Carson Michaelis
S10 → Past Futures: Rust Belt
Spring 2023
Advanced Studio
Carnegie Mellon University
Professor Heather Bizon
Partner Kit Tang
Set in the now-shrinking, historically industrial rust belt, this project imagines a new life for the material of vacant, abandoned buildings. More than just siting and forming a recycling center, the project reached into issues of property ownership and community systems, as well as using the new infrastructure as a place with power to create connections and jobs back into communities in need. Through this we attempt to imagine a new and more powerful connection to industrial labor.
The project is expansive in both scope and representation, ranging from regional diagrams to individual property and material histories, and is expressed through drawings, hybrid models, and videos.
Map of Midwestern historical brick distribution with new re-distribution.
Steps in the process of concrete recycing and reuse.
Deconstruciton of a typical Midwest Kit-Home.
Right: Breakdown of Recyclables
Slides on site identification , background, and land and building ownership
Site Video of Interaction between public systems and infrastructural networks.
Brick Pavilion, Training and Education Center, Wood Pavilion
Outcoing material facility, Skate Park, Incoming Material Facility