Two strip mall plazas Edison, New Jersey

Abstract

Through a suburban counter-ethnobotany, this project examines how plant and human migrations land in two strip mall plazas in Edison, New Jersey. Edison became home to large communities of immigrants from East and South Asia after the 1965 Immigration Act; these communities had culturally specific needs which they fulfilled through the appropriation of the strip mall plaza. Plants also inhabit this peripheral asphalt world, both within the mall and around. Brought by historically complicated global mechanics, their presence, like that of the people around, is politicized. As local plant migrations increase due to changes in climate and the built environment, this project responds by proposing a choreography of stripping asphalt from the road and parking lot, facilitating planting. After de-paving, the material and program inside is brought outside and the spontaneous growth of the back end brought to the front, and the plaza becomes a garden in migration.