SYMBIONT Bofan Zhou
PORTFOLIO
SYMBIONT Bofan Zhou
Application for Master Programme MArch Bio-Integrated Design The Bartlett, UCL
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建筑是你看世界的一种方式 ARCHITECTURE DEMONSTRATES A CERTAIN WAY HOW YOU OBSERVE THE WORLD
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SYMBIONT
By spying on unprecedented scenes in human evolution: the Internet continues to penetrate into all aspects of human life; the explosive growth of commercial entertainment products; the multiple parallel space of the virtual world and the real world presented by e-sports; the ethical thinking triggered by the augmented reality and completely immersing technology on the real space and the idea of ​​technology as a medium to expand human body functions, etc., it is not difficult to find that such an external world is an ecological mechanism that interconnects organisms, social groups and technological products. The endless digital network, the exchange of data and marketing activities have created imbalances between the objective natural biological systems. Whether it is the superimposed distortion of virtual space and physical space, the transient artificial human evolution given by biotechnology, or under the conditions of the development of the external world, such as the disappearance of the world order and rebirth, architecture has always been a reliable and sensitive tool for participating in organizing the world and establishing the memories of social groups.
CONTENTS 01 THE ALIVE
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Cold Mining Region Pavilion
02 LEARNING FROM NATURE
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Artificial Daylight Feedback Mechanism
03 LIGHT WEIGHT
48-hour 2m*2m*2m Cardboard Construction
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For more and more traditional intangible cultural heritage and natural heritage, the existing protections are more based on a physical space to avoid natural disasters and human damages. The contained cultures and contexts cannot evolve to adapt to the real modern world which is pluralistic and inclusive.
I tried to reshape and reproduce the heritage of nature and culture through a new type of non-traditional secularization methods. Attempted to reconstruct the mining area ecosystem from multi-angle in combination with the architectural biologically. And I combined the shaping of the functional exhibition space with biotechnology to form a non-linear, time-varying dynamic system.
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T h e
A l i v e
Cold Mining Region Pavilion 13-week individual graduation design Site: Beijing, China Instructor: Lue Xie Date: Spring, 2019
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Wangping Town, Mentougou District, Beijing Wang Ping Town is located in the middle and eastern part of Mentougou District, Beijing. Located in the transition zone from middle district of Xishan Mountain to low mountain area in Beijing, it is the starting point of the lower section of Guanting Gorge in Yongding River. Wangping town is next to Miaofeng mountain town in the east, Longquan town in the south,Datai office, Yanchi town in the west and the north is on Shangweidian border. The Yongding River runs 20 kilometers across the territory.
Most of the land is leached cinnamon soil and carbonate cinnamon soil. Thick and fertile ground, the frost-free period of it is about 180 days. The climate here is a mid-latitude continental monsoon climate, with an average annual temperature of about 13 degrees Celsius. More than 80% of the annual precipitation is concentrated from June to September.
Wangping Town in Mentougou District is a medium ecological hazard area. Appropriate interventions are needed for ecosystem restoration. Appropriate methods include plant method (for mild soil pollution), water washing method, etc. The heavily polluted areas need to be fixed by chemical method and further treated. It can be seen from the planning of Beijing in the next 20 years that Mentougou District will have a large-scale ecological restoration and become a forest wetland and mountainous area. At the same time, Wangping Town will develop a tourism ecological agricultural system based on its own environmental advantages.
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Conception Background
Present situation of abandoned mining area in Wangping Town, Mentougou District The building structure is basically intact. Except for areas contaminated by cinder in the site, weeds and trees are overgrown.
Coal Mine Conveying Channel Unidirectional type Strong geometric relationship
Chimney
Centripetal type Infinite boundary
Coal Preparation Building
Coal Gangue Transfer Tower
Cross type Stable graphic relationship
Terminal type Penetrating boundary
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Coal Gangue Preparation Building Single-sided type Single geometric relationship
Main Wellhead Coal Bunker Concentric circle type Multilayer boundary
Wetland ecosystem
Constituent elements The wetland ecosystem is a virtuous cycle system that is constantly evolving and improving. Various creatures stimulate the system to make it feedback. This complex interaction is a means of creating the environment itself.
Terrestrial Ecosystem
Terrestrial Plant
Terrestrial Animal
The Coal mining plant
Coal mining & processing processes The coal mining process is a top-down, unchanging production behavior. Its strong purpose and strong driving force make producers not respond to environmental stimuli. A numb, nonrecycling process is eating away at healthy ecosystems.
