Resilience Through Experience

Resilience Through Experience answers the question: How can architecture contribute thematically to the climate crisis? The project transforms and renews a polluted EPA Superfund site in Pasadena, Texas into a center for ecological research and climate simulation. The design constitutes an addition to the new Apocalyptic Architecture: architecture which actualizes the climate crisis for its users. The site is split into two primary zones: an active soil washing pit that will reclaim the site from its pollution and a constructed bioswale wetland that floods every two hours. The endless cycle of rising water levels will serve as a spatial and experiential reminder of climate change’s inevitability. Visitors will have to navigate and re-navigate the site as rising sea levels eat away at paths of circulation. The architecture is programmed within three buildings. First is the Data Hub building, where visitors can directly engage with climate change data. Second is the Memorial Gallery building which supports a climate art exhibit and the Hall of the Sixth Extinction. Third is the Futures Lab building, where visitors will engage indirectly and directly with ongoing research. This includes a fish nursery that integrates with constructed growth ponds on the site. This thesis stresses resilience through the experience and participation of its users. By integrating research and climate phenomena on the site, the Pasadena Climate Center challenges conventional relationships between climate change narratives and architectural experience. It asks visitors to not just observe but inhabit the climate crisis – experiencing environmental uncertainty, change, and resilience directly.