Presentation of Halley VI Research Station

Mobile, modular and designed to survive the extremes of the Antarctic, Hugh Broughton Architects’ new Halley VI research station consists of a series of pods which will house researchers from the British Antarctic Survey. Built to withstand high winds and winter temperatures of -50°C, the raised habitats will also reduce the station’s impact on the continent’s pristine environment. Now in place on the Brunt Ice Shelf, the futuristic structures take on an otherwordly appearance when seen in-situ against the blowing snowdrifts and icy blue sky of the frozen continent.

Hugh Broughton Architects will be among the speakers at super-collider's next live event, GREEN/SPACE

via super-collider.com

NB - this whole article has been lifted shamelessly from the fantastic super-collider. If you're in London, do subscribe to their weekly science emails!

Posted via web from Open_Sailing

Nomadic Museum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomadic_Museum

The Nomadic Museum is a temporary structure used to house the Ashes and Snow photography and film exhibition by Gregory Colbert. The first Nomadic Museum, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and engineers Buro Happold, debuted with the opening of Ashes and Snowin New York City in March 2005. The museum then traveled to Santa Monica, California, in 2006, Tokyo in 2007, and Mexico City in 2008.

Best of Inhabitat: 6 Super-Cool Floating Homes and Habitats

HTTP://WWW.TREEHUGGER.COM/FILES/2010/03/FLOATING-HOMES.PHP?CAMPAIGN=TH_RSS
BY JASMIN MALIK CHUA, JERSEY CITY, USA ON 03.18.10DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE

BUZZ UP!

It used to be that rising tides due to climate change were just a far-off fear - now they're a present-day reality. But we all know that humans are a race of survivors, and some of the best designs come out of the necessity to adapt to environmental changes and challenges. So while we're working on actually mitigating global warming, architects, designers and visionaries are one step ahead, imagining homes, buildings and entire cities situated above or even beneath the surface of the world's oceans. Check out our favorites that we've seen "floating" around.

+ This crazy-looking tentacled underwater skyscraper is a self-sufficient floating city that can harvest renewable energy and grow its own food.

+ If you've been following news about the Maldives, you know that the island nation is being threatened by rising sea levels caused by climate change. But they aren't going out without a fight. Just last week, the government signed an agreement to develop several mini floating islands!

+ This floating home designed with San Francisco's dockside communities in mind is so beautiful and modern that it pains us for anyone to call it a mere "houseboat."

+ Okay, so technically this isn't a home or habitat, but it's definitely something you want to check out if you're interested in how we can make wind power more of a viable option. Installing offshore wind farms currently involves a lot of problems from underwater soil erosion and disruption of marine life to extravagant maintenance costs, and Hexicon's platform alleviates many of these issues.

+ As if taking a trip to the spa wasn't luxurious enough already, what if it were located on a private floating sanctuary? This lush garden island has baths, saunas, and treatment rooms all wrapped in a verdant shell of greenery designed by vertical garden mastermind Patrick Blanc.

+ Plunging to depths of about the same height as the Empire State Building, the Gyre is a full-fledged underwater city that is powered completely by the sun, wind and ocean.
—Written by Yuka Yoneda

Seascout ocean rescue robot: the sad replacement for bikini-clad life guards

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/07/seascout-ocean.php?p=2&cat=undefined#more

The Seascout aquatic rescue robot would be a welcome addition for professionals and wayward tourists in open waters. If someone was in trouble, all they would need to do is activate a GPS tracker and the 'bot would glide out to scoop them into its spacious bay, ferrying them back to safety. It can be operated manually or preprogrammed, and it has internal lighting, a sunroof and a radio system so those inside don't feel claustrophobic or alone. Now all it needs is a pair of frickin' laser beams to battle off sharks and it'll be the hero of the seas.

The Seascout is a design by New Zealander Andre Harley, a student at the Designskolen Kolding University in Denmark. Check out the gallery below for more images of the Seascout, as well as the Lego Mindstorms NXT prototype model Harley made and his model of the rescue vehicle.

