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The Brownfield Project |Week 71
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In partnership with the non-profit organization The Industrial Commons, The Brownfield Project, is a documentation of the remediation of a brownfield in the heart of the small southern town of Morganton, NC to benefit the community through ecological, economic, and social impact. Beginning in June, 2023, this project takes place on a 27.87-acre plot of land that was previously the site of the Drexel Heritage Furniture Plant, that was abandoned then burned down in 2009. Working with a local and national team of architects and landscape architects and funded through a grant of the EPA, the Industrial Commons will sustainably clean up contamination, including a buried gas tank and asbestos rubble to use the land as a community park, daylight a waterway, and sustainably build facilities to house the social enterprises of The Industrial Commons, focusing specifically on the development of the domestic, circular textile industry.
A brownfield is a former industrial or commercial site where future use is affected by environmental contamination. According to the EPA, there are over 450,000 brownfields in the USA to date. Can humans heal the damage that we have already done to the earth? How? Can we begin again by making ethical and sustainable choices of land use and building practices? Can those choices positively effect community?
Visitors are invited to become a part of this project by joining us here each week to watch the process of remediation unfold as I post a new timelapse video every Monday.
*With many thanks to The Industrial Commons for inviting me to be a part of the meaningful development of Innovation Campus. You can learn more by visiting their website.