June 5, 2019

Soilcraft: A Necessary Fiction

Stevie Koepp, LArch/MArch 2019

Abstract

Soil is an oddly unfamiliar, living matrix supporting the multitude of city life. The World Reference Base for Soils extended classification in 2006 to include urban soil types, termed technosols to describe their semi-synthetic origin. Developing rapidly in biological assemblages qualified by garbage, technosols demand the production of novel narratives to imagine what they will become and to whom they belong. Can speculative proposals for soil building cultivate an ethic of flourishing in the more-than-human city? This thesis engages soil to better understand what working practices reframe environmental values governing action.

Thesis Committee

Committee:
Gundula Proksch
Thaisa Way
Afroditi Psarra