The World in a Shell

http://www.v2.nl/events/world-in-a-shell

Art container begins world tour in Rotterdam: traveling artist Hans Kalliwoda will camp out in a container on the property of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam’s Museumpark.

Of all the shipping containers that will pass through Rotterdam this year, artist Hans Kalliwoda’s The World in a Shell will undoubtedly be the most striking. From March 25 through April 18, the traveling artist will camp out in a container on the property of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam’s Museumpark. But “container” isn’t really the right word – The World in a Shell is a high-tech mobile house that can be converted into a museum, movie theatre or laboratory. In the next five years, the container will carry Hans Kalliwoda to 11 UNESCO world heritage sites scattered across all the continents.

For five years, Hans Kalliwoda and Delft University of Technology worked on the technical development of the shell-shaped container, in which he will have to survive in climates ranging from polar to tropical. Sustainability is a central concern. The World in a Shellgenerates its own electricity, recycles water, and is generally as self-sufficient as possible. But in the age of globalization, sustainability is also a social and cultural issue. On his around-the-world trip, Hans Kalliwoda will organize cultural activities for and by local populations. He will take the results away with him in the container, amassing an ever-growing worldwide exhibition that will bring different peoples into contact with each other.

The World in a Shell will premiere in Rotterdam, thereby starting its journey. Since art, technology and architecture come together In the container, the Netherlands Architecture Institute and V2_Institute for the Unstable Media are joining forces to organize a number of activities in and around the container. There will be workshops and a seminar on sustainability in art, architecture and science on April 1 at V2_. Follow Hans Kalliwoda's journey at http://www.worldinashell.net, or drop by The World in a Shell!

Because, technology and architecture coincide in The World in a Shell, the NAi and V2_ are joining forces to organize a number of activities in and around the container:

Official Opening: The World in a Shell

March 27 | 17:00 | NAi Museumpark 25, Rotterdam

Seminar: Art-Architecture-Science Collaboration in Sustainability

With Ute Meta Bauer, Robert Zwijnenberg, Han Brezet and Hans Kalliwoda

April 1 | 19:30 | Admission: € 7,50 | V2_, Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam | Reservation required

Workshop: The Power of Logic Versus the Logic of Power

With Ion Sorvin (N55) and Anne Romme

April 2 | 10:00–18:00 | Admission: € 20,00 (€ 15,00 in combination with the Seminar) | Reservation required

Urban Adventure: A Walk in the Invisible City

With Petr Kazil and Wilfried Houjebek

April 9 | 16:00–18:00 | Admission: € 5,00 | Reservation required

For all reservations please contact Joris van Ballegooijen

The World in a Shell is made possible with the support of: 

Mondriaan Foundation, Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds, SNS Reaal Fonds, Stichting Doen, UNESCO.

Partners:

TU Delft, NAi, Blindpainters

Ressource based economy

Via Cesar Alonso, thanks for the link.

Some of the ideas in this Venus Project are amazing, on the conceptual level, the pragmatic and creative ones. On the other hand, the designs Jacques Fresco is proposing really don't match the philosophy : "James Bond Grand architecture for a more equitable world" just don't really make me believe it is a "new direction".
What disrupts me with a singular "ENTIRELY NEW UPDATED SYSTEM" : I don't believe a visionary architect can propose an entire new way of life and vocabulary ; I believe in how new technologies and new ideas slowly infiltrate and change people's lives, not as one grand radical proposal, but rather many small working transitions. So, as an architect you want to modify the system not by the designing the whole system, but designing intelligent components that will facilitate the creative sustainable activities of other humans. To summarize, it is not about inventing an entire new system, but about programming good building components.

Also I must disagree on the discourse that says Industrial revolution will make us free. This is what we have been attempting since 300 years, the same old ideal future that we never reach, a future for a free "updated new" class (a rich minority of "visionaries") that the rest of humanity must labour and pay for it... Our society is industrial, I am not sure getting rid of 90% of human labour with new supertechnological means is the good underlying priority in the agenda...

