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The proposed system takes full responsibility for the treatment of dredged material and takes advantage of the process of remediation to forefront water treatment and topography in Houston.

Dredge Locked

By Alex Yuen

Dredge Locked is a productive solution for the disposal and treatment of contaminated materials that are dredged from the Houston shipping channel. The proposal aims to hijack the existing and continual process of dredging to establish a zone based on an equally continuous process of containment, cleansing, and eventual human occupation. At the core of the proposal is a hybrid infrastructure dubbed a “Lock” which is used to treat dredged materials while providing a structure for human habitation. The subsequent agglomeration of these locks over time results in a landscape and zone of inhabitation that Houston has never seen before.
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A new hybrid infrastructure serves as a container for dredged material, a filter for contaminated liquid and housing units or parking structures, becoming the main building block for a new ecology and community.

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The project works to reverse the notion that dredging containment will always come at the cost of other natural or recreational experiences.

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The process would play out over years, creating a dynamic landscape of dredging, emerging greenery, and housing.

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The vision for the project after its final phase is of a new, highly green community which is driven by its adjacency to one of Houston’s major water elements and its radical topography which redefines the city's landscape.

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Located just east of the I-610 belt, the site for the proposal finds itself at the confluence of the urban, the suburban, and the industrial. Inhabitants have equal access to the industrial facilities of the shipping channel to the east and downtown Houston and the rest of the city to the west.

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Towers of remediation make up the new development. Vegetation hides the earthly material held within the lock, a new approach to containment for an area already very familiar with the mass storage of oil.