DISRUPTING by Bryan Allen

2012 UC BERKELEY THESIS STUDIO

DIS RUPT ING. architecture

ACKNO LEDGE MENTS Published by DISRUPTIVE STUDIO 370 WURSTER HALL #1800 UC Berkeley, CA 94720 disruptivearch@berkeley.edu

University of California, Berkeley Department of Architecture 232 Wurster Hall #1800 Berkeley, CA 94720-1800 (510) 642-4942 http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/ archgrad@berkeley.edu

Special Thanks to: UC Berkeley Department of Architecture College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley Department of Art Practice, Tom Buresh, Charles C Benton, Chris Palmer, Danielle Zunzunegui, David Fletcher, David Gissen, Gary Black, Javier Arbona, Jill Stoner, Joonhong Ahn, Joseph Becker, Joshua Stein, Kyle Steinfeld, Leigh Christy, Luxology Modo, Magnolia Editions Donald and Era Farnsworth, Mark Anderson, Melanie Kaba, Michael Hannah, Nicholas de Monchaux, Patty Mead, Paul Lin, Peter Testa, Raveevarn Choksombatchai, Rene Davids, Ron Gronsky, Stephanie Smith, Susan Ubbelohde, The Branner Family, Dr. Mark Ganter, Jamie Banes, and Kent Wilson. ISBN 978-1-105-99415-9

CONTENTS

DIS RUPT ING. FORWARD Ronald Rael

TerraToxis Bryan Allen 12

MEGA-MICROBESTRUCTURES Marisha Farnsworth 52

Peripatetic Free-spaces Oriana M. Cole 78

Salt, Formation and Emergence at the Dead Sea Mark Kelly 108

Phytopia Pablo Zunzunegui 146

Hydrophilic Housing Joe Nowell 178

reâ&#x20AC;˘fuse Anthony Gianinni 208

Disruptive Architecture ////////////////////////////////// dis·rup·tive : to interrupt the normal course or unity of ar·chi·tec·ture : the art & science of building;

DIS //////// / RUPT////// //// ING. /////// ///////

DIS ///////// // ////// //// RUPT /// ///////ING.

FORWARD RONALD RAEL

Disruptive innovation is a term used to describe a technological advancement that improves products or services in ways that the market does not expect, typically by lowering price or designing for a different set of consumers (e.g. the innovation of downloadable media disrupted the way we access music, books and video, causing companies like Blockbusters, Borders to close their doors and making the music industry re-think the way it distributes music). 3D printing has emerged as a technology that has the potential to disrupt industrial manufacturing, but can it disrupt current modes of architectural practice? Companies like D-Shape and scientists like Behrokh Khoshnevis are creating methods to 3D print buildings. Materialise, the world’s largest rapid prototyping service bureau, works directly with architects to “build” their visions. Pokono.com functions as a “general contractor” that builds the creations of designers by bringing together material suppliers and 3D fabricators.

DIS RUPT ING. This year-long research studio explored how technologies, such as computer aided design and additive manufacturing (a.k.a. 3D Printing) have the potential to disrupt current thinking surrounding the design, development and fabrication of architectural spaces, forms, components and systems. The course built upon research surrounding the development and invention of new materials for additive manufacturing using standard powder printing equipment that make 3D printing incredibly inexpensive (up to several thousand times less expensive that typical methods), as well as the production of polymer, concrete and ceramic architectural components emerging from these processes. Investment in a process moving from designing digitally to the creation of physical objects that are rich with material potential at several scales were the thrust of the course. The seminar also explored various techniques using computer aided manufacturing to generate a library of material processes informed by digital exploration as well as a set of theories, contexts and issues that propel creativity through the use of these technologies, particularly additive manufacturing at architectural scales.

The discovery of new territories for digital production occured through instruction using an advanced 3D modeler invented for the computer graphics industry, yet the studio forged new workflows that were ideal for precision modeling of mechanical and architectural designs, for freeform organic modeling and for visualization and animation and to visualize and create worlds that did not previously exist.

DIS RUPT ING.

Terra Tox’is Bryan Allen

A JOURNEY A DATA SET A CONVERSATION A MACHINE A VISION

A JOURNEY

Virtually every city in industrial regions, no matter its size grapples with the challenge of unused manufacturing facilities and other industrial sites1. Existing within a guilty landscape generated by their excess and excretions these post-industrial latent spaces permeate the contemporary built environment and present an evolving imperative for architecture. Vast zones of toxicity and dereliction they are the artifacts of the atomic and industrial age. They exhibit architectural dreams and fears, at once inspiring architectures promise, and ultimately aware of its inevitable entropy. Here the lines between solid and void; building and landscape; inside and outside become ambiguous yet, paradoxically present. In post-Industrial latent spaces we see buildings after the builders have left; the layers of human detritus peel away and materials and structures begin a temporal existence abstracted by time. Though in a condition of traditional disuse, post-industrial latent spaces are by no means empty. Rather than phantoms of past industry, in their latent state they are the host to heterotopic2 uses. From scavengers to scrappers, ‘Stalker’3esk pirates to paintballers, taggers to urban explorers, these sites are host to a myriad of temporal users. This use implies an assumption: that the exponential expansion and exploitation of the industrial society is now complete: terra incognita is a memory. A virginal wilderness has been replaced with contaminated ruin: the wastes of the Aral Sea, the oil sands in Alberta, the crackling spectrum of Prpyat, and the technicolor waters of Montana’s Berkeley Pit.

A TerraToxis defines our age.

1 Charles Bartsch and Elizabeth Collaton, Brownfields. Cleaning and Reusing Contaminated Properties (Praeger Westport, Conn: 1997) 2 Michel Foucault,Of Other Spaces Heterotopias translated by Jay Miskowiec At: http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault. heteroTopia.en.html (accessed Feb 15th 2012). 3 “Сtалкер” (Stalker) Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko. Kinostudiya ‘’Mosfilm’’ 1979 14

In TerraToxis we find Post-Industrial Latent Spaces (PILS) presenting a counterpoint to the former notions of exploration into virginal wilderness: the Urbis Incognita-hidden, subterranean, forgotten, or ignored ‘wilderness’ of the cities both dead and alive inviting exploration and temporary inhabitation by diverse elements as heterotopic space. Despite the apparent lack of discernible order present in many former industrial zones they are grounded by the pragmatic efficiency of the Industries that originally created them. Their former use is a direct cuase of their contamination and dereliction so in spite of their dispersed locations, sites of a similar typology illustrate similar spatial conditions and contextual relationships. Under that assumption it is therefore possible to extrapolate: that by studying and designing a sample of categorical sites, a more general understanding of that typology, it’s issues, imlications, and challeneges is generated and its design methedoloy can be applied to similar contexts.

In dereliction they then present a nascent order not devoid of constraint, but providing a robust and thus actively adaptable system of architectural relation. Strong, malleable, and available they are a framework for a new architecture. It is this malleability that provides their potential. Heavy base structure demands a certain post-rationalization: There is no sanctity of these buildings. Rip, cut, tear-err on the side of violence. They must be liberated cut free, exposed and exploded. Insert, destroy, mangle: Create.

This architecture of introspective valuation and precise addition as exhibited in projects such a Peter Latz’s Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park, Grimshaw’s Museo del Acero Horno, and OMAs Ruhr Museum represent a profound shift in the way ‘blighted’ and abandoned architectural fragments are reintegrated into the architectural lexicon and former industrial regions are redefined: from brownsites to cultural loci. PILS are gargantuan structures devoted to dynamics and change: a static framework representing and dedicated to the creation and support of dynamic process. They exhibit a profound spatial order and a potential to inform an architecture that re-presents a site while avoiding hackneyed nostalgic representation. As spaces of transformation they are inherently resilient matrices supporting change both structurally and programmatically. The complexity of the original function necessitates a simplicity and utilitarianism in their basic structure and an ability to modify.

Indeed it is in this subtractive and paradoxically additive move that any architecture existing in PILS becomes more than simply a speculative project on a given site. Palimpsest additions by subtraction reveal collage and juxtaposition in the evolving condition of sites1. In the re-visioning of the Zeche Zollverein coal washing plant in the Emscher Park region into the new Ruhr Museum a subtraction by an art volume evokes Gordon Matta-Clark taken a step further. A ribbon of glowing circulation evicerates clumsy compartmentailzed industrial weight, recasting process and form. Matta-Clarks work realized the artistic elements of subtraction and the revelation of section: the spaces that can be created by such moves. However the moves presented in these architectures propose not only a bold subtraction revealing section and the spatial potential of unexpected adjacency but rather, through the insertion of new volumes and architectonic elements within the created void, they effectively re-present the space entirely. Through the new voids a new process emerges, a new order, a new scale: a new space. This re-presentation of PILS is therefore intrinsically based on the spaces it evolves out of by treating them as hyper-local site conditions to be played off of and changed. 1 Niall Kirkwood, Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the PostIndustrial Landscape (London: Spoon Press 2001). 15

Concurrent with the physical change of the structures though adaptation, the cultural reintegration of the sites represents a graft of new cultural relationships along vectors of industrial networks. Post industrial sites have embedded contextual connections to the cities they helped spawn, and this network has a capacity of being explored and expanded to understand the regional condition as a whole. These industrial networks represent prime paths for reclamation. As illustrated by the Highline in New York, and the Dequindre Cut in Detroit, cuts and vectors offer activating avenues through which a population can realize a new relation to the city. In conglomeration they provide the potential to create a multi nodal cultural and recreational network such as seen in Emscher Park. More than dealing with any one site, to design on a postindustrial space is to deal with a network. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about reigniting the interface of the site to the city to impart a dynamic social condition in a formally static space, thus projecting the evolutionary urban condition of the industrial city beyond the individual site. Despite initial and persistent levels of toxicity, ecologically the sites provide a haven within the city. They possess a unique ecological richness and opportunity despite their toxic nature1. Although itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to postulate that in the absence of industrial processes a natural system would begin to reclaim a site and move back towards its initial state, this is rarely the case. There is a nature that recolonizes the sites, but it is a nature of graft and adaptation. The industrial processes leave indelible marks on the environment beyond the visual frame guiding the selection of successful pioneer species. The international nature of resource collection and distribution carries along with it species which establish colonies in their remote new post-industrial homes. In Duisburg-Nord for example a colony of African jellyfish, inexplicably transported via ore shipments, has made its way into the water filled bunkers around the former furnaces. 1 Niall Kirkwood, Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the PostIndustrial Landscape (London: Spoon Press 2001). 16

It is this very uncertainty and conglomeration of variables that make these sites such fertile environments for design. They are collections of times, of machines, of ideas, and populations. As seen in Detroit and the Chernobyl zone, industrial production is projected though inevitable accident and obsolescence to create this space. It defines a population; it truncates lives and dictates new spatial conditions. These divisions define a haven of sorts, a liminal zone where insurgent populations and ecologies can exist. They are representative of innumerable tragedies but also evolving opportunities. This is the zone of fantasy and visions, of extremes and misfits, mutants and hybrids. PILS are proximally connected to the cities in which they helped spawn through the latent networks of industrial transport in which they were a part of. Along these corridors and extending into the sites a new ecology can evolve, quite remote for the original condition but never the less a haven for species and evolution. The insertion of architecture into the sites necessitates a subtractive move and an addition in the resulting void adding yet another level of palimpsest into the evolution of a landscape and architecture. But, above all these spaces are unique, their spatial condition unparalleled elsewhere, and in their evolution and recasting they shape the possibility of space, of experience and integration with process. They demand something more of architecture: A true moderation of technological imperative with sensitivity to form, aestetic, and space. It is our charge as designers of the built environment to take on such zones, to deal with them is not easy, the issues are severe but they serve as prototypes and vehicles of critique for more ordinary concerns highlighted by the extreme. In their re-envisioning the impossible can become probable, speculation a reality, and a post-industrial ruin a cultural icon.

1 02 .4 70 51 .11 30

7 46

7 41 00 4400 33 7 3388 82 .3 12 7 7 51 .07 3366 27 30 .38 12 00 51 .07 3355 30 7 82 0 33 3 3 .3 33 51 ..72 30 7 7 0 31 41 35 00 333000 33 27 7 22888 .40 70 31 51 .11 7 7 6 226 730 36 000 27 2252517 .38 12 3 51 .07 7 7 23 30 16 26 77 0 2211 25 27 8 0 3 .3 12 30 51 .07 23 182 1 30 33 15 7 0 .4 12 1188 3 51 .07 10 21 77 3 30 0 05116066677 1 83 7 20 15111 26 17 7 0 0 1 3 6 1155 3 18 83 883 83 3 7 7 33 0 783 3 23 11 111133 8383 3 161 505 33 667777 23 83 8 7 7 33333 0 00000 667667 17 6 21 6710 83 3 3 555000 11111155055555000 010 83 333 50500 33 201 00 1 02000 133513313350 5050 50 33 3 5 0 0 2 767 3 333 67 0 50 17 11113331333 33 88 20 7 7 676 33 3333333333333 20 117 6 3 82 3 7 7 3 6 7 3 6837 .3 12 77 33 3 7 1 1 7333 300 3 7 171 51 .07 3 3 186 111111111171777 333366 7 11117777735353 711767 50 7 177 30 33 3 7 02 676 111517170713733 171 110100100 17350 .4 12 3 7 16 11 67 7 51 .07 3 111811111000300000000 73 13 3 16 16 555000 177 8 111317717371733 30 01 0 7 83 33 3 0 7 1 1 3 0 1 0 3 3 5 18880333333313330 133 3 11550 150333 33 517 00 83 883838883 17 1137773067 50 33 3 1 0 7 7 07 31 17 33 86366886688778678777377373 1000 33 17 333 313177 333 111755 6 7 1 66777 83 33 113773 1 7 113 33 7171 17177 17 676766766677 7 1 7 33 77 6 71 1 17 66573766606377 1177 82 17 1 337 17 .3 12 111117 171 0 333 71177 173 83 1717 7 51 .07 1 67 30 0 10007 7 505 33 7 1 3 11 30 0 6 0 3 0 0 8 0 3 51 1 3 111100701 1 27 337 13333733733 3 10 1 8833 7 .38 12 0 53033333333133733133373 8 83 17 33 1 51 .07 0 6 3 530333313131333113113173773337773376773373337 7 7 7 7 7 505 3 7 8833 8883333 27 30 1177333550 7 7 7 1 8 6 3 7 1 7 7 7 7 6 6 3 1 1 2 6 6 6 7 0 6 6 7 7 7 8 3 8 .3 1 6 511717711117111717777 1177 51 .07 5068677737 7677 7 0 0 7 53330131171517105110 50 5050000 6 6 5 3 3 3 3 66666776777 1 6 3 7 7 33 3 0 7 555 50 50 50 5301377 83 117 7 33333 550 6 67 1 3356600076670767677 50 505303137317333 33 3 3333333 333 555000 0 1 333 3 3333333 333 31 3 55555056000000 3 5 33 33 3 33 177353533530055350555500350503055503030333333333 33313777 67 33 3333 333333 17 7 7 77 7 13333333333333533353 3 333333 333 3 33 17 117171 1 111 17 1717171177 1717 17 7 7 7 3333 7 1 1 1 17 50 82 2 3337733733333313331733137333737331733711777 77771171777 17171717 33 1.3 71 11777 0 0 1111111177117317717177373731133731773373 1 111111 5 3 0 3 5 3 3 5 .0 1 7 177 3 5 50 50 7 33 3333 33 3303 33 333333 33 82 1 17 77 111711117117171711177771777777777 33 17 333333 3333 33 33 3 .3 12 33 33 3 11 77 33 17 3 1111 3 33 33 51 .07 33 33 333333 7 77 77 11 17 3 3 333333333 33 3 33 33 3 7 7 177 177 7 17 17 17 117 11 11 171717 1717171717 17 717 7 77 7 7 30 33333 33 3333 3 3 17 1 1 11 1 1 11771177 17 27 17 117 1 1 1 1 33 3 3 33 333333 3 33 7 7 17 .38 70 171177 7 17 171171717171171771717717177 33 33 51 .11 717 1 1 1 1 17 7 17 11771177 1717117717 117717 17 7 7 7 7 7 1717 1 30 1 171717 1177 1 1 1 1 17 17 82 2 7 17 17 7 7 7 7 .3 1 1 1 1 1 1 51 .07 27 .38 12 51 .07 30

27 .38 70 51 .11 30

Guilty Landscapes can be amended. A city can be remade, a country recast, a culture renewed, from the ground up in TerraToxis. In these sites there is a moment of criticality, when a site can be elevated to meaning or slip into dereliction and destruction. A city can embrace revolution and change (economic and cultural), or it will fall, fade, and burn. These moments are upon us, we must realize and act. Not towards overly nostalgic static preservation and representation or towards overt re-creationalism without recognition of any past, nor towards exculsion and obfiscation, but towards a hybrid vision. With this imperative in mind we came to Chernobyl, the space of dreams and nightmares. Outside of reality a no-place: existing on the liminal edge of perception and space. Only a few venture into the zone. Pripyat was a purpose built city, a new utopian model for a workers built on the promise of the ‘atomic city of tomorrow’. With all necessary safety gear we entered the zone, Our bodies silent recorders of events. DNA in a cosmic shooting gallery. Sensors chirped and cameras snapped. I carried with me a lead pouch of x-ray film attached to my head, chest, belt, and foot. My Go-Pro recorded center of mass motion while the Geiger counter and GPS bore silent witness to the interactions of an ephemeral electromagnetic topography. After the accident in on April 29 1986 for 2 days the city carried on life as normal as fallout silently rained down around them. On the third day the entire city of Pripyat was evacuated.

The hope of an ‘Atomic city of tomorrow’ forever dashed. 18

The journey into the zone is a transition though the pastoral, after Kiev the landscape shifts from urban into forest and at the boundary of the zone small yellow signs begin to dot the landscape. Close to the reactors the promethean landscape still bears evidence of the disaster. In some areas of the road the bus cannot stop because the contamination downwind of the reactor is still too strong. Although the Red Forest has regrown, it’s prodigy are stunted and deformed. The reactor itself is a sort of dark shrine. As the jurryrigged iconic sarcofogas spalls and crumbles away thousands of workers operate in the zone building annother containment structure and decomissioning the other 3 reactors on the site. The 4th reactor itself is a pole of nuclear tourism. Although the only indication that what you are seeing is special is the clicking and flashing Geiger counter; a talisments procured for the trip. We pushed deeper into the ghost city of Pripyat. The buzz of the Geiger counter was drowned out by the wind in the trees and insects, the smell of roses all around. Explorers wandered through spaces one fulfilling the social needs of a company town. In the bright light and clear blue sky of a July day the birds sang and insects chired. The cliched images of the ferris wheel bore little relation to the ominous presence it evokes in digital media. Another infamous location, the community swimming pool became a launch pad for ‘spiny-whinny’ the recon drone. Our final stop was the school, books littered the tables and ground, left a bit too perfectly to be a completely organic image of decay

50 3

7 667 500 505 333333 3 3 3 3 3333 550033333317317117777 11 1777 3333 17 1111777 3 331177 1 7 3333 3 333333333111717177 17 7 117777777 71117771177777777777 77171717171177177 111111 1 111111111 11111

33 3 27 33 .38 12 77777 33 51 3.037111 30 777771711111171771777 1 7 333 7111

3 17

7 82 .3 12 51 .07 30

17 17

3 50 3 17

7 33 7 1 1

17 17 17 7 331 3 17

33 17 17

17 7 33 7 1 1 7 33 7 1 33 1

27 .38 12 51 .07 30

17 337 17 1 17

50 33 33 717 71 17171

The gas mask room rounded out the trip, a questionably authentic macabre image of gas masks broken out of boxes and strewn on the floor greeted the visitor-along with a guest book. This was it, the center of the Ruined world. Our final stop in the zone was a visit to one of the small re-settlement villages. Here, after the fall of the soviet union small groups of elderly formally displaced villagers were allowed to return and tend their fields and live their lives. I had the Geiger counter as we approached the village, the levels dropped markedly as we passed though Chernobyl town and into the forest, they continued to drop. When the bus stopped, the level was lower than background in Kiev. We walked down and overgrown wagon road toward a cluster of small houses disappearing into the lush grassland. Amazingly pastoral, the surroundings were calmly beautiful. The levels were normal. On top of a well a cat rested. The farmer and his wife came out and the greeted our guide Maxim warmly and offered rare and friendly Ukrainian smiles to us. They talked and gave us a tour of the farm. These farmers were some of the only ones still offering to talk to visitors, after the Fukushima disaster their village was overrun with reporters and many stopped talking. Our hosts were incredibly gracious and so welcoming that with Maxims reassurance and following his lead a few of us even popped a couple of the ripe hanging mulberries into our mouths (delicious!) [I also took a sample to be mass-speced later, we will see the intelligence of this small indulgence]

You cannot taste radiation, It has no feel, no smell, yet it has left indelible marks on this landscape. A electromagnetic topography exists in contrast to and augmenting the physical ground. In zones like Chernobyl and Fukushima the invisible and ephemeral become more of a concern than the overt. The industrial production of nuclear power projected though inevitable accident and obsolescence has created this space. It defines a population, truncates lives and dictates new spatial conditions. These deviations define a haven of sorts, a liminal zone where insurgent populations and ecologies can exist.

It is our charge as designers of the built environment to take on such zones, to deal with them is not easy, the issues are severe yet lend themselves to mehtods of data driven design. They serve as prototypes and vehicles of critique for everyday concerns taken to the extreme. These sites are warnings and testbeds, testiment to human folly and strength; they are not going away anytime soon.

After showing us around the farm, the ponds, and the fields, we gave the farmers a few gifts scrounged from our supplies. The group posed for a photo. 19

A DATA SET 2111 [+100] 4.89%

_Japan 377,923.1 km² 4 major islands _Honshu 231,608.8 km² _Population 128,057,357

Directly following the events of 3.11 and the resultant radioactive release at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant 66,773.93km² of land were contaminated by detectably elevated levels of radiation. This figure represents 28.83% of the island of Honshu and 17.7% of the total land area of Japan. 20

_California 423,970 km² _ _ _ _Population 37,691,912 The events at Fukushima represents a fundamental challenge to architects and planners to consider how this ephemeral yet implicitly quantifiable metric will impact the future of this zone. It is not possible to apply the same method of simple temporal reduction and abandonment that resulted in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Given that the inhabitation of radionucleide contaminated space is both inevitable and ongoing, the availability of hyper local open source data can drive a greater awareness of the challenges faced when cleaning up contaminated landscapes in Japan as well as drive a data and information reactive system for the implimentation of multifunctional architectures.

2031 [+20] 31.86%

relative residual 2021 [+10] 41.78%

2012 [+1]

83.3%

Cs 134 Cs 137

Due to the nature of the contamination, these zones are temporally dynamic. Since the outset of the release they have continued to change. This chornologically responsive zone is defined by the type of contamination as well as itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s emission level. The initial release dispersed radioactive material according to the weather patters. Already a major contributor to the initial release of radiation; I-131 with a halflife of only 8 days has all but dissappeared. The remaining contamination is approxamatly split equally with Caesium 134 and Caesium 137 (Cs 134/137) both contributing around 50% of detectable latent radioactivity.1 This split is important because of the different half-lives of the isotopes. While Cs 137 has a half-life of 30 years, Cs 134 has a halflife of only 2 years. As a result, even over the relatively short time of a year since the release, the amount of cumulative radioactivity can be predicted to be 83.3% of the initial release (not counting minimal emissions from I-131 or other decay products) This percentage will continue to decrease over time gradually lowering the detectable levels in the landscape. Thus smaller areas will fall into the guidelines for contamination. 1 Ahn, Joonhong (November, 2011). The Fukushima aftermath and waste management. Presented at Stanford SLAC Colloquium, Stanford, CA.

3.2011

2041 [+30] 25.00%

100%

2061 [+50] 15.66%

caesium

Cs 132.91

*134 *137

SAFECAST.ORG

was set up a month after the events at Fukushima as a crowd sourced radiation sensor network1 to provide a more accurate and specific insite into the radiation situation in Japan. The project takes advantage of the recent strength of hacker spaces and community data sharing. Since itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inception safecast has periodically posted itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s full data set online in CSV format for critique and review. The data is generated by members who take a suite of GPS enabled geiger counters on drives though Japan. Despite the official lock down of the zone, a few of the drives we able to get up to the gate of the Fukushima plant and prove high resolution hyper-local data through a huge gradient of readings. The data has a resolution down to as little as 1M if the car is moving slowly. Although on the ground measurement has shown that the data is much more complex than that varying orders of magnitude over as little as 50cm2. For most of the 450 tracks resolution is only limited by the accuracy of the GPS readings. As of 2/12 the data is about 1.1 million points. That size data set proved unworkable and using an algorithmically driven random selection I reduced the working set to approximately 35000 points representative of the whole for complex analysis. The resulting resolution averaged between 3M in multiple passes and urban areas to around 5-10M on fast moving on remote roads.

