Kathryn Strand

The earliest comprehensive survey of the Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks Newark was completed by pioneering American archaeologists Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis in 1848. Forming a tangential line to the normative topographical contour survey drawing, the Eagle Mound drawing is an approximate index over the disrupted continuity of the landscape as horizontal datums. By opening the precisely mapped contours and edges to the greater cosmos through gradient fields of lines, dots, and dashes, their notational and gestural mappings are unconstrained by the conventions of Michael Young’s architectural poche. Nevertheless, Squier and Davis’s drawings also hide as much as they reveal – concealing the body of the buried of a winged timber-framed long building beneath its undulating form. LiDAR magnetic imaging, aerial, celestial diagrams capture geometry of edge… but often fail to cultivate a rich culture. Neatly hatched, measured domains contrast with the real degradation of the mound edges, tugged at by the sprawl of urban settlement, misuse, and the passage of time. Of the once intricate assembly enclosures, only the Great Circle and the Octagon Earthworks have survived intact-- preserved not for their historical significance but because the city’s residents integrated them into their contemporary cultural landscape. At the threshold of industrialization of the city of Newark, Squier and Davis wrote that the composite earthworks “can now be traced only at intervals, among gardens and outhouses.” Displaced descendants of the Hopewell people are scattered across all North America, further stretching and upending the earthworks edge. The studio will work at the threshold between the archeological drawings and contemporary representational techniques to reclaim moments within these peripheral contours – the leftover poche of the ancient earthworks excluded from inscription as a heritage site -- to make space for conversations, research, and a new collective community as a living Hopewellian culture

Liz Mazzella

Ripple Effect

The topic of study for this project began with an investigation of water management techniques, and developed into finding an application for the revitalization of water presence to restore an ecological benefactor as well as a spiritual element in a world heritage site. Hopewell people regarded water as a sacred, life-giving element; water was part of their ceremonies, rituals, and spiritual beliefs in everyday life. Analyzing the conditions of growing urbanization on the physical environment, topological mapping shows that almost the entirety of Licking County is within the Licking River watershed. In further analysis of the Earthworks, many are situated along the major Ohio Valley waterways, and water was integrated alongside the mounds themselves; at the time of construction, this demonstrated a high level of engineering. To promote civic engagement within Newark, and specifically with the Earthworks, this project seeks an infrastructural application to the city fabric and landscape. The beginning studies of abstract drawing, and a representative fable scene illustrate a basis for the project - integration and alteration of the modern landscape. The design proposal is a pavilion consisting of a canopy, a boardwalk structure, and a subsurface channel to create microtopographic diversity accessing drain tiles that hold water just below the surface. Select sites at the Great Circle, of the existing pond, and near Racoon Creek expand as natural pools for a larger gathering place. Today, visitor centers are a commonality for historical sites; the design proposition of a visitor’s center is the core of the project, but aims to reinterpret what a visitor’s center provides in the context of the research and site; a network to outreach more of the city - to physically extend its bounds beyond a single standing building to join more closely with residents and tourists across Newark.