That gonna-be-170-ft.-high pile of trash going up across the street from Shadow Creek Ranch? Nothing a little smart landscaping can’t handle. Rice architecture grad student Lysle Oliveros’s proposal for the Blue Ridge Landfill makes for a rockin’ video. And Houston needs a mountain, anyway.
- Houston Needs a Mountain [Vimeo]
- 2008 Winners [Rice Design Alliance]
- Previously in Swamplot: Raising a Bigger Stink: Shadow Creek Ranch Residents Still Fighting 170-Foot Uphill Battle, Hurricane Detection System To Be Blocked by 170-Foot-High Pile of Garbage
Video: Richie Gelles
Michigan has a similar mountain somewhere that is now used for snow skiing in winter.
A small town advertised itself to other municipalities that it’ll take the trash for a fee. The mountain was built, capped, and voila: A ski hill! I need to go dig up the city name and the old article. It was about 10 or 15 years ago.
Of course we won’t be able to ski here in Houston except for rare weather conditions.
Can we put some mountain bike trails on it?
Was there anything architectural about the video? It seemed more like an advertising and/or graphic design project. I have a hard time seeing anything practical in that video.
Shadow Creek is advertising like mad on radio, maybe they should promote the mountain bike or snow skiing advantages of the landfill?
Fake town, fake city center, fake mountain. Makes sense. It’s a LANDFILL, you can’t make it all pretty, Master Planned Community style.
Blue Ridge? Hardly. Come up with an original name for something for once.
Blue Ridge is the name of an old road that traverses the southernmost part of Harris County. As I recall from bicycle ramblings 35 years ago, it was the southern extension of Hillcroft way down past South Main/Highway 90/RR tracks. At that time there was nothing out there but oil fields and the antenna farm, and the whole area was colloquially known as Blue Ridge.
Blue Ridge was the name for the surface expression of the salt dome underlying the area. There were oil fields and a salt mine in the area. In Brazoria County, there’s Stratton Ridge, another salt dome feature. Folks from other parts of the country laugh at the tiny features we call ridges.
Thanks for the history, Ross!
Katie,
It’s no fake than the cottages and bungalows of the Heights. They are mass produced ready to build copies of real cottages and real bungalows. Really no different than today’s spec homes.
Thanks for the history. It makes better sense now.
“Folks from other parts of the country laugh at the tiny features we call ridges.”
From Ross:
Why? I don’t see what’s so funny about it. I really don’t get it. A ridge is a small hill. Do people from Iowa and South Dakota laugh about it? How about Louisiana? They have ridges there, too. I live near a place called Black Cat Ridge…because it’s a ridge. Dang that’s funny.
“Fake town, fake city center, fake mountain. Makes sense. It’s a LANDFILL, you can’t make it all pretty, Master Planned Community style.”
To Katie, re:Shadow Creek — What did you think the shadow was from?
It is what it is. A mountain of trash larger than Rice U. (x3) Shadow Creek Ranch is building right up to it.