1 Safecast About, At: http://blog.safecast.org/history/ (accessed Jan 1st 2012). 2 Safecast Japan, Measuring Radiation in Fukushima, At: https:// vimeo.com/41645983 (Accessed April 29th 2012). 22

d248n d249 d250 d251 d252 d253 d254 d255 d256 d257 d258 d259 d260 d261 d262 d263n d264 d265n d266 d267 d268 d269 d270 d271 d272 d273 d274 d275n d276 d277n d278n d279 d280 d281 d282 d283 d284 d285 d286 d287 d288n Default labels ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref

ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref

277 .78

ref248.288 03.18.4.17.12 µsvCPM.117

Default labels ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref

d117 d120 d121sm d123 d124 d125 d126 d127 d128 d129 d130 d131 d132 d133 d134 d135 d136 d137 d138 d139 d140 d141 d142 d143 d144 d145 d146 d147 d148 d149 d150null d151 d152 d153 d154 d155 d156 d157 d158 d159 d160 d161 d162 d163 d164 d165 d166 d167 d168 d169 d170

277 .78

ref117.170 02.59.4.17.12 µsvCPM.117

d338weird 338x d344 d357 d367 d376 d389 d438 d457 d463 REF d475 Default labels ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref ref

277 .78

ref338.475 03.41.4.17.12 µsvCPM.117

d64 Default d65 ref d66 dr1 d67 dr2 d68 dr3 d69 D4 d70 D5 d71 D6 d72 D7 d73 D14-null d74 d15-null d75 d16-null d76 d17-small d77 d18-small d78 d19 d79 d20 d80 d21small d81 d22 d82 d23 d83 d24 d84 d25 null d85 d26 null d86 d27 d87 d28 d88 d29 d89 d30 d90 d31 d91 d32 d92 d33null d93 d34 d94 d35 d95 d36 d96 d37 d97 d38 d98 d39 d99 d40null d100 d41 d101 d47 d102 d48small d103 d49 d104 d50sm d105 d51sm cut1 d52 eng01 d53sm rast1 d54 ref d55 pop built-up areas d56sm Layer 01 d57 Layer 01 d58 Layer 01 d62sm Layer 01 d63

277 277 .78 .78

rad ref338.475

03.41.4.17.12 µsvCPM.117

27 7.7 8

ref1475 17.03.4.17.12 µsvCPM.117

_total_points 1,108,482 _max readaing 11662 CPM 33.32 µSv/hr _average reading 111.722217 CPM 0.319206 µSv/hr _section diameter reading 23

mit r li e k wor ad r /hr µSv yr 0 5.7 mSv/ 50

µSV 10000

an ct sc

PA 0x] E 1 [ r v/h 7 µS 1.140

[50

limit

imit gram [5x] l ammo r h m / v V µS 5 µS 3000 [2x] 0.5703xray limit 1.5x] /yr] e in A p P s E [ 1 mSv [ V e it l S ic l b µ im b u l 1500 to pu ublic hr do v/ ap ber 14 µS r mem 1.5 ep 0.22805 µSv/hr PA limit fo 0.1711 µSv/hr E 7 0.1140

Japan follows similar guidelines for radiation exposure as the US EPA.1 They correspond to relatable levels in terms of background. The EPA dictates that the maximum cumulative exposure for a memeber of the public in a year is 1 mSv/yr (1000µSv/yr) which equates to .11407µSV/hr.

The threshold for a detectable cancer risk: 100 mSv/yr µSv/hr is equivalent to 11.409µSv/hr. These levels make the most sense in relation to land use and zoning as they span the gambit of background though only instrument mensurable difference to hazardous levels hundreds of times background.

For some perspective in Chernobyl 200 M from the reactor I measured a dose of 4.24 µSv/hr. 24

0.11407 µSv/hr EPA limit for member to public [1 mSv/yr] 1 McCandless, David Radiation Chart at: bit.ly/RadiationChart 0.171105 µSv/hr 1.5x EPA public limit (accessed August 2011.) 0.22814 µSv/hr double EPA limit 0.57035 µSv/hr 5x limit

2061

2021

2012

2011

low risk 0.171105 µSv/hr ~1.50 mSv/yr

0.22814 µSv/hr ~2.00 mSv/yr

_1.5x greater EPA limit 2011: 66,773.936 km² 28.83% _Honshu

_2x greater EPA limit 2011: 7,291.423 km² 3.15% _Honshu

2061

2021

2012

2011

0.57035 µSv/hr ~5.00 mSv/yr

1.1407 µSv/hr ~10.00 mSv/yr

_5x greater EPA limit 2011: 6,810.062 km² 2.94% _Honshu

_10x greater EPA limit 2011: 1151.377 km² 0.49% _Honshu The collection method of the safecast data set limits its point data to roads. In order to generalize its reading I used a weighted Thiessen polygon distribution in order to produces a tessellated collection of sampled zones covering the landscape between tracks.

2061 2021 2012 2011

5.703978 µSv/hr ~50.00 mSv/yr

_[50x] limit for nuclear workers 2011: 808.764 km² 0.35% _Honshu

These zones are then classified according to their level and where that falls in the dose-risk spectrum on the facing page. Furthermore, by correlating the projected decay rates discussed earlier in this chapter it’s possible to predict what levels will exist in any sampled area at any point in the future.

2061 2021 2012 2011

11.407955 µSv/hr ~100.00 mSv/yr

_[100x] lifetime cancer risk increase 2011: 67.307 km² 0.003% _Honshu 25

UNK

FUNAHIKI

TOKIWA

KAMMATA

ONONIIMACHI

ODAKA

NAMIE

UKEDO

FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NPP

TOMIOKA

KOORI

FUKUSHIMA

KAWAMATA

As of the end of 2011 the contamination in Japan’s soil has been found to be about 5 cm deep1. If the volume of contaminated soil taken 5 cm deep over the total land area with a projected level of at least 1.5x the EPAs background limit: 66,773 km² were concentrated on the island of Manhattan the resultant mass would be over 56 m tall and have a volume of over 3 trillion cubic meters of material2. Although alarming this total amount of soil does not necessarily need to be remediated as its levels, although distinctive elevated above background, fall below predicated risk levels. In the 2011 figures 808.76 km² are at or above the cumulative exposure limit for nuclear workers in the United States while 67.31 km² and approxamately

3,365,500 m³ of earth are emitting levels above the threshold of a detectable increase in cancer risk.

1.5x EPA 66,773.935 km² 3,338,700,000 m³ 56.11 m

2x EPA

7291.422 km² 364,570,000 m³ 6.13 m

These dangerous zones are dispersed but most of the explicitly dangerous levels that will continue to endure for at least one half life are contained within the official 20 km exclusion zone. Without active remediation by 2061 (50 years after that disaster) following decay guidelines total radiation values would still be at 15.66% of their 2011 levels. This means that according to this analysis there would be no areas in 2061 that exceeds the EPAs cancer risk threshold.

6810.06 km² 340,500,000 m³ 5.72 m

10x EPA 1151.38 km² 57,569,000 m³ 0.97 m

SOMA

This temporal baseline prediction allows speculation on an adaptive zoning that would be driven by the shifting zones or radioactivity. An adaptive data driven zoning proposes the most effective method tor targeting remediation to the population centers most affected by contamination as well as to provide guidelines to cities and towns in the contaminated areas.

5x EPA

HARAMACHI

The arbitrary zoning that resulted in the 20 km zone may have been adequate for the initial disaster response but with data a more nuanced and sensitive view of the zone is necessary. The availability of this new hyper local data is unique to this disaster and it’s implementation can provide a model for similar events in the future. The inherently quantifiable nature of radiation and it’s scientific implications particularly lends itself to a parametric zoning and design process that is often stretching to quantify

Though data driven implementation of adaptive zoning and targeted remediation, more land can be rendered safe faster.

parameters for design.

1 Ahn, Joonhong (November, 2011). The Fukushima aftermath and waste management. Presented at Stanford SLAC Colloquium, Stanford, CA. 2 Figures based on SafeCast Open source data January 2012

(50x)Limit for radiation workers

(100x) threshold for detectable increase of cancer risk

808.76 km² 40,438,000 m³ 0.68 m

67.31 km² 3,365,500 m³ 0.06 m 27

A CONVERSATION

//05.05.12// //14:11:43// //37.870765, -122.254717, +337.5 //UC_Berkeley// //Wurster Gallery// >>: Bryan Allen [RR]: Ron Rael----------------Thesis Studio Director, UCB [JB]: Joseph Becker--------------------Curator SF MOMA [DF]: David Fletcher--------------------------Professor CCA [NdM]: Nicholas de Monchaux-------------Professor UCB [LC]: Leigh Christy--------------------------Writer/Architect [JA]:Javier Arbona-------------------Academic/Intellectual [DG]: David Gissen-----------Experimental Historian, CCA [MK]: Melanie Kaba---------------theorist researcher UCB [PT]: Peter Testa----------------------Testa/Weiser SciArch [MA]: Mark Anderson----------------------- Professor UCB ///////////////////////begin transcription///////////////////// >>My name is Bryan Allen welcome to TerraTox’is >>There are 66,773 square kilometers in Japan that are above background levels of radioactive contamination as a direct result of the Fukushima disaster*. That’s 28.8% of the island of Honshu and 17.7% of the total land area of Japan*. That volume taken [only] five centimeters deep* is enough to burry Manhattan under 56.11 meters of contaminated soil. Traditional methods of remediation have failed in the hyper dense condition of japan. It is no longer possible to apply the same scenarios that created the spatial condition of Chernobyl as an exclusion zone to never be entered.

>>Given that the inhabitation of radionucleide contaminated zones is both inevitable and ongoing, the availability of hyper local open source data coupled with robotic implementation of rapid prototyping at a landscape scale, a method can be derived to remediate and construct architecture out of this toxic earth. >>Radiation is measured in micro Sieverts. For Example the EPA dictates that 1000 micro Sieverts or 1 milli Sievert is the acceptable background level for a member of the general public. As you can see in Japan 66773 square kilometers is at least 1.5 times that. 100 times that is the cancer risk threshold, in Japan according to my numbers that’s 67 square kilometers. >>The sensors that are collecting this data are part of an open source network called SafeCast which was put together by the Tokyo HackerSpace after the events of 3.11 to give a counter reading of the Government’s picture of the radiologic situation in Japan. It’s a distributed source network and I’ve been able to work with 1.4 million data points to give an alternate idea of what the radiation situation in Japan is, that is these diagrams here. This hyper local ability to read the landscape and provide impetus for intervention is new, this has never happened before, and no disaster has been able to be quantified in this way. It can be read: not only by humans but by robots. >>This is a new method of radiologic remediation. Robotic Agents are dispersed into the landscape; they seek radiation, deploy a drill and dig it up. That waste is then collected for stabilization. The waste is composed of the top five centimeters of topsoil and other materials.

>>The main contaminants are Cesium 137 and Cesium 134, they are split about equally. The radioactive halflife of Cs 137 is 30 years the radioactive half-life of Cs 134 is 2 years. When the robots find a radiation source they dig it up. In that process they have the ability to interact with the waste and to sort it. High level waste is vitrified in situ by a CNC plasmic vitrification machine, which this is an example of. Waste is vitrified into a stable glass like material. >>Mid and low level waste are left in the landscape as artifacts of the contamination. Their shape is directly dictated by both the substrate that they are adhered to and the levels of radiation that they have. The shape is dictated again by an equation of shielding-for a certain thickness of material there is an amount of radiation reduction that takes place across it. So for any shape thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a mediating attribute to it. The creation of those shapes is driven by the specificity possible though CNC controlled plasmic vitrification. >>High level wastes are taken out of the landscape and transported back to the actual Fukushima Daiichi site for permanent sequestration. At the entry of the project they are scanned and quantified to be catalogued into a robot readable waste archive. High level wastes are then reprocessed and concentrated into archival blocks while low levels wastes are separated out and used to fabricate adaptive shielding. Similar to <this> material. The thickness of any given tile in the network is dictated by the amount of shielding necessary at that point. So the thickness reduces the initial dose on the ground to a background dose on the new surface, effectively nullifying it.

Presentation Process 29

>>The method of storage is driven by topographic efficiency in that the robots seek the highest levels and they travel along the paths of least resistance towards them. Therefor they travel first along those paths storing waste there first. >>The facility itself also houses a research program: the TerraTox’is research facility concentrated around the 4 damaged reactors. It is a full scale 3d printed vitrified glass structure based around a proto-module which provides a containment ringed by circulation and service spaces—basically a nine square grid. That module is then rotated though space in order to provide access and adequate shielding for the research program. This structure fulfills the necessary programs of the removal of fissile material as well as providing a matrix for the support of the study of radiologic effects on full scale buildings, objects, even spacecraft. The framework itself is constructed of concrete and steel in filled with adaptive low level shielding tiles.

>>We have been aware of the existence of radioactivity for 110 years. In that short time is has inexorably changed the world and defined the Atomic age. Now in that post glamorous Atomic age we learn about radioactivity’s affects though disasters. It’s changed the way we think about zone, environment and building. It has the power to render vast areas uninhabitable, unfit for architecture or for inhabitation. This loss of formally urbanized or developed land is unacceptable. To continue the exponential outward expansion of the past is not only irresponsible but in as highlighted in Japan indeed impossible. As architects we can no longer accept business as usual. We are unique in our multiple functions of moderating aesthetic, functional, spatial, and technical concerns. Architecture must exist on these sites. 30

>>It is out nature to build, to restore, to survive, to learn, and evolve. This solution, for this time, for this place, for this problem, is TerraTox’is.

[NdM]>>So...If existing modes of remediation are characterized by their failure modes, what is the failure mode of TerraTox’is? How would this fail? >>The failure would be the robots running wild, in a glut of radiologic contamination, they would begin to vitrify everything, obviously that would be undesirable [NdM]>> We’ve had these conversations over the course of the semester, obviously the project is fabulous, I challenge it on the grounds of whether it is a commentary on the large scale systems thinking that tells us that nuclear power is safe and reliable or whether the continuing failure of nuclear power is a testament to a larger phenomenon where large systems tend towards failure. And I think to me the failure mode of your system is the kind of pressure point on which one might discover whether how this system is designed to fail, so your system is commentary. That mediation erases the absurdity of a totalizing, universal system for remediation or whether that failure is something that you are embracing and encouraging as part of the architectural act. >>The system is designed to take advantage of the robustness of redundancy in that multiple agents dispersed into the environment could fail and would, but it would still provide a better solution than rendering mass areas of valuable land uninhabitable or raised. [DG]>>I’m interested that you see images of people thought the images of the project but you haven’t spoken too much on the whole about the spatial experience. How do you imagine these people to interact in this thing besides just being researchers? I feel there is another kind of experience that you are trying to convey to people.

>>There’s inherently a time variable endemic to the research program in that Cesium contaminated waste needs to be remediated for at least 100 years, so this structure needs to remain intact over that time span. After that point structure this massive would become a sort of archeological site. And under the assumption that we do move away from nuclear power, it would be a landmark and an archeological record where future people could learn about the effects of nuclear power on the long time scale. Indeed even as it would be built now there is no real locus of learning about these effects in the real world, about these massive events where all sorts of materials have been contaminated. It didn’t happen in Chernobyl; for the most part it was buried and abandoned. [DG]>>but If we consider this tele-visually, just as a thin, people are going to have a lot of ideas about this things forms of representation besides its biology, its chemistry, You are transforming it into a landscape right? >>Right [DG]>>so your intervention—it’s almost like a Fullerite, some of the aesthetics and the way that we see it, and it seems like you are trying to make us see it as more than just an engineering statement…as something else. [LC]>>I think I want to know if the spaces are inhabitable, when would you use it?—something about the need to be underneath it? I guess there’s a question of time, do you mean now or do you mean in a few years or what do you mean by inhabit? Can I build on this layer? Or is it just for learning? >>The idea of the double skin is to reduce the radiation reading on top of it to background level, therefore rendering it as a hypothetical buildable surface. Boolean Section: reactor 1 building with adaptive enclosure 31

[LC]>>so that would be the new ground surface which would have a different materiality than the soil around it? >>It would become eventually covered in soil through natural erosion, but initially it would be the vitrified soil material held in its frame. [JB]>> If the future purpose of this is to be built upon, how did you arrive at this aesthetic itself? Really the whole project is to create a future landscape 100 years from now that can be occupied again, but what you’re doing in being informed by the structure to remediate not to potentially provide new ground? >>I would say that the initial intention is to remediate with the secondary intention to provide new ground in the future. [DF]>>Is it tourism based? There’s this whole issue of artifact and encapsulating this radioactive moment in a response to its energy. Is it going to be future tourists that are going to come here? >>I would think it would be researchers, tourists, and former residents who would want to reclaim their land [LC]>>Or the decedents of... [NdM]>>I’m still stuck on the radioactive parametric. I think it’s such an interesting and surprisingly comfortable cohabitation because unlike say a parametric urbanism which attempts to reduce to numbers the things which can and should not be simply reduced to numbers, the radioactivity and half lives in particular lend themselves to quantification.

[NdM]>>Latour when he writes about atomic science writes about the ‘invention’ of radioactivity, radioactivity always existed but at a certain point in the modern culture it has to exist because this way in which science could seem to unlock deep power from the world fulfilled a certain cultural narrative about science. And the kind of quantifiable promethean nature of radioactivity had to exist. And then the story of radioactivity in the 20th century is also the story of the ways in which all of the promises [of atomic power] fell apart. Into the ways in which complex systems turn out to fail. So again I’m really interested in the performance base. You stuck with the performance; I mean you’re up there wearing a yellow suit. It’s definitely a whole performance so I’m interested in the quality, which you may not totally mean, of satire in the performance. I’m particularly interested in the core; at the heart of the radioactive core of Fukushima underneath the Fullerized dome is the Haduckian 9 square grid as the kind of radioactive engine of this formalism. And I’d love to hear your take on the notion of satire in this project, because I know that you also have some really sincere beliefs about the possibility of fixing nuclear contaminated places and yet there is also this satirical component to it and you have finessed it so very capably, so that both are present. But can you talk a little bit about satire? >>Well I would say that there’s a moment in a parametric design process when you have to press the bake button. There’s a limit to data, there’s a limit to a rasterized notion of logic, and engineering and parametric processes assume an absolute. They assume certain given metrics [for example] 1 micro Sieverts per year is safe. The satirical notion is that working under these very stringent guidelines; this ‘bullet train on fire’ can run away and do pretty crazy things while still following these set guidelines. So a more adaptive and less engineering based [intervention is necessary]. We have to moderate engineering with intervention, that’s architecture.

[JA]>>so the Satire, if I’m understanding this correctly, is partly your satirizing the technology and these processes in architecture? Or are you just using satire to make a comment about nuclear energy? >>I would say both, I think, as Nicholas said, that Nuclear energy was seen as this amazing thing that’s going to send spaceships to Mars. And supposedly nuclear reactors rarely fail, however we’ve seen it almost every 25 years for the last 70. Every 25 years there is a major reactor [event or] explosion. And we don’t have a method to deal with that. We need comments on that. [JA]>>Just a quick comment about that, I think the project is really spectacular and there is tons of work on the wall, but I think to me there is something kind of peculiar about where you chose to site the project, because in a way you’re…I see this intention of kind of moralizing about nuclear energy, but one could say that maybe this is something that should be situated wherever they are mining [the materials] themselves right? Where is that coming from? Who’s mining it anyway? Why is it ending up in Japan? Because I again I think the project is very accomplished but at the end you have that kind of statement, that kind of heroic statement that you made, about what the architect is supposed to do, and what our responsibility is. But in a way Japan has certain particular problems in terms of energy and where it extracts energy and derives energy from. So we can’t generalize for all countries. What I’m saying is there are more complicated conditions that go into the decision of using nuclear than just saying no. But, being in this context, where you are in school: at a University that is very central to the whole nuclear establishment that has been a huge part of selling nuclear energy to the world. [NdM]>>There’s radioactive territory 100 yards away that can’t be remediated

[JA]>> So I think that it is sort of an interesting and sort of weird geographical leap that you made that this has to be [in Japan]. That we have to make the point here where it went off, but think there are a ton of other geographies that we could really start to pull apart here. I would want to be a fly on the wall when you make those sorts of decisions in the beginning when you make the decision to say I’m going to go on this travel grant and go see this all. We never got into that much, did you go there? >>Rather than designing for a mine site the more pressing issue is dealing with the contamination in more direct proximity to a population at risk. I was in Japan when this happened and I went to Chernobyl with the Architectural Associations Unknown Fields. [DG]>>ah so you were there with Liam Young [DG]>>I think for me where this project is the most exciting and most interesting and weird in a good way is how you’ve aligned what we understand as a very data driven approach to architecture, parametrics, with a language with a much longer history of funereal architecture. Especially this whole thing with burial and mummification in a way. It’s really interesting in a way; those are two languages that you wouldn’t really think of having the possibility to be aligned except in a really absurd way. I think that what’s interesting about the project is that while it may come off as satirical it doesn’t come off as absurd. Somehow you aligned those things really nicely. It’s very provocative for me in terms of how it ties those two things which I though couldn’t be linked in meaningful way. This kind of the Fuller dome being turned into a kind of cairn-a pile of stones that marks a place of something.

Augmented Display: researchers in core entombment year 2116 35

>>Fundamentally this project is about legibility, you can’t sense radiation, but what if we could visualize that? The visualization scheme and the glasses are about trying to shift the perception beyond the visual spectrum. To see things, that exist, that effect very fundamentally the creation of architecture and denotation of space and have the ability to become legible. [DG]>>maybe you could deal with the issue of death, you say cancer, not that cancer obviously equals death, you can treat cancer but in this context cancer equals a great big narrative of human life. So it’s very interesting.

[DF]>> What’s interesting to me is that this is the second or third of these throwback projects in some ways whereas the previous project was really about how do you deal with the issue of the deconstruction of the world whereas in your case it’s really interesting to me this kind of undercurrent of new wave like early eighties Devo, which is quite literally [expressed]. I mean playing Kraftwerk and all of that it’s very interesting the idea of mutation was very central and devolution and Mongoloids if you listen to the first album. Is that something you were consciously aware of? >>yes, [laughter]

[LC]>>I’m wondering, you said the difference between this and Chernobyl is it was buried, but you are in essence burying this too, but you are burying this visibly. So I think it’s powerful. I’m still not convinced there’s a clear concept of what inhabit means and how to get to that point but what I do like is it would have been really easy for you to get obsessed fully with the process because it’s intricate it has many steps and it has gadgets, but what I like is at least at some point you brought it to a conclusion without losing the fact that there is a process. So in as much as it is data driven or its research driven there’s evidence that if I could inhabit the site by being a tourist or a learner or whatever it is, I may not understand the process but I can see that there was one. And that there is a half-life and things like that, that there’s an aging process that I think is successful. And I’m just wondering what the inhabitation of that is?

[DF]>>of course, but that was in repo man and that whole time had resigned to the fact that we are the Mongoloids and we are toxic in a sense and didn’t suggest solutions. To me this solution is actually quite conventional in a sense, that you are capping it. But it’s creating something that is permeable. To me there’s and interesting potential communication that could happen, when they encapsulate a lot of nuclear waste for example they’re using symbols. When you read the world without us there’s and account in that where you read about how to communicate with people in a thousand years. So had you considered in a sense [this communication]? >>So there is a fundamental distinction between that time scale on the order of thousands of years with the time scale that we are dealing with here, because the wastes that need to be remediated have a much shorter lifespan that what we would deal with in so-called ‘permanent solution’ (geologic isolation) hundreds of years vs. thousands of years. So the language of legibility is more machine readable here vs. more formalized like the landscape of spikes in The World Without Us or the proposals for Onkalu in Finland [as detailed in Into Eternity]

[DF]>>and also right now you know that Reactor number 4 is so off the charts, they don’t even know how toxic it is. It’s the only one of the four that has this little portal where they can put a sensor in and the sensor only lasts for 10 minutes and so how does technology survive in extreme environments like that? [RR]>>unfortunately this has to be the last comment [NdM]>>I just want to talk about the 3d thing, that’s also a very throwback retro notion of ‘we’ll see better’ somehow by seeing in depth, and yet it’s headache inducing and all these other things. So again I can think of satire, or we can take it as the kind of positivist attempt to increase legibility, but I think that they’d’ that you need is the 4D of Time. I wonder if you ever considered presenting this thing as the ruin of itself, as the ruin of this attempt to heal.

[RR]>>I’m going to jump in and sort of bring it to a close. I think it’s interesting that we spanned the gambit of cultural conversation and that I never thought of this till now until talking about 3d, but thinking about Godzilla and how Godzilla didn’t come to play till maybe this conversation and how that as a cultural icon as a way to communicate nuclear energy at its inception in Japan. And how this is kind of an identifiable monument to the nuclear event to feed back into the culture through satire, and I think that it’s important. One thing really like about the project is that it can simultaneously look at solution and that satire exposes the ultimate truth that allows people to much more easily digest a plausible solution for re-occupation. I think it’s very difficult for the general public to say ‘well nuclear landscapes are landscapes of possible re-occupation’ and I think you have done that very well and have dealt with all those issues very well, thank you.

[MK]>>right this scar tissue, thinking of this as a scar or as a Band-Aid of the future, and also the robot itself and the role that is plays making this scar, and what happens to the robot? And what happened to the robot in the performance? I don’t know where it went. So that would be also something to continue to think about. It’s very provocative and I love the different scales that you are working at but for me it was the robot but also the human interaction within this system.

122.65 39.96

Augmented Display: Workers In Decay Archive Year 2100 37

A MACHINE

Quantifyable data guides a recursive topographic logic of robotic efficiency. Robotic seekers become the

primary agents of decontamination. The prototype presented here is fully functional at scale and could be implemented in cleaning hoards. It could also be scaled up to deal with larger areas and greater levels of contamination. Additionally it could be waterproofed to deal with undersea contamination. The prototype is based around the Arduino micro controller. It drives a gearbox grafted to a set of Theo Jansen legs. The walking mechanism allows the robot to move across rougher and more varied terrains than wheels. It is equipped both with guidance sensors that detect radiation on the sub-milimeter resolution and with code written to follow concentrations of radiation and dig it up. When the device encounters a specified threshold level it deploys a drill and removes the contaminated material from he environment. This material is vacuumed up while being freed. It is processed on the machine into low and high level wastes.

wastes are vitrified into artifacts of contamination and left in situ in the landscape. Low and medium level

//soil auger

//actuator

//Logic Control

//Contamination collection //Drive System

//IR sensor //Radiation Detector Array

//TerraToxis //Prototype Îą0.5 landscape walker

Ib=Iae

Âľx

As well as being the agents of removal and sensing contamination in the landscape, the robots house a suite of 3d printers.

plasmic vitrification via acetylene torches to render radioactive waste insoluble. The waste The printers utilize

is contained in individually fabricated adaptive shielding forms defined by the amount of energy it produces.

For any given amount of radiation an equation of shielding can be assigned to provide a specific shape that will reduce the levels to a desired level. The creation of these forms is made possible by the vertical integration of ultra high resolution data though 3d printing technology.

