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TOP SECTION DRAWING © STUDIO GANG; BOTTOM LEFT GLOSSARY OF REUSE TERMS © JEANNE GANG AND PARK
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Book Review
forests onto urban brownoeld lots. It9s a compelling argument4phytoremediation for toxic soil is
extremely efective, and urban forests reduce ghostacres4complicated by issues of ownership. The
proposal imagines a network of forests that could
connect and nourish under community ownership.
Gang considers two planted forests in the Midwest, Hantz Woodlands in Detroit and Gary, Indiana9s greening sites. In Gary, an investment orm
partnered with a nonproot to plant 60 acres on two
vacant lots for phytoremediation of polluted land.
In Detroit, entrepreneur John Hantz controversially acquired many foreclosed lots from the city
with the stated intention of developing an urban
woodlot; he has since sold some of those properties
for proot, and residents complain that many of his
properties are neglected, collecting blight tickets
from the city. Gang largely sidesteps the complexity
of real estate acquisition to limit speculation and
private proot in her vision, focusing rather on the
potential of the need for timber and its reparative
properties.
I9m wary about the recurrence of speculative practices such as Hantz9s, but as Gang points
out, brownoeld and superfund sites are hardly in
demand; the patience required for remediation is
unbecoming in investment structures. Gang has
established that she is adept at working sustainably within the business of architecture, and Studio
Gang is undertaking a remediation forest plot of
their own. Architecture has long left the blank
slate model behind, and as participatory processes
become more common, it is exciting to imagine
urban community stewardship at such a scale.
In his review of Studio Gang9s Gilder Center at
the American Museum of Natural History for the
New Yorker, critic Christopher Hawthorne wrote,
