The Pleasure Mounds of Shadow Creek Ranch: More Landscaping Fun at the Blue Ridge Landfill

You saw the video. Now comes the detail: OffCite has more on recent Rice University architecture grad Lysle Oliveros’s proposal for turning that putrid pile of garbage next door to Shadow Creek Ranch into an exciting outdoor playplace! The fun comes in 3 phases.

In phase 1, trash haulers would start a new pile with each year’s take, completing a mound every 12 months:

Each monument compared to the next would create an awareness of the massive amount of disposed consumer goods. For example, the 2008 â€œindexâ€ created by Hurricane Ike debris would have been 400 feet tall.

Too bad about the City of Pearland’s recent agreement with Republic Services limiting those piles to a mere 130 ft. Oh, well — just wait until 2029!

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In phase 2, the various types of garbage would be separated and then — sculpted! Mimicking the formation of the internet, the garbage designers at this point would deploy a series of tubes over the landscape, to control and direct varying rates of decomposition:

Through these apertures and garbage segregation, the â€œwaste-scapeâ€ can be choreographed not only into a desired form or shape, but could also generate new programs such as lot farms, wetlands, leisure activities, bird migration stop offs, and nature trails.

Okay, phase 3 is a little harder to get a grip on, but it apparently involves cars, perilously tall freeway ramps, and the sheer pleasure of hurling plastic bottles and shit into huge canyons. So naturally, we’d be game. Here’s some of the description:

Infrastructure is inserted for the automobile, and all garbage is completely separated and is literally turned on its side to become vertical fills. A mountain of glass, plastic, paper, soil, concrete and metal line the infrastructures retaining walls. These mountains produce new resources that can be harvested, reused, recycled and produce a power source that fuels the needs of the infrastructure.