CNC machines fitted with torches become mobile 3d printers.

The great advantage is that they do not have to carry the heavy materials normally associated with full scale 3d printing. Their material is all around--contaminated earth, the only thing they carry is fuel. The printers leave a trail of vitrified objects, artifacts of remediation, physical manifestations of radiant ephermera. Under and inert shell an invisable glow decays to lead.

Ib: intensity after shielding Ia: initial intensity e: eulers number Âľ: material attenuation coefficient per cm x: material thickness in cm

//vitrified soil

956.6 kg/m3 SOIL

µ=7.6170

xx xx 3D PRINT

650 kg/m3 µ=6.9315

N2 O2

AIR

1000 kg/m3

H20 H WATER

µ=3.8508

1.184 kg/m3

78%

µ=.04621

21%

11300 kg/m3 Pb LEAD

µ=69.315

Fe Fe C Fe Fe STEEL

7850 kg/m3

Si Si Si Si Si Si Si Si

GLASS Si Si CaO SiO2 Al2O3 CONCRETE

Si Si

µ=27.726

67% 23%

H HO B O

H3BO3 O H BORIC ACID O

SAND

O O S SiO O iO O SiO O

2600 kg/m3 µ=11.781 2402 kg/m3 µ=11.363 1435 kg/m3 µ=8.724***

1334.4 kg/m3 µ=8.544

Backround: Core Enclosure Research Framework

A VISION //04

As forging walkers scour the landscape for contamination work goes The former Fukushima Diichi power plant site it converted

a nexus of decontamination and nuclear waste storage research.

High level wastes encountered by the walkers are brought back to the site and incorporated into a radiation archive. This archive as well as the frameworks for decommissioning and containing the 4 compromised reactors is enclosed by an adaptive network of panels. Each panels thickness corresponds to the amount of radiation within and renders that amount null on itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface. At the core of the site an architecture is focused on the research program encasing the reactors. Their mass supports the containment structure with a matrix of research program and above provides a new ground. A proto-architecutral 9 square guide section is projected through the project responding to programmatic concerns of providing circulation and containment separation for researchers. Over time the program evolves as the radioactivity lessens. It would become a monument, a cultural marker for the specter of nuclear power. The vast amounts of money necessary to construct the structure and spent to remediate the landscape would drive a

new radiation rush.

Workers scientists and researchers flock to the area in search of quick money. They build upon their glowing foundations, not conscientiously aware of the glowing heart below them but only aware of its simulacra, a mutated topography assimilated into landscape. Grafted technology littler the space of northern Japan, relics of an event, and remainders,

Glowing fullerites of matter, fading into dirt. great pyramids of waste.

//03

//02

//reactor 01 research structure

//thickness corresponds to radiation levels inside archive containment

//enclosure

Site Axonometric Boolean 43

archive interior 45

//03

//research framework

//02

//thickness corresponds to radiation levels inside archive containment

//reactor 01 research structure

Section: Reactor core research area 47

Architecture is inherently optimistic and in that sense Utopian, we propose something better. Moreover we

critique what exists, often through satire. To propose a project such as this is to highlight the insane complexity that we take for granted everyday and indeed in the architectural parametric design process. As a designer I have a complex relationship with the issues of nuclear power and parametric design as a whole, as new tools and information evolve so does my viewpoint. We cannot simply say how best to use a tool but rather through use iteration and investigation methods can evolve. In any process there has be a moment to move beyond the numerical based model-a moment to bake and process. This is the move from the safe into an arena of conjecture and creativity. So often we try to quantify things and get caught in a trap of rationalizing everything. Some things canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be rationalized, and in architecture they may still be those things. It is those things that drive critique: an artistic interpretation and growth, critique through a utopic vision. What if we have to courage to make that leap? The idea and definition on inhabitation must evolve, as must the sentient organisms involved in the inhabitation. If â&#x20AC;&#x153;we regard human [and other] society as a vital processâ&#x20AC;?(Kurokawa 68) then under the assumption of the necessity of reinhabitation, the adaptation to and dialectics of unexpected and challenging liminal zones provides the impetus and catalysis for such an evolution to occur on an accelerated time scale as a prototype. The controlled, isolated, and robustness of the problems encountered accelerates both the evolution of man and machine, grafting the accumulated societal and technological knowledge of the 20th century into the problems and new liminal zones of the 21st century.

In these zones a new society These zones: this TerraToxis and ecology evolves. It is an incubated island where grafts of organism/machine/humanity adapt to is the challenge of our time their temporally changing environment. Their adaptation is and architecture must rise to driven by Darwinian selection; as such intelligent systems Disruptive technologies incorporate aspects from all three groups to survive. They it. evolve by attrition and as such their forms relate to their make this possible. environment and its challenges. The eletro-active thrive.

DIS RUPT ING.

MEGA-MICROBESTRUCTURES Marisha Farnsworth

Statement Building with Microbes: A Handbook of Construction Methods Exhibit A Microbial Case Study Research 52 52

Architects and designers must harness the very processes of decay, cannibalizing our existing buildings to construct new architectural forms. Microorganisms already construct our environment: the air we breathe, the soil we walk on; even our own bodies are 99% microorganism by DNA. Employing microorganisms, the great decomposers, we can harness existing systems of decay to produce new structures that exist in a cycle of growth and decay. The new microbetecture will evolve with our changing needs. Architects will design not only construction, but demolition, an often overlooked architectural process, as well. Our current construction methods comprise between 25-30% of the waste in our landfills. Conventional buildings are fugitive, in constant combat with the forces of decay. Degraded by sun, wind, water and wear and tear our conventional buildings require regular maintenance. The finishes in these buildings slough off and are replaced regularly, much like the skin on our own bodies.

Not only decay, but remodeling, changing land values, and changing programmatic needs contribute to the short live-span of conventional building. In a study from 2004 on the actual service lives of North American buildings, researchers found that even buildings we consider permanent: buildings made of steel, concrete and wood last only as long as the humans who inhabit them**. In our rapidly changing society, we must seek architectural systems that can keep pace with our growth and desires.

*Data from “Study of Life Expectancy of Home Components” National Association of Home Builders, 2007. **O’Conner, Jennifer, et al. “Survey on actual service lives for North American Buildings.” 2004

Previous page and above: Living Fungus Model with 3d printed bacterial-plastic interior and exterior humidity enclosure (fungus not to scale). Interior-section view.

Conventional construction processes engender waste, inefficiency and pollution. Harnessing microbes and their processes of decay we can create the spaces that we desire, transforming our waste into new forms and remediating the urban landscape. Microorganisms can produce materials similar to those currently used in construction: insulation, plastic and stone-like substances. These materials are generated as microbes consume waste: construction waste, refuse, sewage sludge, agricultural waste, and desalination effluent can be transformed into new materials.

Microbe-construction is a process of improving our building culture through cultivation and fermentation: arranging nutrients and enacting specific environmental conditions to orchestrate growth and decomposition. Where our waste is collected municipally or consolidated through industrial processes, microbe materials can be grown in a large-scale operations as add-ons to our previously wasteful systems. Living with microbe-structures, cultivation can be more individual. Inhabitants assume the role of the designer-cultivator. Maintenance no longer entails a trip to the Home Depot, but involves a continual process of cultivation in fungal gardens, fermentation vats and nutrient preparations where residents develop the materials that best suit their needs. Strains can be identified and selected for their performance, for example: rate of growth, resistance to infection, color, durability, or insulation value. Neighborhoods are defined by microbial strains. While some microorganisms can produce desirable building materials, others create conditions dangerous for humans. Microorganisms already exist all around us, in us and on us, in a constant struggle for dominance; the cultivators of microorganism structures must work to maintain a healthy culture. As new atmospheres and environments challenge the way that we cohabitate with other life forms and designers learn to manipulate these cyclical building systems, a new non-linear architecture emerges.

Opposite above: Living Fungus Model, exterior view. Opposite below: Desiccated Fungus model, interior view. 56

THE MANUAL Building with Microbes is a manual that outlines construction methods for cultivating microbes as a material for construction. The building systems included are varied, both in the organisms that they employ and in the way those organisms are organized: as living matter, dead matter and even edible matter. The methods included range from the very practical to the speculative.

BUILDING WITH MICROBES A Handbook of Construction Methods

PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION:

Mat structures can be grown from various organisms, but one of the most widely used is the mycorrhizal fungal mat. Mats are lightweight and grow in a continuous structure composed of small branching threads; because of these qualities, mats are appropriate for building insulation as well as structural composite systems. Mats can be grown in a production facility or in situ. Nutrient for mats are primarily agricultural waste and waste housing stock, such as chipped wood products.

REMEDIATIVE BENEFITS

Discarded wood from remodelling or demolition may be chipped and consumed by the mat wall. Reusing components of existing buildings has as a nutrient source has the added benefit of encapsulating dangerous building materials, such as lead paint, thereby diverting them from landfill. The growth of the mycorrhizal fungal mat not only isolates the contaminant, but is inherently a bio-geochemical remediative process which can, for example, breakdown hydrocarbons or chemically transform lead paint into pyromorphite, which is harmless for humans. CAUTION: Chipping of contaminated wood is potentially hazardous and should only occur at a certified facility or a certified Mobile Mat Truck.

FORMWORK

One of the principle benefits of mat construction is the characteristic of the mat to grow continuously in any formwork where nutrients are placed. Mat structures are therefor formally diverse. Formwork for in-situ construction range from leave-inplace rigid bioplastic, to reusable inflatable form work, to stacked straw bales, which have been used for farm worker housing.

MATS

CONSIDERATIONS

Mycorrhizal mats require specific growing conditions including humidity, shade and access to oxygen. Unless specific oxygenation measures are taken, mats should be grown in skins no thicker than 6.â&#x20AC;? To achieve thicker walls, subsequent skins can be grown in layers as new growth will readily adhere to the dead material from the previous skin.

GROWTH

Care should be taken to cure mat structures at the appropriate moment. Optimum growth will appear as a solid white surface, at which point rapid desiccation is necessary to halt further growth. If left too long, primordia and fruiting bodies will emerge on the surface of the wall, generating spoor, which could cause fungal growth in undesirable areas. Living walls and fungus gardens cultivated for culinary and aesthetic reasons may serve as a reserve building stock. Successful fungal strains may be selected and multiplied on shade covered building surfaces.

TARPS AND SHADE

INFLATABLE FORMWORK

Mycorrhizal mats are accustomed to growing underground and must therefor be protected from sun and wind when grown for construction. Semipermeable shade cloths are essential for the in-situ growing period (2-4 weeks). After this period, cloths may be removed altogether, or retained either for the formation of fungal gardens or in anticipation of future remodels.

Because mat materials are lightweight, inflatable forms may be employed. Inflatable forms are reusable, although the desire for customization necessitates frequent fabrication of unique formwork.

1. LAY FORM ON FOUNDATION

Design foundation to with sufficient area for 6â&#x20AC;? variation in wall thickness.

1. IDENTIFY KEY POINTS

2. INFLATE FORM

3. INSTALL NUTRIENTS

Pack inoculated nutrients over form and cover with shade cloth.

CATENARY FORMWORK FOR VAULTED STRUCTURES Catenary formwork makes use of gravity to organize mats into vaults.

2B. FUNGAL GARDEN OPTION

2A. BASIC SHADE STRUCTURE

1. UNROLL MYCELIUM SHEETS

CONNECTION TO NEIGHBOUR

Mycelium sheets consist of inoculated nutrients in two layers of quilted plastic composite. Sheets should be used within 24 hours of delivery.

Connect pick points of mycelium sheet to crane arm.

2C. ENTRY WAYS AND CONNECTIONS

2. SUSPEND AND ANCHOR

3. INVERT AND CONNECT

Suspend sheets and anchor to the ground to achieve desired arch.

Desiccate arches and invert. Grow arches together with new mat material.

MYCO-RECOMPOSITION OF A LEAD CONTAMINATED HOUSE

COMPOSITE POD STRUCTURE

Bioplastic leave-in-place form work creates a dry and impermeable inner surface for human occupation and a toothy substrate for mat growth on the exterior. The mycelium mat is grown through the extruded bioplastic web. Together the interlocking web and mat create a robust structure.

LEAD (Pb)

Carefully remove siding and interior finishes containing lead paint.

1. IDENTIFY CONTAMINATES

Current building stock contains a host of materials hazardous to health. These can include but are not limited to: lead, asbestos, formaldehyde, and vinyl chloride

Components are chipped, and sterilized in the mycelium processing facility.

MOBILIZATION BY FUNGAL ACTIVITY

2. DIGEST COMPONENTS

Unwanted materials are removed, ground, sterilized, inoculated and blown back into flexible form work attached to the original structure.

The outer surface of the pod contains pockets where mycelium may be cultivated as a living wall. A vapor barrier must be installed between desiccated and living mat layers to prevent the total consumption of the structure by the living wall. If an expansion or addition to the building is desired, a new pod may be grown on to the existing living wall and desiccated.

INTERIOR WALL FINISH

Attach bioplastic to the original studs.

DESICCATED MAT

VAPOR BARRIER

FUNGUS POCKET MUSHROOM GARDEN

3. DESICCATE FORMS EXTERIOR

INTERIOR

PYROMORPHITE (Pb 5 (PO 4 ) 3 Cl)

After full fungal colonization, the hyphae are heated and desiccated freezing new forms as structure and insulation.

PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION

Films are abundant and grow in a variety of conditions. Films grow rapidly and have the benefit of being self-healing. As they require a constant source of moisture, construction applications should be constrained to exterior surfaces in areas where moisture is readily available, such as structures near mineral springs, oceans and other waterfront territories. While there are many films that may, with further research, be applicable for structures, calcium precipitating bacteria are one of the most promising as they produce a stone-like substance. Stromatolites, are an example of this biological geo-forming; a substance made by a community of bacteria dominated by cyanobacteria. The growth of this material has the added benefit of sequestering CO2. If every costal city in the US was covered in this film, our atmosphere would be radically changed.

C0 2

02 CaC0 3

BACTERIALLY INDUCED CALCIUM CARBONATE WALL Calcium carbonate walls will form only with a constant deposition of water containing calcium, such as sea water, so sites should be selected based on proximity to an appropriate water source. Water delivery equipment should be sized appropriately to reduce calcification. Locate water delivery at the upper most point of the site. Site work including

FILMS

retaining walls and or drainage trenches may be required. Existing structures may be used as a base frame, in some cases the construction of new frameworks may be necessary. Regular maintenance is required to rearrange water delivery systems as the structure grows.

STROMATOLITE WALL NEAR DESALINATION PLANT Stromatolites, the microbially manufactured geologies that one dominated our shorelines and fabricated an atmosphere fit for humans and other species, can now produce

architectural-atmospheric

system. Sea change in combination with a desalination plant create ideal conditions for a bacterial films. In coastal areas around the world, bacterial walls define a

CONTINUOUS SHORELINE PATH

Bacterial living walkways grow with the rising sea level, providing circulation paths through newly formed brackish marshes that cover former fill.

new architecture.

PORT OFFICES

Discarded shipping containers provide the base structure for bacterial sea walls as rising tides threaten the low-lying port.

WATER FRONT RESIDENCE

The inevitable necessity of sump-pumps comprises the new mechanical infrastructure that will at once keep residences dry on the interior while creating an evolving bacterial landscape and fortification on the exterior.

OAKLAND, CA

PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION Suspensions consist of particles of any material that are dispersed but not dissolved in a fluid. Microbial material is grown in a nutrient fluid, generally a readily available waste stream such as a sewage treatment plant, and then formed by heat into a fused plastic building material of any form.

GROWTH

Suspensions are a common form of cultivating microorganisms. All microorganisms and multicellular organisms are inherently either adherent or suspended: skin cells are adherent, while blood cells are suspended. In microbiological construction, suspensions are used to provide ideal nutrients that allow for maximum efficiency in growth. Many organisms that occur in water bodies are growing in suspension, for example the PHA producing bacteria which have been investigated here, historically grew in nutrient rich waters.

PROCESSING

SUSPENSION

After cultivation the bacteria, can then be dried or drained, filtered from the growth media, centrifuged and finally thermoformed. The thermoforming converts the otherwise fugitive organism into a semi-permanent building material, which under the right conditions remains biodegradable. The filtration and centrifuge process can be omitted to develop a building material with more irregular character and coloration, representational of the original nutrient source. Other waste stream products such as wood dust and bast fibers may be mixed into the PHA to create composite materials of varied strengths.

CONSIDERATIONS

While this process requires multiple steps to develop a final building product, including energy consuming heat extrusion or thermoforming, it provides incredible flexibility in fabrication, shape, form and thickness of the final product which can be worked and moulded like petroleum based plastics.

BIOPLASTIC FORMS AND COMPONENTS PHA is a bioplastic that can be produced from human waste alone, without the costly inputs associated with other bioplastics. The fermentation process requires the addition of equipment and tanks to be installed at the existing waste treatment facility, but otherwise takes advantage of an underutilized nutrient-rich waste product.

1. FERMENT NUTRIENTS

Sewage sludge is collected and fermented in new fermentation tanks at the wastewater treatment plant.

2. EXTRUDE BACTERIA

Bacteria are heat extruded, fusing their stored PHA into a solid form. Former shipping cranes are adapted as the armature for heat extrusion machines large enough to produce a room sized pod.

3. ASSEMBLE PODS

Extruded pods can be assembled into buildings and should be combined with other materials such as mat insulation.

Previous page: Thesis show installation in Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley, 2012. Opposite above: Detail: microscopic views through drawing panel: bacillus, cyanobacteria, mycelium, mycelium. Opposite below: 1:1 desiccated wall section. Mycelium consuming a wood framed wall. Above: Material studies: mycelium models, agar cubes, agar maps and plans.

66 1960

Lead Paint Banned

Organized Resistance To Urban Renewal

1940

Container Ships

Freeway Construction

1920

WWII Ship Construction

1900

Port Of Oakland

WWI Ship Construction

1880

Migration From San Francisco

1860

Victorian Construction Boom

Transcontinental Railroad

A MICROBIAL CASE STUDY

AIRBORN SO2, NOX, PM, CO2

PHAs

198

2040 2060

Atmospheric Transformation

DRY HABITATION ZONE

Microbial Land Formation

2020

Resident-Cultivated Microbial Housing

Construction of Free-Standing Microbe House

DIY zv Colonize Blocks

2000

First Houses Reconstructed with Fungus

EPA chooses West Oakland as Remediation Test Site

Lead Banned In Gasoline

HUMID MICROBE ZONE

FUNGUS GARDEN

LEAD CONTAMINATION: EXTENTS UNKNOWN

2080 2100

The prototypical site, located in Oakland, California is adjacent to multiple nutrient streams: the sewage treatment plant where bacterial-plastic is produced and a planned desalination plant where sea water effluent is turned into stone infrastructure. The neighborhood has an older building stock dating to the Victorian era. Rotting is common and the earth and homes are contaminated with old flaking lead paint and lead residue from the adjacent freeway. As desire for new living spaces transform the Victorian houses of the neighborhood, walls are decayed, rooms reconfigured and new mycelial walls consume the existing wood walls. As the lead paint covered wood surfaces are consumed, the lead is transformed into pyromorphite, a substance harmless for humans. The new thickened walls create an insulative barrier to the freeway traffic . Experiments in bacterial-plastic forms evolve into a packing system, where rooms can be added onto the existing structure at will. Bacterial-plastic is heat extruded into a mat structure for mycelium to grow through. Inner walls of the apartments are smooth bacterial-plastic, beyond that is a layer of desiccated mycelium. Living mycelium adheres to dead, desiccated mycelium, and in this way new pods can be attached to the existing structure at multiple points. Rooms are grown and decayed at will. The shade cloth necessary for the growing phase is retained for while the inner walls are desiccated and inert, the outer walls are maintained as living microbial gardens. Fungus farmers harvest mushrooms on shady apartment terraces, while kitchen and bathroom exhaust is filtered through living bacterial media. Each apartment has access to both the sunny, hydrocarbon filled outdoors, and the dank, humid, filtered microbial gardens. Usually shut off from the living space and accessed only a few times a day the microbial gardens proliferate. The wall section mediates between the dry and the humid conditions. Shade cloths are strung from one home to the next creating shared humid spaces. The megamicrobestructure colonizes the entire block and soon the neighborhood. A fungal forest proliferates in the spaces between, on and around dwellings.

Top left: Model detail: humid zone. Top right: Model detail: dry zone. Left: Study model.

RESEARCH

MYCELLIUM MODELS Over the course of the past year, I worked with several start up companies and researchers who I would like to thank for their assistance with this research. The experimental processes that I explored over the course of the year would not have been possible without their support of: Ecovative Design, Micromidas, Philip Ross, Daniel Fleishman, The Hyphae Design Lab and Back to the Roots. This work is also indebted to the Chester Miller Fund, which supported my travel to visit Ecovativeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facilities in the winter of 2012.

The construction methodologies proposed in this thesis are in no way endorsed by these advisors, they are future oriented provocations that require further MYCELLIUM MODELS research and development before implementation. These models were constructed using mycellium in combination with other materials such as wood, plastic, fabric. The nutrients varry but are generally composed of some sort of cellulose or woody matter--a stand in for chipped building components and agricultural waste. Some of these models were constructed as part of a beta test for Ecovative, a startup company based in New York.

These models were constructed using mycellium in combination with other materials such as wood, plastic, fabric. The nutrients varry but are generally composed of some sort of cellulose or woody matter--a stand in for chipped building components and agricultural waste. Some of these models were constructed as part of a beta test for Ecovative, a startup company based in New York.

fOrMwOrk: StaCkED Straw baLE

f S

fOrMwOrk: InfLatabLE

fraME + fabrIC

fraME fraME + fabrIC

fOrMwOrk: pLaStIC

Construction typology models, showing the phases of formwork, humid growth, and desiccation.

Opposite: Fungus Wall, detail images taken over a two week period. Above: Fungus Wall being misted in Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley.

DIS RUPT ING.

Peripatetic Free-spaces oriana m. cole

78 78

The city of Los Angeles lacks open spaces. The existing open and green spaces are banal and restrictive in their spatial allowances. In addition, they are becoming increasingly privatized and inaccessible to the public. The fabric of the city calls for space beyond the existing passive green areas and dull hardscapes for recreation. The city needs a system of public spaces that emphasizes the heterogeneity of the Los Angeles identity and provides a multiplicity of use. This thesis focuses on charging the city with a new system that will take advantage of the idiosyncratic freeway landscape of the region to create opportunities for public use. It will enact several mobility propositions to alleviate traffic and then, use liberated freeway sections to create transient and dynamic recreational spaces. This new system for making public space gives way to pockets of free-spaces around the city. Free -spaces will empower communities of Los Angeles to retake the infrastructure that was built for them and maximize its use in a fashion that has the power to dynamically stich together the disparate and contested areas of the city. The implementation of this system will activate the notorious infrastructure resulting in a vigorous intersection of spaces, activities, public invention and urban life. 79

Final Review Oriana M. Cole: On April 16th, 2012 Los Angeles Mayor Villareigosa announced the future plans for a citywide bicycle sharing system. In a city notorious for its concrete freeway landscapes and intense dependency on private transportation, this change in the mobility identity of the city will transform the city and its form. For me, this presents a unique opportunity to address another of LAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s critical problem: public and open spaces. This thesis focuses on charging the city with a new system that will take advantage of the idiosyncratic freeway landscape of the region to create opportunities for public space. It will enact several mobility propositions to alleviate and deviate traffic and then, use liberated freeway sections to create transient and dynamic recreational spaces. Named free-spaces, this new system of public spaces will activate the notorious infrastructure by instigating flash program opportunities for public use resulting in a vigorous intersection of activity, public invention, urban life and the LA identity. To begin, this proposal requires two components in order for this the system of spaces to come to life. Both components need to coexist in order to alleviate the traffic and congestion of the city and be able to liberate certain sections of the freeway in order to make the public spaces. The first mobility proposal which was to be a bicycle sharing program, has actually come to life since the beginning of the research. As I mentioned earlier, the city is launching a 16-million dollar bike sharing system. As promising as the bicycle program is, however, one must realize that a bicycle has limitations as a form of

Compton

STATIONS: URBAN STITCHING Large Capacity Station

Medium Capacity

ZONING ADJANCENCIES

1 mi.

North Valley

East Los Angeles

Multi Family Housing

Green

San Fernando Valley/ Hollywood

Downtown

Commercial

Open spaces

Santa Monica

Inglewood

Industrial

Single Family Housing

Central Los Angeles

2 mi.

5 mi.

1 mi.

2 mi.

Harbor

5 mi.

ZONING ADJANCENCIES Map of the city of Los Angeles Multi Family Housing demonstrating zoning adjencies Commercial overlayed on freeway paths ZONING ADJANCENCIES

Green Open spaces

ZONING ADJANCENCIES Green

Multi Family Housing 1 mi.

2 mi.

Green

Commercial

Open spaces

Single Family Housing Industrial

Industrial 1 mi.

2 mi. 5 mi. Multi Family Housing

Open spaces

Commercial

5 mi.

1 mi.

2 mi.

5 mi.

STATIONS: URBAN STITCHING Projective possibility of community inclusion and mixing

Single Family Housing

Industrial

Single Family Housing

Long Beach

Redondo Beach

County Stations

Large Capacity Station

Medium Capacity

County Stations North Valley

East Los Angeles

San Fernando Valley/ ZONING ADJANCENCIES Downtown Hollywood Family Housing SantaMulti Monica

Central Los Angeles

Harbor

Single Family Housing

Industrial

1 mi.

2 mi. 2 mi.

Green Inglewood Open spaces

Commercial

5 mi. 5 mi.

I-5

I-5 SR-118 I-210

SR-118

I-5 SR-170 I-5

SR-118

SR-101/134

I-210

SR-101

SR-101/134 I-110

I-405 I-5

SR-170 I-5 I-10 SR-101/134

SR-60

I-405 I-110

SR-101 I-405 I-105

AVERAGE DAILY TRAFFIC I-10

Interstate 150,000 - 300,00

FREEWAY CONDITIONS

Interstate > 300,00 cars Interstate < 150,00 cars

1 mi.

