Anti-Ditch

The toxicity problem of the Great Lakes watersheds started from an architectural device—the subsurface ditch–penetrates the Midwestern American soils, overfeeding them with nutrients. This massive carbon sink, a clean water source—used to be circulated and regulated by microbial activity—transitioned into an anthropogenically disrupted ecosystem, poisonous and infected, while steel monuments are immortalized. Framed by policymakers as an unsolvable Wicked Problem—blaming science and lack of data, the nutrient flux is managed as a business, where trading credits considered as proper management.

The Anti-Ditch proposes a new architectural approach operating from micro to macro scale—to address the Great Lakes' toxicity problem, rooted in early settlements, stating this is an architectural, not only ecological discussion—urging their fusion. Thus, it demands multi-disciplinary integration—an assemblage designed for the American agricultural landscape. Preservation approach—Integrating 19th century John Ruskin’s ideas of monuments as evolving, carrying “golden stains of time" with Luis Pasteur’s discovery that microbes are everywhere, embracing their activity. Restoration by Ruskin is “as impossible as to raise the dead” and microbes by Pasteur are "the agents we cannot govern". Advocating these ideas into a new 21st century architectural paradigm, American monuments become part of real-time monitoring systems, integrated with Earth system cycles—unsterilized, adaptive, fermented. Biological attitude—Understanding that restoring the landscape to its primordial roots is impossible, the project suggests enhancing biological and chemical processes by designing the Fermented Wetlands. Technological monitoring—Manipulating remote sensing data, overlapping multitemporal and multi-depth data to cross information and indicate anthropogenic activity consequences. Developing the multisensor device–measuring real-time parameters—as a certifier for field validation, ensuring removal of excess nutrients by the Fermented Wetlands. Economic alternative—Since farmers are the main resistors to change, the Anti-Ditch proposes a scheme rewarding them for converting 3% of their lands into Fermented Wetlands, belonging to a larger organization. New preservation organization—gathering all these elements under an institutional structure for continuous validation and negotiation.