In other words, the Jaques Fresco "Venus Project" is an interesting and inspiring Utopian project. Someone has to dream, and show a bundle of possibilities to the majority, and the rest of us, as actor-consumers, can buy into it, more or less. Jacques Fresco is doing his job being the figure of the grand visionary architect for a glorious future, I respect that ; but I think to deeply impact the world, every single human needs to have the freedom, capacity and desire to the the architect of his/her own life. And that might not be possible in a world where resources are limited.

So it goes back to the beginning of the Venus project : "a Resource Based Economy". On this everyone can agree, we need to start by considering the resource before making grand plans. The architect should publicly employ his creative mind to fabricate this fabulous tool that will give an entire new perception of our actual system, a tool with which a new -probably much less fancy than described- future can be built.

Also, you cannot be ethically at both ends of the chains : you cant be judge and jury, and if you are : don't expect any credibility.
It is scary for other to have one grand vision that incorporates all the aspects of a NEW life, it is too intimidating and normative.

To conclude : to work out this "not-new" resource limited word, let's do it in the right order : first, let's set up the "sensors" to measure this limited and changing world.
Before we invent super great grand designs and strategies, let's simply get to know what is happening, and make that knowledge available to everyone.
- There is an open-source project that enables people to do that today : http://pachube.com
- There is a global observatory system : http://earthwatch.unep.net/data/g3os.php
- There is an ocean division of this global observation system that works : http://www.argo.net

So, at that point in history, the glory isn't in the grand future design, but being creatively contributing to these observation and action project.

Personally that's what I am trying to do with Open_Sailing project, and with the World Environment Organization : trying to build open-source instruments to contribute to existing necessary researches. What's interesting is that the complexity of the infrastructure make the CENTRAL figure of the architect obsolete, a good system needs that each participant of the distributed system is an architect, towards a collective wisdom and creativity, social innovation, object oriented politics (Latour), adhocracy, highly tolerant and entropic "open architecture" and "architecture of play".

OH MY GOD ! Dominic Michaelis + Alex Michaelis Energy Island

OH WOOOOW !!!!!
THIS IS SO EXTREMELY CLOSE TO WHAT WE ARE DEVELOPING in the Instinctive_Architecture and Nomadic_Ecosystem labs:

Our actual design :





and what I just found on the internet googling for "very large floating structures" !

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/energy_island.php

Architects: Dominic Michaelis + Alex Michaelis


Aerial view of Energy Island Module Centre, showing Otec Electric power and desalinated water production plant room, with base of pole of surface furnace receiving all radiation falling on roofs of factory / office / greenhouse buildings crowned by heliostat mirrors following the sun, aerogenerators on the platform deck.


Alternative to platform-mounted aerogenerators, where generators are placed at a suitable distance from an inhabited platform. These aerogenerators have a prolonged tubular shaft below sea level, the bottom part of which is ballasted, so that the aerogenerator, independently moored, can't be blown flat, since all pressure on the blades is resisted by the moment created by the shaft's displacement from the vertical.


Geotec: in this application, the energy island is placed above a geothermically active area, in this case, a visible volcanic linear eruption along a tectonic fault line. Octagonal turbogenerators are lowered by underwater rovs, containing enough air to make them buoyant, so that they can be anchored at a reasonable distance above the fault. They will be using water at 300C or more as the heat source, umbrellas along the line brining more hot water. The condensors use cold water at 5C drawn in by long buoyant tubes. Generated electricity is cabled up to the Energy Island.


Energy Island perspective view of a single hexagonal module showing different energy converter systems and overall functional disposition.


