The American Industrial Revolution altered numerous processes and attitudes, including food production. Communities that were once close and connected to the land and the food they produced, became torn and distant; the infrastructure of industry, like railroads, became prevalent. People moved their efforts away from cultivation of the land and looked to machines as a way of improving quality life. Rhode Island is acknowledged for its influence during this era and was birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution.
Today we live in a post-industrial society, but the infrastructural remnants from our past remain. Warehouses and railroad tracks sit static and vacant. Proposing new uses for this unutilized infrastructure will take into account traditional, pre-industrial ecological practices toward the land in order to start reclaiming these remnants and the sense of community they disbanded.
Transient Production as a thesis strives to bring back the lost sense of community and its food based connections along a major remnant of industrial infrastructure: the Providence and Worcester railroad. Programmatic refinements to the existing rail tracks, freight cars, and adjacent property will
transform the track from manufactured to agrarian. Through agriculture, the train and its surrounding site will become a community builder, an educational tool, and a healthy food source.
Through engaging the surround populace with access to healthy food, education, dining, and entertainment,people will become invested inTransient Production.This thesis will address individual communities at a human scale to forge new connections through food.