“Wildness can be found anywhere...[even] in the cracks of a Manhattan sidewalk” -William Cronon, “The Trouble With Wilderness”

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After dissecting Cronon’s essay, I decided to site my project in and around Central Park.  The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and was modeled after public European grounds, portraying the American idea of wilderness.  The industrial city and the National Park system, for example, display separation between the “natural” and the “man-made.”  Cronon calls for us to let go of our idea of “wilderness” and define a new nature, or “wildness” for our cities and parks.

I believe wildness can be found in the molds and fungus that exist in New York City, and my goal is to amplify the causes and effects of these organisms through architecture.  I explored the properties of tomato mold via translation drawings and mapped where mold and fungus may exist within my site.  I have devised three architectural typologies that aim to bring wildness into the city.  I hope to utilize manhole covers to reveal existing mold and fungus underground, design a water filtration system on facades, and to install mini labs in Central Park that scientifically display existing molds and funguses within the park.  I explore these typologies in a series of nine section, plan, and elevation drawings that both technically explain and physically explore this new definition of wildness.