Energy Island perspective view, showing the floating platform hexagonal module surrounded on its wave front energy converters, in the lee of which is the protected island, and behind that, a harbour serving the island. To the left is a platform for staff housing, and at its left extremity, a geothermal drilling rig, to which rise two electric cables, one from the sea current turbines, another from a series of turbines lowered down to recover geothermal energy from geological fault lines resulting in very high water temperatures capable of efficient electricity generation.


2 Otec Energy Islands with additonal module for high energy industrial process factory, or for leisure combined with education facilities.


General view of Energy Island with overall functional diagram and open cycle Otec system diagram.

Images from Dominic Michaelis May 2008








View along axis of 8 Otec modules supplying 2000 MWe, the equivalent of a very large nuclear power station, and 2400 million litres of desalintaed water per day, sufficient for 8 million US households.


Aerial view of linear array of 8 x 250 MWe Energy Islands forming a 2000 MWe power plant, possibly electrolysed to hydrogen fuel, and a desalination plant of 2.4 million cubic meters per day capacity (total desalination capacity of the Kingdomof Saudi Arabia - 3 million cubic meters per day).


Sea level view of 8 Otec 250 MWe Energy Islands with 2000 MWe power output.


The Lilypad twin membrane wave energy converter consists of an upper floating flexible membrane following the wave motion, provided on its udnerside with load distributing flanges taking upward loads to a number of linearly disposed fixation points to which are attached arrays of hose pumps. Hose pumps operate on the principle that as they are elastically elongated from their original large diameter cylindrical shape, they gradually reduce in volume, pressurising the working fluid within them.
At their base, the hose pumps are fixed to load distribution cables which are in turn fixed to the bottom membrane, which is both weighted and valved, so that it will resists upward movement as it is pulled up by the passing wave, flexible flaps closing against a mesh below them.
After the wave has passed, the bottom weighted membrane sinks downards by gravity, the valves opening upwards, and returns to its initial position, ready for the next cycle.
The hose pumps extend as the wave passes, expelling working fluid, normally seawater, that runs to and along high pressure pipes to a hydraulic generator. Electricity is generated typically at 65% efficiency by a hydraulic trubogenerator. This mode prevails till the hose pump is partially or fully extended by the wave crest. As the wave passes, the upper membrane descends, gradually releasing pressure on the hose pump, which elastically returns to its shorter and larger cylindrical shape, drawing in seawater through a one way valve. This allows the lower membrane to descend to its original position, ready for the next upward stroke.
The membranes run perpendicularly to prevailing significant wave direction, the size and length of hose pumps being related to wave length and amplitude. Spacing of hose pumps and width of marine platform structure.



Sustainable Building News

Marine platform structures are designed to resist the impact of waves, which vary in intensity from location to location. They must be capable of resisting the strongest storms, and in some areas, rogue waves that can reach twice the height of the strongest normal waves of that location.

15 meter high waves are known to occur in many parts of the oceans, and the corresponding rogue wave, occurring where currents are strong, which may be a 1 in 1000 year chance, will reach 30 meters, the height of a 10-storey building. In other more fortunate areas, where there are no currents and no strong winds or cyclones, it might be 5, 10 tor 20 meters high.

A marine platform cannot be designed as a floating raft, because in very heavy seas, its inertia will be such that it will not have time to react to high wave onslaught, and risks being submerged.

The proposal presented is a minimal structure based on tetrahedral geometry occupying the space where the wave impact and its energy are deployed, the structure transferring to the platform the forces from the buoyancy tanks that are in “protected” waters, and insure the platform buoyancy, allowing the structure to rise or to descend according to the amount of air with which they are fully or partially filled.

The top of the buoyancy elements is shaped to resist the wave impact, allowing the tetrahedral structure to be reduced in height. The shape also makes it easier for the overall structure to rise if there is some unforeseen upward pressure on the underside of the deck.

This section through two flexibly jointed juxtaposed marine platforms illustrates the structural principle adopted, showing the upper tetrahedral structure designed to be “transparent” to oncoming waves, the buoyancy elements taking the point loads from the structure above, and transferring the forces they exert through the tetrahedral structure to the deck above. The buoyancy elements can be increased in depth according to the loads carried by the deck, the tetrahedral structure needing to be reinforced accordingly.

