NUS Architecture Portfolio Y4S2: 'Solving Singapore's Carbon Conundrum: The Carbon Mill'

AR5802 DESIGN STUDIO 2 FINAL DESIGN REVIEW LIM QIAN PING ANNABELLE A0157481Y STUDIO CJ LIM

WHAT IF WE CAN CREATE A SELF-SUSTAINING FOREST IN THE CITY?

CRITICAL THINKING: The aspirations of the tree are retrofitted into the Central Business District (CBD) as a self-sustaining and carbon negative ecosystem. This biosphere targets carbon and turns them into a useful resource in efforts to slow down climate change. A utopic ideal of our future through the Tree is painted both metaphorically and physically, where nature reinstates its equality in the balance of wealth between the capitalists and the disadvantaged. Through the realization of how the common day skyscraper can be an urban tree trunk with sprouting branches and the CBD as a self-sustaining forest, will nature be the forefront of any city – eventually balancing both its well-being and wealth.

LOCATION: CBD, Singapore, First Phase in 2020

SYNOPSIS: A masterplan of the urban forest is set out in the CBD, where airspace is utilized to grow branches, which are made of timber/bamboo carcasses with a synthetic polymer shell. This synthetic polymer is a paint produced by the Carbon Laboratories which hardens after it captures enough carbon dioxide, a key feature in the project. A truss system is the main structure for all above ground tectonics, where branches, furniture kits, sunlight-reflecting cloud makers and maintenance vehicles are hung or run on tracks from it.

On ground, a pontoon deck is built on the Singapore River to encompass key functions such as the carbon mill, recycling hub, carbon offices, carbon laboratories, carbon workshops, sunlight-catching butterfly trees.

Matured branches are brought down on harvesting days and transported to the carbon mill to be processed for further use. Hence, the creation of a new timber that can be used just alike traditional wood, and is better for the environment, and better in structural properties, can finally be the epitome of the new era in our race with global warming.

FUNDING: 1. Multi-national corporations in the CBD that benefits from the Singapore’s economic growth.

2. Singapore’s 2020 environmental tax of $1 billion from 2020 -2025.

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

SYNOPSIS The series takes place in an enchanted forest, where siblingsJoe, Fanny and Beth, live near at. A gigantic magical tree, ‘Faraway Tree’, grows in the ‘Enchanted Forest’ and it is so tall that its topmost branches reach into the clouds. Its wide trunk also contains small houses where it is inhabited by different magical people (Moon-Face, Saucepan Man, Silky the Fairy etc.) that take care of the tree and go on adventures with the children as well. At the top of the tree there is a ladder which leads them to a magical land. The Land is different on every visit, because each place moves on from on top of the tree to make way for new land.

The children are free to come and go, but they must leave before the Land moves on, or they will be stuck there until that same land returns to the Faraway Tree.

CHILDREN - CAPITALISTS The children express their humanist desire to control nature through knowledge and/or conquest. This desire for mapping and possessing nature is aligned to the antropocentric concept of ‘nature as totally knowable, manipulat+able, and predestined to be conquered and transformed by man’. Thus likened to the current-day capitalists, where the common theme of the exploitation of the Faraway Tree for adventure and profit is seen in many incidents throughout the book.

PARENTS - GOVERNMENT The parents are lenient, soft and indulgent in the caring of their children. They often allow their children to continuously break rules, thereafter disciplining them with old-fashioned methods such as grounding them, in which they defy and continue again to go against their parents’ wishes. This is likened to the government, where carbon-tax has not been treated seriously and implemented until today, as seen in our high carbon footprint.

TREE- MOTHER NATURE The tree is evergreen, and always selfless and giving to the inhabitants whom live in it. However, nature eventually resists all the mappings and masteries of man - as seen in the devastation through climate change in the recent years.

NARRATIVE ANALYSISthe

‘Only in times of despair followed by repentance do we go to faith and trust for hope.’

‘When we are in times of need and recieve salvation, do we finally believe in faith.’

‘They all went to the edge of the wood. There was a ditch there. ’Jump over this - and you’re in the Enchanted Wood!’

‘Well, I’ve got some wonderful ointment, it’s very magic. I’m going to rub the damaged roots with it you all can help - and we’ll see if it does any good.’

‘The Faraway Tree is King of the Wood, and now that trouble has come to it all the other trees are angry. Perhaps they want to help us. Wisha-wishawisha, said the trees loudly.’

‘She felt as if there was magic about - although she didn’t believe in magic! A process, the transformation through faith.’

‘They all went to the edge of the wood. There was a ‘Why, the tree grows new ones each day, and fruit too. Many’s the time I’ve stripped this branch of fruit, and before I’ve cooked it, it has been full again of some other kind of fruit.’

‘Faith in Sustainability.’

‘It’s called the Faraway Tree, because its top is so far away, and always sticks up into some strange magic land there - a different one every week.’

‘Moon-Face has been jolly quick. Choose a cushion, Connie, and sit on it.

Hold the rope tightly, give it three tugs, and up you’ll go!’

‘You’d hate to leave the Enchanted Wood and the Faraway Tree and Moon-Face and Silky and the rest of your friends, you know you would!’

‘We’re going to rub the damaged roots with magic ointment,’ said MoonFace, and he held out the blue pot. ‘We can’t afford to waste a single moment now, beacuse the poor old Tree is almost dead!’

THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE

SINGAPORE’S CARBON CONUNDRUM

ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS

SOCIOECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY

ENVISIONING A CARBON-SEQUESTRATING CBD

THE URBAN TREES OF SINGAPORE

MAP OF POLLUTANT AIR FLOW AROUND AND IN SINGAPORE

BRANCH PLACEMENT ON CBD MASSING

BRANCH AND TRUSS SYSTEM

FURNITURE KITS

CLOUD MAKERS

ABOVE GROUND TECTONICS

BIRDHOUSES

BUTTERFLY TREES

SYNTHETIC POLYMER AND GOX POOL

PORTABLE WORKSHOPS

GROUND TECTONICS

2

6

5

3 2

GROUND FLOOR PLAN 4

1 - Dock Point 2 - Storage Area 3 - Toilets and Showers 4 - Cafe 5 - Open Workshop Space 6 - Platforms where Synthetic Polymer painting is done

1

FL +4.00

SECOND FLOOR PLAN 1 - Main Carbon Office

RECYCLING HUB

2 1

GROUND FLOOR PLAN 1 - Main Office Space 2 - Toilet

3

SECOND FLOOR PLAN 3 - Meeting Space

CARBON OFFICE

2 1

GROUND FLOOR PLAN 1 - Main Laboratory Storage 2 - Toilet

3

SECOND FLOOR PLAN 3 - Controlled Laboratory Space

CARBON LABORATORY

PORTABLE WORKSHOP

5

4

GROUND FLOOR PLAN

3

1 - Dock Point 2 - Public Entrance 3 - Mechanical Track for Carbon Sawmill 4 - Toilets 5 - Staff Entrance with Locker Room

1 FL +4.00

2

SECOND FLOOR PLAN 1 - Viewing Deck 2 - Staff Control Room

CARBON MILL