SPRING 2010

UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

PROF. ANCA TRANDAFIRESCU

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Alaska, known for its extreme landscapes, climatic conditions and unique native cultures is threatened by the hegemonic and homogenizing forces of an expanding system of global trade and tourism. In particular, the city of Anchorage—Alaska’s most populated urban center—has centered and grown in tandem with its infrastructural facilities for import and export. As a result, the city has little connection with its coastal surroundings. MUD_SLIDE is a proposal for a cruise terminal that addresses the city’s reputation as a tourist destination while mitigating its loss of connection
with the coastline.

South of an industrial port, MUD_SLIDE makes use of dredging operations to collect and clean glacial silt and coastal mud for use in a public bathing complex. Burying itself into the mud, the terminal is a point of interaction for tourists and Anchorage locals as well as a place of interaction with the coastline. A removal from the highly synthetic environment of the cruise ship, the complex becomes an unfamiliar yet intimate recreational experience for visitors and locals alike. The terminal creates an environment in which mud becomes the means to social interaction and passage through becomes a choreographed introduction into the land and people of Anchorage.

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