Devil’s Millhopper
A large portion of this project was devoted to phenomenon: seeing, touching, hearing. Going to the Millhopper and analyzing the surroundings as well as learning about its history and myths all played a major role in the development. Constructing the landscape was also important. A wooden contraption was designed to create the site. String, cheesecloth and cement were used to create the porous ground. Cement was used in order to find unity between the trees and earth. As a result, the form reveals the hidden bones of the site, mimicking the vast amount of karst limestone buried underneath. The making of the physical model went through two iterative design stages. Once the final contraption was made to ‘pour the landscape’, the rest of the building process quickly followed. The interventions focus on two different qualities of the site. One is horizontal and open, allowing the natural river inside, while the second is vertical and closed off, allowing different light qualities within.
