Kathleen Gmyrek

The Owens Lake is an almost-dry lake bed caused by the LA Aquaduct. Harmful dust storms now harm nearby towns and leave the LADWP yearly with million dollar projects that try to decrease the dust. This project proposes a saline species testing ground, where a series of infrastructure (a fence, a ditch, and a berm) create a variety of ecological conditions. In the winter, local residents participate in truck races, where saline vegetation species are dispersed from the truck bed as they drive, crossing through each infrastructure type.  The infrastructure tests the species resilience in a variety of ecological conditions, and the species resiliency tests the infrastructures ability to change the environmental conditions.

TRANSITIONAL ECOLOGY focuses on narrative, ritual and process in the transformation of Detroit's Packard Plant.  The project explores the process of transitioning the grounds of the Packard using a ‘participatory narrative’ to both integrate the community into the narrative of the site and integrate the site into the narrative of the city. The redevelopment process was broken into chapters of a graphic novel, each representing a phase of participatory programming that would drive the process forward. Drawing on existing conceptual projects such as the daylighting of Bloody Run Creek, and the  Detroit Future City plan, as well as local mythology, the project seeks to reposition the site’s narrative, and that of the city, with the use of storytelling and public engagement.

In the fashion of Ed Rusche, this small handmade booklet explores spontaneous vegetation on the streets of Los Angeles.

Mexico City’s Metro serves a vast population in a city of 8.8 million.  Signage, graphic language, and mapping all play an important role in a smooth running urban metro system. Using graphic imagery and place based research, this case study analysis various metro stops, and the system as a whole.

An ephemeral participatory art project that seeks to connect children of the Citizens of the World Charter School with the mountains that lay beyond  the buildings densely developed urban site.  Both children and parents participated in the project over the course of a weekend, tying ribbons along the main entry adjacent fence, colorfully mimicking the geological formations of the hidden mountains beyond.

This project explores the future of LA River adjacent properties as the public interest in opening the soft-bottom portion of the river to recreation grows. This project maps the materiality, soil conditions, and history of the site, imagining what each combination might product in a series of spontaneously vegetated gardens. Walking paths, biking paths, and skate parks meander and dot this new form of ‘nature’ in our cities.

As urban areas become more dense, urban inhabitants must find new methods for recreation to maintain physical and mental health. This project proposes merging infrastructure (environmental) and recreation (social) to increase the productivity and resiliency and both the human and environmental condition in cities.