2 mi.

5 mi.

Transit and Storage Stations

Possible Active Free-spaces

Possible Inactive Free-spaces

Freeway Lanes High Occupancy Lanes

1 mi.

2 mi.

5 mi.

I-105

AVERAGE DAILY TRAFFIC Average volume of daily traffic

ZONING ADJANCENCIES Interstate Multi Family Housing < 150,00 cars

Green

Commercial

Open spaces

Industrial

Single Family Housing

2 mi. 1 mi.

2 mi.

Transit and Storage Stations

Possible Active Free-spaces Freeway Lanes High Occupancy Lanes

Inactive FREEWAY CONDITIONS Possible Free-spaces

Interstate > 300,00 cars

1 mi.

FREEWAY CONDITIONS Exaggerated freeway conditions

Interstate 150,000 - 300,00

Transit and Storage Stations

Possible ZONINGActive ADJANCENCIES Free-spaces Multi Family Housing 5 mi. 2 mi. Freeway Lanes High Occupancy Commercial Lanes

1 mi.

Possible Inactive Free-spaces

Green Open spaces Single Family Housing

Industrial

5 mi. 5 mi.

1 mi.

2 mi.

5 mi.

1 mi.

2 mi.

5 mi.

mobility. Especially with the natural and built landscapes like that of Los Angeles. After careful analysis of existing and successful programs, it came to my attention that most of the successes are due to that they work in conjunction with a mass transit system, be it bus, metro, or subway. Therefore, a system to serve the scale of an area like LA metro will only be truly successful if it is supplementary to a wider-reaching mass transit system. Thus, the second component of the mobility proposals is a mass transit light rail system that will attach itself to the existing freeway structures. This mass transit system will have two primary functions. It will be used to move people and commuters through the area by adding a layer of vehicles that attach itself to the slab edges and ride next to the freeway. And, the second function will be a part of the public system of transportation and close and deviate sections of the freeway so that they may be used for public and community use by moving space-making elements like furniture and program vessels onto the liberated and vast freeway slabs from storage stations. As a transit system it will appreciate the existing vehicular infrastructure around Los Angeles and attach itself to the many miles of concrete slabs. It will move at increased speeds and help to reduce traffic by offering the public an alternative mode of transportation that is more efficient, more economic, more environmentally friendly, but travels on many of the same paths they are already accustomed to. As a public space maker, the system will be directed by the neighbors and community dwellers via social networking infrastructure. The system in place will have

London, UK

Los Angeles

Boris Bikes

Stations: 468

Bikes: 8,000 Stations: 468 Mexico City, Mexico

Los Angeles

Ecobici

Stations: 90

Bikes: 405 Stations: 90 Mexico City, Mexico

Los Angeles

Ecobici

Stations: 90

Bikes: 405 Stations: 90 Mexico City, Mexico

Los Angeles

Ecobici

Stations: 90

Bikes: 405 Stations: 90 Barcelona, Spain

Los Angeles

Bicing

Stations: 417

Bikes: 6,000 Stations: 417

Washington, D.C, USA

Los Angeles

Capital Bikeshare

Stations: 156

Bikes: 2343 Stations: 156 Washington, D.C, USA

Los Angeles

Capital Bikeshare

Stations: 156

Bikes: 2343 Stations: 156 Washington, D.C, USA

Los Angeles

Capital Bikeshare

Stations: 156

Bikes: 2343 Stations: 156

Wuhan, China

Los Angeles

Wuhan Public Bikes

Stations: 1,218

Bikes: 70,000 Montreal, Canada Stations: 1,218

Los Angeles

BIXI Montreal

Stations: 405

Bikes: 5,050 Stations: 405 Montreal, Canada

Los Angeles

BIXI Montreal

Stations: 405

Bikes: 5,050 Stations: 405 Montreal, Canada

Los Angeles

BIXI Montreal

Stations: 405

Bikes: 5,050 Stations: 405 Paris, France

Los Angeles

Velib

Stations: 1,450

Bikes: 20,000 London, UK Stations: 1,450

Los Angeles

1. Barcelona, Spain, Bicing, Bikes:Stations: 8,000 Bikes: 6,000, 417 Stations: 468 2. Washington, D.C, USA, Bikeshare London, Capital UK Bikes: 2343, Stations: 156 Boris Bikes Boris Bikes

Stations: 468

Los Angeles Stations: 468

Bikes: 8,000 Stations: 468

London, UK

Los Angeles

Boris Bikes

Stations: 468

Bikes: 8,000 Stations: 468

a complex network that interconnects itself with existing social media outlets thereby allowing the user direct access to conduct an event. With the development of an application for smartphones and new media, it will available to all users to peruse, investigate, or use, at their will. Using the application the citizen will choose at what time and at what location they are to site their preferred community event and the system will program all the requirements for furniture and all the necessary elements to be moved to be moved from the storage stations to the site events. The public will be notified of an upcoming closure and event by digital billboards strewn across the city as well as updated notifications to their phones or emails. And the system will contain machinery that will enable citizens to move their elements from the vehicles onto the slabs from the storage stations. Additionally, each storage station will similarly serve dual functions: as transfer stations for people to get on and off the transit system but also as nurseries and storage stations for space-making elements. Although the idea of closing down freeway sections has begun to be inserted in the collective mind of the city with events such as the infamous Carmeggedon of 2011 and increasing events like CicLAvia and others that look to the public to reclaim the streets. However, it is important to consider that this proposal presents itself as a transformational process in urban spaces and life, so it must begin at a less invasive condition and gradually grow its influence across the city from there. So, while eventually it is envisioned that the freespaces take their place whenever and wherever they would like across the city, at the beginning it must be noted that the spaces be limited to one day per week, for right now 3. Montreal, Canada, BIXI Montreal Bikes: 5,050, Stations: 405 4. London, UK, Boris Bikes Bikes: 8,000, Stations: 468

Bikes: 6,000 Stations: 417 Barcelona, Spain

Los Angeles

Bicing

Stations: 417

Bikes: 6,000 Stations: 417 Barcelona, Spain

Los Angeles

Bicing

Stations: 417

Bikes: 6,000 Stations: 417

Sundays from 10am to 2am Monday morning. The proposal results in a taxonomy of spaces with shifting locations, uses, qualities. It will take identity in the city as an additional layer or ecology of previously devoid public character. This system will change the nature of freeway infrastructure from divisive, jarring, and out of reach to human scale to an increasingly connective and open spaces that patch together the divided areas and neighborhoods of Los Angeles. With their diverse and necessary public activities taking place like regionally productive, active, and cultural programs, these free-spaces will act beyond a passive park or a latent green space but will instead activate the notorious infrastructure with a vigorous intersection of spaces, activities, public invention and urban life. Leigh Christy: Ok, so, two questions, how is this connected to the existing metro system ? my second question, is that (points to drawing) a specific location or is that an abstraction? OMC: it was based off a specific location and later abstracted.

Wuhan, China

Los Angeles

Wuhan Public Bikes

Stations: 1,218

Bikes: 70,000 Stations: 1,218 Wuhan, China

Los Angeles

Wuhan Public Bikes

Stations: 1,218

Bikes: 70,000 Stations: 1,218 Wuhan, China

Los Angeles

Wuhan Public Bikes

Stations: 1,218

Bikes: 70,000 Stations: 1,218

Paris, France

Los Angeles

Velib

Stations: 1,450

Bikes: 20,000 Stations: 1,450 Paris, France

Los Angeles

Velib

Stations: 1,450

Bikes: 20,000 Stations: 1,450 Paris, France

Los Angeles

Velib

Stations: 1,450

Bikes: 20,000 Stations: 1,450

LC: and the first question? OMC: for the first question, actually the system would be attached to the existing freeway infrastructure so the map would read exactly the same LC: so it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t intersect with the existing metro system? Los Angeles Bike Share Planned system (400+ Stations) Expected growth (1000+ Stations)

5. Wuhan, China, Wuhan Public Bikes Bikes: 70,000, Stations: 1,218 6. Paris, France, Velib Bikes: 20,000, Stations: 1,450

Los Angeles Bike Share

Los Angeles Bike Share Planned system (400+ Stations) Expected growth (1000+ Stations) Planned system (400+ Stations) Expected growth (1000+ Stations) Los Angeles Bike Share Planned system (400+ Stations) Expected growth (1000+ Stations)

OMC: At the moment, no. LC: Hm…ok…

Breakdown of Transportation Stations: 1. Breathable aluminum mesh, 2. Nursery spaces 3. Underground storage spaces 4. Structural frames

Joseph Becker: You should just say yes to that.. I mean I think there are many questions that come up when we start to imagine an entire new infrastructure for the city of Los Angeles. Questions like how does this cargo system function? Same with access to these new platforms, how does it integrate with the existing grid? And what is the reality of actually unloading for one day enough turf capable of handling 100 people to play tennis on? OMC: Well, there would actually be several strategies for making the space…it wouldn’t just be the furniture or unrolling the turf it would also include many sports programs or surface programs that could be painted on and left there for future use or to left to fade eventually. Nicholas de Monchaux: To me, Oriana, the project seems to be caught between being either too much or not enough. Which is to say that the idea of like, an occupy freeway, in the context of this atmosphere of seeing public spaces be contested again in a way that it hasn’t been in several decades in American history. And, the notion of occupying the freeways is a very powerful one and enormously contested. What I like about the project is that it relates to… it was only 100 years ago that, for instance, jaywalking was invented as a crime. The streets had previously been public spaces and cars were unwelcome. The car companies were most of the people debating to get the occupation of streets by anything besides cars to be considered a crime, which was in itself a crime. And, the sort of notion that one

Painting Painting

active

Furnishing Furnishing

active

inactive inactive

active

inactive inactive

Resurfacing Left: Space-making includes three primary strategies towards treating the freeway surfaces. All strategies consider minimally invasive procedures so the return of the surface to its primary purpose of transportation is easy. The first includes painting the surfaces to accomodate sport programs that only require markings on the ground to define the space. The second includes temporarily furnishing the space with

active

rogram

Linear Requirements

arathon

26 mi.

alf Marathon

13 mi. 3.1’

Bottom: Programs are categorized by linear requirement and so it would inform the deviation. For example, a marathon event would take a deviation of at least 26 miles, while a volleyball court might only require a deviation of 60 feet. Program

Linear Requirements

Marathon

26 mi.

Half Marathon

13 mi.

3.1’

Music festival

.20 - 1.7 mi.

Fashion show

600’ - 900’

Market

Active

Recreational 600’ - 900’

Wine/Food festival

300‘ - 900’

Skatepark

500’

Freeway Soccer

390’ = .07 mi.

Freefield Hockey

300’ = .06 mi

usic festival

.20 - 1.7 mi.

shion show

600’ - 900’

Basketball

94’

arket

600’ - 900’

Baseball (Diamond)

90’

ine/Food festival

300‘ - 900’

Beer garden

80’

Outdoor cinema

80’

inactive

atepark

500’

eeway Soccer

390’ = .07 mi.

Tennis

78’

eefield Hockey

300’ = .06 mi

Volleyball

60’

Productive

Once freeway section is closed, elements are brought in and event can begin

Digital display signs take the character of freeway signage but inform of upcoming closures and once activated, hours remaining

Mass Transit

Outdoor urban spaces promote good health, exercise, and healthier living

Programs like a Farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market creates an opportunity and incentives to drive local economy and expand local agricultural trends

Nurseries

Community Garden Storage

Stations become a hot bed of urban activity as integrate public programs, mobility, and nurserie green elements to add to the freespaces

they es for

Vehicles are opportunities for improved urban mobility but also act as space makers by mobilizing spacemaking elements in preparation for events and back to respective storage stations

Spaces are formed by several strategies in the example of a farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market, spaces would be created by the staging of furniture and other spacemaking elements

Above: Networks in place around the city

Above: A butterfly garden disrupts a freeway interchange in east LA. Traffic is deviated in the artery deemed less obstructive, allowing for the even to take place, while the rest of the arteries function normally. The event’s atmosphere is improved by adding potted trees and plants to help dilute any contaminated air found on site. Far Right: Generic events typologies are designed in order to demonstrate the many types of programmatic and spatial possibilities.

can start to redefine streets as public space starting with the apotheosis of a surface on which nothing is welcome. That, to me, is a great thesis. That being said, I think that right now the project is caught between, there’s a version of the thesis that’s the like, insurgent occupation which would be a toolkit, or a system of spray cans or quick surveying boxes in which one would go overnight and paint in whole bunch of baseball fields or basketball courts and start using them and it would be not at all endorsed by the city but it would be a kind of insurgent action. And, that, I think would be very interesting and I would love to see that kind of insurgent retaking of space. Or, it would be infrastructure. So if your aim is insurgency then you’re proposing too much architecture, if your aim is infrastructure a kind of topdown, like Peñalosa style, Ciclovia, let’s rearrange, thenbecause what made something like the Ciclovia work in Bogota was that it was introduced in combination with a system of bikeways that were accessible throughout the week which one became aware of if one came out on a Ciclovia day. And, it was also done in combination with something like (something millennium) ..Ciclovia was a way of getting people out and make them aware of a whole bunch of other stuff that was going on in the city that can and should have changed how you used it. And so if that’s the case, if it’s the kind of Peñalosa style movement then you’re missing all the other parts that such an action on the body of the freeway could make us aware of. So it should be…whether it’s the existing amenities or a whole set of other amenities that you’re proposing but the point of the getting people out on a Ciclovia day was to get them to see and live the city, not just to occupy the space, so in that case it’s not enough. So you know, I think, either you picked at two very interesting projects, one of which is insurgency,

Flea Market Farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Market

Farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Market FIlm Festival

Butterfly Ga

Aquatic Park Skatepark

Urban Maze

Fashion Show

Tennis Tournament Aquatic Park

Soup Kitchen Shelter

Urban Maze

one of which is reoccupation of the city at a massive and governmental scale and I would urge you to choose which one it is…

Above: A sports event taking place at a freeway interchange in east LA. Traffic has been deviavted to other paths but is blocked for security reasons by the barriers. A tennis court is painted on the surface and a net and bleachers are brought by the loading system. In the background, a station is visible, as is traffic. Far Right: Generic events typologies are designed in order to demonstrate the many types of programmatic and spatial possibilities.

David Gissen: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say…not exactly but. The intention of the project is between this urban revolt situationist thing that would disrupt the flow but it all seems to be brought about by this miraculously well-functioning government in LA that is also building new infrastructure which you could then use to occupy the highway. So yea, to me, that’s where the project is either extremely utopian or extremely naïve and that’s what I can’t tell right now with the project. You follow me?...I guess we’re both... I totally agree with what Nicholas said. I do think personally that what’s potentially more interesting than you sort of being an illustrator of good governance, which to tell you the truth the mass transportation systems so far aren’t the most interesting part of the project. Where you are interesting and an innovative thinker and designer is considering ways to occupy the freeway. I think that aspect, I mean the whole tradition, and first it’s not very old. Ever since Roosevelt, rich people that took offense to them in the 18th century, finding ways to barricade and other things to think about what streets have become. That, to me, is where the project could be really exciting, to sort of embrace the history. Which is actually something else I’m missing from the project, almost everything we’ve seen today has been historically situated in some way and I’m not sensing that with your ideas or with the images that we get a sense of where this falls. David Fletcher: And, you know specifically in Los Angeles, there’s a whole narrative of loss in many

Protypical programming

FIlm Festival

Butterfly Garden Farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Market

FIlm Festival

Butterfly Ga

Tennis Tournament

Aquatic Park

Tennis Tournament

Soup Kitchen Shelter Urban Maze

Soup Kitchen Shelter

areas but especially in east LA where infrastructure has been imposed on these communities and divided them. And you know you’re using the word stitching but it’s throughout the entire city. There’s actually places where something like this within the context of the social justice discussion might actually haveon a temporary level- you know, restorative potential. For example, fog town or the 5 freeway or the Los Angeles River, all of these infrastructures you know there’s a whole self-consciousness about those not having been imposed on wealthy neighborhoods. And wealthy neighborhoods are often, ironically the ones that reject social change and connectivity and bikeways because they don’t want people literally jumping off the bikeways and roaming the streets. Yeah, so the people that are going to be the most resistant to like, the LA river project, for example are the rich people that don’t want the not-so-rich people coming up there. And the not-so-rich people are actually like, don’t want to hear your projections they just want to see things done. So there’s a really interesting social overlay that is kind of great, but can at best, be talked about in a sort of celebratory reoccupation of space. Like, for example, playing soccer in East LA on a warm Sunday.

is as necessary. Particularly, if you overlay the light rail system particularly the Expo line that just opened it runs not exactly on it, but very close to it. I think that’s a big gap because it is heavily used, maybe not by all of us, but it is heavily used. So I think that’s a crucial layer that’s missing, and I think if you did that you would find that perhaps that if the argument is that things close down highways then you could still get to a piece of the highway so it’s not like the entire 5 is being closed. So, with that being said I think there’s a start of something really intriguing here with, how little can you use to create public space but still get heavily value out of that? But I think there’s a specificity to locations in where that could happen. The reason I asked was because somehow in the process of rendering this it looks really abstract. But I think that all of these freeways while they go over places, they’re places and so what you’re talking about is creating places within a place and I missed that place-fulness… (laughs) is that a word? And I missed that. But I think that’s what you’re arguing for. But somehow it got sanitized because you dealt with everything when maybe you need to deal with a few specific interventions. I mean, like I don’t need 9 of these, I just need 6.

LC: I think I partially agree with what is being said but what I am most intrigued by is if I’m driving down the freeway I’m driving over a basketball court, something along those lines. I think the creation of this dissemination system, this second infrastructure, is kind of ironic because if you’re temporarily closing down the freeway to occupy it then you could just drive there. Um, literally, and then you know you could watch it unfold. So, I don’t really know if the proposal for the second layer of infrastructure tied down to that

LC: I think you’d really benefit from a very in-depth analysis of Los Angeles and making very specific interventions that aren’t (how) exactly anything with you not being able to shut down the 405 for the weekend but maybe you can shut down parts of it. But again, just to reiterate there’s disparateness to the project. You started talking about bicycles but I’m not hearing anything else about bicycles in the project.

Top Right: A tennis match takes over part of the freeway. Nets are placed on the side barriers to prevent balls from being lost and obstructing other traffic. Benches are placed to accomade spectators. Bottom Right: A basketball event takes place in a similar fashion in another part of the city. Freespace promotes a healthier lifestyle by providing communities the athletic spaces that usually come at a cost or restricted to private us.

Melanie Kaba: Yeah, that was an important thing that

100

I wanted to tap into. You know, looking at these there all a little too line to line there’s no real differentiation between lanes and views and how you treat it spatially, it’s just simple freeway. And, then how that situates itself next to cargo and/or the line, and then how all three of those sort of work together to create a new thing. So you’ve got all these pieces and parts and I think they’re starting to melt together in this drawing but I think they get very washed out and lost and unable to see a really detailed drawing of all it together. I totally agree with your contextual critique as well. Javier Arbona: You know, I would say but just, from purely a nuts and bolts point of view… I’m trying to even think how one traverses through the city especially at the level not at the freeway or automobile even though that’s an important part of the Los Angeles experience but, if you’re in a neighborhood the distances in Los Angeles are incredible. They’re epic distances on foot or bike. And I could almost imagine, kind of going back to a granular level because maybe one community may have very different perspective of what they would like of their public space than another one. And a lot of these things you might just want at a closer distance to your house not necessarily up on a freeway. Like, a lot of what you’re stacking up in these towers are things that like, even with minimal interventions in neighborhoods you could have these furnishings and you wouldn’t have to go all the way to a freeway which may be quite a long distance from your house. And those things, they might be more precisely inserted into places. And I think it goes back to the idea that you had about the bike infrastructure restricting the city because it might just be what the city is looking for is to connect these different neighborhoods but you don’t necessarily throw Left: A freeway farmer’s market takes place. Freespaces provide a host for the local produce and agricultural economies to flourish.

101

all these types of programs on top of a freeway but what might turn the bicycle into something more viable might be a care station. Perhaps there there’s a way to retake in a more modest way portions of the freeway to be able to move around on a bike. And then you don’t have this kind of ambitious but disparate project where it seems like you had to grab for a social network and billboards to make it work and then, it seems like an enormous amount of effort for what seems every day. So, anyway, that would be my two cents. DG: Peter’s from LA. Peter Testa: Yeah, so I try to ride bikes over long distances and it’s very difficult but very exciting and fun. And, I think these are really good suggestions and there may be links in the network that are needed to get the bikes on the freeways because that’s the only way to get from here to there. And so taking over the freeways very strategically for bike lanes would be, I think, a coherent thing. I do have question about the disruptive technology. Given that’s the theme of the studio, what is your disruptive technology? OMC: I was thinking more in terms of disruptive forces within a city and how a change in mobility would disrupt the city. For example, how the bicycle could disrupt the way a city is form and the subsequent architecture. PT: Sounds very disruptive. DG: One of the images for me that I really like is the butterfly garden but the detour is really problematic. PT: But, I think that goes back to what others were

102

saying about looking at the networks and being much more strategic. I mean, finding places where maybe there are parts of the network that are redundant and for example when there’s an overpass or underpasses that are very little used. RR: Can you talk about that more, Oriana? I know that existed so maybe you can expand on that. OMC: So, I designed some prototypical deviations as an example. If you were heading in a general direction, either north, south, east, or west and two possible deviations you could take, one being a freeway-tofreeway deviation and the other option would be to have a freeway to surface street deviation. JB: Do you have any analysis on how many cars actually travel those paths? OMC: I worked with more general volumes of cars traveled on a Sunday. But looking at distances per trip it would be adding about 7 minutes to the trip. JB: But that’s for a single car. What would happen if you deviated 20,000 cars, how would the traffic volume change? DG: One of my all-time favorite contemporary projects is designed by Wiel Arets. He designed a detour for Domurg I think is the name of the city and it is kind of like, le Corbusier Opus Plan for Algiers. And he designs this zigzag that ends up creating this moment of disruption of flow and it’s this piece that came from looking at it as a moment of repose and has these amazing views and it’s very much in line with some of the imagery of

your project. I mean I wouldn’t call it a success but it’s important to look at. JA: So, I want to say in going forward, I think you know with every project when you finish you have all these ideas and stuff you want to go on. I keep having this image of a car chase and a police chase happens and they just kind of barrel through one of these interventions on the freeway. And it has to do with something like, in Los Angeles, I think there are two agencies that are very, very powerful: the LAPD and Caltrans, well, Caltrans is the whole state. And they have these gigantic headquarters you know that’s a big project, Morphosis project with a very big presence. And part of what you’re proposing totally disrupts what these agencies do. For the LAPD and for the department of Homeland Security would be like “Whoa, you want to seriously intervene with our way of getting to the scene of the crime?” and maybe that’s a great thing. But, I think you really have to get your head around what kind of spatiality of that LAPD and other agencies project unto the city. Just to wrap up, just look at Caltrans, because they’re so big and powerful. You’re kind of like destroying a lot of jobs. And maybe we need to lose some of those Caltrans administrators but think about how many people and what type of budgets and what kind of power disruptions you’re creating. And maybe it’s good to think at that level but I think it would help to get a grip about how important those invisible structures are, their very human structure, agents, and bureaucrats and how they work. NDM: I would say right now is that the tramways and infrastructure are all too close to what the freeways were promised to be when they were produced. Which Above: A flea market occupies a once busy freeway section.

103

ay Tod ure ship Clos pion way Cham pace: ll frees Free etba 0506 Bask ue space

Leag

#free

Nike

y a

o T

sh n

io re p u m s a lo e: Ch C ac ll y sp a a w freeetb 06 05 e sk a pace B e rees u #f g

e ik

a Le

Freewa y Closur e Tod ay Nike Lea freespace: gue Bas ketb Champi onship all #freespa

ce0506

may 6th, 2012

EVENT END 2 hours 25 minutes S: 32 seconds freespace: Nike Leagu #freespace e Basketball 0506

Access to mass transit through a system of electronic walkways that safely take the passenger from urban areas to the stations

Mass transit stations have a mesh metal skin that allows for breathable spaces for nursing greenery. They provide picturesque views from the driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s standpoint as wild green nodes strewn across the freeway landscape Notifications of traffic closures and upcoming events are distributed widely primarily through social networking applications and system of electronic displays Outdoor urban spaces promote good health, exercise, and healthier living for a city with ideal climate

Public programs driven by the communities create an opportunity and incentives to drive local economy and to reconnect disparate areas and neighborhoods of the city

Minimally invasive space making strategies leave faint traces of past programs on the highway surface. The landscape becomes a palimpsest of records of public activity

104

was a new system on top of an old system that would separate but make everything run better. But it turned out to be precisely the reverse, which is that new system that destroyed the old system and didn’t present a better alternative. And so, the best parts of the project are exploring how the new adjacent possibilities to the existing freeway configuration have a way to reintegrate that superficial new idealized system with the existing but also, I noticed the project seems to stray into producing a new new system that’s going to make all the other systems improve and be better and needs to be superimposed on the existing grain. And so as you finesse the project in the way that we always do I would make the system a little cheaper, a little faster, and a little more out of control. DF: I just negotiated a couple more minutes. So, no, I think that it’s potentially that it’s a very beautiful project in some ways. I think, the historic overlays are really important but I think also just using data and tying that with this. For Los Angeles and especially getting just outside of the gut of just Los Angeles and all the other cities that are surrounding could bring up a series of issues. And, especially some of the media stuff in terms of these issues. And so what you can do is start to look at simple even census data where do is there a lot of hospitals, where is there high crime rates, or incidence or something else that could tell you that there’s need. These are places that are tied to things that would tell you there’s a need for a park or a public space in some ways. And it’s a very real way to begin to locate things. And you might discover from overlaying that there’s a bright red area, this one area that you can begin to look at in more extreme measures where a highway takeover might be justifiable and if so, it would look like this. But

also, how many approaches would there be, one that includes highway take over but also discusses a whole suit of surface street take overs. And [the data]’s out there and it tells you a very clear story. And it’s not just architecture or landscape architects making it up. It’s actually sociologists and stuff that actually understand how this works and what is going on. RR: I think, Oriana, you’ve received a great sweep of comments that you can categorize in a number ways and push them to your project. I will say that Oriana is maybe one of the most soft-spoken students that I’ve ever met. But, simultaneously, I think the origins of this project are perhaps the most aggressive that I’ve ever seen of a student. So, you know, the comments of it being too little or too much are a very good way to think about the project. I also really appreciate the comment of staying within the culture and why would you not be able to drive to these events? I think to consider sort of the culture behind all of this is important. …Thank you.

