I'm not clear on what happened first in my process, it was rather organic in my mind for most of the summer, starting from and education center/school to museum to research laboratory. In the end, after reading this article http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2010/09/oregon_university_researchers.html on university spending on research and asking my friend who is interested in Portland urban planning about site potential. He mentioned the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I connected the dots and decide a Program that was a center for innovation from the past, current and future. I did some article searches and found more information about OMSI desires to expand, and the proposed Light Rail line that would connect many of the institutions like PSU, OHSU and business In what is called the "Innovation Quadrant". I'm purposely leaving it vague because I'd like to hear what my professors think of the site compared to another site option.
The Arkema Site was found of the EPA website. I know I wanted to find a scarred landscape and it fit the description to a T. The site is know as the former production of DDT, and is heavily contaminated. The potential of the site, lies in the fact that it has to be cleaned,. I'm interested in exploring solution that one clean the site and remain visible for future development as memory and education and still productive in a cyclical industrial model. Its proximity to the River, Rail and city make the site unique that it could be a large scale recycling center for the city in attempts to localize waste streams.
Site and program can be inverse but I feel like the sites are suitable for those specific programs that I developed specifically with those sites
The 4 words that I came up with Collection, Connect, Generation, and Movement. I tried to choose words that were nouns and verbs that opens up potential of thoughts, the word association is not yet over and I plan to extend the web and make it more of a graphic web that would read my intentions.
click on images to enlarge:
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| sorry upload this image squishes it for some reason... |
I hope to make my decision on site/program after I plan to explore both sites on foot. An assignment in the digital media course site asks to explore a part of Portland and I will use that opportunity to kill two birds with one stone but not really because I'll be doing it twice.