ENERGY ISLAND

“The sea, the sea, ever renewed...” Paul ValÈry

The Seas reveal many vast and diverse energy sources which are too often considered individually, for instance the energies of wind, wave, sea currents, tides, solar energy including marine photosynthesis, geothermal and ocean thermal differential energy. Also, some renewable energy sources, often converted on land, can be more efficiently sea based, wind energy being a typical example, where land features reduce its intensity and limit its locations. Land based wind farms have proved themselves to be visually unacceptable to many, whilst solar farms often occupy too much valuable land.

To best profit from the many renewable energy sources available at sea, the concept is to create an “Energy Island” which would take the form of a floating platform designed to harvest all usefully available energy sources available to it, none acting in isolation, but all being brought together so that each acts to complement the other, adding its contribution to the whole.

A typical “Energy Island” may be of hexagonal shape plan, of any size up to 500 meters along its shorter axis, having a surface area of 22 hectares, the hexagonal shape allowing islands to be joined in cluster or linear modes according to planning intents. Such an island is designed to provide a total of 250 MW, with 1/3 of the energy being contributed by ancillary sources and 2/3 by OTEC. It is designed to intercept the following:-

Wave Energy. On the winward sides, the island features linear wave energy converters, WECs, which can take the form of one of the many different systems invented, whether the oscillating water column, the “lagoon”, or another system, these converters playing two parts, firstly protecting the island from the heavy seas, and then providing hydraulic energy to the platform to induce fluid flows, or to generate electricity. One new departure is the all flexible “twin membrane” Lilypad WEC which Energy Island is promoting.

Wind Energy. Wind energy at sea is at its strongest, unaffected by land masses. The “Energy Island” module is provided with six large aerogenerators, three being at a lower level to intercept the sea hugging wind flow, whilst three are higher to capture the upper wind flows, the hydraulic masts being able to adjust the heights of the aerogenerators to best harvest the wind potential from different directions.
If they are unacceptable on the island because of electromagnetic radiation, they can be floating ballasted structures moored independently sufficiently far from the island.

Sea Currents. Sea currents are powerful energy sources and can be interceped by “nets” made up of linear arrays of cowled turbine units held up below the “Energy Island” by moored buoys between which they are stretched, each unit having its own separate flotation buoy, the array taking up a slight catenary curve under pressure from the current, the main moored buoys having the capacity to be relocated below the island to accomodate shifts in the current direction. The array is positioned at a depth where it is little affected by wave energy which is mostly expressed down to a depth equivalent to 1/6 ths of its wavelength.
Marine turbines can be fitted to the base of the support platform.

Solar Energy. Solar energy at sea level is at 950 Watts/sq.m, when the sun is directly overhead, and can be collected in many different ways. The hexagonal plan of the “Energy Island “ suggests the possible use of a centrally located “power tower” furnace onto which are focussed a field of orientable heliostats or mirrors, giving furnace temperatures around 900_C which allow relatively efficient electricity generation, with the possibility of waste heat recovery above the boiling point of water, which can be used and stored to assist thermal processes that are part of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.

OTEC Electricity generation OTEC in tropical waters is the main electricity generation source, with a combination of closed and open cycle systems for efficiency at different temperatures combined with desirable sea water distillation for a number of on board activities. All waste heat from the solar farm is used to enhance a working fluid temperature, the surface water being channelled to the centrally located power plant along the six radial canals going to the outside apexes of the hexagon where floating dark membrane solar collectors optionally enhance the inlet temperatures. All warm and cold water pumping being carried out uses the ancillary energy sources deployed, these measures to increase Carnot efficiencies and to prevent OTEC from wasting the energy it is itself generating.