105

DIS RUPT ING.

Salt, Emergence and Formation at the Dead Sea Mark A. Kelly

Statement: Environmental Problems facing the Dead Sea Materials Methods Final Review Transcript Preliminary Studies Software / Hardware Project Development

108 108

109

110

Statement: Environmental Problems facing the Dead Sea Salt formation and emergence were carefully studied over time to form structural enclosures using mined salt. The process of making Architectural models has been central to developing my Thesis research. Making physical model explorations with mixtures of Salt and binder, has opened up the doors to new formal possibilities, light transmissivity and material expression. In the following pages I will show the process development stages I went through in models. With each model I reflect on the successes and failures, to improve the design in an iterative improvement process. The project directly came from the material research in construction, design, fabrication and narrative. The design research aims to find a way to create architecture out of salt. I travelled to Jordan for 11 days to visit the Thesis site, collect materials, drawings, interviews and environmental information. At the Dead Sea I gained greater insight into the environmental issues and design opportunities at the Sea. The Dead Sea is disappearing at a rate of 3 feet per year due to high temperatures and strong prevailing winds. The environment is changing rapidly, producing large quantities of Salt, when the water evaporates. The significance of this Sea change and the complex political systems surrounding it make this site unique for an architectural monument. The salt monument anticipates the future sea change over the next 75 years. The salt is ubiquitous and will form steadily around any structure. By de-crusting and reencrusting the submerged architectural monument will be encased in 100 years of crystallized sea salt. Access to water will be fought over in the future. Water is hotly contested in this region, where freshwater is in short supply. The Salt-Spa Program holds the remnants of the last parts of the Dead Sea. The scarce supply of water in this region gives the spa program environmental significance. In 100 years the Dead Seaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s evaporation will produce a desiccated landscape and these salt vessels will hold the last portions of the Dead Sea water for future visitors.

TITLE

111

112

As climate change is occurring, architects should think about how building structures will adapt to environmental forces. Changing sea levels will affect the Dead Sea significantly. The topography has a clearly defined canyon profile, which is exacerbating the prevailing wind, by funneling the wind gusts directly between the mountains and lifting water vapor from the Sea. Salt is everywhere, it is common and ubiquitous; the by-product of this rapid evaporation is available, free and abundant. Water on the other hand is valuable and coveted, the battleground of the future will be fought over fresh-water rights. The program encapsulates this concept by using a spa program to hold the remnants of valuable water in refreshing baths on a geo-political border territory. The new territory under the Sea does not belong directly to any one government, instead this free-territory is neutral in a highly political area. The program is simple, elegantly holding the remainder of the Sea In water pools, where visitors in 75 years can experience the last valuable water. The entire construction process uses locally available materials, salt and fermented vegetable alcohol to 3D-print the large salt vessels. At UC Berkeley I developed a method of 3D-printing in Salt, which is cheaper than commercial 3d-print powder by 96%. At $0.25 per pound Salt provides a viable construction solution to build locally and cheaply at the Dead Sea. All of the materials are available except a 3D-printer large enough to build an inhabitable structure. Mined salt from the dried sea will be ground into a fine powder and fabricated on the sides of the Dead Sea, using a large 3D-printer. The finished vessels will be protected by coating them in resin two times to slow their decomposition water. The salt vessels are hollow, which will trap air inside the structure, allowing the vessels to become buoyant.

113

114

The project is designed with ‘time embedded in the Section’. People are expected to see this project in the future as something their children will understand. Like a museum piece, this monument will be a reminder in 100 years to our grandchildren of how we lived. The vessels are integral to the landscape, where the salt vessels sit in a steep salt canyon. The hillside will funnel the vessels naturally to the lowest point, which currently exists as a line across the middle of the sea. A natural self-organization will occur, gravity will create a single line of vessels along the lowest area in the sea. A free demilitarized territory will be created marked by a single line. The vessels are constructed in a dry-dock, next to the sea, which mimics boat-building methods. A dry dock sits very close to the water, to easily release the vessels into the Dead Sea water. As the vessels land on the dry sea bed naturally in a freely distributed pattern, they will be aligned with the lowest areas. The vessels will decompose partly over the next 100 years. The sides will change and partly disintegrate, forming a salt ruin of unique spaces on the sea bed. Like a Piranesi etching, the vessels will have ‘the scars of time’ etched in the vessel’s exterior surface. Exposing the natural weathering will reveal a narrative in the project as our children visit these Baths. There will be an orthogonal series of walkways built over the salt sea bed to access the volumes and spaces in an interconnected sequence of pools. Circulating inside and around the vessels, people can view the salt bed and the salt vessels. In the next 100 years as the Dead Sea dies, the evaporated water will reveal a new geo-political free area. As the water recedes forms will emerge from the landscape making the sea bed visible. People are able to walk down over the new lightweight walkways towards the salt vessels. Visitors can circulate down, into and around the salt vessels. Seating and baths provide contemplation space.

115

Amman 2.8 million ‘capital city’ Ram Allah 24,599 ISRAEL WEST BANK Jericho 47,000

Jerusalem 602,100 HOTELS JUDEA MOUNTAINS

Hebron 8,610

Mādabā 60,000

HOT SPRINGS

JORDAN

ISRAEL - PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES Dimona 33,600

At- Tafilah 39,000

Al Mazarah 257

POTASH INDUSTRY Hazarah 300

Karak 20,000 AGRICULTURE En Yahav 850

ZONES

POLITICAL MAP: SHOWS BORDERS AND GOVERNMENT TERRITORY |PEOPLE POPULATION AND INDUSTRY MAP

116

2105- GEOGRAPHY FUNNELS VESSELS INTO A LINE

Safi 5,000

Climatic description Salt is highly available which can be applied specifically to building architectural spaces. I was awarded +1085m the T.Y. Lin Fellowship and the Chester Miller Thesis Fellowship to visit salt processing plants at the Dead Sea and thoroughly -370m dead sea is the understand the traditional process. The +710m 48 miles long [North to South] and 10 largest salt lake, Miles wide [East to west], 1310 feet deep and covering a 360 square mile area. The salinity of the Dead Sea water is five times that of ocean water, that is, 23% to 25% salt as opposed to 4% to 6% in ocean water.

Cool Temperature = Low Wind Pressure

High Mountains funnel Wind

The Dead Sea’s climate offers year-round sunny skies and dry air with low pollution. It has less than 100 millimeters +905m +840m (3.94 inches) mean annual rainfall and a summer average temperature between 32 and 39 °C (90-102°F) The shore is the lowest dry place in the world. Proximity to the sea affects temperatures nearby because of the moderating effect a large body of water has -470mon climate. During the winter months, sea temperatures tend to be higher than land temperatures and vice versa during the summer months. This is the outcome of slow0 penetration of the sun’s rays into the sea, which is a huge mass that takes a long time to warm up. The Dead Sea is 8.6 times saltier -470m than the ocean.” Source: (Goetz, P.W. (ed.) The New Encyclopaedia +640m Britannica (15th ed.). Vol. 3, p. 937. Chicago, 1986) & Israel Marine Data

Center (ISRAMAR). Niemi, Tina M., Ben-Avraham, Z., and Gat, J., eds., +1125mUniversity 1997, The Dead Sea: The Lake and Its Setting: N.Y., Oxford

Press, 286 p.

High Temperature = High Wind Pressure

WIND PATTERNS

RED ARROWS SHOW PREVAILING WIND AND HIGH TEMPERATURE

“Ocean water is 97.2% of water on the planet” (USGS 2010). “Salt can be produced very cheaply for $4 for 25lbs.” (Taylor Gilbert 2011). “Salt reserves are practically inexhaustible. In a sole cubic km of sea water 25 million tons of edible salt, sodium chloride are found.” Oxford University Geology Report (2003). This project has been evaluated with salt structure +1500m models using salt 3D-printing rapid prototyping and slow salt crystallisation to create buildings. The Dead Sea presents +670m amazing opportunities for thesis development, research exploration and professional development. I have +1030m spent +1400m considerable time researching material production, qualities, HEIGHTS OF THE MOUNTAINS AND SEA translucency and uses. During the trip I interviewed a specialist researcher at the Dead Sea Panorama Museum, where there was a special exhibition on climate change, mineralisation and geology in the region.

2012-SALT VESSELS BEFORE THE SEA EVAPORATES

117

Materials Transparency in Salt: The Light box Materiality test The 3D-printed Salt material transmits light according to the thickness. There are twelve 3D prints on this page, each measuring 4” x 6”, which were placed on a light box. The crystalline structure of the Salt transmits light internally. The forms of the pieces are deliberately random to create a range of different light transmission effects. When I was making these studies, I thought of façade wall panels, which can allow different amounts of light into the interior of the room depending on the time of day or season. The light transmission effects are not as strong as I imagined when I made these studies. The Salt blocks are surprisingly strong, which indicates they can hold their own weight when they are stacked into a load-bearing wall. The salt has a bright matte white appearance, which transmits diffused light through the blocks.

Methods Rapid prototyping in Salt using a Z-corp 3D printer

The surface of the salt blocks is matte and dusty. The vessels have bright, matte surfaces and clearly defined shadows. This development work tests the limitations of the material, in faceted, orthogonal and rounded geometrical surfaces.

Rapid prototyping in Salt has proven to be highly successful. The cost is far lower than any other alternative, at $0.25 per lb, when I used 40lb Pool Salt bags with alcohol binder fluid. The image sequence on this page shows the excavation process after the part has been printed. First I had to use a blender to grind the salt into a fine powder for use in the printer. The granules of salt needed to be small, to spread evenly and create fine detail on the 3D-printed models. There are two beds in a 3D-printer: (i) a supply (ii) a build bed. The powder starts in the supply bed and is pushed over to the build bed many times in 0.004 inch amounts (0.1016 mm), where a thin layer of binder fluid is applied to the powder. A thin layer of binder is applied where the form is being built. The powder is stuck together by the binder fluid, according to a 3-dimensional model, to create an accurate rapid prototyped piece.

I tested different mixtures of ground Salt with sweetener and different alcohol binder fluids. The binder cannot be aqueous because the water will cause the machine to rust. Using a garden-sprayer I tested the process to find a fine powder which would hold together adequately using a binder, to form a strong solid block. The 3D-printing process is relatively straight-forward, requiring a fine powder and a liquid. Some of the stronger materials which contained water had to be eliminated, to prevent the steel machine components from being damaged over time. After the 3D-printer machine completes a job, the feed tray has pushed all the material over onto the build bed. In the photography on this page you can see me raising the build bed, brushing off the powder carefully with a brush and a nail file, before the finished part is taken out onto a separate tray.

SALT 3D PRINTED MODELS ON A L-E-D LIGHT BOX TWELVE 4”x6” SALT MODELS - OVERALL 16” x 18” THE SALT MATERIAL ALLOWS LIGHT TO BE TRANSMITTED

RAISING THE 3D-BUILD BED 118

BUILD BED AT MAX. ELEVATION BRUSHING BEGINS

DELICATE CLEANING OF THE PART

Final Review: May 5th 2012 - Mark Kelly Jury: Leigh Christy, Peter Testa, Javier Arbona, David Gissen, Nicholas de Monchaux, SFMOMA’s Joseph Becker, Melanie Kaba, Ronald Rael

SALT VESSELS AFTER THE SEA EVAPORATES IN 100 YEARS

Ron Rael [RR]: Please let me introduce Mark Kelly and his project: ‘Salt, Emergence and Formation at the Dead Sea. Thank you, Mark: Mark A. Kelly [MAK]: Jordan’s minister for culture could not be here today. I will translate his special message. [Arabic Message plays in the background] In the next 75 years, the Dead Sea will have literally died. Climate change, urbanization and the complex political systems that define Jordan and Israel are quickly depleting the water resources that sustain this historically and geographically important body of water, however two interesting phenomena could contribute to the making of a monument to Dead Sea through it’s own demise. Salt crystallization can form structural enclosures as the sea evaporates and mined salt can be used to fabricate architecture using large-scale 3D printing technology. From these natural and man-made processes, which I call slow and rapid manufacturing, a monument to the Dead Sea will emerge over the next 75 years, where naturally occurring salt crystallises on the side of the vessels. The natural salt crystallisation process is forming the building over the next 75 years, using salt vessels as crystalline salt armatures which anticipate future Sea evaporation and create a monument to the Dead Sea. Each year 3 feet evaporates by high temperatures and strong prevailing winds. [The Jury wears the white gloves provided, to touch the salt models and papyrus drawings.] Natural processes form the building, casting salt around the vessels, de-crusting, re-encrusting. I request you wear gloves to handle these museum artefacts [I point to the Egyptian papyrus drawings on a stand] The Architecture anticipates future environmental changes in the Sea, however nature forms the building, doing the work for me over the next 75 years. All of these papyrus scrolls are in the style of the Dead Sea Scrolls, so they should be handled with care. The Salt vessels are constructed in a dry dock, next to the Sea. Once these vessels are complete, they are allowed to freely float out onto the Sea, covered in epoxy resin. The buoyant vessels are designed to float across the surface. I have already tested and proven that resined salt vessels will not dissolve, using an epoxy coating. [I point to the salt development models.]

119

LEIGHTWEIGHT WALKWAYS CROSS BETWEEN SALT SPAS 120

121

As the sea drops these vessels which are freely floating, are going to be funneled down by the canyon geography into a beautiful line, to define a simple line on the border between Jordan and Israel. This is a very simple project about a line of vessels in the landscape. A naturally formed line of vessels embed themselves into the sea bed in 2105, defining a new border. As seen here in the section. [I point to the section drawing]. Lightweight delicate walkways are built hovering over the sea bed, inter-connecting vessels for visitors. The bridges never touch the sea bed. Only the smallest disruption is caused where people enter a spa program, inside the smooth salt vessels. The drawings evoke the memory of the Dead Sea scrolls, printed on handmade papyrus paper. All of the models are made entirely from Salt, to show the real salt the Architecture will be made from. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s turn from spectators into participants- in next 100 years this is what you will see. [I point towards the last model] Let me show you how you can walk between the Salt-Spa vessels. [I point towards the walkways on the model] You can enter with an equal number of access points from either side in Jordan or Israel- indicating the egalitarian position of the program. These light walkways circulate inside and around the spas, delicately supported above the salt bed, never directly touching the sacred Salt. Walking around the vessels, you can bathe in the remaining Dead Sea water. [as seen in these Sections] The vessel interior is smooth since the sealed vessels trap air to float on the Sea surface. The outside is hard crusted, thick in Sea Salt, encased in 100 years of crystallisation. Nature will build the Salt itself, yet only I can orchestrate it the forms. After this project, I want to return my models to the Sea â&#x20AC;&#x201C; where the Salt originally came from. I would like you to wear these gloves to inspect the scrolls because I value these drawings as artifacts. The frames protect the pieces from decomposition. And as you can see the section is etched on the side of the model, and the other etched plan shows the new border between Israel and Jordan. [I point to the building and regional models]

2012-SALT VESSELS BEFORE THE SEA EVAPORATES

Peter Testa [PT]: Did you make the Papyrus? [MAK]: I imported the papyrus from Egypt. Joseph Becker [JB]: I am hesitant to make this my first comment, before I actually talk about the Architecture. It is the models which I am really drawn to.

122

2105- GEOGRAPHY FUNNELS VESSELS INTO A LINE

Organisation from above: Development of Vessels and Net forms

DEVELOPMENT MODEL OF VESSELS AND NET FORMS MARCH 2012

CRYSTAL GROWTH SEQUENCE

[MAK]: This is the actual Dead Sea Salt, which I brought back from a 10 day trip to the Dead Sea. [I hold up a piece of the Dead Sea crust- The Jury stand up to come closer to the models and to walks towards me] These are the best photographs from my Dead Sea trip. Javier Arbona [JA]: My initial comment is actually about the geo-political system itself. Is it a positive notion to highlight the boundary between these two states? And is it more of a provocation to think of the Sea as being occupiable on its own. Your project can become a cross-dialogue, instead of reinforcing this boundary line, when there is this unity by the Water. In 100 years from now, the concept of boundary will shift. Is there something about that which is interesting for you? [MAK]: This is a demilitarized program which exists in a highly political area. It is deliberately designed to be penetrable and porous from either side. I am encouraging people to walk between the States. It is a free territory which exists on its own. This drawing shows the Sea in 2105 with less water. The other drawing shows the present, this summer in 2012 with more water. Nicholas de Monchaux [NdM]: When salt is the actual landscape, it is unique. I really applaud the way your project tackles the idea of decomposition, which we were talking about before in Marishaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s project. Does it matter to you that the salt you are showing is white, yet the real salt will be grey? This salt water will leave behind material. The salt will be stained and earth-toned. [Nicholas points to the Salt block in the display] The salt in your models looks whiter than the sample of grey Salt you brought back, can you explain this? [MAK]: The lower part of the salt contains dark sand. The higher area is whiter salt. This color gradient of shades will happen in the architecture, producing a whiter area at the top. This was dug up straight from the beach. [RR]: Although the mined Salt will be pure white, like the models shown here. [PT]: Can you describe how this piece was made? [Points to a wall crystallised 3D-printed model] [MAK]: This piece is combining the two processes. This is a rapid prototyped model in 3D-printed salt with salt crystals growing on it. I was trying to combine the two processes; to create architectural space.

3D-PRINTED SALT STUDIES 123

[PT]: So do you still use that process? [MAK]: Yes. I used this concept in the first studies, where I was working with how to make the building. Salt is ground into essentially a powder and mixed with a liquid alcohol binder. At be beginning I used Walgreens salt, with different types of alcohol, rubbing alcohol, and then Sakeâ&#x20AC;Ś [PT]: This is a wonderful presentation, well done. My question is what makes this a monument? I am not questioning this is a monument. On an anthropological, philosophical level, what makes this a monument? Why is this a monument? [MAK]: Currently this is going to be a canyon. So I am proposing to have a series of Spas, built into the landscape. The phenomena in and unto itself, is a memorable program. David Gissen [DG]: I am totally fascinated by it, there is something wonderful about a monument being totally made from Salt. Very exciting. Our ability to understand it as a monument, is different for every person from both states. [MAK]: Each one of these scrolls is translated into English, Hebrew and Arabic. It is very important to acknowledge people from either side equally. Tom Buresh [TB]: Can you guys open it up a little bit? [The Jury was standing up, huddled around the work, preventing others behind from seeing the work.] [MAK]: This top-left panel shows the four different types of Salt Spa vessels. [NdM]: If they are being rapid prototyped, can they each be unique from one another? I am interested in the forces that would act on these things: crystallisation, erosion and etching; so they would end up in different conditions. So I think that would be very convincing. I think the kind of sameness, defaults to a Cristo land art aesthetic, of having identical vessels over the landscape. I just wondered what your attitude to sameness was. [MAK]: The vessels are slightly different; each one has a different characteristic. They land in a naturally formed line, which is in itself random. Then I am proposing an orthographic grid of walkways transposed on the embedded vessels, to enter into each space sequentially.

2110

2105

2100

2095

2090

2085

2080

2075

2070

2065

2060

2055

2050

2045

2040

2035

2030

2025

2020

2015

2010

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

1965

1960

1955

1950

1945

DEAD SEA DISSAPEARING - 1960-2105 124

EVAPORATION DIAGRAM

1: 100,000 SCALE SITE MODEL OF THE DEAD SEA

Site Model shows the new single line of Salt Vessels in 2105

2105- one hundred years in the future: SALT SPA VESSELS

Leigh Christy [LC]: Which representation is the closest to how you see it? Here it is identical vessels dropping, in the big model it is somewhat disparate vessels arranged randomly yet in the 3D-visualivation the center-piece in the middle has multiple different formations. Which vision is closest to that? [MAK]: This model was the very first stages, the middle and the end. The perspectives show the before and after. Javier Arbona [JA]: So the salt vessels are floating? Is that possible? [MAK]: Yes, I proved it works. [JA]: Did you do that yourself? [TB]: It must be true. [JA]: Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably not possible. But that is alright. Is there proof that they wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t dissolve? [MAK]: When Salt is coated in epoxy resin, bees-wax, varnished or painted it will not dissolve. [JA]: It is an incredible body of work and a magnificent projection of the future ecology and archaeology. It should be shown in an exhibition. Or in a show dedicated to it. This leads me to a broader question: my spider sense goes off like I will not be invited to a review at Berkeley again question. What is the role of Architecture? A lot of the projects feel a responsibility to engage in broader issues: whether it be climate change, nuclear, or others in an area like this, where the water is disappearing. Each one does not try to engage with a solution but understanding the process. So does architecture try to impart as an agent of change? What is the trajectory? [Javier turns to the faculty for an answer] [PT]: Oh well I do not know. [JA]: I think it is a really important question. I think it is incredible work. It seems to be creating a monument to its own destruction, if you can call it that.. In each case the work tries to look at how this works as ornamentation. I am not characterizing this as ornamentation. How this works with the larger question. [JB]: I am curious how this is a natural monument. Why does it even need to be stretched into a monument? Does this even need to be placed in the Dead Sea?

125

[MAK]: Water is very scarce in this part of the world. This is the place where Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan. Two world religions are based here: Christianity and Judaism. I think the disappearance of the Sea more than merits a monument. [LC]: So in your critique you are saying the disappearance of the water in and of itself merits the building of a monument? [JB]: The lands geology and disappearance of the water is not enough. The land and history of the place, can be enough on its own. Why can’t that be enough by itself? [MAK]: My architecture is made of the place. I am not saying the monument is not enough by itself. I am just saying that by my intervention, I am increasing the value. [NdM]: You are taking something unique and sublime, to distil into the project. I have enjoyed the project all along. I loathe critiquing something I admire, but I am going to do it anyway. I think the project is so extensively temporal. You have really sorted out your attitude towards space in the project but I am not sure that you have yet adequately resolved the question of time. These pillow like forms are entropic in their geometry, the kind of hanging bag formally. [MAK]: A water drop. [NdM]: Yes, “a water drop”- a minimal surface. A thin shell structure is going to be assaulted by time. The vessels may decay catastrophically or decay slowly over time. In compressive structures, the shell needs to be supported internally, which you do not see. In the issue of monument, you are giving these vessels a lot of responsibility. Normally a block of granite has a permanence. Yet this monument will not last forever. I think it will be a really great monument, that will itself be subsumed. The old man on the mountain. The papyrus pushes the project back in time. But there should also be an effort to push this project two thousand years into the future- this would be valuable. It would be more impressive when it does not have the weight of the pyramids on its shoulders. 126

CRYSTALLISATION OVER SALT 3D PRINTS One Salt 3D-print was covered in Epoxy resin and placed in a Salt water bath until Salt crystals started to appear. April 2012

STUDY IN STRETCHED NYLON FABRIC OVER SALT 3D PRINTS 4” X 6” Salt Vessels with white nylon stockings March 2012

SALT CRYSTALS GROWING ON CARDBOARD BY OSMOSIS Brown Corrugated Cardboard + Salt Water November 2011

[NdM]: A recent edition of the American Geographic Survey from the University of Arizona, went to rephotograph the Temple of Solomon, before and after. In these series of photographs it is not so much a rural landscape where a single house has cropped up, or an incredible mining town was just gone entirely. That’s just what this landscape does: it changes radically.

MATERIAL INVENTION BOARD- This board shows different Salt mixtures I tested to create a material which could be 3D-printed. The board shows Salt mixed with (i) Walgreens 92% rubbing alcoholEthanol (ii) Sake: Japanese rice wine (iii) Distilled Water 18” x 24” Wood board with 2”x2” squares November 2011

[DG]: You are arguing for no project whatsoever. How does the papyrus take away from the project? [NdM]: If we sat here, in this building for 200 years, you would have decomposed and so would this project. [DG]: Every project would decompose. What is your point? [LC]: It is curious that some projects come and go, the salt is going to disappear. Yet you still imagine the border is going to endure, 100 years from now. There is still somehow a discourse to it, that the two states are still somehow at war. Somehow this project is going to be maintained here. A type of tense peace will exist here, in the future. In the future people will walk into these spas and walk in. It just strikes me as peculiar, that the political divide still exists intact. The things that you take for granted are perhaps the things you should question. The border may not exist intact in the same configuration in the future. These assumptions are the things you should question and get messy with. You may have to intervene. [RR]: I think it is actually the opposite. While there is this program of spa, which holds the last parts of Dead Sea water. That seems like water is the battleground of the future. Access to water will be fought over in the future. [LC]: That is interesting. The fight for water part justifies the program. Architecture and monuments and typologies of these things are unique. The thing about a monument is that it does not relate directly to the needs of the present generation, the living. It is purely representational, a program without utility. If you are interested in making a monument; this project becomes exciting is where it lacks utility. You have this water, which is no longer sacred or religious, so it is held without a program. [JB]: How is the water kept from evaporating once it is inside these vessels? How long will it maintain a functionality in the future? [MAK]: The two things causing evaporation are sun so I am creating shade and prevailing wind so I am creating shelter. [LC]: The water will evaporate anyway. Have you thought about diversifying the program for living or dwelling? Is there something more exciting than a series of pods with little gangways outside?

