Mirrors in the Desert
The project began with the contradiction of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System: an icon of renewable energy whose heat, reflection, and territorial scale produce significant nonhuman harm.
We first changed the viewpoint of the site. QGIS mappings brought species distribution, mortality records, tower locations, and migration paths into the same field, while a narrated film reconstructed the landscape through nonhuman encounters rather than through energy output alone.
This shift produced two linked strategies. The Mega Trap identifies how the existing solar field concentrates risk. The Micro Sanctuary reuses dormant heliostats to create shade, retain moisture, and support small habitats around the towers.
The intervention works through both perception and repair. By reorganizing existing infrastructure rather than replacing it, the project asks how a landscape built for extraction might become a distributed framework for ecological care.
The project began with the contradiction of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System: an icon of renewable energy whose heat, reflection, and territorial scale produce significant nonhuman harm.
We first changed the viewpoint of the site. QGIS mappings brought species distribution, mortality records, tower locations, and migration paths into the same field, while a narrated film reconstructed the landscape through nonhuman encounters rather than through energy output alone.
This shift produced two linked strategies. The Mega Trap identifies how the existing solar field concentrates risk. The Micro Sanctuary reuses dormant heliostats to create shade, retain moisture, and support small habitats around the towers.
The intervention works through both perception and repair. By reorganizing existing infrastructure rather than replacing it, the project asks how a landscape built for extraction might become a distributed framework for ecological care.
Project overview
Project image sequence
Sunlight reflected by heliostat
