Marking boundary : a didactic base camp facility between desert and mountain, along the Los Angeles aqueduct in Owens Valley, California

Abstract

No problem for the future holds so great a potential for changing the quality of life in California as water and its supportive infrastructure. An obsession with water, which began with the infamous five words "there it is, take it," has shaped the patterns of settlement within California and laid the basis for the modern prosperity of the nation's most populous state. The purpose of this thesis is to restore lost environmental values by creating an understanding of what is involved in bringing an adequate supply of water to Los Angeles, in order that the general public is more aware of the importance to conserve and use water wisely. The execution of the design of an environmentally sensitive base camp facility near the trail head of Mount Whitney in Lone Pine, California is intended to educate the public by identifying the price of progress yet responding to the immediate environment in a sensitive way, promoting new attitudes of conservation and sustainability. The base camp provides communal spaces that allow people to convalesce while didactically engaging the aqueduct. The relationship between the visitors and their surroundings is paramount, as the architecture acts as a mediator in the landscape between the desert and mountains, the wilderness and civilization as well as the aqueduct and visitors.