3D-PRINTED SALT STUDY CUBES 2”x2” - NOVEMBER 2011 127

[MAK]: That is really exciting. [LC]: Yes it is totally exciting. [RR]: Really? If you went to the dead sea and someone had taken away all the water, you would ask why someone had not kept some. But if there was a bunch of vessels with things to do, you would get more excited. [LC]: In order for me to go there and spend money, because it is a salt hamman- [Laugh]– then it needs people there in order to support the activity. Then it would diversify the area. [NdM]: I would like to go back to Javier’s comment about the border condition, which I think is unresolved. To think about going back in two years if the border changes, would the project change? We could shift the project according to history, to here was once a border, now the border has changed. [DG]: Wait a minute. I do not understand that. Are you talking about the erasure of two different countries? [NdM]: The future is always stranger than what we imagined it was going to be. [DG]: Of Course! [NdM]: So it would make sense, if a large conflict of the twenty first century was to change things and be resolved in some unexpected way. [JB]: Can I bring it back a bit? I think that your preciousness is de-railing the project a bit. Because there is something so ephemeral about everything, it is decaying, so I think that if you were to rephrase the project as something which lasts a blip. This is something which gives you one last moment with the Dead Sea. It is made of the salt. It is made of the sea. That is all it is really made of. Then it is left to decompose. [MAK]: In this development model, which is decomposing, I think this really gets to the heart of the issue. [JB]: Exactly. You have created this ephemeral, lasting decaying moment of history. You are not really changing the landscape, per-se. It is beautiful.

Making: Manufacture of Vessels on the Shore Local Construction

DRY DOCK

The Salt vessels are constructed in a dry dock, next to the Sea

Floating: Salt vessels are floated out into the Sea, using trapped air for buoyancy

DRY DOCK

The Hillside naturally funnels the vessels into a straight line

DRYnatural As the Sea drops, vessels are funnelled into a beautiful line, by the DOCK canyon geography

BOARD 1:

A naturally formed line of vessels embed themselves into the Sea bed in 2105, BOARD 1: defining a new border.

Salt, Formation and Emergence at the dead Sea Scale - 1’ = 100,000’

2105 Plan After the Dead Sea evaporated

English:

CONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE DIAGRAMS- May 2012

English:

2012 Curr

Hebrew:

2012 ʭʩʮʤ

Arabic:

2012 ϯϭΗѧѧѧѧ Ύϳϭϧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧγ.

BOARD 2: English:

2105 After

2012 Current Water Leve Hebrew: Arabic:

2105 ʩʸʧʠ

ΕέѧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧΧΑΗ 21

Mark A. Kelly

Univer

Board 3:

English:

Plan of Sal

Hebrew:

ʺʩʰʫʥʺʤ ʬʹ

Hebrew:

DRY 2012 ʭʩʮʤ ʩʧʫʥʰʤ ʤʮʸ. ʭʩ

Arabic:

2012 ϯϭΗѧѧѧѧѧѧγϣ ϩΎѧѧѧѧѧѧϳϣϟ΍ ΔѧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧϳϟΎΣ Ύϳϭϧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧγ.

128

DOCK

Arabic:

ϡΩѧѧѧϗ ΔρΧ ϥϣ

Board 4:

English:

Panorama

Hebrew:

ʤʮʸʥʰʴ ʥʩʹ

Arabic:

ϥΎѧѧѧѧΑΎϣ΍έϭ ϥϵ

Board 5:

DEAD SEA SCROLLS- I choose to screen-print my final printed drawings on Egyptian-Papyrus reed paper, to represent the ancient style of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The drawings were produced in a very slow custom screen-printing process at Magnolia Editions. Original Dead Sea Scrolls at Jordan National Museum

Original Dead Sea Scrolls at Jordan National Museum

LC There are a few things. If I keep touching this model, I am brushing it away. It is decomposing before my eyes. But by inserting people inside the monument, which I buy. These vessels landing in the landscape is great. For me, it presents a geo-political issue of monumentalising the dead Sea between two countries. That was why I was asking which version was the closest, since that one model has a very different condition than the visualisation, which I am drawn to the scattered nature. You are coming up with a construct, then you are standing back and letting nature do the work for you. Ultimately for me, a person in the future who is coming through to brush these salt crystals off, there is still an assumption that it is still under your control. It is absolutely not controlled. Time comes into it for me, since you have taken me 100 years into the future. Not me. [Laugh] So you are taking my descendants into the future but you are not acknowledging what you are going to see. I do not mind the papyrus. For me I want to see the reality. Melanie Kaba [MK] You are making the drawings too precious. [MAK] Just the papyrus, not the salt. [MK] [Laugh] The thing that you are setting up, which I think would last the longest, is this orthogonal grid. It would be interesting to see how these walkways weather, when the vessels have dissolved and the orthogonal walkways still exist there, I think that is another drawing entirely, well into the future. How is that activated? Another version of the moment of decay into the future, would be fascinating. [PT]

This is an amazing project. Really amazing work. I think that everyone is so concerned with meaning and with humans. When in fact there is the crystallisation of minerals in process here, which is really extraordinary. Some of these images and in the obsessive engagement with the actual material process, has real value beyond any of this actual discussion. In and of itself.

[MK] I totally agree. Another iteration should look at a form that makes sense. [NM] There are many ways to present this project. You have choosen to present this as a narrative, so you are being critiqued on the narrative. I think Peter Testa is right, there are two or three equally valuable discussions we could have about the material performance and 129

mineralization here. I think taking Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s question, stand back, I am not sure the narrative is the most important thing about this project. That is not to say the narrative is not really interesting, it is to say the project is even more interesting. I think the performance of this material would be a useful thing to write a narrative about. Not that this material would last forever, but exactly how would the material behave. How much stress can you put the material under before it fails. The most expressive monuments are the pragmatic ones, so I think it would be valuable to make this project as real as you can. I think you deserve reward for your hard work. [RR]

I think that is a good way to close the discussion. Mark has invented a new type of 3d-printing in Salt, which is 96% cheaper than the cheapest other alternative. The CAD-CAM facilities [at University of California, Berkeley] will be using the invention in the College, to improve the College facilities, as a direct result of Markâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research.

Preliminary Studies Model Making Design Process The research focuses on the salt material produced by environmental sea levels change at the Dead Sea. In the chipboard model on this page, I made each chipboard contour represent two years in evaporation at 6 feet in real dimensions. During the 12 month design process I have made 1-2 models per week, to explore my ideas physically. The materiality of Salt needed to be explored physically since drawings contain too many unanswered questions. The drawings were useful to enlarge on successful production techniques at larger scales of representation. At right the photograph shows redundant pier infrastructure at the Dead Sea, which was built 20-30 years earlier when the sea was higher. This pier used to sit in the sea water, however the rapid evaporation has moved lower, leaving a useless pier and a reminder of the impending disappearance of this fabled body of water.

130

1: 100,000 SCALE SITE MODEL OF THE DEAD SEA 1975 WATER LEVEL

2010 WATER LEVEL 2010- PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS A USELESS BRIDGE AT THE DEAD SEA, WHICH ONCE TOUCHED THE WATER. NOW THE BRIDGE IS JUST LEFT, FAR FROM THE RECEEDING WATER.

SLOW CRYSTALLISATION IN SALT Original Acrylic-print on handmade egyptian-papyrus 24” x 36”

DESIGN PANORAMAS: BEFORE 2012 AND AFTER 2105 Original Acrylic-print on handmade egyptian-papyrus 24” x 36”

131

2012 CURRENT DEAD SEA WATER LEVEL Original Acrylic-print on handmade egyptian-papyrus 18” x 24”

132

2105 PLAN AFTER THE DEAD SEA EVAPORATED Original Acrylic-print on handmade egyptian-papyrus 18” x 24”

PROJECT SECTIONS on Original Acrylic-print on handmade egyptian-papyrus 24” x 36”

VESSEL DESIGN TYPOLOGY: Original Acrylic-print on handmade egyptian-papyrus 18” x 24” 133

134

135

SALT CRYSTAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES ON COTTON FABRIC - JANURAY 2012 136

Development Work Vessel Design Development There are several different versions of the salt vessels which are being tested in these drawings. The models represent the floating Salt-Spa designs which are gathering crystals on the exterior surfaces, as the Dead Sea evaporates. The vessel surfaces are rough from 100 years of crusty crystal growth on the surfaces, so a particle displacement scatter-map was spread over the surfaces to create an uneven pattern and irregular lighting effects. The window openings on the vessels were similarly designed to be encased in the crystal growth: giving the vessels a hard encrusted appearance.

TAKING A MOTOR-BOAT UP TO A SALT-BERG

This digital model helped me visualize the salt-spa vessels to develop the design. The sides of the vessels contain window openings and on the top of each vessel there is a large light oculus inspired by the Pantheon, to spread light to the interior. The organization of the openings was important, to ensure the openings are above the water-line to prevent the floating vessels from sinking. Each vessel is unique, with different forms, openings and sizes. Some vessels are single, pairs and triple vessels, to show a wide variety of possible spaces. Software / Hardware

MOVING BETWEEN SALT VESSELS

FREELY FLOATING SALT VESSELS IN THE DEAD SEA

Sub-D modeling software was used to create, deform, manipulate digital models. In the research course we used Modo 601 software and exported stl print files from Rhino to the 3D-printer. The digital modeling software was created for sub-division modeling, to give more freedom to the designer. Freeform solids can be manipulated like clay, using a variety of digital manipulation tools. Sub-Division modeling has more advantages than regular NURBS modeling, since panels can be sculpted more easily than the guiding curves in a NURBS surface. The physical models are made using a Z-Corp 3D printer, with the special powder developed in place of the expensive Z-Corp corporate powder. An alcohol binder was used instead of the Z-Corp binder fluid, since it does the same job as the commercial binder. The salt models were produced using a powder-type 3D Printer, instead of a laser sintered plastic 3D printer. A 3D-Printer which uses starch-powder worked better with salt, than a common 3D polymer lazer-sintering system. The starch has more in common with salt than plastic, which is welded together with a 3D-printing machine. 137

Single Vessel for a Spa Dimensions 40’x55’ base 45’ height 2200 sf. per vessel

Twin Vessels for a medium Spa Dimensions 40’x75’ base 45’ height 3000 sf. per vessel

Tripple Vessels for a large Spa Dimensions 40’x95’ base 45’ height 3800 sf. per tri-vessel

Tripple Vessels for a large Spa Dimensions 75’x75’ base 45’ height 5625 sf. per tri-vessel

2012 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100 2110 2120

Development Work Vessel design development In these models I was interested in testing shell designs to enclose vessels. The design here was inspired by marine creatures, with regular porosity in the shell to allow light to penetrate into the interior spaces. The formal design looks singular, without entrances or specificity to inhabitation and program. These two models were instrumental in pushing my design forward into new terrain, when a digital model can create a physical salt porous model at this size. Careful excavation took time to protect the material from collapsing in on itself. When the material was hardening I realized the structure had to be left to dry before I used the fine brush can finish cleaning the finished piece. The scale of this development model, looks to enclose a 45 foot diameter (15m) space, with diffused light and interior shading.

140

Development Work Net and Vessels I became interested in creating a net in solid salt crystals, from a flexible cotton net. The salt crystals give the flexible material structural characteristics from salt crystallization. The net would be constructed in the water then the floating vessels would land on the net support. The vessels were imagined to land on the solid net, supporting the vessels above the sea-bed, to form two levels of spaces. The model shown on this page shows 3D-printed salt vessels landing on a cotton net, supported by salt columns. The salt columns contain rooms and staircases. The vessels rest on the net to form a crystalised enclosure. I was inspired by Antonio Gaudiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hanging structural models to show forces. If the flexible net can become rigid with salt crystals, it may be able to support itself upside-down. In this design development study I was concerned with creating interesting and varied spaces, where visitors can visit above and below the net canopy. People are allowed to walk over walkways, to enter the smooth vessel interior. Visitors are allowed to enter the lower levels on the Sea-bed, where they can walk inside the inhabitable salt columns, walk through the staircase and emerge on top of the net canopy. I chose to simplify the design and remove the net canopy, to leave only the salt vessels. The development work here shows the net, vessels and columns, which were changed in the final design for vessels and light-weight walkways. In these models I started to use a steel frame to support interconnected salt volumes and design the interior spaces. The blocks were subtractive exercises in space-making, where stairs and people were inserted in different volumes. The light bounces around the interior of these spaces forming a beautiful natural gradient of light and shadow. A staircase was inserted between these two volumes to interconnect the cubic spaces. Two connected volumes are shown here, to indicate how this system could work at a larger scale. The volumes can be stacked in a larger structure for dwelling, lodging and living. This development study focuses on using steel and salt in a hybrid structure. The steel was intended to provide support and connection between the salt block units. The steel creates openings for the inhabitable salt units to be inserted into the construction assembly. Galvanised steel was used to reduce steel corrosion from the salt. I chose not to follow up this design choice, since the steel materials needed to be imported from overseas. I selected a construction method which specifically uses locally available materials in the design.

141

DIS RUPT ING.

PHYTOPIA PABLO ZUNZUNEGUI

146

147

Phytopia is a series of speculative explorations that take place in the Amazon. The imperatives of reforestation and neo-indigenous civilization are possible through the implementation of a choreographed symbiosis between machine and Amazonian ecologies. Soil conditions, as well as the importance of the canopy layer of the Amazon are essential to the proposal. As probably some of you know, the majority of the Amazon’s life is not at the ground level. It is actually at the canopyholding almost 95 percent of the life of the Amazon- where it is estimated that half of all life on Earth can be found. On the other hand, the Amazon’s floor receives only 2 percent of the sunlight and lacks the nutrients necessary for new vegetation to grow. In addition, this forest’s floor is largely devoid of minerals like phosphorous, potassium, calcium, and magnesium but is rich with aluminum oxide and iron oxide that make this soil too acidic for germination. In the past, civilizations that inhabited the feral Amazon used to create their own soil - terra preta. A combination of wood, charcoal, excrement and fish bones made farming possible for these tribes. After the Spanish conquest, the aboriginal settlements disappeared due to extermination and/or diseases brought by the Europeans. The explorer and conquistador, Francisco de Orellana, believed that the Amazon was the home of a very sophisticated and populous civilization where everything was made of gold and food was abundant. He called it “El Dorado”. No evidence for the existence of this old civilization has been found, and in fact, the reality is not so prosperous: The Amazon is being depleted and big cities are becoming even bigger. Overpopulation, social and economical disparity, pollution and pandemic diseases are a latent problem. This brings me to the next speculation: A neo- indigenous civilization that escapes from this problematic urbanization migrates en masse to the forest. In the mature stages of the information age, autodidacticism has become a ubiquitous phenomenon. Hacker communities have taken the art and techniques of repurposing mechanisms to a larger scale. These inhabitants will possess a multiplicity of skill sets. Members of the population could perform as researchers and scientists as well as farmers. Now the question is: How to sustain those activities when the existing natural conditions of the Amazon allows for either rainforest or human occupation, but not both?

148

149

In the drawings you will notice that the way that I represent these mechanisms is by visually hacking â&#x20AC;&#x201C; just grabbing and combining pieces from different elements to later recompose them into these machines. On the other hand, the representational model has differentiated the dynamic and industrialized aspects of the proposal from the static human settlement portion. The dynamic and industrialized structure has been built using CAD/ CAM techniques with clear acrylic, while the human settlement portion is manifested as handcrafted wood structures clad in sticks collected from nature. I also wanted to represent in the drawings some of the opportunities for occupation. In this case, there are research laboratories, which will be exposed to the heart of the Amazon- the canopy - and it will help to discover, preserve and harvest natural species that will contribute to finding cures for diseases. In addition, you can observe that farming practices are present through all of the drawings. In order to demonstrate the process of this neo-indigenous urbanization, I will present this narrative that describes the proposal from the beginning to the end- if we can call it an end. I proposed a site located at the border between Brazil and Bolivia, which provides the perfect example of how a growing country like Brazil that uses their resources indiscriminately- also fueled by political issues and corruption- has depleted the Amazon considerably. In fact, in some cases, the borderline is perfectly depicted by the contrast between the dark, dense vegetation on the Bolivian side next to the lightness of the bare land on the Brazilian side. I tried to recreate the sequence in which everything would happen: first, the untouched Amazon; second, the Brazilian side starts to consume resources; third, the Brazilian side has been depleted; fourth, neoindigenous migration begins; fifth, the new civilization has been established; sixth, when all human life is gone- and my last speculation: All machines will stop at some point, and then is when the Amazon will thrive.

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

REVIEW Javier Arbona: The intention is that these objects are eventually taken over and rendered obsolete just turned into trellises, oversized trellises? Pablo Zunzunegui: Yes, as part of a dystopic speculation. They will become obsolete for human use but they will be very important tools that help the forest to be reborn. There are many factors that can influence the decease of these mechanisms- even the most predictable: man vs. nature. I have rendered these machines as very complex mechanisms, with a very rough aesthetic characterover-detailed â&#x20AC;&#x201C; implying an eclectic type of construction, maybe under-designed in terms of engineering. Also, the proposal is composed of a dynamic part- the mechanic canopy- and a more static portion â&#x20AC;&#x201C;in this case: the labs. Those characteristics- a kinetic system and the complexity of its parts- creates a high potential for failure if maintenance is neglected. JA: So the machine opens as it becomes grown over? But it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t close ever? PZ: No, it opens and closes in order to maximize sun exposure to the ground and protect the ground from erosion caused by direct heavy rains. Melanie Kaba: As a daily cycle? PZ: As a daily cycle, yes. I forgot to mention that they will use scandent plants such as vines and lianas to grow over these structures. MK: I see.

160

161

162

JA: Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re essentially taking over the Amazon with a kind of new ecology which is really lacking biodiversity. These systems incorporate only climbing species, essentially. PZ: Well, most of the diversity exists in the canopyhome of thousands of small species. I do not know for certain that the movement of the system would allow for most of the species to survive. The ground also is dedicated to farming where some of the species introduced in that area are going to be foreign to the region. In addition some areas in the system will remain static and they will become potential areas for nursing new species. I see this proposal as an ongoing project, and I believe that I can find multiple opportunities to introduce more biodiversity. JA: Eventually...at what point then does the machine itself become obsolete if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s generating food? PZ: It will generate food as long as the inhabitants continue working the land. Native vegetation will take over foreign vegetation and the machines will be overtaken at this feral estate. Leigh Christy: If they are farming underneath, and the population is growing, when would they go away? When would it stop being useful for farming? PZ: Although some humans moved to the Amazon, the big cities are going to remain big and their impact will affect all humankind. There are many possibilities that could change the direction of the proposal. Most of them are beyond their control. Climate change, pandemic diseases brought by outsiders and other threats could injure this ecosystem.

163

Nicholas de Moncheaux: On the scale of all human history, though, cities are almost never abandoned. Fewer than five percent, cities are remarkable, of course save corporations, ninety-five percent of which will go bankrupt. There’s this sort of inverse logic of urbanization and the kind of corporate world, you know what is so dispiriting about the Amazon is the extent to which that kind of corporate action affects it. I love this project. There’s a deep affection both for machines and for nature and for allowing them both- that I think is rare to find in a single student in a single project. People tend to either be ecologists or technophiles, and the fact that you so authoritatively embraced both agendas I think is a real...and do it with an architectural form that’s original, worked out, etcetera.... I think that there’s a lot to like. I think that the narrative is almost there. I think that unlike the last project, this needs a narrative. These things can’t just exist- it’s like coming across traces of the Saturn V launch assembly building in a hundred years and imagining what it was. It provokes narrative, so I think you need a little bit more-I think you should subcontract a science fiction writer to provide the narrative, because the notion that we’ll just come and we’ll do this and we’ll move on- I think you’re selling your project short. I would connect this project to this emerging scholarship on the way in which the Amazon itself is the consequence of highly managed... that it is itself a human created artifact and not this pristine nature which it’s cast as in so many National Geographic sepia lenses. So this is it. So this is the Amazon... I don’t think you need more narrative than that. This is what we do to sustain the Amazon in this new very easy phase we have of living with it.

164

165

Peter Testa: The narrative doesn’t interest me either, but looking at it just from the machine perspective, the robotic perspective, it seems really antiquated. It’s highly centralized, it is like an oil derrick or something, and on that level I think there could be a much more interesting design agenda on the robotics side in which you could start to look at this more as a distributing system and also much smaller...a larger range of scales of robots that could actually climb up into the existing trees and into the upper part of the forest and operate from there. I just think there are many other models. This looks kind of like Emilio Ambasz. I think it’s obviously an interesting topic, but I wonder if you considered other modes that are maybe less centralized and monolithic. PZ: Definitely. In my first studies I was working on a small-scale robot that could control branches’ growth in real-time creating some sort of air grafting. With that technique they could be able to manipulate plants and roots’ form and directionality. I decided to take this direction and pull it to the limit. I reached the limit of narrative and I reached the limit of design for this specific exploration. I believe that I could move forward and continue working toward diversity of the system. LC: I think the systematic approach worked. Did you think about the way that a rainforest or any heavy vegetation functions? It’s rarely a single tree or a single item; it’s really how they relate to each other. The smaller scales or the different scales, the different heights, the different microclimates that you achieve could introduce that biodiversity. I think it’s that one right behind there that truly reminds me of an oil derrick, especially the ones right in the middle of the ocean, just landing by themselves- I have a hard time believing things are going to grow on that in the midst of everything that’s going on around it, but they kind of need this nurturing understanding of relationship to others. I think that’s what I would like to see.

166

167

David Guissen: The aesthetics of the drawings and the aesthetics of the model, representationally, are very different. I think this, to build on what Peter says, it’s not only in a sense antiquated, it almost has this steampunk kind of quality to it where it’s like a Victorian in the 19th century imagining a forest in the 21st century, which is interesting, but I think the models for some reason are better. The action of the mechanism is very pronounced, but the pieces of the mechanism are downplayed because they’re made out of clear acrylic. I like watching it unfold; I think that it makes me believe that despite this centralization of this that it could still somehow relate to contemporary ideas about nature... and just one last thing about representation, what I do like about both the drawings and the models is how seemingly un-pastoral this project is even though it’s given to nature. Even though it’s overwhelmed in nature, it doesn’t really seem sentimental to me in the way that maybe even some parametric projects can have a certain sentimentality toward topography. That-I think- is really a powerful thing to talk about that I think its very there. David Fletcher: I thought it was interesting to hear you talk about these urban exiles, when so much of the emphasis is on cities that grow more and more, as well as investigating these subjects that are forestal hackers going there. I think that would be really interesting to approach to go a lot further. When they go there, what is it that they do? What kind of infrastructural necessities they have? Have you found people th at are doing that? Going back to the land so to speak with a technotopia plan? I think that will take you far from the monumentality of these things.

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

MK: In the thesis booklet you have a drawing of a small robot climbing. I cannot see the drawing here and I think that you should explore further the idea of having multiple scales in your proposal.

Ron Rael: Ok. I think we have to start closing. [FINAL COMMENTS & CLOSING SPEECH] PZ: Thank you Ron. Thank you all.

NdM: I agree. That would help build your narrative. It would be interesting to use a system of catalogs where you can find a multitude of machines at different scales that respond to different scenarios.

175

DIS RUPT ING.

Hydrophilic Housing

Statement Preliminary Studies Housing Module Studies Project Development Unit Design 178 178

Presentation Transcript

Due to the increasing scarcity of water and its great thermal mass potential, rain water should be collected, contained, and recycled within the skin of buildings. Engaging the domestic sphere, such hydrophilic housing provides thermal control, conserves resources, and creates unique phenomena of intimacy and transparency between water and the body: animating and demonstrating water processes in order to educate and pleasure its inhabitants. In the arid southwestern city of Tucson, prefabricated modular vessels plug into an infrastructural arm that provides treatment, storage and communal space, while engaging the historic river front, and creating a symbiotic relationship between housing, adjacent parkland and increased vegetation. 179

STORAGE VOLUME

CONTAINING VESSEL 180

Preliminary Studies

LANDSCAPE INTEGRATION + CREATION

181

182

183

ego:: FILTER

INTERWOVEN WATER FUNCTIONS

FLEXIBLE + POROUS ENVELOPE

184

EMBEDDED PROGRAM

Preliminary studies explored 3d printing and form making as a means of investigating water collection and containment structures that: demonstrate water processes, activate surfaces, embed program and reveal thermal mass.

185

186

187

188

Program-specific studies more closely investigated surface profiles, materiality, and the body. Surfaces are contoured based on water collection, solar/thermal exposure, and ergonomics. Material differentiation addresses the need for structural support, and the opportunity for malleable and transparent surfaces that expose phenomena of water.

HOUSING MODULE STUDIES

189

SITE PLAN 50 FT

NORTH 190

Project Development The concept of prefabricated domestic vessels is applied to the desert context of suburban Tucson, where water is a scarce resource and traditional thermal mass is a beneficial strategy. A housing development is massed to give land back to the adjacent park, and shade the enriched public space, while collecting water from above. An infrastructural arm provides access, water treatment and storage, and community recreation space. Modular vessels plug into the infrastructural component to create eight single-family residences with private garden space, southern exposure, and western shading.

191

SITE SECTION

COLLECTION + SHADE CANOPY

IRRIGATING WATER TRAILS

SHOWERS

CENTRAL COLLEC

SEATING SUPPORTS

COMMUNAL PATH

COLD WATER STORAGE

192

SEATING REG STORAGE LEV

CTION POOL

GISTERS VEL

UNDERGROUND GREYWATER IRRIGATION

PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE POTABLE WATER FEATURES + EDIBLE GARDEN WATERING

PROGRAMMED-EMBEDDED PUBLIC GREYWATER WALL

PUBLIC PATH

193

POTABLE WATER STORAGE

ENTRANCE

SWIMMING POOL

RAIN WATER OUT

UNIT PLAN

POTABLE GREY POOL

194

Each unit is organized based on access to water stored within the module walls. Potable water is contained on the northern side, and greywater on the southern. Kitchen space is embedded into the potable wall, and living and bedroom spaces extend off the greywater thermal mass wall to take advantage of the evening heat of the winter sun. Bathrooms, that make use of both potable and greywater, bridge between the two walls and are enclosed within volumes of their source water.

