The urban fabric of Florida is still in the making. This character of openness and instability is due to its specific natural conditions: the swamps, heavy rain and periodic floods have made the territory relatively inhospitable and difficult to domesticate. Today however, technical systems such as air-conditioning, water-management and transport networks, are significantly altering the territory and its fragile ecologies. Road infrastructure, real-estate speculation, mining operations, intensive agriculture, constructed wetlands, new nature areas and other land uses form a tightly interlinked and managed system. 

The managerial approach to the territory creates unexpected dependencies between urban centres and their extended settings, involving for example various financial instruments created to mitigate increasing environmental risk. Seemingly untouched wilderness areas reveal interdependencies with the most artificial environments, including the Disney Parks or the various lifestyle communities. This project continues ETH Studio Basel’s series of territorial investigations and is based on fieldwork conducted in Central Florida in collaboration with the University of Florida.