STUDIO EPFL
Autumn 2022
Inverted GroundscapesSofia Urzainqui de Miguel, Aikaterini Katsouli, and Sonia Simone
Planet earth is increasingly urbanized. Cities are perpetually expanding and the need for new infrastructures is urgent. Urbanization is inextricably linked with many environmental impacts such as loss of biodiversity, poor water quality, urban heat islands, CO2 emissions, air and noise pollution, devastation of the natural environment and problems of waste disposal. Urban sprawl is not damaging only the surface of the planet, but also the underground. Construction activities are also contributing to the devastation, extraction and movement of soil. The underground of earth is now an assemblage of networks, which can be described by the term groundscapes. The groundscape is an underside of the world, it is what we would see when diving if the ground was like the ocean and cities like vessels on its surface. Goal of the following project is to tackle the environmental problems caused by the perpetual urbanization and construction processes, the endeavor for a sustainable transition, the residual spaces generated by the alteration of the forms of mobility and the management of the underground soil that is going to be moved.
Photographs and images by author unless otherwise indicated.