Exploit Loading Stripping
Decomposer
Aquatic
Aquatic Ecosystem
Screening Dynamite
Hydrophyte
Mining
Crushing
Conveyance
Perforation Anaerobic Bacteria
Multiplication
Migration
Ground Collapse
Stacked Coal Gangue
Water Purification
Soil Self-healing
Coal Washing
Dust
Biodiversity
Climate Regulation
Coal Emissions
Coal Train
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Plane Generation Logic & System Impact Relation Establishment of restricted plane scale through the interference relationship between the core functions of the exhibition hall (one main exhibition hall and three special exhibition halls) Emitter Points and Food Points are picked up, from which gravitational points are set up in exhibition halls and related points. And cluster behavior is analyzed by ant colony simulation.
Purification device (Prophase)
Artificial wetland (Anaphase)
A series of purifications are carried out mainly by using the contaminated soil and leached water as raw materials. As a cyclic power, the purification device intervenes in the destroyed ecosystem to become a dynamic system that changes with time. The purification process is used as a display to interact with the audience.
Establish artificial wetlands on the original polluted place. The excavated shallow contaminated soil is purified by the purification device and then backfilled to the artificial wetland. Through artificial accumulation to form a richer natural form, it can better form land and low-lying wetland environments. This will enhance the diversity of the artificial environment and promote the improvement and circulation of the artificial wetland ecosystem.
Deduction of artificial wetland accumulation
The paths in the three directions in the plane are superimposed and fused in the vertical direction to form a richer public space of communication methods (person-toperson communication and human-nature communication).
not efferent
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no connection
fusion
Vault space
Greenhouse dome
Using Kangaroo to establish a natural form that is reasonably stressed, the exhibition space is connected in a more natural and soft form. The particularity of the vault structure makes its indoor light and shadow changes more abundant, and at the same time the vault structure also becomes an active element of the upper space.
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By setting up a dome, a complete unified 6 8 ecosystem is composed of the purification 15 1 3 10 18 11 9 16 device and the artificial wetland. The boundary between the natural environment and the functional space becomes blurred, allowing visitors to experience the natural restoration process immersively.
Contrast with the more open wetland exhibition hall, while echoing the natural characteristics of the surrounding mountains. The wetland ecosystem and the surrounding functional space jointly establish air circulation.
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By setting the joints of different numbers and positions (in an interference relationship with the exhibition space), the inflation process of the double-layer film is simulated, and the structural prototype of the exhibition space is selected with reference to the inflation results.
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No.1 Type: Wave Array: Modular
No.2 Type: Concave Array: Hexagon
No.3 Type: Concave Array: Hexagon
No.4 Type: Convexity Array: Voronoi
No.5 Type: Convexity Array: Voronoi
No.6 Type: Concave Array: Voronoi
No.7 Type: Concave Array: Hexagon
No.8 Type: Convexity Array: Hexagon
No.9 Type: Convexity Array: Hexagon
No.10 Type: Concave Array: Voronoi
No.11 Type: Concave Array: Hexagon
No.12 Type: Convexity Array: Voronoi
No.13 Type: Convexity Array: Hexagon
No.14 Type: Convexity Array: Voronoi
No.15 Type: Concave Array: Hexagon
No.16 Type: Concave Array: Hexagon
No.17 Type: Concave Array: Hexagon
No.18 Type: Convexity Array: Hexagon
Public event space (Interaction)
Lecture hall Boardroom
Purification device Artificial wetland
Special exhibition hall
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The project presents a non-linear material form in the building's appearance, echoing the surrounding natural environment. The functional space is arranged in various categories from the vertical direction based on each use purpose and user group. The singlelayer plane forms a semi-enclosed structure based on the flow accessibility of internal and external users. The exhibition halls in the building are interconnected to form a complete ecosystem, a self-generating, mixed-mechanism dynamic space.
"Treating the real world, which is full of stunning cultural events and equally many counterintuitive processes, architects should strive to critically reconnect architecture with the outside world and try to accept this complexity as Background in design. Rather than simply simplifying the interconnection of various elements to emphasize and highlight the subjective concepts in the process of creation."
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In the architectural terms, light, as a mediator of the virtual space and the builder of the atmosphere, is a complicated and varied system.
Through the preliminary classification study of the nature of sunlight and its influence on the outside world, we try to research the mechanism of plant leaf 's response to sunlight and try to translate it into a certain biological architectural element.