OTEC seawater desalination OTEC, in certain configurations, will produce vast amounts of desalinted water, often proportional to the electric power generation capacity. In the open cycle mode, OTEC will produce 1,2 million litres of desalinated water per MW. This effectively makes OTEC plants act as both power stations and desalination plants, effectively doubling their value.

Geothermal Energy The Energy Island can be purposefully located above geothermal energy resources. These can be tapped by drilling for hot aquifers or pumping water through fissured hot rocks . Alternately, hot volcanic flumes can produce water at 300_C that cannot boil because of the high pressure, but into which can be lowered turbogenerators using the cosiderable temerature difference from water drawn by arms reaching out for nearby cold water, unaffected by the flumes, thzat often follow linear tectonic faults.

Apart from its electric and desalinated water contributions, the “Energy Island” is designed also to produce :-

Hydrogen. Because of the fluctuation of renewable energy resources, an energy storage system is required. The “Energy Island” relies on a hydrolysis plant to produce stored hydrogen and oxygen, part of which can be used by fuel cell technology as necessary to balance the power output, matching it to requirements both external and internal, and part being used as a fuel that can , in some cases be tankered or pipelined to other destinations, when the electricity produced is not totally used by cable links to nearby destinations. The “Energy Island” will also produce a base for:-

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) and Mariculture.
In tropical latitudes, greenhouses need to be protected from the sun, a role performed by the heliostats, and well ventilated or evaporatively cooled. The 22 hectare platform can therefore be used for CEA, using part of the distilled water from the open OTEC cycle for hydroponics. If the floor is trellissed, light can reach the seawater below, where pens can contain various forms of marine life below.

Harbours and Housing. On the leeward side of the island or islands, The “Energy Island” needs to provide housing for staff , social facilities, workshops and harbours. Cold wter at 5_C can be used for air conditioning.

Leisure and Tourism Energy Islands can be dedicated to energy self sufficient holiday destinations, where also fish, fruit and vegetables are produced “on board”, the islands having the advantage of being located as desired close to attractions that can be reached by boat, by helicopter, or by air, if a short landing strip is provided.

The “Energy Island”, intercepting many diverse renewable energy sources, brings their converted powers together in the most efficient way to provide electricity for the grid, and, by hydrolysis, hydrogen fuel for transport to nearby or distant population centres, where it can be used efficiently by fuel cell technology.

The “Energy Island” can become a major supplier of electricity and hydrogen fuel for a pollution free society, and liberate the world from the perils of nuclear power generation, and from its political, economic and polluting dependance on dwindling fossil fuels, providing vast amounts of desalinated water as a bonus.

The “Energy Island” constitutes a new departure, all the more necessary because of the visible and invisible, but predicted signs of universal pollution and global warming, and the frightening fact that world energy use is expanding exponentially, having doubled in the last thirty years.

Action is needed to bring about change, promote a new fuel and turn the tide.


http://www.biomarine.org/index.php/gb/content/download/1590/14458/version/1/file/Dominic+Michaelis.pdf 


http://www.solarenergyltd.net/


http://www.energyisland.com

Very large floating structure

amazing pdf here (8.8 mb): 20091222very large floating structures. pdf>
Also check the Wikipedia article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_large_floating_structure
That's where we are going, with many little modules, pre-brocken structure.
Some other links :
http://www.jtc.gov.sg/resources/archiveperiscope/periscope_2008_04/focus/article03.htm

Open_Sailing at the MIT

http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/4014-open-sailing-presentation-in-future-craft

Cesar Harada and Hiromi Ozaki have been presenting Open_Sailing at the MIT Media Lab Tangible group the 2009 sept 16.

Here is the lecture :



download video flv (227mb)  | wmv (475mb)

And this was our slideshow :

why not ?

