DESIGN STUDIO AIR REBECCA MAHONEY
ABOUT ME
BEC MAHONEY
I am a third year architecture student from Sydney living in Melbourne. I should probably say something along the lines of ‘architecture is my passion’ but truthfully its pain. I love any kind of minimal design, those Nordics really know what’s up in that regard. I spend most of my time scrolling through design blogs and eating ramen and that’s about all there is too it.
CONTENTS A1 CONCEPTUALISATION Design futuring Introduction to LAGI Land Art precedent Renewable Energy Precedent
DESIGN COMPUTATION Design evolution Computational precedents
A3 COMPOSITION/ GENERATION
A2
DESIGN FUTURING
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LAGI COMPETITION The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is an initiative founded in 2008 that strives to combine art and design with renewable design as a means of creating a new typology of renewable energy infrastructure. Since 2010, LAGI has held an annual competition open to designers, architects, engineers and the like, to create a public art installation that produces renewable energy. According to the LAGI descriptor, in creating a public artwork, the environment is enriched, learning is facilitated and the local economy is stimulated. The brief for the annual competition is that the design should be able to capture natural energy and convert it to electricity cleanly for transmittance to the grid. It must be safe for recreational and educational users and respect the ecosystem of the site. Finally it must be constructible rather than theoretical.
This years LAGI competition is based in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. In 2014 Copenhagen was named the 2014 ‘Green Capital’, and strives to be the first carbon neutral city by 2025. This means that Copenhagen will be producing zero net emissions in 11 years, and tat the remainder of emissions will be compensated with external initiatives such as windmills. To reach this goal Copenhagen will undergo a ‘green transition’, what this involves is an open dialogue that is inclusive to all participants and groups in the city to ensure their interests are represented. The green transition will head towards carbon neutrality through addressing a host of city issues such as energy use and production, resource use and climate change, architecture, the use of city space. The 2014 site for the LAGI competition is Refshaleøen, a former shipyard that sustained thousands of workers. It sits opposite the river from the famous Little Mermaid statue that pays tribute to the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. The shipyard is surrounded on three sides and has a rich historical context due to Copenhagens past s a port city. Today the site is used for small design firms, markets and creative entrepeunerships.
LAGI PRECEDENT SCENE SENSOR
‘Scene-Sensor situates itself at the intersection of flows joining and separating opposing landforms: as a channel screen, harnessing the flows of wind through the tidal artery, and as vantage points, staging crosswise pedestrian flows through the park, the two acting in combination as a mirror-window, reflecting and revealing the scene of Freshkills’ fluctuating landscape back to itself.’
The winning design entry by James and Shota is, in my opinion the most refined and contextually beautiful. Their design is a pair of wind channel screens that sits perched above the Fresh Kills water way forming an interactive space. It looks at the interaction between humans and ecology by mapping and displaying real time peizoelectric currents. The project is situated over the water while still allowing access for canoes and kayaks under and is therefore treading lightly on its environment, which fits in ecologically with the brief to not impact site through energy demand etc. Above the water, the Scene- sensory is a series of ramped walk ways. The confluence of the two types of energies (human and ecological) is displayed through a series of pixels that make up the screen wall on either side. While the screen firstly works as a determinate of the amount of energy being produced. The wall is made of a collecting of fleible panels that are allowed to bend in the wind, therefore transforming the appearance of the screen depenging on wind loads. Each panel houses reflective metallic mesh that collects peizoelectric currents and on a day with high wind loads, this energy conversion would be enough to power 12 thousand homes. The beautiful undulating appearance of the screen is the individual reactions to wind being composed into a single real time image of energy production.
ENERGY PRECEDENT HIGH ENERGY WIND POWER
Currently most energy generating wind turbines sit at roughly 90 meters, above ground level. Despite this the optimum range for wind collection is much higher, as at higher altitudes, wind moves faster. There is a huge potential for wind collection that is currently being investigated by a number of small firms across the globe. High altitude wind could mean zero-emission electricity globally in the near future due to the steadier and faster winds generated in the higher ‘jet streams’ The future of high altitude wind power lies in the creation of airborne wind capturers that fly hundreds of meters above the ground, in a similar manner to a kite. A few examples of the way in which the generators will create energy come from Ampyx Power, a Dutch company. Their turbine flies at about 300 m and generates energy by tugging on the cable that tethers it to the ground. Mageen Power from California sends up a helium filled balloon that spins when the wind hits it therefore generating kinetic energy. These designs are still in the prototyping phase, and it is expected that despite the hue potential, without government funding these technologies might not be viable on a large scale for a number of years.
