Cameron Wahlberg & Mae Murphy | ARCH 401 | Prof. Shelby Doyle
“Staying with the trouble does not require such a relationship to times called the future. In fact, staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing
(Donna Haraway, 2016)
Prologue: Before the Feast
Chapter 1: On the Butcher’s Block
Chapter 2: Prime Cuts
Chapter 3: Dissecting Specifics
Chapter 4: The Final Course
Now more than ever, the current architectural building construction methods are contributing to an immense amount of earth exploitation and permanent resource depletion also known in slaughterhouse terms as hacking. What happens when there are no more resources left to feed a consumerist appetite of extraction, abandonment and exploitation of materials? How can we rebuild a system that instead reclaims existing building features and chops material together? We butcher.
To butcher is to carefully extract, examine, and reconstruct artifacts. It is to carefully take pieces from existing sites and reassemble into new structures. When one prepares a butchered feast, they
The setting of Des Moines has been growing for the past two decades bringing with it new infrastructure and material. In August 2020, the city of Des Moines has currently declared 54 sites more in the future. We propose techniques to provide care on a material scale through the process of circular construction economy. A practice keeping materials and products in the economy as long as possible by re-using or butchering them.
Robotic analysis, deconstruction, & maintenance is key to kickstarting the process of creating a material library, research database and a path forward in the construction industry in the U.S.
“A major challenge for re-using building debris is knowing the quality, quantity and temporal
To create this site in Des Moines, machines will carefully dissect/butcher the Existing Depot in order to preserve the materials.
From here we using the unique structural capabilities of brick and working with the modularity as well as the innovation of precast veneer systems in our assembly type. The construction process will be automated with the help of Brokk robots, Kuka arms, and drones as means of delivery as construction moves up the wall. As more brick and masonry are taken from other sites, the stock pile will eventually be turned into one of two facade systems. Precast panels, or integrated into a load bearing masonry wall. Each brick will be assigned a ranking of its integrity and where it should be placed in an assembly on the facade. The load bearing masonry walls will be stacked from most integral to least, forming a strong foundation to support the height of the walls while also creating a material storage within its own walls. These walls will be the north and south facades, and create a patchwork of these bricks, and will be tied together using reclaimed steel members.
This steel structure will provide the framework for the precast concrete panels with the reclaimed brick veneer. After completion A mutual relationship between human & robot will collected, tagged, analyzed, and researched, with material samples brought back to the lab in DSM. Here it will be tested for quality, half life, & construction capabilities which can be implemented the capability to produce a variety of facade iterations, structural components, and sculptural pieces. Contractors, Architects, & Engineers are invited to investigate these tests until they are machine learning methods. The public is also encouraged to visit these material archives in order to recall the story behind artifacts.
The layout of the building allows for a distinction between public versus private, keeping public spaces towards 5th street and the private spaces oriented towards 4th street with a collision space in the gallery between the two halves. The surrounding site will be used for material storage and a public access space of an annual pavilion located on the now butchered DEPOT. Interior spaces will include education workshops, as well as galleries for hands on experiences. The space is divided into 4ths allowing for visual collisions. Placing programs of education, research, and workshops in the center allows for the blurring of public and private in the central core space. This allows for the demystifying of these deconstruction and reconstruction practices. Our construction space will house a system of robots and resources focused on the storage and testing of masonry
the energy consumption, we are incorporating solar panels across the roofs as means of collection. Due to the construction of the load bearing walls, opportunities for northern and southern
building is set up for passive solar heat gain in the 2,000 sf lobby space as well as solar energy production and operable ventilation systems in conjunction with passive chilled beams in high
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Our perspective drawings utilize journaling, sketching and collaging to create a dialogue between the material, people, and robotic inhabitants within the space. This incorporation of drawn media collage builds on the experiences of occupants. The act of visual material memory as well as the innovation of material for memories to come. These three views are prime locations of these collisions represented in the gallery space, rail line connection, and research towers.
The Butcher Block technique utilizes material analysis and maintenance. It challenges the form of preservation and remembrance of deconstructed structures. It recognizes the importance of the material narrative in terms of its memory, journey, and larger role of the building components
Butchering the past to serve the future.
