Taubman College Morcillo Pallarés Published In Plan Journal: Proposes New Cultural and Ecological Possibilities for Mediterranean Coastline
Assistant Professor Ana Morcillo Pallarés is featured in the The Plan Journal, Resilient Edges for her article “Salinas: Interstices of the Urban, Cultural and Political Processes in Mediterranean Ecologies.” This themed volume of the journal focuses on the cross-roads of climate change, human settlement and infrastructure.
Morcillo Pallarés proposes that the abandoned industry along mediterranean coastal salt marshes may be used as a site of ecological and cultural opportunity. She includes case-study research on architectural interventions and applications of sustainable programming; these strategies protect both the historic significance and ecological condition of the Salinas. The abstract of the article reads,
“Salinas, or Mediterranean coastal salt marshes, are priceless ecological wetlands, resilient spaces along the coast that have survived over time and hold incalculable cultural, historical, and ethnographic values associated with them. Today, artisanal sea salt production is no longer a profitable business, and in many cases, these spaces become a no-man’s-land in-between nature and city, falling victims to pressures of changing land uses and the unsustainable urban growth of the Mediterranean coastal tourism. However, the process of change and abandonment of these former production landscapes presents an opportunity to promote new formulas for spatial tactics, public use and new sustainable futures. A liminal condition full of spatial and formal assets that opens the rising potential of the local economy and the right of the salina’s active exploitation, interaction and identification.”
The article was released online in Fall 2017 and published in February 2018. For the full article: “Salinas: Interstices of the Urban, Cultural and Political Processes in Mediterranean Ecologies”
