Power Lines and Beating Hearts: The Body Electric in the Energy Future
Honor Award
Analysis and Planning
Saugus, Massachusetts, United States
Lowell, Massachusetts, United States
Leung Chun Fai Anson, Student ASLA;
Faculty Advisors:
Danielle Choi;
Harvard University
Beautiful, elegant graphics, compelling narrative format using the run as both stories telling devise and character zone descriptor.
- 2025 Awards Jury
Project Statement
This project reimagines the energy corridor as a shared landscape for decentralized power, ecological repair, and public life. In contrast to the dominant “build-then-connect” model of renewable energy siting, the project proposes a collaborative right-of-way framework that integrates more-than-human ecologies, local stewardship, and layered functions. By transforming exclusionary infrastructure into a performative space of vitality and coexistence, the project offers a new paradigm for energy transition—where the body electric reconciles with the current in a decentralized world, and shared vitality is set in motion and celebrated through the annual More-than-Human Triathlon.
Project Narrative
Background
More than half of Massachusetts’ electricity is imported through a vast transmission network connecting out-of-state sources to local users. This distributive system leaves a linear imprint on the landscape, often creating exclusionary zones dedicated solely to infrastructure maintenance.
Meanwhile, the expansion of clean energy has come at an ecological cost: since 2010, over 5,000 acres of natural and agricultural land in Massachusetts have been cleared for solar development.
Strategy: The More-than-Human Triathlon
In response, this project reimagines a 42-kilometer transmission corridor between the City of Lowell and Saugus, MA, as a regional greenway for decentralized energy—anchored by an annual More-than-Human Triathlon. This event draws runners and spectators, generating revenue that support ongoing corridor stewardship. The triathlon serves as a catalyst, a framework and an outcome of change, transforming energy infrastructure into a shared, performative space for both humans and more-than-human species.
Three, two, one—GO!
The project examines four distinct sites along the corridor, each characterized by different land uses and topographical conditions that call for targeted design interventions.
00:00:00.002 – Industrial
Runners surge forward as an airhorn pierces the silence of the marsh, departing from a regenerated landfill where terraced micro-wetlands filter polluted surface runoff and channel it into intermittent hydroelectric energy.
00:17:22.412 – Wetland
Fifteen minutes into the race, runners descend into Rumney Marsh. There, a series of marsh islands is constructed from materials repurposed from the disused I-95 embankments. These islands provide habitat for mummichogs and adapt to rising sea levels through a responsive feedback system. The embankment’s incremental unbuilding restores tidal flow and strengthens ecological resilience.
Walking along the adjacent boardwalk, one might catch a glimpse of the flawless diving form of our Astrofish mummichog.
00:30:03.283 – Suburb
Thirty minutes in, runners enter a suburban stretch where unease lingers—fueled by fear of our Midnight Dasher coyote roaming along the energy corridor. The design mediates this tension through strategic grading and solar alignment, creating adjacent yet separate movement paths for humans and wildlife, while harvesting rainwater to support pollinator plants.
As runners and Midnight Dashers race tirelessly, our Pollen Titans are just seconds away from claiming their nectar at their finish lines.
00:51:04.132 – Forest
As the one-hour mark approaches, runners enter a forest clearing where connectivity is disrupted. Here, the energy landscape mirrors the structure of the forest. Solar panels are positioned at canopy height, with perches installed to support bird movement. A raised path allows understory vegetation to thrive and enables pollinators, pups, and other small mammals to move freely across the corridor.
The sudden sight of our Midnight Dasher preying on a rabbit gives runners an adrenaline rush.
Shared Corridor Stewardship
This transformation calls for a shift from the current top-down approach to right-of-way management toward a co-management framework—one that acknowledges the interconnected scales of the energy cycle, spanning all levels of organization: from federal agencies, state governments, local businesses and communities, to the biosphere, more-than-human species, and microscopic entities.
Plant List:
- Betula lenta
- Betula papyrifera
- Cryptomeria japonica
- Malus domestica
- Monarda fistulosa
- Penstemon digitalis
- Schizachyrium scoparium
- Solidago rugosa
- Symphyotrichum novae-angliae