The Swarm

THE SWARM

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A FLOATING COMMUNITY

SYLVIA YEUNG MATHILDE GATTEGNO BOSEN ZHANG

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Swarm intelligence : the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. Swarm intelligence systems consist typically of a population of simple agents interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The inspiration often comes from nature, especially biological systems. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of ÂŤintelligentÂť global behavior, unknown to the individual agents. Examples in natural systems of SI include ant colonies, bird flocking, animal herding, bacterial growth, fish schooling and microbial intelligence.

THE SWARM

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MAKE IT LOCAL

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A FLOATING COMMUNITY

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PEOPLE 7 A NEW PARADIGM FOR HONG KONG 9 BUILDING A COMMUNITY 11 REFERENCES 13 TAI O - BACKGROUND FOR THE FUTUR 14 CONSTRUCTION 16 1 + 1 = ?

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LIVE OUTSIDE THE BOX

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1 + 1 = 5 1 + 1 = ∞ COMBO ACTIVITIES

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GATHERING THE SWARM

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ORGANIC PUZZLE

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NO PATTERN PUZZLE

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

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APPENDICES 59

MODELS 59 DRAWINGS 65 POSTFACE 74

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MAKE IT LOCAL

PEOPLE

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A NEW PARADIGM FOR HONG KONG

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Why wait for government to act and open space for new projects and ideas?

The population can start building the Swarm on its own. A bottom up inniciative with low-cost, local materials and local labor that has the spark to change the way cities are designed and thought. A shift of paradigm from the ego to the eco, from the uncontrolled consumism of natural resources to something close to the circular metabolism.

The main issues faced by community while living on the water are the supply of clean water, how to recycle waste, produce enough energy and be self sufficient when it comes to the food. Some of the solutions proposed are very simple, but efficient. Others, need a little bit more of technology, but nothing absurd and far from the reality.

BUILDING A COMMUNITY

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Health + cultural

Kitchen + energy

Housing Market + farming

Educational

Open platform Fishing Farm + agriculture + water storage Waste

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The starting point for this community are the retired fisherman who are more about to have a long stay, also enjoy and appreciate more the built landscape and environment of The Swarm.

In a next stage, they can be mixed with students and researchers such as biologists, oceanographers, botanists, astrologists etc. This mix can put together the experience of the elderly as weel as the energy of the students and researchers to help each others in the daily life tasks.

In the case the community keep growing, visitors and families can join this community. They have more needs to fill but on the other hand have the time and the energy to work and keep a fresh environment in the society.

Having alt these different groups of people implies a series of activities that should respect each group needs. For that, some activities were blended together, for a better compacity and optimization of spaces and functions.

In the end, starting from a community already represented in Hong Kong, the retired fishermen, we projected The Swarm as a growing organism.

Growing but also evolving, allowing other kind of population to join a flexible installation. Mixing population has often been an opportunity for all to learn from his neighbor and to help each other. The Swarm not only provide shelter but is willing to create a bond between people, a sens of belonging for its inhabitants.

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REFERENCES

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TAI O BACKGROUND FOR THE FUTUR

Our researches took different ways to explore the floating constructions around the world, but also a very local example of housing in direct relationship to water.

First about the materials : after a brief time spent on the internet, it was obvious that containers are a major issus nowadays because of their short life on boats. On the other side, bamboo is a growing material in the field of architecture. Available in most part of the world, is a fast growing plant, light material with incredible mecanic properties.

When it comes to the design of the units, a reference showed up of a pavilion. An interesting work on sheltering while protecting from the sun.

Above all, the major inspiration for The Swarm is the firshermen village of Tai O, located on Lantau Island. From our different visits we extracted an analysis of the Tai O way of life, from the design of the houses to the different kind of space typologies, but also various object and pets found there. Later on, the shape of the street themselves helped us to define the mass plan of The Swarm as a living organism.

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1+1=?

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CONSTRUCTION The idea to keep The Swarm in a low-coast research also made us question the nomber of module in this community. From the Unit, we created a variation using almost the same structure but able to welcome a variety of activities. Keeping it simple not only allows a lower price on the material, but also make sure the community develops all the required skills to built new Units, Gathers or Anchors if needed.

