In 2051, a super-tornado unlike any previously experienced tears a scar through the Midwestern region of the United States. The culmination of a series of vicious summer storms and high winds, the swath of damage caused by this storm cell is incalculable. Once-in-a-thousand-year storms are now potentially weekly events. After the storm, many citizens flock to new housing opportunities in regional metropolitan centers like Chicago or Columbus. It is determined that areas of the swath will be allowed to return to nature, to act as a green belt in the spirit of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City. In part this is to fulfill the purpose as in that project, to contain urban sprawl. More importantly this forest will serve as a national park preserve and memorial to the lives lost in the event and practically as the trees will help screen high winds. This project will explore how the house of the near future responds to the worst weather forecast we can imagine for the Midwest. How will material use evolve and house typology change? How will the site be recovered? How do we live in a word that can destroy our homes in one night?
