Becoming Biomass

Becoming Biomass is a speculative design research project that envisions a future cooperative-managed agroforestry and biomanufacturing transformation in the Tennessee Valley region toward decarbonization and regenerative coexistence. The project deploys methods of narrative and scenario-based world building to depict a multi-scalar and multi-system future for the region and its human and nonhuman constituents. It is situated in the context of justice-oriented decarbonization that involves dismantling carbon-based material economies through new organizations, collaborations, infrastructures, landscapes, and architectures. The speculative proposition is informed by research in biomaterial science, sustainable agroforestry, biogenic architectures, and a new vision for industrial architecture. Critical drawings such as actor networks, thick cartographies, notational scores, deep sections, and scroll drawings accompany narrative videos and analytical physical models. The project was commissioned by the University of Tennessee and exhibited at the Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley exhibition the Ewing Gallery in November 2024. A book publication is forthcoming.

[BIOMASS]

Project collaborators include:

• Ersela Kripa – Texas Tech University, Project for Operative Spatial Technologies (POST)
• Stephen Meuller – Texas Tech University, Project for Operative Spatial Technologies (POST)

Student research assistants include:

• Eilis Finnegan – Master of Architecture
• Sophie Pacelko – Master of Architecture
• Richard Hua – Master of Architecture
• Emma Powers – Master of Architecture
• Chengdai Yang – Master of Architecture