02 LEARNING FROM NATURE Artificial Daylight Feedback Mechanism
8-week team work Role: Team Leader, Concept Developer, Experimenter, Photographer Collaborator: Yanlin Liu, Zixuan Zhang Date: June, 2018
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Photo Record & Data Conclusion
Buildings and cities have always been living, breathing organisms. But recent advances in biology allow us to take this to the next level. And we think learning from nature, more precisely--plants, is an effective way to make some improvements with using daylight. Because plant is the creature, which has the closest connection with daylight. To learn plant’s feedback mechanism in weak daylight environment, we designed the following experiment:
Plants Observation Experiment
measurement
Firstly, we selected lemon, peperomia obtusifolia and epipremnum aureum as representation of sunny plants, shade tolerant plants and shade plants. Lemons are in group 1, Peperomia obtusifolia are in group 2, and Epipremnum aureum are in group 3. Then with the assurance that all of our plants grow in the same and fitting environment, we set the illuminance respectively to 100%-, 10%- and 2%-normal daylight intensity as normal daylight environment (group A), scant daylight environment (group B) and weak daylight-stress environment (group C). In each group we cultured two samples of those three kinds of plants and numbered them in the following rules: mark of daylight environment · mark of kind (of plants) · mark of sample. In this condition we cultured those plants for a week, and recorded data, including plant height, blade length, blade width, etc. 13
After summarizing and analyzing the data, we’ve drawn a conclusion: When plants are in weak daylight environment, blade thickness will become thinner, and there will be an increase in blade length, blade width and lateral branch number. Besides, plants will also attenuate stem and elongate stem faster.
SEM Experiment
Leaves' Section
Intend to understand leaves’ change in anatomy further, after that experiment, we did a scanning electron microscope (SEM) experiment: We removed two leaves on the top of each plant, and observed their sections using a SEM. So that we could understand the microstructure of leaves in different daylight environments. The result indicated: In weak daylight environment, the number of palisade cell layers reduces, palisade cell length reduces, the number of cells in spongy parenchyma reduces as well.
leaves’microstructure in normal daylight environment
leaves’microstructure in weak daylight-stress
According to the result and some collected information, we summarized plant’s feedback mechanism in weak daylight environment as followed: from apparent structure to microstructure, and even to signal and gene level, plant’s feedback mechanism in weak daylight environment is complicated and interlocked. The change of apparent structure is caused by the change of microstructure; the change of microstructure is caused by the transport of signal molecules and nutrients in plasmodesmata. Through this series of changes, plants can use daylight efficiently and reduce unnecessary energy consumption, so that they can allot limited resources in the most reasonable way. As a result, the light compensation point moves to the left, which means that they can be alive with less daylight.
Scanning electron microscope experiment
Lemon SEM result
Epipremnum aureum SEM result
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Material Selection Experiment By learning this feedback mechanism, we’ve designed a kind of material, which can change its own microstructure according to the daylight environment, so that the light through the material can be changed into homogeneous light. The material is composed by Hydroxyethyl cellulose--a familiar raw material of hydrogels, Thiobacillus neapolitanus--a kind of colorless thiobacteria, a kind of transparent, ventilated memory polymer membranes, and artificial spider silk. Through those experiments and comparison, we selected Hydroxyethyl cellulose to make our hydrogel for its suitable viscosity.
Hydroxyethyl cellulose
microstructure of our materia
Culturing Thiobacillus neapolitanus in the hydrogel, our material can transforms the microstructure due to Thiobacillus neapolitanus’ reactions to the daylight. The polymer membrane encases the hydrogel. In this way, they form two sections in our material, like cell and plasmodesmata. And with the help of artificial spider silk, all the “cells” are connected, which makes our material completed. Aristoflex AVC
Thiobacillus neapolitanus
ventilated memory polymer membranes
“alterable cell”
artificial spider silk
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“stable structure”
“floating pipe”
Composition
Considering the whole lifetime of our material, we set a lifecycle of the material.
Adjust whether the material is arranged on a layer basis, the number of layers and the relative size of the microstructure, respectively, to obtain the light effect before and after the change of the ball. At the same time, using transparent balloons, hydrogels, syringes and other materials to simulate the feasibility of pre-selection through real models.
1.make polymer membrane materials 2.make the hydrogel 3.add thiobacillus neaplitanus 4.pour hydrogel into membrane structure 5.immerse the product in the soupy artificial fiber 6.stretch& air dry, the whole structure complete 7.scrap materials 8.break up& cleanout 9.recycled materials produce
When uneven light reaches the surface of the material, Thiobacillus neapolitanus in strong light area do more vigorous photosynthesis. The products change the osmotic pressure of the hydrogel, which makes water moves from weak light area to strong light area through the plasmodesmata. So that “cells” in strong light area expand, and “cells” in weak light area shrink. And then the Angle of refraction will change, and there will be light attenuations in different degrees. All of these reactions can finally achieve the result that any light through the material can be changed into homogeneous light. Air pressure sensing device Hydroxyethyl cellulose layer
Air pipe Air cavity
Our structure uses biological technologies combined with computation and engineering to create a new building material , a new method of bio-design, and a structure that is grown and compostable.
