Nkwooten Thesis Abstract Submittal 1

8/8/2019 Nkwooten Thesis Abstract Submittal 1

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Nathaniel WootenARC 505 Thesis Preparation

Crisis City:

Logistical Urbanism:

Primary Advisor:Brendan Moran

Secondary Advisor:Julia Czerniak

Crisis City Primary Faculty:Julia Czerniak

Anda FrenchBrian LonswayBrendan Moran

Francisco Sanin


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Thesis Abstract:

It is my contention that ood has and must continue to play an integral role in the shaping ourban landscapes and civic lie in order to create a more sustainable city. Intensifed by the linked orces

o industrialization, modernization, and globalization, our rapidly growing urban world is becomingincreasingly distanced rom the realities o its sustenance. Forecasting potential ood crises, citieshave slowly begun to invest in inormal urban agriculture, regional produce markets, and higher oodstandards. But despite these recent initiatives, cities are still reliant on their global ood inrastructures

to manage the logistics o ood trade. Our prior investment and current reliance on these existinginrastructures create economic and psychological barriers that prevent new sustainable urban oodsystems rom developing. How can these two competing and currently necessary orces be mitigatedin order to ensure their ultimate purpose, the sustaining o urban lie?

Throughout architectural and urban history the market has served as the urban space o ood. CarolynSteel author o Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives writes:

For all their mess, noise and nuisance, markets bring something vital to a city: an awareness o what it takes to sustain lie.They are what the French Sociologist Michel Foucault called heterotopias: places that embrace every aspect o human existence

simultaneously, that are capable o juxtaposing in a single space several aspects o lie that are in themselves incompatible.Markets are contradictory spaces, but that is the point. They are spaces made by ood.

Inhuman in scale, oten privatized, and removed to a citys hinterlands, global ood distributionmarkets no longer bring this awareness to urban lie; rather they are oten the epitome o an unsustainableglobal/urban ood system. As our cities transition towards local ood sourcing and other sustainablemodels, how will mega-markets as logistical nodes o ood distribution transition to accommodate locacommunity agricultural economies without neglecting the immediate demands o the worlds greaterurban population?

Feeding 20 million people a day New York Citys Hunts Point Food Distribution Center is one o the

most extreme examples o a mega-market serving a citys entire urban population. Given the marketsdisconnect rom the population it eeds and the neighborhood it inhabits, how can the market transormto become a productive public space or the Hunts Point community and/or greater New York City? Howcan this place o economic value gain cultural importance?

As a member o the Crisis City Coalition, I will conduct research and share critiques amongst myclassmates in hopes o producing a unique and comprehensive outlook on this urban crisis. Collaboratingwith other students, and with other felds, this thesis will seek to engage the economic, social, andpolitical realities and potentials o transitioning urban ood systems through a particular site. My topic-

driven research will begin by examining the global ood network and comparing it with the emergentsustainable local models. Additionally I intend to examine the various scales o architectural oodtypologies, ocusing on the history o the market as the space o ood.


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Alambria Spring FramsEarlville, NY, USAA small local organic csa that

delivers vegtables weekly to my

house in Syracuse.

Newmans Own INCWestport, CT, USA

A largely organic food companyfounded by the late Paul Newman.

The source of the ingredients of the

tomatoe sauce is unknown.

Cabot Creamery Coop.Cabot, VT, USA

A 1,200 farm family dairycooperative with members in New

England and upstate New York.

Products of ItalyModena, Lucca, and Puglia, Italy

Purchased through Wegmans

Food Markets Inc these products

were processed in Italy andshipped through Port of Authority

of New York and New Jersey.

Interestingly, the olive oil actually

originates in Spain. Italy importsmany of its food resources only

to process them and export them

out as Italian Products.

Wegmans of DewittDewitt, NY, USA

Syracuse Real Food Co-opSyracuse, NY, USA

Wegmans Food MarketsInc.Rochester, NY, USA

Though processed and packegedat Wegmans plant in Rochester,

the source of the cannellini beans

and the ingredients of the sausage

are unknown.

Simply OrganicNorway, IA, USA

Primarily sells organicly sourcedseasonings and spicies. Although

processed and packed in Norway,

Iowa the actual source of theingredients is unknown.

Spice Islands: ACHFood Companies IncSan Francisco, CA, USAProcessed and Packed in

San Francisco the actual

source of the fennel seeds

are unknown.

Greenwood Pl HouseSyracuse, NY, USA

Port Authority of New York

and New JerseyNewark, NJ, USA

50 mi

Local

500 mi

Regional

Map by: Nathaniel Wooten on Sept. 15, 2010 for

Syracuse University class: GEO 400: Food a Critical Geography

The World IsMy Dinner Plate

Innitial Images:


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Annotated Bibliography:

Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1998.Print.

For Bauman globalization involves the compression o time and territory through the value o mobility. This value, harnessedthrough global trade as capital, is most evident (in built orm) at locations o trade distribution.

Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts Into Air : The experience o modernity. New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1982. Print.Latent in the global ood system is the experience o modernity, by which we all participate. In examining possible transitionso the modern ood system into some other, it will be helpul to look at the initial transition rom which it was born. How donotions o sustainability,community , and stability take into account the modern maelstorm.

Doherty, Gareth, and Mohsen Mostaavi. Ecological Urbanism. 1st ed. Lars Muller Publishers, 2010.Print.

Including specifc texts and projects on ood urbanism, this 600 page bible examines an emergent mode o urbanism, in whichthe city is thought o as an interrelated set o processes. With an aim o a more sustainable city through architecture (built orm)and its relationship to politics, economics, and social issues, this sets out a trajectory by which this thesis can navigate.

Grimes, William. Appetite city : a culinary history o New York. 1st ed. New York: North Point Press,2009. Print.

Hauck-Lawson, Annie, and Jonathan Deutsch. Gastropolis : Food and New York City. New York:Columbia University Press, 2009. Print.

Both o these books look at the history o ood in New York City. This is critical in understanding the historical context behindthe creation and sustaining o the Hunts Point Market, while also projecting on the citys current and past ood environment andculture.

Knechtel, John. Food. Alphabet City #12. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. Print.

An anthology o projects and issues that collaboratively deal with the topic o ood. Like Ecological Urbanism a variety o view

points and potentials are explored on the relationship o ood and urbanism.

McKibben, Bill. Eaarth: Making A Lie on a Tough New Planet. New York: Times Books, 2010. Print.

As the most recent comprehensive text on global climate change and ways to mitigate it, this book lays out the possibility that weare already living on a severely altered earth. The since o urgency that this book demands brings about the examination in myproject between what exists and what we know to be right, and how they might be mediated.

Miller, Sally. Edible Action: Food Activism and Alternative Economics . Haliax, NS: Fernwood, 2008.

Change and transition rely on action. This book holistically examines the actions that are currently underway to change theglobal ood system.

Steel, Carolyn. Hungry City: How Food Shapes Out Lives. London: Random House, 2008. Print.

This book is in many ways the inspiration o this thesis. Chronologically this book looks at urban history through the lens oood, ultimately seeing the way ood as shaped our civilizations (or better or worse) and how it might do so in a sustainableuture. This book suggests that ood and urbanism are unseperable.

Viljoen, Andrew. CPULs: Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes. Burlington, MA: Architectural

Press, 2005. Print.

This pioneering text sees urban agriculture as an essential element o sustainable urban inrastructure. It exhibits one o the mostwidely successul and critically praised visions o a more sustainable city (which happens to revolve around ood). Continuousproductive urban landscapes are seen as the best alternative to the current global ood system.

Documents

Nkwooten Thesis Abstract Submittal 1