DIRT – Ottawa

DIRT – Ottawa is my year-long exploration in the dirt in the Ottawa-Algonquin region in Canada. It was accomplished in my last year (2022-2023) pursuing the Master of Architecture in the Azrieli School of Architecture at Carleton University, Ottawa.

“My thesis explores dirt in the contemporary world
and its place in architecture through a series of ceramic-making
exercises. Using my hands, my eyes, and my mind in
these exercises, I make sense of the multiple meanings and the
critical matter of dirt through feeling and thinking. My sense
of touch helps me explore the place and non-place of clay,
my eyes aid me in clarifying the scientific order in modernity
that turns dirt into waste, and my mind eventually brings
me to tackle the critical problem of discarded waste sites
called brownfields in Canada. The series of experiments has
created a new sensory order from which a tectonic expression
of architecture rooted in a particular place is created—a
process that trespasses the taboos of the contaminated and
embraces the uncertainties contained in earth and land in the
technological age of the Anthropocene.”

— Abstract of “Dirt: Making with Contaminated Lands” (2023) by Ju Huang