Vital function map, world threat maps

This is the concept map of the project : read from the bottom to the top, from the 2012 fears volcano, giving birth to the open sailing station. Download pdf (11.6mb) / see .jpg (2.6mb) / see flickr page


This is the geographical map of both 2012hopes.com and opensailing.net : 2012hopes.com suggests the ideal location, Open Sailing figures out how we will live and thrive in this new geographical context. download pdf (7.6mb) / see .jpg (1.4mb) / flickr page



The maps have all been programmed on maps.google.com, you can save individual map and ad them as your own (if you have a gmail account which is free and amazing) : all maps directory by 2012hopes@googlemail.com. You can also view these maps confortably using google earth.


We have printed 300 of these maps to A1 size, if you want one email us, we'll arrange, we'll appreciate donations since they are expensive to print.


We might send the map as it is supposed to be : folded, to fit in your pocket, an authentic survival pratical map.

City Symbiosis

02-16-2009 : http://www.thefunctionality.com/blog/2009/2/16/city-symbiosis.html

Michael Rakowitz is not an architect, but he has probably made more houses than many architects in the last ten years. Architects should be envious of the artist's production and vision. He is working with the margins of society. His project Parasite uses a building's heat exhaust to inflate plastic sheeting, creating dwellings for the homeless. For Rakowitz the project is about community involvement as well as dwelling design. He is responsive to the needs of his "clients."

Courtesy Michael Rakowitz

Bill S.’s paraSITE shelter. He requested as many windows as possible, because “homeless people don’t have privacy issues, but they do have security issues. We want to see potential attackers, we want to be visible to the public.” Six windows are placed at eye level for when Bill is seated and six smaller windows for when Bill is reclining.

The article on these structure at World Changing highlights the social impact of his projects. The social agenda is remincient of Archigram, Archizoom and the social idealist and critics of the sixties,where the concept of building was challanged to mean utopian spaces, inflatable huts, or technological phenomena in the guise of a natural environment.

Copyright David Green - Courtesy Archigram

Projects like the living pod,above, imagines a green field condition where the building tapped into site resources to make its own place. Parasite deals with the roughness and tactics of city dwelling. These structures are deployable in the aims of allowing their inhabitants to move when they are at the limits of the law.

At The Functionality we want to encourage this type of tactical thinking. Architects, artists, urban designers, even graphic designers need to re-examine how we will approach the city, our suburbs and even our housing as the economic and environmental conditions unfold. We think the sooner we start the better off we will be.

Microcosmic Aquaculture

<Cesar Harada> 07-2-2009, straight from http://www.thefunctionality.com/blog/2009/7/2/microcosmic-aquaculture.html

[Editors' Note]: For this week's Friday Feature (posted early for the holiday), The Functionality is proud to host "Microcosmic Aquaculture," a speculative project by new design office Bittertang (Michael Loverich + Antonio Torres). The project recently won inclusion as part of [Bracket] magazine's feature on the future of farming, which explores "the modification of infrastructure, urbanisms, architectures, and landscapes toward a privileging of production." We love "Microcosmic Aquaculture" because it is both completely whimsical and completely convincing as a concept that could help increase marine biodiversity and replenish the world's overfished waters. Think of it as a biodegradable fish farm. Or a synthetic reef. Or an edible scuba museum. Or a pile of goo. Either way, it follows on the heels of an (unintentional) theme here at The Functionality over the past month: self-sustaining pods. From Mary Mattingly's water pods to Tomás Saraceno's floating blob, we're embracing the post-apocalyptic condition with gusto...



Gelatinous orb section and detail (courtesy bittertang)[Project statement]: We imagine a future where the vast and deep expanses of the ocean will teem with overabundant floating gelatinous reefs. Human's will be nourished physically and aesthetically by encouraging new floating worlds of reefs that sustain large quantities of harvestable wild and captive fish. Farming in this project is not viewed as a monoculture but the creation of a new ecology where wild and captive wildlife are 'raised' and their aesthetic potential is enjoyed by future divers and fishermen.

