Ruins of the Future explores themes of increased urbanization, overdevelopment, and the raw, universal power of nature to assert dominance over the manmade environment. Failed speculative development has been a recurrent phenomenon throughout history. When construction stalls, the unstoppable forces of nature create a dystopian garden colonized by emergent, resilient self-growing plants; reclaiming the future and absorbing artifice back into the wilderness.

This proposal monumentalizes a building in an arrested state of development, the various elements tracing memories of an unrealized future. Like an archeological site a constructed boardwalk path hovers over the garden; prescribing the visitor's movement and objectification of the site below. Low concrete block walls with protruding steel rebar outline the foundation of a small family home and sit adjacent to gravel piles and fallen stacks of construction debris. A successional garden of wild, weedy plants engulfs the foundation walls. The protective, artificial layers that we erect in order to create a world apart from nature have crumbled, serving as a reminder that we are, in fact, a part of a larger whole.

Ruins of the Future is intended to cause the visitor to question the role of the garden in contemporary society. Through the installation, we examine our detached relationship with nature and the tendency to take the position as spectator when regarding "wilderness". It is our hope that visitors will gain a fresh perspective through engagement with the piece and that they will learn to recognize the power of the wild.