OVERTURE

Over the last decades, Atlanta has experienced unparalleled growth in population, resulting in the construction of thousands of new homes. The series reflects on this urban expansion in a matter-to-fact manner, using one construction site, the Mews on North Decatur Road in the Druid Hills neighborhood, as a field of exploration. For two years, I chronicled the development of the project, from the destruction of a few decrepit single-family houses to the erection of 80 luxury-style townhomes. 

A visual story was unfolding before my eyes, in perpetual motion. These few acres of land became the setting of my topographic study, revealing at times an unintended beauty that can be found in industrial sites. I was drawn by the ephemeral shapes of piles of dirt, the geometric patterns left by heavy machinery on red clay, the bold colors of construction materials. The landscape was changing almost every week, flattened, elevated, infinitely subjected to well-orchestrated interventions that eluded me. 

As the buildings were getting off the ground, very little of what was there before remained. When the first future residents started to tour the model house, they were seemingly unaware of the metamorphosis that the place they would soon be calling home had undergone.