Mariel Collard

Landscape and architecture
design | research | teaching

Paisaje y arquitectura
diseño | investigación | enseñanza



About



 
Selected work from 2020 and earlier
lives in this website. 

The Bali Studio 1
Hispanic/Latino Non-resident Alien
Trading on Terroir
Avocado Toast: A Natural History
For Holly
The Valley: A Journey
Umbral
Feria de las Culturas Amigas
Casa Mazatlán


Mariel Collard

Landscape and architecture
design, research, pedagogy.

Paisaje y arquitectura
diseño, investigación, enseñanza.


About
Contact



The Valley: A Journey

This project* explores the future of the Korean DMZ. It does not establish a resolution on reunification; it is neither a cause nor a consequence of it. Rather, it envisions a peaceful open border through the normalization of relationships between north and south. It is a counter-space to the highly mediatic, politicized and militarized Joint Security Area in Panmunjom.
Millions of years of crustal deformation and basin development have shaped the Korean landscape of rugged mountain chains and intervening valleys that run Northeast-Southwes. Geology defines the valley as an alternative region to the DMZ allowing focus to pivot away from the south/north established geopolitical divide and constructed imaginary. The valley establishes a new orientation, simultaneously connecting a series of seemingly fixed dualities: the north and the south, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, the west and the east, the Yellow Sea and The East Sea, Seoul and Wonsan, the sunrise and the sunset.
Using the existing infrastructure of the railway, a one-day train journey is proposed from Seoul to Wonsan or Wonsan to Seoul and back. The route is habilitated for KTX – the high-speed rail system in Korea – allowing the 274 km. to be traversed in 1hr and 45 minutes. The speed of travel in the valley turns the experience of the landscape in a sequence through geographical space that provides an alternative reading of nature. 50 minutes away from Seoul and 55 minutes away from Wonsan you will arrive at a new stop in this route, right in the heart of the DMZ. An open platform built in stone, an opportunity for encounter and dialogue where the landscape is subject to rediscovery.

*Developed in the studio “Korea Remade: Alternative Nature, DMZ, and Hinterlands led by Niall Kirkwood, Yoonjin Park, and Jungyoon Kim at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
2018 | Design