Gary, Indiana...From Slag to the Sublime

Abstract

“Gary, Indiana…” explores how slag, one of the main byproducts of steel production, can be used to connect a city to a waterfront. Rather than closing Gary Works – the largest steel mill in the United States – this thesis imagines a near future where this site will accommodate increased domestic steel production within the pressures of climate change and ecological deterioration. This situation necessitates a new relationship between production, industrial waste and human-environmental experience. By analyzing the history, techniques, and socio-ecological impact of slag use, this project investigates how slag can be expressed as a land-making material and how it can foster a primary successional ecosystem. In doing so, the manufacturing which sustains Northwest Indiana can act as the mechanism which dissipates the barrier between Gary and Lake Michigan, proposing a new typology of public space which allows heavy industry, ecological restoration, and recreation to coexist in the American Rust Belt.