195

ROOF SHADING FILTERS LIGHT OVER POOL

EVAPORATIVE COOLING TOWER

RAINWATER DRAINS THRU INTERIOR

EXPOSED POTABLE KITCHEN TANK

GREYWATER-FILLED FURNITURE

SECTION A

GREYWATER WALL EXPOSED TO DIRECT WINTER SUNLIGHT LITTLE DIRECT + INDIRECT LIGHT THRU WATER TRAIL

GREYWATER BED ENCLOSURE

SECTION C POTABLE GREY POOL

196

INTERIOR LIVING WALL

SHADER OVER COLLECTION GUTTER FILTERS SUNLIGHT

COLLECTION GUTTER WATERS EDIBLE LANDSCAPE

BATHROOM ENCLOSED BY GREYWATER SUPPLY

SECTION B

EVAPORATIVE COOLING TOWER

SECTION D

UNDERGROUND GREYWATER IRRIGATION

POTABLE WATER ENCLOSED SHOWER

197

UNIT INTERIOR

198

Presentation Transcript Joe Taylor Nowell: Due to the increasing scarcity of water and its great thermal mass potential, rain water should be collected, contained, and recycled within the skin of buildings. Engaging the domestic sphere, such hydrophilic housing provides thermal control, conserves resources, and creates unique phenomena of intimacy and transparency between water and the body: animating and demonstrating water processes in order to educate and pleasure its inhabitants. In the arid southwestern city of Tucson, prefabricated modular vessels plug into an infrastructural arm that provides treatment, storage and communal space, while engaging the historic river front, and creating a symbiotic relationship between housing, adjacent parkland and increased vegetation.

parkland, and create a more open entry gateway to the park and to the river. In return, the shade canopy provides water back to the housing development for use within the interior spaces, and as well for the exterior spaces to create a more enriched landscape that yields new garden areas within this unused parkland.

So, traditionally, water has been kept out of buildings, as a problem. And incorporating thermal mass of water into buildings has been rather limited, in the form of roof ponds and water walls in some kind of off-thegrid projects. So I am investigating how to more fully incorporate water within the skin of buildings and within the interior to activate the spaces, educate the users, and provide a more comfortable environment.

David Gissen: So, housing… so that’s like a typical unit… oh, that’s the unit plan right there.

Tucson, is obviously an arid desert environment, so it makes traditional thermal mass a very plausible strategy. Temperatures are mild in the winter daytime and summer evenings, so a shaded thermal mass in the summer and an exposed thermal mass in the winter is a very practical strategy. They receive about 12 inches of yearly rainfall, 90 percent of which flows to the storm drains, like in many cities. It is experiencing a depleted and polluted local water supply, and they have very encouraging laws for greywater use. So, it makes it a ripe place for such a project. The project is sited along the Rillito River, so to engage the city back to the historic river that brought the city into being: engaging the riverfront and creating a new connection from the city side (with the downtown to the south of the site) to the more rural side. My actual site is located here, and there is an adjacent county park. So the project is seeking to engage the public space with the housing development, and explore how the two can work together to create a more symbiotic relationship. The building is massed to give space back to the land,

Joseph Becker: Do you want to just explain where that section is cut? JTN: Ya, it’s cut right here. So it is looking out to the main collection pool. This is all public space with the irrigating water trails that extend through the site to bring people more in contact with the water and irrigate the landscape as well.

JTN: Yes, so, it’s broken into an infrastructural arm that separates the public walkway, forms a communal garden space, and extends out to the road: connecting the road to the river. The housing modules plug into that. And this is an individual unit within the housing mass. All of the housing units are oriented south and shaded on the west by the infrastructural component, so to take advantage of the thermal mass opportunities. The canopy itself is obviously quite large. It is approximately 300,000 square feet; so it collects enough water for about 19 families. What I have proposed here is for 8 units. That could obviously be expanded or the excess water could be used for exterior features, increased irrigation and community garden local production. Each of the units then is organized based on water use and thermal control. The north side of each of the units is contained with potable water [and the south side is contained with greywater]. So each of these units are essentially vessels containing both water and people. The walls are all water-filled and spaces extend off that based on water use and their need for the thermal control provided by the mass of that water. For instance bathrooms that make use of both greywater and potable water, would extend across the space, and combine the two sources. And spaces such as bedrooms, that would make use of the winter evening heat provided by the daytime sun on the greywater wall, would be surrounded by that mass, and engage

199

200

the body. The water greywater fills furniture and other smaller-scale elements that provide a comfortable thermal environment while engaging the user with water, making them more aware of the processes and the resources. So in section, the walls obviously contain water and program extends off that. The roof is used for collection obviously. There is a gutter that flows through, recreation pools located above, and a water trail extending off the pools which serves as a source of evaporative cooling for within the units.

in rubber, but I looked into it. Peter Testa: Are you using printing in the project at this point? JTN: So, each of the units is broken down into modules. And I haven’t fully detailed, obviously, the construction methods, but I have been looking into 3d printing plastic composite, or similar rotational molding as [creating] an enclosing vessel that would get away from a lot of the leakage and other practical concerns with water. Leigh Cristy: The blue and the green are the potable and the greywater, correct?

Melanie Kaba: Is one of these models the unit? JTN: Yes. JTN: No, most of these are study models. I guess this is the last study model that… Nicholas de Monchaux: What about that model on the left there? JTN: That is also a study model of water functions of how they can intertwine. So I guess this is the closest representation of the water within the spaces. DG: It seems like most of the images of water are either about water as a resource or as a source of domestic comfort. Is there anywhere where you are using… the images suggest you also using water to rethink what a home is or what an apartment might be. So where is that? In the images I see water everywhere, right? NDM: But not a drop to drink… I also wanted to ask you about plastic, because you print on plastic, and everything is rendered as if it is translucent plastic as well. And water and plastic couldn’t be more different in their shapes and optical properties, as it was. They are incredibly different. And so I wonder, where is the plastic coming from? JTN: It does provide some translucency to expose water levels within the containing volumes. And we began the semester obviously with an exploration of 3d printing and its possibilities. And one of the things I latched onto early was rubber printing and plastic printing and creating these multi-material water-tight vessels. MK: Are those rubber? JTN: No. There’s plastic there, but I haven’t printed any

LC: Reliant on storm water, or not? JTN: Not. I mean relying on water from the canopy: collected rainwater. So the rainwater is collected and treated for potable water and recycled as greywater. LC: So if I move to like July in Tucson, does the section look the same? JTN: Yes, because, well in July they actually get a lot of rainfall. LC: So at a time when there is less rainfall? JTN: Well, because of the size of it, there would be an excess of water storage, so that would not normally be a problem. LC: It’s gonna look like that year round? JTN: It will look… watery. (Critic): So you’ve calculated the annual rainfall and the usage of the units, so they maintain the right levels, correct? The usage is replenished with the storm water? JTN: Yes. (Critic): So the section is always consistent? JTN: Yes. There are opportunities explored in the section, when even if it’s not at its maximum, for collection levels to register within water-filled furniture or within the vessels that enclose the bathroom and such.

201

NBM: Does the furniture deform? JTN: It would be, yes, like any waterbed. MK: So, it’s malleable? JTN: Yes. NDM: That’s really important! MK: And I could not perceive that from these images. It seems very static. JTN: Yes, I could definitely give that more attention. NDM: I think that because so much of your geometry is developed from the forms of deformed solids, and I think that that deformation is really… I’m still stuck on the plastic. I’m fascinated of the design of like spring water bottles, you know, that takes something that is so unnatural: like it’s unnatural to buy water, and to declare some water to be different from other water. I think that’s absurd. And then it tries to naturalize it through this most unnatural of materials, mostly by giving it these curves and sinuous things which is in… which, that is the part I am the least convinced of in the project: is the like spring water bottle aesthetics of these, you know, beautiful curves. And yet the notion that it might be a super-normative thing, but that just deforms, you know, is really, really interesting. And so, I am interested in, I think… I might choose to believe in the kind of baffling and the striations of the geometry if you in fact are starting to design the way in which it might deform. And that is also, I think, really interesting. That you actually shape, literally, domestic space through excess and absence of this un-built substrate material, on which the life of the house depends, is to me a really great project. It’s not totally clear in the graphics, but I subscribe to it wherever it may lie. DG: I wonder too, you know, if you are re-thinking the house with water, I wondering if you could A: ratchet it up a bit, but also B: think about things such as humidity, or we’ve heard about mold today, right? I wonder if you could think about ways to program the house around some of the qualities of water. It still feels like an apartment that has water sort of stuffed into it, versus something that… ya, gets out of the closet!

202

(Critic): Out of the water closet! standing next to this DG: But it’s like, you know here, when I imagine like there’s a mom and her son or daughter and they are standing next to this pool in their house: it’s one of the things I think you might ratchet up a bit. Water is also very interesting because when people have disabilities, water is one… when you’re in water it’s one of the few places where they are able-bodied. So water can also be an idea about circulation, right? There’s like all these pools and things. It’s like: resource or comfort. And I kind of challenge you to think about water in something besides those two categories. NDM: It’s making me think a little bit, you know, there’s this apartment that Kolatan did in New York in the nineties that was like on the cover of the New York Times… Ronald Rael: The O/K apartment NDM: … for the Kuttners. To me, it was funny, because I ended up getting to know those people, because they lived in Charlottesville. And that was just their pied-à-terre in New York. And they were never there. And they said it was really awful. But they were very happy because they got it on the cover of the New York Times Magazine. It was like the ultimate architecture as consumption. So to me I have a hard time with these kinds of sinuous plastics because in some ways it’s like the Fiji water bottle, that is water as commodified consumption. They actually have a problem of not having enough water in Fiji, and yet the Fiji water company has this codependence that’s like… nothing is more horrendous in late-model capitalism than selling people water. It’s just insane. And yet, marketing water… I mean Aquafina is just drinking water that you buy. So, the formal language is so close to that. It’s so close to the spring water bottle and it’s so much about a culture of post-human real estate, or like consuming water through buying the water apartment, that I think the project wants to have a better articulated or more clearly articulated attitude towards water consumption… that the substrate of the plastic that is distressingly close to the spring water bottle and yet in its deformation that the notion to the house is actually malleable and not solid, not this kind of rock solid vessel, but in fact a kind of … you are underwater in every sense. That is really I think potentially brilliant, and so I’m not sure where you… LC: One of the things that troubles me about how you

203

and the linearity of the units that you’ve set up and then I looked at the sections to try to find out how you get make this sort of thing work in a lot of the buildings that we do is that there’s need for water fall and gravity, unless you want to have mechanical systems involved in it. There’s a lot of ways to do it, and I look at the plan and the linearity of the units that you’ve set up and then I looked at the sections to try to find out how you get water from the roof down, whether it’s just a drain pipe as is typical, which I suspect it might be because you don’t actually see it go from point A to point B. But then it makes me look at your roof, and you’ve got some gestures of slope there but I feel like there is a real opportunity, no to say you have to have a butterfly roof, but whatever it is though, there is an intentionality missing about how to get that collection into the building, and into the water-filled furniture or anything else. (Critic): It’s a bit in here, but it hasn’t really been architecturally explained. LC: That’s interesting, that would be a little… JTN: I did look at it more in study models and I did explore central collection as “water places” for each unit, but… MK: I think it goes a step beyond collection to dissecting the circulation and adjacencies. It really doesn’t tell us what water you are using. LC: Is this related to this? And how does this… MK: Right, how does it enter the system at [the site] scale? And on the micro-scale how gravity plays a part, and then how that might begin to deform… why it would deform where it deforms in the interior. I think this idea of circulation could have been more rigorously addressed to fine tune. What I do think is really powerful about this are these interiors that are fairly different than a normal interior home. Though I don’t buy the contextualization component, I don’t think this necessitates Tucson. But that all stems from really rigorously investigating how the water gets in, and gets absorbed. The idea of absorption fights then I think what Nicholas is bringing up in terms of a plasticized, really rigid form, versus an ooze or a circulation that bleeds into the space and then contracts. JB: It’s kind of what this language is implying: this movement… and a little bit about what was just talked about. It actually isn’t going to be static. The amount of

204

water that is going to be in this building is not going to be static. You know, what happens if there is a major drought? How does the architecture respond? Does this thing start to actually deform and still perform in the right way? What happens if one unit has excessive shower use and the other one doesn’t bathe? How does the whole thing respond and how do the individual units respond? Does the couch become a settee? Does it become an armchair? Things like that. RR: That’s really interesting and I just want to build on that because I just want to bring up… PT: There is a lot of pressure on the space from water. The more water you have, the less space you have, the more thermal mass you have… which would be kind of a nice relationship. There could be more reciprocity. One other point, or two of them actually… one of them is the lack, in some of the projects we are seeing… the lack of reference to earlier models, like the impluvium, right? I mean this is not… clearly before we had plumbing, people had to collect water. So there are organizations that come from that. And I think that could be an interesting interplay, both the impluvium, or some of these early prototypes, and new material technologies that would allow for this kind of flexibility. So I’m missing a little bit those two ends of it. On the material side you spoke of this as hydrophilic? Or hydrophobic? But there [are] hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials, and you don’t seem to have pursued that, or at least you did not talk about that. And [those] could be ways of creating a relationship between material and these various kinds of spatial conditions. And it also I think goes back to the courtyards, which seems to be implicit in some of these things, but is not really in your language which seems more about a... I don’t know quite how to classify it, but it looks more like air movement than water. These look like radiator ducts. This is all about air. Water is much heavier. And impluvium also generally lead to something underground, like a well. And so I think that there are other dimensions. And that well could also be made out of stone or something and could have an interplay of different kinds of materials that would give this a lot more interest. JB: That’s really interesting when you talk about the well, because taking advantage of the existing thermal mass of the ground is something you aren’t really exploring. What if this whole project sunk, and what you’re talking about is a surface treatment of water that’s capturing the thermal mass on top. And then you have a more contained system.

NDM: There’s all the DeRoche examples, and the Brazilian modernism water themes… One of the things that architecture does, like in DeRoche’s own house… the water is really bloody heavy. And that’s the thing, water is one of the… what DeRoche did to support this thing (it’s like a nine inch pool of water over the whole roof): he’s got concrete beams which are about a meter deep, just to hold it up. And he uses them and articulates them beautifully. I think the physical properties of water and the way in which… would probably actually just deform the architecture you have here out of all recognition. I would encourage you either to really embrace the kind of entropic qualities of water... Projects have dealt with entropy in a variety of different ways. And water is this kind of destructive force that’s life giving at the same time. And I think that’s real interesting, that the notion of the house itself might be compressed over time into the soil. In parts of Australia, where people settled around gold mines, in the 19th century long before air conditioning, everything was just dug into the ground: whole towns and villages. Not in this kind of beautiful… it just seems very mater-of-fact: like, we are going to use the resource that’s here. The resource that’s here is the thermal mass that already exists in the ground. And so, the kind of resourceful… I don’t think you can talk about water without being resourceful. Especially in the way you have framed the project as water’s increasing urgency as a resource.

because you know I’ve said it before, that the moment there is a party and everyone is in the pool and the water rises and floods, there’s this whole dynamic condition about it that needs to be, not addressed, but accepted and then redesigned and reconfigured to accept the notion that water is a dynamic object. Unless then you move into vapors and ice; and you’re looking at it in its multiple states. And that is another way to explore the project as well. And I know you do explore it in terms if vapors by thinking about evaporative cooling. But I think on a much more… the phenomenon is not as pronounced I think as it should be. But I think what does work very well and is very exciting is that there is this notion of the interior, the domestic interior, that can be challenging and challenged by water spaces. And I do think that one goal that Joe had was to explore the realms of aesthetics, more than my own interest in water (and that is about dynamics and everything else). But I think the realm of aesthetics, and especially seeing Joe come along in the semester and knowing his past work, that he really wanted to push those on a number of levels… and also the realm of competence, I think. And he wanted to explore that. And it’s beautiful to see, I think, in the final result that he’s been able to layer in his interests. Because that’s what I think thesis should be about, in a very confident, beautiful, challenging way. And so, thank you very much Joe.

LC: I think also as you wrap this up, I would question your water cycle diagram where everything is linear over to the side. At what point does it come back at some point if it’s a resource? At some point it should come back.

Critics: Javier Arbona, Joseph Becker, Leigh Christy, David Fletcher, David Gissen, Melanie Kaba, Nicholas de Monchaux, Peter Testa

JTN: Ya, there is greywater. So, if it was organized differently, it could circle back. LC: Ya, so maybe it’s there. I’m questioning the organization. RR: I think the questions of the dynamic issues of water are really important and they have been brought up in ways that we haven’t discussed before and I think that’s been very fruitful. Especially this idea of displacement… and the displacement issue is only interesting, I think, when you accept something that I think is maybe the missed potential of the project: that I think David said this is like an apartment where there is water everywhere. The drawings in section could be done in a way where the figures never occupying the white, but they are always occupying the blue or the space that the blue needs to be. And I’ll say this again,

205

DIS RUPT ING.

re路fuse Anthony Giannini

210

211

2010 United States MSW Generated 2010 United States Total Total MSW Generation 250 Million Tons (before recycling) 250 Million Tons (pre-recycling)

United States Landfill Resources

other glass

wood

50%

28.5%

rubber, leather textiles

Paper

33% recycled

25%

metals

Empire State Buildings

Plastic

12.4% Plastics

food scraps

72 million tons of paper/year

41.4 million tons of plastic/year

yard trimmings 258.84 million cubic yards

148.833 million cubic yards incinerated

PAPERPLASTIC

13%

46%

109 Empire State Buildings

Ocean Garbage Patches

41 Million Tons of Plastic/Year only) Ocean (USA Garbage Patches

Largest Global Trash Conglomerates

108.61 Empire State Buildings

41.4 million tons of plastic/year

189 Empire State Buildings 148.833 million cubic yards

72 Million Tons of Plastic/Year (USA only) 188.88 Empire State Buildings

108.61 Empire State Buildings

72 million tons of paper/year

41.4 million tons of plastic/year

258.84 million cubic yards

148.833 million cubic yards

stic

FILL

Ocean Garbage Patches

212

54%

LANDFILL PAPER PLASTIC 50%

25%

new-natural resources.

+ emerging technologies. +

performative design.

Our consumer-oriented society has created a shifting paradigm in which trash is now our largest renewable resource: a new non-natural nature. Paper and plastic comprise over 50% of the globe’s landfill. When this waste is perceived as a new-natural resource it can be mined to produce the building materials of the future. It is imperative that we integrate this ubiquitous resource into emergent rapid manufacturing technologies coupled with a real-time, hands-on-digital approach. Americans alone, throw away enough office paper to build a 12’ high wall from LA to NY and enough plastic bottles to circle the globe 4 times each year. re·fuse explores how paper and plastic can be transformed into multi-performative materials—cellulose fiber and extruded recycled plastics, how these materials, when calibrated through digital design and fabrication processes, can create architectural skins that respond to views and light and create insulation and water proofing, and proposes a new vision for additive manufacturing at large scales.

Thesis Review 05 May 2012 UC Berkeley Wurster Hall New Gallery [RR] Ronald Rael Thesis Studio Director, UCB [LC] Leigh Christy Writer/Architect [PT] Peter Twesta Testa/Weiser SciArch [JA] Javier Arbona Academic/Intellectual [DG] David Gissen Experimental Historian, CCA [JS] Jill Stoner Professor/Chair of Graduate Adv, UCB [JB] Joseph Becker Curator SF MOMA [MK] Melanie Kaba Theorist Researcher, UCB [DF] David Fletcher Professor, CCA [TB] Tom Buresh Chair, Department of Arch, UCB

213

214

Paper

Plastic

Material Research and Development raw paper

raw plastic

GRIND

grinded paper

coarse > fine

grinded plastic

FILTER

MELT

grinded paper | binder

ultra-fine paper powder

melted plastic

BINDER

EXTRUDE

grinded paper | binder | moisture

Paper and plastic have added an inconceivable amount to the ubiquitous cultural waste that literally covers the globe, embedding in them the greatest potential for repurposing. The methodology for potentializing these materials as performative materials, as generated through the additive manufacturing process, was through a series of empirical studies. Paper and plastic (PP) have an integrally complementary relationship that proves highly practicable as building materials and assemblies. In the case of refuse, the strategized dichotomy between these materials is essential.

plastic filament

In brief, paper has innately high insulative properties, both thermally and acoustically. When combined with a bonding agent, synthetic or natural, it has a compressive strength comparable to oriented strand board and fibrous concrete. Where the properties of paper fall short, plastic upholds forte. Plastic has the capacity for high tensile stress while being intricately formed and waterproofed. The relationship between paper and plastic can be compared to that of concrete and steel. Through the course of re路fuse studies, two pioneering processes for reusing paper and plastic in additive manufacturing have been developed. Thermoplastics, 80% of all plastics, can now be ground up, melted and extruded into new filament for use in fused-deposition-modelers. Paper can now be grinded and 3d-printed, in standard 3d-printers that lay down successive layers of material in a bed, and it can be extruded in forthcoming fuseddeposition-modelers. By choreographing the coarseness of the resultant paper and the variation of fused plastic, the material properties can be transformed for maximum performance.

215

Thermoplastics THERMOPLASTICS

80% VOLUME

Material Samples

Resin Identification Code

Thermosets The resin identification coding system for plastic, represented by the numbers on the

bottom of plastic containers, was introduced by SPI, the plastics industry trade THERMOSETS association, in 1988. Municipal recycling programs traditionally target packaging Resin Identificationcontainers, Code and the SPI coding system offered a way to identify the resin content of bottles and containers commonly found in the residential waste stream. Plastic The resin identification codingcontainers system forare plastic, represented by the numbersthat on the household usually marked with a number indicates the type of bottom of plastic plastic. containers, was introduced by SPI, the plastics industry trade Consumers can then use this information to determine whether or not certain association, in 1988. Municipal traditionally target packaging plastic types arerecycling collectedprograms for recycling in their area. Contrary to common belief, just VOLUME containers, and the SPI coding system offered way to identify content of looks very similar because a plastic product hasathe resin numberthe in aresin triangle, which bottles and containers commonlysymbol, found itindoes the not residential stream. Plastic to the recycling mean it waste is collected for recycling. household containers are usually marked with a number that indicates the type of plastic. Consumers canResin then Identification use this information SPI Codes to determine whether or not certain plastic types are collected for recycling 1 PET in their area. Contrary to common belief, just because a plastic product has the resin number in a triangle, which looks very similar 2 HDPE to the recycling symbol, it does not mean it is collected for recycling. 3 Vinyl 3” 4 LDPE SPI Resin Identification Codes PP 5 1 PET6 PS 2 HDPE 7 OTHER 3 Vinyl 4 LDPE Cross Link 5 PP How Plastic Is Made 6 PS 7 OTHER Plastics can be divided in to two major categories: thermosets and thermoplastics. A thermoset solidifies or “sets” irreversibly when heated. They are useful for their durability and strength, and are therefore used primarily in automobiles and How Plastic Is Made construction applications. Other uses are adhesives, inks, and coatings.

20%

Material Samples Material:

Plastics can be divided in to two major categories: thermosets and thermoplastics. A A thermoplastic softens when exposed to heat and returns to original condition at thermoset solidifies or temperature. “sets” irreversibly when heated. useful for room Thermoplastics can They easily are be shaped andtheir molded into products durability and strength, are therefore used credit primarily in and automobiles and such asand milk jugs, floor coverings, cards, carpet fibers. construction applications. Other uses are adhesives, inks, and coatings. 3” Environmental Protection Agency A thermoplastic softens when exposed to heat and returns to original condition at room temperature. Thermoplastics can easily be shaped and molded into products such as milk jugs, floor coverings, credit cards, and carpet fibers.

(HDPE) high-density polyethylene material high-density polyethylene (HDPE) (plastic grocery bags) (plastic grocery bags) binder polyethylene thermoplastic from.5” petroleum 3” wheat-based glue

polyethylene thermoplastic made from petroleum

Binder:

material sugar & unbleached wheat ﬂour high-density polyethylene (HDPE) (plastic grocery bags)

3”

polyethylene thermoplastic made from petroleum

wheat-based glue .5” binder wheat-based glue sugar & unbleached wheat flour

sugar & unbleached wheat ﬂour

3”

Material:

material newspaper

newspaper

newsprint

3”

.5”

Binder:

binder wheat-based glue

sugar & unbleached wheat ﬂour

material newspaper

wheat-based glue 3” binder sugar & unbleached wheat flour glue .5” wheat-based newsprint

sugar & unbleached wheat ﬂour

3”

Environmental Protection Agency

Material:

material newspaper newsprint

newspaper

3”

Binder: 3”

.5”

binder polyvinyl acetate (PVA glue) (C4H6O2)n

material newspaper

3”

newsprint

.5” (C4H602) binder polyvinyl acetate (PVA) polyvinyl acetate (PVA glue) (C4H6O2)n 3”

ation

material newspaper newsprint

Material:

3”

.5”

newspaper 3”

Binder:

material newspaper

3”

vegetable starch

newsprint

.5”

wheat paste (powder) 3” starch vegetable

binder wheat paste (powder-based)

binder wheat paste (powder-based) vegetable starch

material 2 parts newspaper newsprint

1 part paper mache paper, clay, plaster

material 2 parts newspaper .5”

3”

newsprint

Material:

3”

1 part paper mache paper, clay, plaster

binder dextrine

low-molecular-weight carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch or glycogen. Dextrins are mixtures of polymers of D-glucose units linked by α-(1->4) or α -(1->6) glycosidic bonds.

binder 2 parts newspaper3” dextrine .5” 1 part paper mache (paper, clay, plaster)

low-molecular-weight carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch or glycogen. Dextrins are mixtures of polymers of D-glucose units linked by α-(1->4) or α -(1->6) glycosidic bonds.

Binder:

3”

dextrine

low-molecular-weight carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch or glycerin vegetable starch

iation

material paper mache .5” paper, clay, plaster binder dextrine

3”

Material: 3”

3”

material paper mache

paper, clay, plaster

binder dextrine

low-molecular-weight carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch or glycogen. Dextrins are mixtures of polymers of D-glucose units linked by α-(1->4) or α-(1 ->6) glycosidic bonds.

