University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Wasted space: meanings and typologies of informal trash deposits in the Southwestern US

Lemme, Stirling Hobgood

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124464

Description

Title
Wasted space: meanings and typologies of informal trash deposits in the Southwestern US
Author(s)
Lemme, Stirling Hobgood
Issue Date
2024-05-03
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Hays, David L
Committee Member(s)
  • Hogin, Lauretta
  • Taylor, Chris
Department of Study
Landscape Architecture
Discipline
Landscape Architecture
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.L.A.
Degree Level
Thesis
Keyword(s)
  • trash
  • waste
  • garbage
  • landscape
  • landscape architecture
  • land art
  • anthropocene
Abstract
What value does trash have in a landscape? Traditional Picturesque understandings of landscape aesthetics persist into the 21st century, informing a dominant attitude toward trash landscapes as a degenerate condition. Based on a two-month documentation and mapping exercise of trash in the Southwestern US, this project reframes informal trash—that found outside of society’s formal waste organization structures, the garbage can and landfill—as valuable indicators of human behavior, an Anthropocene archaeology. Informed by patterns in spatial distribution, material sorting, and landscape location, the way in which a trash object has been deposited can be determined and responded to through design. Trash deposits are grouped into one of three categories: Incidental, that which is left behind unintentionally; Intentional, trash deposited in the course of a social-recreational activity; and Abject, trash which has been deposited with other trash in informal massings. By determining what kind of deposition is prevalent at a site, designers can adopt strategies unique to each category that simultaneously preserve the archaeological value of trash while concentrating it into site-specific formal structures that allow the public to engage with it directly and more meaningfully than is possible with the large-scale, distal waste management structures that prevail today.
Graduation Semester
2024-05
Type of Resource
Thesis
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2024 Stirling Hobgood Lemme

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