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/high_altitude_wind_energy_huge_potential_and_hurdles/2576/DAVE LEVITAN 2012,HIGH ALTITUDE WIND ENERGY, FROM ENVIRONMENT 360, YALE
ENERGY PRECEDENT PIEZOELECTRICITY
Piezoelectricity is the creation of an electrical charge through the compression or oscillation of certian minerals such as quartz.1 Piezoelectric derives from the Greek word Piezein which means to press of squeeze. there are types of ceramic materials such as Barium Titanate that display piezoelectric traits and can be used as ultrasonic transducers2. The types of crystals that display piezoelectricity are generally chemically inert, strong and cheap to manufacture, therefore they are somewhat the ideal material. When Piezo minerals are compressed along the direction of polarization they create an electrical charge, this type of charge is classified as a generator charge. This type of charge is usually found in objects such as solid batteries. The potential application of piezoelectricity could be huge and extremely advantageous in a society that needs to find alternate energy sources from fossil fuels. However it is still in the experimental stage and studies such as using piezoelectric flooring (such as conducted by Duke University) were abandoned due to relatively high start up costs. Piezoelectricity can be difficult to use in a large scale project such as the LAGI competition due to the need for constant movement about the site for energy generation, its best application should be one that is not solely dependent on human movement, rather it should use the movement of wind in the way that the scene sensor project of 2012 did.
DESIGN COMPUTATION
COMPUTATIONAL PRECEDENT NICOLA FORMICHETTI STORE NYC
“Mark Foster Gage’s store for Nicola Formichetti looks like someone nickelplated Andy Warhol’s old mylar-covered Factory studio, stuffed it into a kaleidoscope, and shot it into outer space.” - Ian Volner, Interior Design Magazine Finished in 2011 the Nicola Formetti store in New York City, is a wonderful combination of high fashion and architectural computation by Mark Foster Gage + Associates. The shop interior is a progressive use of computational design to create a futuristic, robotic design. Foster/ Gage used computational design to create a series of computer cut panels and mirrors that were attached to a structural frame that hung from the ceiling and connected to the floor. The floor was like wise covered in a reflective material therefore creating and infinite series of reflections that allowed the clothing to be ‘refracted in a variety of unexpected perspectives’. The use of computational design allowed for the architects to create a precisely bespoke interior for the shop in an uncommon materials.
http://www.archdaily.com/355430/nicola-formichetti-new-yorkstore-gage-clemenceau-architects/ ARCH DAILY 2013 http://www.archdaily.com/173859/boffo-building-fashion-nicola-formichetti-gageclemenceau-architects/ ARCH DAILY 2011 http://www.mfga.com/nicolas-nyc 2014 MFGA
COMPUTATIONAL PRECEDENT
THE NEW DEPARTMENT OF ISLAMIC ARTS- LOUVRE
The newest gallery at the Louvre was designed by two Italian architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti to house the Louvre’s collection of Islamic art in a subterranean space in the courtyard of 18th century Cour Visconti buildings. Their subterranean space is made of a floating golden ‘foulard’ that nearly touched the ground at points but was for the most part held aloft by a series of 8 m high pillars. Computational design here has allowed for the architects to create an undulating roof with triangulated surface patterns. The computational aspect of this design also influenced the materiality of the structure, computer modelling would have enabled them to find materials with the ideal properties as many of the gallery artefacts are sun sensitive and need specific environmental conditions for preservation. Due to the lightweight nature of the shell like roof, computer modelling would have allowed them to understand the structure of this space and how its immense roof could be held aloft without obstructing the design.
Rosenfield, Karissa. “New Department of Islamic Art Opens Tomorrow at the Louvre” 21 Sep 2012. ArchDaily. Accessed 23 Mar 2014. <http:// www.archdaily.com/?p=275231> # http://www.designboom.com/architecture/ mario-bellini-rudy-ricciotti-department-of-islamicarts-at-louvre/
COMPOSITION/ GENERATION
REFERENCES