Inflatable box
The material we imagined is a kind of self-adjustable, quickly responding light-sensitive biomaterial. Meanwhile, it has corking optical properties. We think that this material can be used in a wide range of fields. It’s possible to use it in architecture, medical treatment, video production, art, and even aerospace industry. Also, it can satisfy various scenes, where require special light environment. For instance, places for people who are visual sensitive to light, special exhibition space, and self-adjustable external shading system of buildings. 16
These different material spatial structures can produce rich and diverse light effects and can be used in many different places. Here, a public activity space is designed as an example. The material forms of the four modes tested above are selected and combined into a space similar to a pavilion. Through different effects, there are many ways for it to interact with people.
Interaction2
Sphere radius: 50 mm Composition: by layers Number of layer: 3 Actions that can happend across the cover.
Chatting
Sphere radius: 15 mm Composition: by layers Number of layer: 5 Stay, chat and rest.
Perforing
Sphere radius: 30 mm Composition: random Thickness: 180 mm Performances that attract attention.
Interaction1
Sphere radius: 30 mm Composition: by layers Number of layer: 5 Touchable interaction.
This structure can be placed in the public spaces of the city and some green areas to add vitality to the corners of the city.
Chatting Performing
In addition, in order to prevent special situations, the material can be controlled to some extent in an emergency, that is, flexible control. In the deepening process of the material, a small cell monomer is also set as the structure of the aerated doublelayer membrane, which is convenient for adjusting the material by air pressure under special circumstances.
Interaction1
Interaction2
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The aim of this competition is to create a light and open cardboard construction using innovative strategies to overcome the material's characteristics: heavyness and closeness.
In this project, I collaborated with 5 architecture students to handcraft a 2m*2m*2m construction on site in 48 hours. As team member, I developed design concept, handcrafted working models and layout for exhibition. The final construction artifact successfully survived rain, hail and sun exposure during one-week exhibition.
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L I G H T
W E I G H T
48-hour 2m*2m*2m Cardboard Construction 2 nd Prize, 2016 Beijing Cardboard Construction Competition Role: Team member, Concept Developer, Constructor, Photographer Collaborator: Lei Song, Meihui Li, Shuya Zhao, Shiwen Deng, Tao Wang Date: May, 2016
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Openness & Privacy
Basing on the functional requirements of the construction, we initially separated the 2m*2m*2m space in public and private functions. Considering the practicability of the space, we did not divide the space too much in the vertical direction. We mainly analyzed the varieties horizontally. We started with the relationship between openness and privacy, extracted abstract spatial connections, and expressed their characteristics with simplified architectural elements.
Space division
Considering the space constraints of the competition theme, the space would be too cramped, if the two-way access is adopted, which would have a greater uncomfortable effect on the actual use experience. Therefore, we finally adopted the form of one-way single-entrance spiral self-coupling.
Construction unit analysis
Parallel & Independent Relationship
Considering on the requirements of construction completing within 48 hours and the adaptability of it, we decided to adopt a modular component construction method. For the problem of angular transformation of unit elements combined with each other, we tried to divide the sphere into a matrix to obtain a unit element with angles that could be combined with rich variations and suitability.
Surrounding Relationship
Progressive Relationship
Progressive relationship type analysis
Since the base is an open and active environment, we hoped to have a clear transitional space while distinguishing the boundaries between public and private space. Therefore, we selected the progressive relationship from the above types for further deformation and careful division.
Nested Relationship
Coupling Relationship
Three kinds of regular triangular pyramids with different apex angles were preliminarily selected by segmenting the spherical body and combining the actual construction dimensions. Following that the solid body of a single layer was reduced by the closest arrangement of the monomers. In this way, the diversity of the rotation angles of different monomers was determined. In the end, we selected a regular tetrahedron and a right-angled regular triangular pyramid as the unit body forming a basic unit component.
Insolation analysis
The path direction is in the form of multi-path convergence. The spatial relationship is line-topoint and the central space is not continuous.
The basic unit components were used for mass modeling according to the previous delineation in the plane and vertical direction. The model was analyzed by Ecotect and compared with the original one-way spiral self-coupling model.
The path direction is linked up in two ways. The spatial relationship is line-to-line and the central space is formed by the intersection of the paths and is in a transient position.
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Step 1: Foldable Module
Step 2: Structure Component
FOLDABLE MODULAR SYSTEM We tried to simplify the construction procedure by inventing a modular system. First, we have four types of basic module parts, which can be easily folded by cardboard. Secondly, we used bolts and nuts to connect module parts into different structure components. Then we installed them level by level. Each level has its structural function: foundation, ground, connection, skylight.
The final artifact is very firm and successfully survived rain, hail and sun exposure during oneweek exhibition. The apertures of the module guarantee that the artifact can be light and open. This construction is also easy to disassemble and reconstruct.
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Step 3: Functional Level
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