By encouraging the establishment of new ecosystems contemporary farmers as well as the public can reap sustenance and aesthetic benefits from environmental stewardship. The ocean is a vast resource that can accommodate more life when the proper conditions are met. These conditions are minimal and new ecologies can flourish around the simplest substrate. In the ocean it is not a matter of making space for life but by making objects that attract life. By combining manufactured products with plant material we will help to define a new bio-engineered aesthetic associated with qualitative benefits that disturbs romantic desires to return to nature and environmentalism. Our ominous orbs will provide the structure from which this aesthetic will arise.

Gelatinous Armada (courtesy bittertang)By encouraging the establishment of new ecosystems contemporary farmers as well as the public can reap sustenance and aesthetic benefits from environmental stewardship. The ocean is a vast resource that can accommodate more life when the proper conditions are met. These conditions are minimal and new ecologies can flourish around the simplest substrate. In the ocean it is not a matter of making space for life but by making objects that attract life. By combining manufactured products with plant material we will help to define a new bio-engineered aesthetic associated with qualitative benefits that disturbs romantic desires to return to nature and environmentalism. Our ominous orbs will provide the structure from which this aesthetic will arise.

Gelatinous orb lifecycle (courtesy bittertang)The advantage of this methodology is that farmed fish are grown within a larger reef system that manages and cleanses the waste and accumulation of typical farms. Large colonies of wild fish and shellfish will be attracted to the new substrate and can be harvested by a farm's owner of may be made available to the public.

These orbs will not only be productive and efficient farms, but the giant spherical reefs will become an aestheticized and living object to be explored by divers and recreational fisherman. Shape and gelatin mixture will produce different living conditions and various reef typologies, no two will be the same. Once set loose in the wild the orbs will literally take on a life of their own, following currents and attracting life wherever they go, possibly even mingling with other spheres of various ages, sharing their ecosystems and giving them away as they collapse and die. In the ocean this growth can happen very quickly within months of being born the orbs will be covered with living material becoming new edible living worlds.

From the fellows at bittertang.

(courtesy bittertang)

Cesar Harada>

Advanced Architecture

< Ollie Palmer >

http://www.advancedarchitecturecontest.org/
We should be entering this contest.

Deadline is monday September 28th 2009

CAN WE DESIGN BUILDINGS WITH THE PRECISION OF A CHIP AND THE INTELLIGENCE OF A NETWORK?

CAN IMPROVISATION BE MORE SELF-SUFFICIENT THAN TOTAL PLANNING?

HOW CAN WE RE-NATURALIZE OUR CITIES?

IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE COMPLEX HOUSES CONSTRUCTED WITH THE SAME PRECISION AS A CAR?

CAN OUR CITIES BE DIRECTLY DESIGNED AND TRANSFORMED BY THEIR INHABITANTS?

HOW CAN WE FOCUS OUR SKILLS AND RESOURCES ON CONSTRUCTING SELF-SUFFICIENT BUILDINGS?

WHAT ARE THE KEY CONCEPTS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE HABITAT OF THE 21ST CENTURY?

HOW CAN WE INSERT SELF-SUFFICIENT BUILDINGS INTO HISTORIC URBAN FABRICS?

HOW CAN WE ACHIEVE FULLY ENERGY-EFFICIENT CITIES?

We can do it, reachable.

Royal caribbean commercial 2008 castellano

Royal caribbean commercial 2008 castellano

Technical drawings for Ars Electronica

All our technical drawings ! Get the original .jpg and .pdf here.

Open_Sailing @ Art & Architecture

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dg7vzwwg_3ctf6rpkf

Only for eyes pleasure the new version of own module, with receptacle for float gardens>

Junkraft

http://junkraft.blogspot.com/







A very impressive and quite similar project to Open_Sailing, the Junkraft, by Dr Marcus Eriksen, Joel Paschal and Anna Cummins. They sailed from California to Hawaii on a raft made with plastic bottle to raise awareness about the topic of the plastic sea, as the plastiki is doing now. How is it actually made? Do bottles resist that much long exposure to salty sea environment? Can we rely on these bottles?