Strategic 'bundling' of grid-tied high speed rail mobility and infrastructure
Conduit Urbanism explores large-scale systems and networks of the Great Lakes Megaregion. Positioned within the lineage of speculative, visionary urban proposals, this work investigates how existing infrastructural systems—designed for the 20th century, currently on the edge of maximum capacity and immanent collapse—might be modified and mobilized to address the needs of the 21st century and beyond. How might the specific characteristics of these systems that lie at the root of their contemporary failure be reconsidered in terms of their inherent potential for modification and enhancement? Specifically, this project posits that the depletion of carbon-based fuels, rather than precipitating a decline in mobility and a corresponding demise of the automotive and transport industries, a collapse of global trade networks and perhaps even a return to small scale, recognizable and quantifiable city patterns, could become instrumental in conceiving more efficiently and intensely connected regional urbanities and infrastructures. The project synthesizes current research from a range of disciplines and existing data about changing populations, ecologies, technologies and economies within a speculative design project and visualizes the potential experience of mobility in a post-carbon world. Portions of the work have been published in "Fuel", "New Geographies Journal 02" and "Infrastructure as Architecture". The work has been funded through a 2009-2012 Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Research Creation grant.
Prototypical nodal development at interchange
Great Lakes Megaregion Renewable PowerShed
Renewable Energy Resource Matrix- wind, solar, hydroelectric and biomass source potentials (sources: NREL 2008, OPG 2008)
Great Lakes Megaregion CommodityShed
Chicago-Columbus-Detroit economic interdependencies. (sources: US Department of Transportation 2008)
Great Lakes Megaregion Energy- and Waste-sheds
(l-r) Renewable resources; Energy production sites and volumes; Nuclear power plant locations and onsite waste; Power grid and power plants analysis (sources: National Energy Technology Laboratory 2005 Coal Power Plant Database, US Energy Information Administration (EIA) Existing Electrical Generating Units in the United States 2008, EIA Coal Transportation Trends 1979-2001, Statistics Canada Electrical Power Generating Stations 2000, Natural Resources Canada Atlas of Canada (via GeoGratis), BTS National Transportation Atlas Database 2009, Wind Energy Association, Canadian Wind Energy Association for Canadian Windfarms, Hydro data is US Energy Information Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2010 Information Digest, Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office’s 2004, Inventory of Radioactive Waste in Canada)
Great Lakes Megaregion transportation mappings
GLM Air Traffic showing freight and people paths; GLM Intermodal Transport Network; GLM Ports and Shipping Lanes (sources: Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) 2009; US Army Corp of Engineers 2008 Waterborne Commerce Statistics St. Lawrence Seaway 2009 Traffic Report; BTS National Transportation Atlas Database 2009)
40km radius interchange node statistics
Nodal maps analyzing population and economic data, as well as corporate and institutional presence within a 40km radius, of strategic cities in the Great Lakes Megaregion. (sources: STATSCAN, US Economic Census, Community Census)
Orphaned territories at existing highway interchanges
Project Team: Geoffrey Thün, Kathy Velikov, Colin Ripley, Zain AbuSeir, Mary O'Malley, Dan McTavish, Maya Przybylski, Mike Vortruba, Erin Shnier, Adam Clark, Matt Peddie, Matt Storus, Pooya Baktash, Jeff Cheng, Carrie Hunter, Eric Malbeuf, Sonja Storey-Fleming.
