Altered Archipelago Studio | Andrew Madl
This speculative design project, created in collaboration with a partner, utilizes Ascension Island and its legacy as a testing site to generate discourse on bio-cultural entanglements. The island is reimagined as a site for simulating extreme climate change scenarios, leveraging contemporary and projected anthropogenic activities such as controlled atmospheric re-entry of space debris and black, seed-embedded geotextiles that distort the landscape to heighten heat absorption. Once these extremes are in place, land imprinting begins, using TERRAROLL, TERRAPUSH, and TERRALITH imprinters to trigger chain reactions across the island and shape evolving microclimates and habitats. Lunar and Martian soil simulants are incorporated as strategic backfill to test biomass potential under intensified environmental conditions. Together, these interventions cast Ascension Island in the lead role for a dress rehearsal of our climate future.