The Great Lake are an essential and contested site in North American and Globally. Facilitating access to more than 25 Cities, 8 States, and 2 Countries, the lakes have catalyzed the formation of the modern North American city with such examples as: Buffalo, NY; Detroit, MI; Toronto, ON; Toledo, OH; Erie, PA; Chicago, IL; and Thunder Bay, ON. The Third Coasting project (2011) pursued an architecture that responded to and participated in the ecology of this region and its attendant urban systems.
Each of these cities have created a direct relationship with their respective lakes, forming a very specific urban form, economy, and culture that capitalizes on lakeside living and access. Students were challenged to collect and use data in order to understand the ecology of the lakes and more importantly how that ecology interacted with the unique urbanism of each of the chosen sites.
Students were guided by Lateral Office, who’s is self described as an experimental design practice that operates at the intersection of architecture , landscape , and urbanism, with the end goal of attempting to provide answers to the following question. Can architecture accommodate the dynamics of ever-changing ecologies and environments?
Anirban Adhya
Constance Budorow
Beverly Geltner
Aaron Jones
Philip Plowright
Margaret Wong
Lateral Office
