Reciprocity consuming: Prosume IAAC 3rd Advanced Architecture Contest Students: Jose Isidro Pastor Tormo + Marina Patón Ballester
RECIPROCITY designed by Jason Butz, Frank D’Andrea, Carla Landa, Martha Skinner from the United States which proposed the creation of recycling structures which recycle urban waste and capable of creating materials of high architectural design for urban reuse. Reciprocity rethinks the notion of local agriculture as the mobile farm. Constructed with recycled materials at the headwaters of a river, these sellh shape boat float downstream, docking at cities along the way to be harvested. When they reach the river's delta, they become temporary emergency housing in extreme weather conditions or the material is used to rebuild in that city. The project was created for an international competition where they won the third place winner in 2009. The IAAC 3rd Advanced Architecture Contest, on the theme of THE SELF-SUFFICIENT CITY: Envisioning the habitat of the future. The aim of the competition was to promote online discussion and research through which to generate insights and visions, ideas and proposals that helped envisage what the city and the habitat of the 21st century will be like. Responding to emerging challenges in areas such as ecology, information technology, socialization and globalization, with a view to enhancing the connected self-sufficiency of our cities. Starting by keywords we can highlight: •
WASTE FOOD
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NATURAL CYCLE
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SELF-SUFFICIENT
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TEMPORAL INTERVENTIONS
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RECIPROCITY
The human race is becoming increasingly wasteful with no regard to the limited resources our earth provides. Cities today work in a linear fashion. They consume resources and produce waste, which is then discarded; breaking the NATURAL CYCLE. This cycle must be reconnected. When addressed from an ecologically conscious standpoint, this problem becomes one best dealt with by a series of practical interventions on the human scale and as a community. Reciprocity strives to take what waste the inhabitants produce and use it in alternative ways before it is ultimately turned into a recyclable state. Even in its construction reciprocity uses and deals with waste. When construction of a unit is started, construction WASTE materials from landfills and excess construction materials are diverted to the construction site and utilized. As new HABIBTS form, DISPOSING of waste is no longer difficulty, instead it is a way of life. Just as the waste is used temporarily for some greater purpose, the CLUSTERS as a whole facilitate temporary resuscitators of a city in peril. Reciprocity is a dispatched in masses and the destruction becomes fuel while the pods serve as temporary displaced housing units. Once a city is cleaned, reciprocity moves on to the next.
Envisioned as a self sustaining community, reciprocity can either serve as the foundation for a new city, or as an intervention in current cities. A SYMBIOTIC relationship is created and a flexible network begins to bridge the gaps in the CYCLES we helped to break. Nowadays recycling is very important for the present and for the future but citizens aren’t really conscious of all the benefits that comes from waste recycled. Some studies verify the following: • • • •
24% of food purchased by the average consumer is WASTED 87% of organic WASTE is not composted 90% of plastic and paper products are not recycled 30% of potable water is WASTED irrigating landscapes
The project is a temporary shell whose aim is to clean danger cities or to start from the beginning creating the prototype of “sustainable city”. Every cycle lasts one year, so when the cycle is finished the work is done and the shell is moving to another different city with waterfront. When it travels to a city for cleaning, the objective more than cleaning the city is to interact with the inhabitants to teach them and to make them conscious about how to recycle and to be sustainable and how to help keeping a better city for living. So the main characters are the locals and the interaction with the shell is essential for the project work. About the architecture of the project is defined by four floors and the curved façades are movable. That façades support the different cycles having “lamas” that are rotating depending on the harvest cycle every ten days. All floating uo to the water, as a way to integrate the water inside the cycles.
The project is made of three main systems. The first one ORGANIC WASTE + COMPOST SYSTEM consists in a circuit inside the “lamas” from the façade that goes from down to up and from up to down. The steps are: 1 2 3 4
Crops grown on rotating track Harvested for consumption Food waste deposited to compost Compost used to grow crops
Another system is GLASS + PLASTIC BOTTLE SYSTEM, where inhabitants are invited to recycle the bottles from their house which are later used for irrigating the vegetation. A tube is following the path of the lamas creating another closed cycle where: 1 2 3 4
Plastic + glass bottles deposited into system Filled with the river water Used to irrigate crops To recycling centre
Even the wastewater from human is recycle at least for irrigating plants, in that order POTABLE + GREYWATER SYSTEM: 1 2
Wastewater from human use Used to irrigate compost
And the last system uses the recycle paper for isolating the inside part of the shell using a technique that first shred the paper and then mixing it with water create a pasta. PAPER INSULATION SYSTEM: 1.
Paper waste deposited into walls for
insulation 2. Shredded + mixed with water to begin recycling process 2.1.1 Aggitators aerate compost + shred paper waste using passive water current 2.1.2 Shredded paper waste mixed with water to form paper pulp to be sent to recycling centres
The project has a lot of benefits not only for the environment, also for local people with that three keywords: WORK, MOVE, LIVE. Work pods deal primarily with paper waste. Secondary wastes are carried to live pods for distribution to recycling centres. (office, toilet, drink, eat). Move pods transport people + secondary wastes between live + work pods. Movement of the pods + further processing of recyclable materials is fuelled by human exertion (gather, workout, drink). Live pods contain clusters of living units that work together to process several types of primary wastes: organic, plastic, glass + water. Paper waste is carried to work pods (drink, eat, bathe, toilet, workout, gather, office). Workout: Transport pods harvest caloric expenditure while inhabitants move from place to place. Talking about the interventions in a larger scale, we have the rural and the urban ones. Constructing a pod is as passive process as the systems that support its function. Certain components of construction waste are reused in, or close to, their original state to minimize melting and cutting. The pods are also built close to where the materials are gathered, eliminating the need to transport materials to a site farther away. RURAL INTERVENTION • •
After: Construction wastes are redirected from landfills to the waterfront. Before: construction wastes are highly concentrated in landfills.
URBAN INTERVENTION • •
After: materials from these sites are utilized to build new pods Before: industrial areas sit vacant with several types of reusable materials
INFRAESTRUCTURE With the implementation of reciprocity, new habits are formed within developing communities that teach people to become prosumers, not consumers. SYSTEMS 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6
food is consumed scraps are trown to compost compost decays compost fills crops boxes plants are growns + circulate food is harvested fro consumption
2.1 bottles placed in track 2.2 filled with river water 2.3 used to irrigate crops 2.4 bottles picked up by locals for revenue 3.1 paper put in wall + used for isolation 3.2 shredded with compost teeth 3.3 mixed with river water to create pulp 4.1 non-potable water is collected 4.2 used to irrigate compost
It is really interesting how cities come to life and how important is the human for the cities. Cities are our greatest invention. They generate wealth and improve living standards while providing the density, interaction, and networks that make us more creative and productive. They are the key social and economic organizing units of our time, bringing together people, jobs, and all the inputs required for economic growth. But unfortunately we don’t take care of it as well as it deserves. That project has made us to reconsider everything about the second life of the products, which instead of throwing them away, with some simple steps they can be reused contributing in the environment. In relation to our course project, how important is the used of the natural cycles to complete the function of the building.