Operation: Urban Mountain
Instructor: Nicholas De Monchaux | Studio Partner: Yan Huang
ARCH 201, Dense Ecologies, Fall 2014
Our Mission: We participate as advocates to restore and remediate the violent acts of hill removal in the Bay Area.
Our Methods: We recycle the Bay’s industrial and military waste into new landforms, borrowing from historical precedent; we engineer mountains using equipment and machinery from the bay’s historic military-industrial complex. Military aircraft are deployed to lift and place recycled fill and formwork for the reconstructed Urban Mountain. Geotextiles are flown in to cap and structure the landform. For our demonstration project located at the Richmond Field Station, a heliport is used to transport “hill seeds” to nearby sites that will grow an fertilize the surrounding landscape with future urban mountains.
Visit Us: Specific strategies include a bird habitat and veterans housing. The Richmond Mountain also houses program including a community center, spaces for academic research and development, and recreational facilities.
Instructor: Nicholas De Monchaux | Studio Partner: Yan Huang
ARCH 201, Dense Ecologies, Fall 2014
Our Mission: We participate as advocates to restore and remediate the violent acts of hill removal in the Bay Area.
Our Methods: We recycle the Bay’s industrial and military waste into new landforms, borrowing from historical precedent; we engineer mountains using equipment and machinery from the bay’s historic military-industrial complex. Military aircraft are deployed to lift and place recycled fill and formwork for the reconstructed Urban Mountain. Geotextiles are flown in to cap and structure the landform. For our demonstration project located at the Richmond Field Station, a heliport is used to transport “hill seeds” to nearby sites that will grow an fertilize the surrounding landscape with future urban mountains.
Visit Us: Specific strategies include a bird habitat and veterans housing. The Richmond Mountain also houses program including a community center, spaces for academic research and development, and recreational facilities.

















