Thinking Through Soil

Are you in Zürich?? Join us at the Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies (LUS) for a discussion of today at 6pm with Tom Avermate, Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design, Hubert Klumpner, Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, and Teresa Galí, Chair of Being Alive

Location: ETH SvZürich Hönggerberg HIL E Rote Hölle

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Was great to talk to ʟᴀɴᴅᴢɪɴᴇ about our new book, T͎h͎i͎n͎k͎i͎n͎g͎ ͎T͎h͎r͎o͎u͎g͎h͎ ͎S͎o͎i͎l͎ (link in bio).

Thanks so much to Urška Škerl for setting this up. As writes:

This case study from the Mezquital Valley, in Mexico, represents a possible wastewater urbanism scenario that researchers grasp through soil. By singling out a series of “characters,” from a cow to metformin, who each tell a story of the soil’s horizon, they compose a wider picture of contributing relations to the soil formation, 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘰𝘮 𝘶𝘱. By identifying participants, their contingencies and processes, the designers propose future scenarios for a new soil horizon, taking into account complex socio-economic, political, agricultural, ecological, and health issues. The research cross-sects geographical and urban analysis, toxicology studies, cultural studies, diet, ethnocide, technological investments, botanical research, water quality, sewer, drainage, … that are inherently embedded in the soil’s identity. By this, as the authors write, understanding the soil as “inseparable from its unrealized possibilities and potential future”, the emerging soil is “inherently capable of change”.

🆃🅷🅸🅽🅺🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🆁🅾🆄🅶🅷 🆂🅾🅸🅻 has been 6 years in the making and we couldn’t be happier about how it turned out. Thank you for everyone who helped us get this in print! Link in bio.

For those of you who are new to the project, 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘚𝘰𝘪𝘭: 𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘈𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘻𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘝𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 is a rich case study looking at the perils and promises of reusing urban water in arid environments. We offer a new method for thinking through the surprising biopolitics of wastewater reuse, and rather than imagining wastewater agriculture as simply a technological problem, we see it as a political project to build the social and empirical relationships that would allow us to rethink the city through the lens of the soils it produces. To do this, we pay very close attention to history, and engage deeply with the work of Mexican soil scientists and farmers, tracing the sharp boundary you see here in this video... between the grey arid soil of a high altitude valley dominated by spiny CAM plants and the green oasis of lush agricultural crops irrigated by urban wastewater from Mexico City. -urbanism

The book is out! 🆃🅷🅸🅽🅺🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🆁🅾🆄🅶🅷 🆂🅾🅸🅻 has been 6 years in the making and we couldn’t be happier about how it turned out. Thank you for everyone who helped us get this in print! Link in bio.

For those of you who are new to the project, 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘚𝘰𝘪𝘭: 𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘈𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘻𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘝𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 is a rich case study looking at the perils and promises of reusing urban water in arid environments. We offer a new method for thinking through the surprising biopolitics of wastewater reuse, and rather than imagining wastewater agriculture as simply a technological problem, we see it as a political project to build the social and empirical relationships that would allow us to rethink the city through the lens of the soils it produces. To do this, we pay very close attention to history, and engage deeply with the work of Mexican soil scientists and farmers, tracing the sharp boundary you see here in this video... between the grey arid soil of a high altitude valley dominated by spiny CAM plants and the green oasis of lush agricultural crops irrigated by urban wastewater from Mexico City.

So excited about this! London folks: this will be amazing. Get to know the work of Dr. Arlette Saint Ville and Dr. Po - I recently saw them present their work at the IUSS Centenial conference in Florence, and it was a breath of fresh air that energized the room!

Are you in Barcelona?!?! Very excited for this, and grateful to ETSAB and Eulalia Gomez Escoda for the invitation

I asked chat gpt to show me soil as a body with organs and this is what it gave me. Sound off in the comments.

Or, better yet, join us on ᴀᴘʀɪʟ 25 at the ᴀᴀʀʜᴜꜱ ꜱᴄʜᴏᴏʟ ᴏꜰ ᴀʀᴄʜɪᴛᴇᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ for Ｓｕｂｔｅｒｒａｒｉｕｍ where I’ll be thinking through the 19th century transformation of soil from dead rock to a body with organs, whose uncertain animacy still troubles us today.

Thrilled to be a part of this!

Are you in Mexico City? Join us at Unidad de Seminarios, UNAM Botanical
Garden — Wednesday + Thursday

09:15 Thinking Through Soil: aporias of
health in the world’s largest sewage
farm
Seth Denizen

10:00 Water balance and leaching of organic micropollutants after
switching from irrigation with
untreated to irrigation with treated
wastewater
Rafa Marquez, Suheila # # # and
Blanca Prado

10:30 Effect of wastewater treatment on
organic carbon and nutrient
availability in soils
Benny Heyde, Christina Siebe,
Jan Siemens
11:00 Coffee Break

11:30 Increases in the soil ammonia
oxidizing phylotypes and their
rechange due to longterm irrigation
with wastewater
Eduardo Aguilar

12:00 Metal mobility in soils irrigated with
treated and untreated wastewater
Alex Ziegler

12:30 Antibiotics and disinfectants in soils
irrigated with untreated or treated
wastewater
Incubation experiment and column
experiment
Benny Heyde and Ines Mulder

13:00 Trihalomethanes
Claudia Ponce de Leon
13:20 Lunch

14:00 Binding of antibiotics to natural colloids in wastewater irrigated soils/Microplastics in wastewater
and soils
Melanie Braun

14:30 Influence of soil colloids on antibiotics, bacterial growth behaviour and minimum selective
concentrations
Katharina Axtmann and Gabi Bierbaum

Heads up Sam Fox Students! We’re excited to announce our Spring 2024 Thinking Through Soil Lecture series, which we’re kicking off this weekend.

On February 18th and 19th we will have a two-part workshop on urban soil in St. Louis that will provide hands-on instruction in the theory and practice of soil description.

On February 18th we’ll meet Ryder Anderson (USDA, NCRS) on-site in St. Louis at a soil he is currently describing for the USDA’s ongoing soil survey of St. Louis. Dr. Christina Siebe (UNAM) will then give us a workshop in how to describe urban soil from a soil core we will pull during the workshop. What are the properties of this soil? What urban and geological histories have produced it? What does this soil do for the city, and how might this change in the context of climate change?

On February 19th, we will have Part 2 of this workshop (again with Dr. Siebe) to discuss these issues in more detail in Weil Hall at 1pm. In this workshop we will perform some calculations on our soil core to answer some basic empirical questions like: how much water can this soil store in a storm event? How erodible is the soil, and which layers in the soil contribute most to these outcomes?

Hope to see you there!