Carson Michaelis
E091 → Mapping Las Vegas
Fall 2022
Elective Course - Cartography
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Professor Bárbara Maçães Costa
Emerging from the a course which implements traditional mapping techniques to explore territorial relationships, the two maps and model created each expand the relationship beyond a single building, and instead investigate the City of Las Vegas, its Strip District, and Lake Mead, as they head together towards an increasingly uncertain future. Taken were lessons about the horizontal growth of the city and it’s approach to federal and state protected lands on each side, as well as its relationship with the Colorado River and Lake Mead. The model following attempts to replicate the traditional Vegas mode of pastiche, but this time from the city’s style itself. The final map shows Vegas as it’s own ‘no-stop’ city, focusing on the relation between gaming areas and the web of corridors between them. As such it’s style has been built from Superstudio’s own No-Stop city mappings.