.5” paper mache (paper, clay, plaster)

Binder:

3”

dextrine

dextrines are mixtures of polymers of D-glucose units linked by a-(1->4) or a-(1->6) glycosidic bonds.

kness variation

216

Plastic

Material Samples THERMOPLASTICS

THERMOSETS

20%

80%

rs on the try trade ackaging ontent of . Plastic e type of ot certain elief, just ry similar

VOLUME

material high-density polyethylene (HDPE) (plastic grocery bags)

polyethylene thermoplastic made from petroleum

3”

.5”

sugar & unbleached wheat ﬂour

THERMOPLASTICS

Cross Link

material newspaper newsprint

3”

.5”

binder wheat-based glue

sugar & unbleached wheat ﬂour

3”

Paper

material variation

material newspaper newsprint

3”

THERMOSETS

[AG] Displayed right here are material samples from the 20% 80% raw materials to VOLUME the final product that has been processed VOLUME through additive manufacturing. Laid out here is the process from raw newspaper to a 3D-printed form.

3”

astics. A for their iles and

ndition at products

binder wheat-based glue

Plastic

.5”

binder polyvinyl acetate (PVA glue) (C4H6O2)n

3”

This is showing an example of fused deposition modeling, which is the way in which plastic will be transformed. What happens in this case, this would be the paper powder and it’s a bi-product of grinding the paper down. The first example would be grinding, adding a binder and moisture content to it and extruding it into a fused deposition modeling process. That was the second one you just saw and the same happens to the plastic, more or less, you grind up the plastic bottles through a series of different coarseness, you melt it down and actually extrude that into filament and that filament is what you use to 3D-print. That is based on Paper technologies today. existing material variation [RR] The paper is an innovation that you created.

paper density

material newspaper newsprint

3”

.5”

binder wheat paste (powder-based) vegetable starch

3”

aperture variation material 2 parts newspaper

[AG] Oh yes, so the actual paper here I developed myself, I paper don’t One little densityknow of anyone else who’s ever done it. detail, so these are the first actual tests. This 3d-print was created using that raw newspaper. [PT] What binder are you using?

newsprint

1 part paper mache paper, clay, plaster

binder dextrine 3”

.5”

low-molecular-weight carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch or glycogen. Dextrins are mixtures of polymers of D-glucose units linked by α-(1->4) or α -(1->6) glycosidic bonds.

3”

module thickness variation material paper mache

[AG] Many different binders. . . aperture variation

[PT] Or that’s part of the secret? [AG] Wood glues and even natural wheat paste will work.

paper, clay, plaster

binder dextrine

3”

.5”

3”

low-molecular-weight carbohydrates produced by the hydrolysis of starch or glycogen. Dextrins are mixtures of polymers of D-glucose units linked by α-(1->4) or α-(1 ->6) glycosidic bonds.

module thickness variation

217

218

Computational Design Methods Through a deep material research and development of waste paper and plastic, there has been an emergence of high-performance materials that arise through the additive manufacturing processes of 3D-printing and fuseddeposition-modeling. As these additive manufacturing processes are digitally produced, the newly invented materials of waste paper and plastic lend themselves to be fully integrated into a highly computational design process and output. In these wall case studies, the Rhinoceros plug-in, Grasshopper, was used as the parametric tool to manage a large variety of variables with material properties in order to create performative walls comprised of proliferated components. In short, parametric design means that a limitless variety of parameters can be used to create a resultant solution. While any variable changes, the resultant is automatically updated based on the new parameters. Variables including, and not limited to, local conditions of climate and natural forces can be integrated into the Grasshopper definition. The re路fuse wall was designed as a curtain wall in a mixed-use gallery typology that responds to human view conditions, internal illuminance levels, and optimal daylighting control. Depending on dimensional restrictions of available 3d-printers, contractor assembly preferences and aesthetic adoptions, a grid is created over the proposed wall surface. This grid creates a series of unique, allowably double-curved surfaces, each having a unique surface normal, and determines the relative size of the components. By first analyzing the internal conditions of eye-level views out towards the

219

Paper

439,871 in³ 7,542.37 lbs 439,871 Plastic

505,894 in³ 8,674.45 lbs 505,894 Plastic

564,988 in³ 9,687.72 lbs 564,988 Plastic

600,709 in³ 10,300 lbs 600,709 Plastic

622,467 in³ 10,673 622,467 lbs Plastic

635,830 in³ 10,902 635,830 lbs Plastic

182,360 in³ 7,542.37 5,242.68 lbs

8,674.45

191,549 in³ 5,506.89 lbs

9,687.72

203,742 in³ 5,857.42 lbs

10,300

600,709 in³ 10,300 lbs

224,501 in³ 10,673 6,454.21 lbs

232,511 in³ 10,902 6,684.54 lbs

215.59

247.84

276.79

294.29

304.94

311.48

182,360

191,549

203,742

214,958

224,501

232,511

3.91

4.11

4.37

4.61

4.81

4.98

5,242.68

5,506.89

5,857.42

6,179.89

6,454.21

6684.53

99,611

104,631

111,219

117,418

122,630

127,006

9.427962

220

10.84

12.11

12.88

13.34

13.63

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

Incident Radiation Analysis on Double-Curved Facade Surface Incident Radiation Analysis on Double-Curved Facade Surface

8u x 8v (64 modules)

12u x 12v (144 modules)

Automatic Module Layout and Labeling for Fabrication 8u x 8v (64 modules)

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

APRIL JUNE San Francisco skyline,MAY the individual component aperture diameters in the relative x-axis are parametrically sized to create a distinctive view and illuminance gradient along the wall. Simultaneously, the normals of each parent surface are analyzed for incident radiation and its exclusive relationship to the local sun angles. Based on the newly created JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER aperture of each component and basic Pythagorean theories, which are written in the Grasshopper definition, a component depth along the relative y-axis is automatically created. The result is a global-scale, limitlessly-curved wall comprised of proliferated unique components that create the optimal views and lighting conditions that were desired.

As all of the geometry in the re路fuse wall is parametric, being linked to any variable desired, other factors such as material thickness, plastic versus paper, are controlled. The amount of paper and plastic in the form is automatically quantified and outputted. This creates an instant feedback that allows the designer to wholly understand the materialusage implications for use in design decisions and reviews. For example, on page 14, as the overall porosity of the wall changes, the quantity of paper and plastic is recorded. In this case, relative to intuition, an unexpected result occurs: a proportional relationship between porosity and material quantity. As porosity increases, material quantity increases. Situations like these demonstrate the stipulation of utilizing parametric design to provide immediate feedback of ones design decisions. 12u x 12v (144 modules)

12u x 12v (144 modules)

Top Left: Automated Material Quantification using paper and plastic. Bottom Left: Parametric Grasshopper Model responding to change of porosity. Top Right: Form Analysis of Annual Incident Radiation. x 12v layout (144 modules) Above: Automated 12u module and labeling for fabrication.

20u x 20v (400 modules)

221

222

α_45°

223

224

225

226

[AG] Since I’ve proven that these materials can be used in the additive manufacturing technologies, it lends itself to be used in this really heavy digital and computational design process. Here is where I’m taking paper and plastic and letting it respond to a series of variables including lighting conditions, view conditions etc, while giving back a real-time feedback quantitatively of the amount of paper and plastic being used in these modules that it’s laying out. Specifically here it is showing how it automatically lays out those modules as you’re changing those variables. This process of additive manufacturing is, another great thing about it is the connection between the digital and the physical world now is becoming very close and this relationship is changing everyday.

We can now take this form that we design digitally and start to imagine it in real life, very easily, and prove the computational, performative qualities of our design.

Left: 1:1 scale, 3d-printed waste paper, mock-up wall. Structural design inspired by the material-to-structure efficiency of sectional bird bone. Right: Full model. Actual dimensions: 36”W x 20”H

227

228

[AG] As you’re designing you’re getting this constant feedback to you. Specifically regarding the amount of paper and plastic, which is essential. In this example, it was designed so that each module was automatically adjusted for optimal lighting conditions and this is showing basic summer solstice versus winter solstice conditions. Here in the summer solstice condition, no direct light can enter and that was a direct result of the script that I created that comprises these material properties. This wall here is a prototype of what that wall would be. It is a plastic shell that was fused deposition modeled and it has been infilled with FDM paper, which would be the rough coarse, cut with the binder. The plastic shell is acting as the waterproofing and the basic tensile structure and then the paper inside adds a great layer of insulation and compressive strength. This is one sample of how these two materials can play together. And over here, this mock-up wall is exploring a lot of forms that are being pushed in the engineering world, and in a lot of ways the architecture world, where the forces that flow through them efficiently mold these natural forms. This is modeled after a bird-bone and the embedded efficiency inside the structure of the birdbone is astonishing. This model is starting to take the paper material and create the sort of forms that were previously nearly impossible to create. This sample wall is comprised of structural paper forms with a plastic shell on the outside. Here is one panel, which was also 3D-printed. [MK] Is the plastic shell holding them together? Right now they are sort of sitting there, right? Left: 1:1 scale, re·fuse prototype wall. Fused-Deposition-Modeled recycled plastic shell, infilled with medium-coarse, binded waste paper. Each component is unique, being shaped by the grasshopper script to optimize sunlight control of the interior space. Actual dimensions: 36”W x 20”H.

[AG] No, actually those are all held together. The 3dprinted plastic barrier is attached on the outside of the paper structure.

229

230

Module Variation: Aperture Width vs. Depth

Module Variation Within Manufacturing Constraints: Optimized for 45째 Extrusion Limits

231

232

233

Layer_3 3_H 3_G 3_F 3_E 3_D 3_C

Layer_2

3_B 3_A

2_H 2_G 2_F 2_E 2_D 2_C

Layer_1

2_B 1_H

2_A 1_G 1_F 1_E 1_D 1_C

1_B

1_A

3_F 3_G 3_H

2_E 2_F 2_G 2_H 3_A 3_B 3_C 3_D 3_E

1_F 1_G 1_H 2_A 2_B 2_C 2_D

3_H

1_A 1_B 1_C 1_D 1_E

3_G 2_H

3_F 2_G 1_H 3_E 2_F 1_G 3_D

2_E 1_F

3_C 2_D 1_E 3_B 2_C 1_D 3_A

2_B

yer_

1_C 2_A La

yer_

1_B

1_A La

yer_

234

235

236

237

Future Large-Scale Fabrication

[AG] Everything I’ve showed you thus far is a system and a process that can be implemented today; however, there is a huge push in this world of additive manufacturing to create larger concepts of 3D-printing and they are continually creating 3D-printers that are larger than the object, always. I see that problematic for many reasons, because obviously you have to build a printer larger than the object you’re creating, which doesn’t seem very viable and there are lots of axial restraints, among many others.

We now have the ability to utilize our cultural waste as a feasible medium for which we put through digital processes of design and rapid manufacturing to create a new architecture of the future. When our planet resets beneath the self-imploding consumerist waste, using all of the processes and techniques as described earlier, 3-Dimensional Waste Processing and Printing Robots will rummage the land, processing the waste and patching together the built environment.

This is a vision of what that might look like. Thank you.

I propose to take all of these technologies and integrate them in a robot that collects the paper and plastic, processes it, just like this was done, and extrudes it itself. It has no limitations to scale or axial conditions, theoretically. This proposal is how it might be possible. This sample here is showing a plastic shell on the outside with paper infilled and what that might look like at different scale and formal possibilities. [LC] Does any paper work or only newspaper? [AG] I’ve primarily used newspaper but I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t use any other type of paper. [LC] Because newspapers die. [AG] True. Yes, it would essentially be the same.

238

Previous page: The robots analyze the despaired space and, by utilizing the structural properties of plastic and paper, 3d-prints a new spatial bridging between the two buildings. Paper and plastic are negotiated for optimal material-to-structural efficiency. Paper is utilized as the compressive and insulative material while the plastic is used as the outer-shell, serving as the waterproof, tensile structure. Right: New, highly-performative wall typologies using paper and plastic made possible by non-axial 3d-printer robots.

o-Plastic ession-to-tension] nship

Internal Diagonal Bracing for Optimal Lateral Resistance Compressive Paper

Typical Concrete-to-Rebar [compression-to-tension] Relationship

Variable Wall & Shell Thickness With Horizontal Lateral Ties

Air-Pocket Insulation Wall

Plastic-In-Tension Wall

Air-Pocket Insulation Wall

Plastic-In-Tension Wall

Tensil Plastic

New Paper-to-Plastic [compression-to-tension] Relationship

Compressive Paper

Tensile Plastic

Internal Diagonal Bracing for Optimal Lateral Resistance

239

240

In the world of additive manufacturing today, there is a diligent marathon to create larger 3d-printers, with the same goal in mind: 3d-print larger objects. In some cases, researchers are already creating concepts to 3d-print entire buildings. Enrico Dini, an engineer from Italy, has already started to revolutionize construction by successfully 3d-printing buildings out of sand. The central weakness of these concepts is the idea of always needing the printer to be larger than the object it is creating. re路fuse proposes an alternative solution: integrate all of these existing additive manufacturing technologies into a freely navigable robot. Much like a paper wasp gathers fibers from dead wood and plant stems, mixes it with a moisture content, saliva, and constructs beautiful and functional spaces, the robot will gather nearby paper waste, process it, add a moisture content and extrude it into new spatial structures. The robot is also much like a spider, which is an arthropod, having a segmented body and hydraulically controlled legs, they navigate impossible terrain while consuming protein and extrude silk into tensile structures with silk glands. The robot will gather plastic, and while crawling up existing and newly created forms with their hydraulic legs, they will extrude plastic into tensile and waterproof structures. Using existing 3d-scanning technology, these robots will determine existing and potential spatial characteristics. Through a series of spatial, structural and environmental analyses, new proposes will be created, which provides real-time feedback of material needs and design proposals to a central network for humans to review and revise if desired. This will be a continuously looping system of material gathering, material processing, spatial analysis, new spatial/structural proposals and robotic 3d-printing.

241

[TB] Patent pending? [AG] That’s right. [TB] IPO? [LC] What didn’t you do that you wanted to do? [AG] A lot. I would say I probably have 10% of what my goal was and I see a lot moving forward today. There is a lot that I could do to develop this. [LC] So what’s the next step in moving forward? [AG] One session would be, I’ve become very attached to this concept here and there are lots of details missing in it right now: simple details that were started to be attempted here where you can implement more waterproofing situations real easily. So imagine this block stacked. There are lots of things like that, that you can tackle right away with this technology and of course, material science behind it. There’s going to be a lot there that was not touched here. What you see today was mostly intuitive, the relationship between paper and plastic. I’m very interested in creating, these forms, like there, which we haven’t really been able to make yet and I’m really interested to see what potential comes out of that. [JA] All throughout, you don’t really question this waste stream itself. The amount of waste is something that you take as a given. I think there is something really powerful about everything you are doing with the material but I think that there is a kind of really, still very much unquestioned line of thinking here about, even in like in the images that you’re using you know, especially the one on the left is the

242

only one that troubles me the most, where you have sort of this desperate environment and somehow this architecture is going to come and build this stuff out of these peoples’ waste when really most of the waste does not come from over there, it comes from here. So, you see where I’m coming from? I think that there is a lot of really powerful sort of, really interesting ideas about reusing these materials, but there’s a lot of politics that you are not questioning enough, including even the politics of the robot too. I find it incredibly ironic that in some ways you guys invent the very technologies that are going to make you obsolete in the job market. [JB] What you’re creating really is a solution to an existing problem, everything up to the point of actually proposing how that solution is implemented. That’s a beautiful way of representing what this technology can do, but what is it actually doing? What I’m actually curious about is, what about an aquatic robot that is sent to the pacific gyre that’s collecting all of this mass and producing the archipelago. [AG] I looked into that a lot. [JB] I think that’s the next step. [AG] Yeah absolutely, that too would be on the list of to-do. [JA] But it’s always the next savior technology, that’s the kind of thing that gets me the most, which I don’t really know how to address.

The reality with robotics is you don’t actually eliminate people. I think it’s a myth that you replace people, but actually you need just as many people for high quality production: you still need people. [PT]

3-Dimensional Scanners: spatializing existing spaces

Raw Plastic Storage: faster printing: low precision

Raw Paper Storage: faster printing: low precision

Material Processing Chamber: paper: grind, sift, binder, moisture plastic: grind, melt, extrude

Plastic Extruder 1: Fused Deposition Modeling faster printing: low precision

Plastic Extruder 2: Fused Deposition Modeling slower printing: high precision

Paper Extruder 1: Fused Deposition Modeling faster printing: low precision

Plastic Extruder 2: Fused Deposition Modeling slower printing: high precision

Above: Proposed robot utilizing existing technologies: waste processing and additive manufacturing. Free from axial restraints, this 3d-printing robot can create large-scale buildings with a limitless array of typologies and building assemblies.

243

And you still need people to make the robots, program the robots. I think that’s a false concern with the science fiction. I think that you reinforce that model of your robot, but the way you represented it, I don’t think is helping that. I mean it’s actually provoking that so it’s to be science fiction, and I think that we lose a lot because the rest of this is actually really grounded, so why do you have to go off and play those games of robots that can wonder around without any support and so forth. I’d go much more, I take this very seriously and I think your whole generation is taking this seriously and I think it behooves you to really work through those technologies at the same level you’re working through this. So why not be thinking about the robotics from the point of view of current available technologies and how that works and take responsibility for it, rather than use that as a sort of jump into the fictional?

[JA] Just to piggy-back on that too, if you look at whole lot of other cases, there’s a whole history of solutions for waste where ultimately, because of variation of labor, it becomes easier to say make handbags out of plastic bags from the supermarket that you can just purchase brand new rather than supposedly harvest the waste in the landfill. So, there are people who can do amazing things with weaving, but they end up weaving it out of new plastic, rather than using the plastic that you have to go collect out of a landfill. So that’s one of the things I’m afraid might kind of project that scenario where this would be just made out of, it makes a great shape, but would just kind of go and get stuff that’s right off the shelf.

[DG] But Peter, whether or not, in terms of the actual accuracy, historical accuracy of what robots do, I think it’s quite insightful. It makes you realize that one of the things that is in play in all the images is the images of labor and it’s like the WOBO bottle, the Heineken bottle that becomes a building block. Just like that, the project is about turning our consumption into labor in some ways and the robot is also about labor. There’s a colleague of mine, earlier here, we always talked about why we use images of robots and robotic manufacturing and it’s because of the earnestness of it and they do labor without complaint. And so I think there actually is something great and conceptually interesting. The relationship between the waste stream and how the waste stream becomes like this arts and crafts stream of labor and robotics as this image of labor. Your Chair said, when’s the IPO, right? You’re not getting an MBA degree and architecture has this history of meeting with ideas, I love a lot of the imagery, but I’m not clear if you’re dealing with the ideas that the imagery invokes.

[AG] It’s actually incredibly easy, believe it or not, to take that “raw”, I’m calling it a new raw material because there’s so much of it now, and take that and print it, is very simple.

244

[RR] But that’s not what he’s doing, you’re projecting a strange version of the project, which is. . .

[JA] To finish my thought, where I think it would be really really really powerful, and where you could do the stuff with the material itself, that’s already been used and discarded is, how can I just build this myself? If I could just get open source, if I could just get instructions how to make a robot and I could make a printer, then I could just like make a bunch of things at home. If I could just like make the robot and program it myself, that would be much more powerful than this kind of like climbing robot that builds things. [JB] But is that necessarily more powerful? I think that the image of a robot that can potentially mine landfill, create a new building material that other wise would disappear off the radar and be put back into the ground, I think that’s the level that we want.

[JA] The sad thing is that it’s always cheaper to get people to go to a landfill and harvest it than to have a robot go and do it. We will use the robot to build brand new buildings like that than to go harvest waste. [LC] I think the premise of the robot, and how I understand the robot came about, was actually not a bad question, which was, you can’t keep making a bigger and bigger 3dprinter. So, with that as a premise. . . [PT] It’s about being additive through the head, so it could be a conventional robot that could do this too. [LC] I’m going to put words in your mouth for a second, you say that you explored a monolithic, and that was the creation of a robot and at the other end of the spectrum, you’re creating these modules of building, which is to say lets take a 3d-printer available to print modules and create something bigger out of that. So, I think your fundamental question is right on. You’re not just going to keep building a bigger and bigger printer. The question is how to do it and you proposed two alternate solutions for that and I think the robot, while fun, isn’t convincing us as much perhaps. The second thing that I would be looking for is, given your inputs, plastic and newspaper, and what you got out of it, what I think I would be interested in is the qualities of the material that make it good to work with and what would make it better and perhaps therefore more sustainable to begin with. So, close the feedback loop and you’re saying, if this composition of plastic is harmful because of x, y, z, and in addition, I would need something more structurally sound in order to make a solid building block out of it and I’m going to go back to the people making the plastic and understand how to close that loop and therefore maybe not have as much of a landfill, if that makes sense?

245

[AG] I understand. Theoretically, if something like this fully happened you would use up all of the waste in the landfill eventually. So there are lots of questions like that too. [LC] I worked on an LA river project earlier, this is going to seem like a tangent for a second, but work with me. So it is a flood channel and it’s runoff and it’s recycled water from plants and there’s a master plan created for this and at a certain point you want to reintroduce the landscape and you want to understand how the river can be revitalized. It turns out DWP then has to ask the environmental people, “well, how much water do you really need? We’re going to start using all that, and we need that water. So let me use enough to restore your habitat”. That’s sort of a weird way to think about it. If you run out of a paste, what do you do with it? [JA] It’s more interesting for what you’re doing, not for what this could do. I think it’s just much more powerful that you’ve recycled this stuff and you built this stuff instead of like these sci-fi scenarios of what it is.

But I have to question the sci-fi part of this, because I actually don’t think it’s sci-fi. Peter, you brought up the question, “why don’t you take existing robotic technology seriously?”. But I would say that what he’s using right now are existing robotic technologies. [RR]

[PT] Sure, but I don’t think the scale of that, the ability for it to excrete material. I mean, he’s much less rigorous; lets just put it that way. He’s very rigorous here and much less rigorous there. Why not have the same rigor all the way through?

246

247

[JS] I mean I think the real advantage that this project has going forward is that there is already so much done and I think you’re in a really good position to quantify, package it a little bit, think about how you might test it in the field, and apply for a grant. I think you are absolutely in a position to move forward and I can think for instance of some of the experiments going on in Detroit where they’ve got houses with holes in them. I mean, you just go and you propose to patch one of those houses up with the material that you can find within four square blocks of that house. The patching I think is a great way to make it very visible. To me there’s a real direction towards the lower tech that is as interesting as the direction in the high tech. The idea that you take things which are produced without human hands, water bottles and newspaper, and you sort of return them to the kind of labor that is maybe more appropriable than repetitive production. So maybe you have to really make a case for there being two scales of production, two scales of time, two scales of architectural elements and the research can support both. [AG] That was the idea, and I love that you brought up the hole, because conventional techniques are hard to fill in highly unconventional holes and gaps, but this technology can fill in any gap that arises. [PT] How does he get material to that robot? How does it stay up and how is it powered? That’s all I’m asking. I want to make that as convincing as the other parts. [LC] I have this image of this trail left in the city as it sort of picks up trash and moves it’s refuge and you’ve got this trail through it. That’s kind of cool in one hand, and in another, I don’t know exactly how that would work. So, I think one of the questions is the ultimate form that comes out of it and I feel like it’s not necessarily process that feels sci-fi to me but it’s the decision to make the bulbous forms that feel very insecty.

248

[RR] I have some questions to follow. I’m asking these questions in my own research and I’m looking for answers and the only two answers I have right now with Anthony is that there’s two possible scenarios. One is a 3D-printer farm where you have lots of printers that work just like the ones we have now, or we have big 3D-printers. There

are some companies who are making big 3D-printers and they don’t work too far away from the way Anthony is proposing in his robot scenario, except that they don’t have legs.

[PT] But they have to carry all of that material. I personally don’t believe in the big 3D-printer model; the idea that you can just scale it up. I do think that you have to change the technology and morphology of that. But I think to get there we have to work through really mastering industrial robotic technology to actually make the next step. Because otherwise you’re asking for a big leap without any kind of resentment and also the head design would be the same. To actually make the head of that robot would be on an industrial level, you could deal with all of those problems on that robot. I think innovation is very very difficult and it is absolutely our responsibility, but it’s extremely difficult and so I think we do a disservice to ourselves if we suggest it’s easy or that we could quickly get there. It’s actually really really hard. [LC] But what I think he’s been able to do is to carry us up to this point of the conversation in a very rigorous way and an innovative way. [PT] Yeah, yes. [AG] I threw it out there for this reason, to get this discussion and I knew I wouldn’t be nearly as developed as that.

[LC] But what I think he’s been able to do is to carry us up to this point of the conversation in a very rigorous way and an innovative way. [PT] Yeah, yes. [AG] I threw it out there for this reason, to get this discussion and I knew I wouldn’t be nearly as developed as that. [JB] Nonetheless, you’ve got to provide provocation for what you’ve done. [RR] Whereas I think, and I’ve seen many projects that starts here. [PT] That’s what I’d like to criticize actually, is that I think far too many projects start here, and actually in the end they have no real credibility and in the end I think do a disservice to the people working on them because they actually don’t gain the knowledge, the resistance, the resistance to actually lead the innovation.

[JS] This is a project that took no short cuts and we’re so used to shortcuts that I think it’s just absolutely amazing. Really. [RR] I think that’s a good way to close. I too think it’s amazing; it’s been a real pleasure to work with Anthony this semester. Again, I will say, if I had preconceptions of what it would be like, it was Mark’s project. I think Anthony took it a little beyond my expectations of the trajectories in my own mind what it would be like, and I think that’s really fantastic. So thank you, Anthony.

249

Right: Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first 3d-printed waste paper. These were the first successful prints using newspaper and binder in the ZCorp 310 3d-printer. April 2012.

250

251

ISBN 978-1-105-99415-9

90000

9 781105 994159