular landscape presents possibility for examination and integration amongst the positions of architectures : the boundaries dividing each avenue of knowledge and information, the margins of representation and aesthetic exploration, the confines of established communications and interactions. Though these territories are defined by domains and definitions, the scope of parameters within this depositional environ is not ascertainable as such. Constructed residues demonstrate ideas of permanence and existence as well as ideals of form; yet, endless amounts of information and turbulent eddies of correspondence pervade. Initially evolving as something other than a vehicle to act as a new landscape, the project presents an alternative method to view the landscape. The Paradox of the Boundary aims to contribute architectures responsive to the conditions as they are, shifting and adjusting amongst the diversity of this monumental environ, expanding without partitions and confines. This frontier retains no static edge, the boundary, within this contemporary and within the territories of this mighty, muddy river, is actually a condition that does not exist.