Moved Earth explores discarded fill to construct designed landscapes from a designer’s perspective. Some geologists estimate that humans now move more earth than natural processes. The 20th century saw an increase of ‘made ground’ and of discarded fill production, accompanied by the fact that an ‘away’ for waste disposal no longer exists. So far, discarded fill materials have been addressed predominantly in a technical way.
This book shows how discarded fill offers opportunities to construct significant designed landscapes, with designers playing a positive role in a multidisciplinary environment. Legible constructedness can communicate the nature of these landscapes, in contrast with approaches that tend to hide this aspect in natural‐looking landscapes or through camouflage. Moved Earth addresses issues of design, form, and aesthetics; materials and meanings; openness and closure; processes and material movements; technical aspects; and the role of the designer. Thirty-one international examples and four case studies are included, ranging from an unconstructed project for an artificial island with a garden hill envisioned by Alvise Cornaro in Renaissance Venice to three contemporary projects: Spectacle Island (US) designed by Brown Richardson + Rowe; Sigirino Depot (Switzerland) by Atelier Girot; and the Tejo and Trancão Park (Portugal) by PROAP/Hargreaves Associates.
Moved Earth offers readers a unique insight into the opportunities discarded fill offers designers and is essential reading for landscape architects.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. The Increasing Production of Discarded Fill and made Ground: Moving Toward Designed Landscapes
2. Stunning, Never-Constructed Precedents from the Renaissance in Venice by Alvise Cornaro
3. The Legibility or Concealment of Made Ground
4. Spectacle Island: A 'Natural' Looking Park Constructed wtih Discarded Fill from the 'Big Dig'
5. Sigirino 'Depot': A Planned Subtle Camoflauge, and Landscape as a By-Product of the AlpTransit Gotthard Axis, Ceneri Base Tunnel
6. Tejo and Trancão Park: A Legible Intervention Constructed with Discarded Fill
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
About the Author :
Chiara Geroldi is a PhD, architect, and Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture in the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies at the Politecnico di Milano. Her research concerns the landscape design of discarded earthy fill, the landscape of energy (mining, electricity, and oil landscapes), and the regeneration of brownfields.
Review :
“This thoughtful volume brings overdue attention to the design potential of discarded fill, urging us to see made ground not as waste, but as material with qualities, histories, and sources. With meticulous research and interdisciplinary acuity, Geroldi reveals how the very matter we bury, conceal, or ignore can become the substance of meaningful designed landscapes. Her call to foreground legibility in sites shaped by human displacement of earth is both timely and visionary.”
Julia Czerniak, Dean and Professor, School of Architecture and Planning, University at Buffalo
"All too frequently, landscape is still viewed as a picturesque reality, as though we could just travel back in time and live in a fantastical Arcadia. On the contrary, Chiara Geroldi’s intriguing exploration of the history of 'moved earth' reveals the intricate ways in which humans have excavated, filled, shifted, and remodelled our territories, resulting in a thoroughly man-made world."
Michael Jakob, Professor of Landscape Theory and History, Università della Svizzera Italiana - Accademia di Architettura, Politecnico di Milano, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
"'We seek with our human hands to create a second nature,' wrote Cicero, reflecting on humanity's utilitarian reshaping of landscapes. These transformations leave behind unmistakable waste—mountains of excavated earth from urban development, infrastructure, and mining that resist concealment despite our efforts. This book presents the first comprehensive catalog of design opportunities for these artificial mountains of excavated ground, mining waste, and garbage. It explores how thoughtful design can transform these segregated wastelands into shared, meaningful territories."
Franco Panzini, Landscape Historian, Associazione Pietro Porcinai, President
