David Zuccarelli
Twisted Trails
From the first-year undergraduate studio Half Mile: Urban Operations and Compositions, Spring 2020
Faculty: Jimmy Carter
About the studio:
This studio read the American city through the metaplanning of the Jeffersonian Grid, a system that organizes the landscape according to square-mile and smaller sections—whether urban or rural. The grid is pervasive and universal, but what falls within each section differs greatly; the grid has sponsored multiple densities, building types, programs, and infrastructures. The studio surveyed, represented, and interpreted the numerous constructed sections (tiles) that exist within the American landscape, and used these to project new forms of urbanity.
About the project:
Twisted Trails is a city derived from an exploration of the Jeffersonian Grid in mountainous terrain. Contrary to the traditionally rigid expansion of the grid system, this project is an expression of naturalism in which the environment dictates the composition of the grid. An urban roadway reimagined as a structural living condition twists and turns over a rocky rural terrain resulting in public horizontal engagements and private vertical dwellings. The divisions in the landscape created by these structures are reconnected via an elevated pathway and a pair of underpasses and on/off ramps. The end result is a series of curvilinear conditions that revolve around the pinnacle mountain top and reunite the individual with their environment.