Project Description
Quarrying is essentially an act of space-making: in satellite sites all over the world, spaces are made through construction, while reciprocally in the quarry, spaces are made through subtraction. The pink granite of Stony Creek Quarry in Branford Connecticut has participated in several US landmarks in the past century. However, as the more recent projects have been mostly urban infrastructure, the town of Branford is forgetting the quarry legacy and the cities hosting the granite projects are unaware of its existence. Therefore, the proposal aims to evoke the value of the quarry being an active site of space-making. The proposed live museum of the Stony Creek Quarry is primarily a roof structure that gently covers a corner of the quarry, implying the “full” landscape that once existed on the site. Walking into the roof is walking into the ground. Underneath the roof, a circulation path meanders through a series of “ghosts” of the granite projects in the cities until reaching a viewing platform to appreciate the ongoing quarrying activities. The proposal aims to co-exist with the active quarry, bring the visitors and the quarry workers under the same shade, provide basic services that are currently absent in the quarry, and preserve the memories of the collective that is associated with the quarry.