Machine in Bloom: Industrial Park and Energy Timescapes within the Remnants of the Colstrip Power Plant

Item

Title
Machine in Bloom: Industrial Park and Energy Timescapes within the Remnants of the Colstrip Power Plant
Description
The relics of the Colstrip coal-powered plant in eastern Montana remain as a
mausoleum to the once sublime, a polemic of American westward expansion in the
name of efficiency. Engagement with the landscape and retained infrastructure for
residents and visitors is a tense involvement as one acknowledges the level of toxicity
these forms of non-renewable energy contribute to human and environmental health
while simultaneously appreciating the economic prosperity the plant provides. As
polluted groundwater is cleaned through phytoremediation technologies, the power
plant transitions to biomass, using the phyto-crops as the new primary source of energy.
Over time these industrial practices and additions will be broken down or repurposed as
energy futures shift and renewed ecologies take over. The thesis contributes to ongoing
practices of landscape architecture as a transformative tool for sites of cultural heritage
and ecological reclamation and how the discipline may advance the underlying social
conversation of mending polluted environments by non-renewable energy industries
that are currently being decommissioned around the world.
Creator
Hicks, Zoë Stella
Contributor
Folch, Tomás
Date
2024-05-21T12:10:47Z
2024
2024-05-16
2024
2024-05-21T12:10:47Z
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
text
Format
application/pdf
application/pdf
Identifier
Hicks, Zoë Stella. 2024. Machine in Bloom: Industrial Park and Energy Timescapes within the Remnants of the Colstrip Power Plant. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
31298810
https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37378621
Language
en