The thee categories of buildings in this project: - The Unit is a mobile structure composed by two halves (7.5x7.5) made of containers rotated by 30 degree. Each unit can accomodate 5 people.

- The Gather is a mobile structure composed by two containers rotated by 45 degree (7.5x11). The Gather can accomodate many activities and has a plank attached as an outside extension (7.5x4) -The Anchor is a simple platform (7.x7.5) with no ceiling. The Anchor works as the pier, allowing other mobile structures to anchor themselves

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TEAM WORK

Since the idea is to be a bottom-up project, team work is a keypoint.

In the transition from different economic paradigms, from consuming and having a lifestyle landscape to the era of the knwledge and DIY, empowering people is essencial to give them sufficient autonomy.

It is also for us a way to give them the first interaction as a community. Helping each other building the houses but later on decorating and personalazing every single Units.

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LIVE OUTSIDE THE BOX

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1+1=5

The Unit is composed by 2 containers and can acomodate 5 people. Inside each container there are the basic spaces to sleep and shower. The Unit also has 3 different spaces called «in between». They can acommodate an infinity variation of activities completing the every day life routine.

The «in between spaces» are places of transition from the outside which is collective and open, to the inside spaces more intimate. They are free from furniture, allowing the users to have a multipurpose area.

The Unit remain a mobile stucture, the inhabitant keeping the possiblity to change possition in The Swarm whenever they want or need to.

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1+1=∞

As th Unit is, the Gather is composed by two containers plus the outside platform that can be completed by a bamboo platform or can have just the borders filled with the material creating a walkway. This system allows infinity possibilities of uses which can be fit inside and also outside of this model.

The Gather is also a mobile structure, allowing the community to place them as needed in the swarm ; either spread envenly all acrross the housing or gathered at one point to allow bigger event to take place.

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COMBO ACTIVITIES

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We want to display here some research about activities that can take place in the Gather module. First to fullfil basic needs like eating ; from producing food to transform it, but also cultural needs. As we thought there is no good community life without a way to express or learn culture. Also, we started looking the needs of a bigger community. Each Unit is already equiped by solar panel, but bigger the communty grows, bigger is also the need of electricity for annexe activities. The same thought went on the water storage and other basic infrastructures.

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GATHERING THE SWARM

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NO PATTERN PUZZLE

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This page present possible settlements for 40 people. Playing on the number of Anchors, we are able to transform the shape of The Swarm. More Anchors brings more open space common to all, while spreading them allows a more complex display of the Units. The principal point is to keep the mobility of the Units and the Gather.

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ORGANIC PUZZLE

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TO INFINITY AND BEYOND In this project, the designer don't impose a fixed form for the settlement. It is about empowering the population. Not having a pattern allows the swarm to grow in any direction and any combination.

Basedon Tai O study case, we noticed the organization of the streets and the houses was based in two levels : a main street, wider to allow more traffic, and a secondary street in the back for more private activities.

Exploring this pattern, the final result was an organic growing form, that reminds us the natural seaweed shape on the surrface of the water.

Each Gathers have different functions and can serve a different number of units of five people, this number give each of the Gather a area of influence.

In this way, for 2000 people there is a certain amount of facilities that we determined are needed. This goes back to a Lego / puzzle concept, giving the community infinity possibilities and results. This organic growing on a grid allows us also to think a bigger community in Picnic Bay of Lamma Island, or in any other bay.

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Educational Serve 400 units Market + farming Serve 40 units Fish farming + agriculture + water storage Serve 8 units

Open Space Serve 4 units Health + cultural Serve 40 units Waste unit Serve 8 units

Kitchen +energy Serve 8 units

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APPENDICES

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MODELS

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DRAWINGS

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BOSEN

SYLVIA

MATHILDE

In this project, we use bamboo and shipping containers to construct the floating platforms, these materials are affordable and accessible. The platform unit is designed to be an prototype that can apply on any costal area.

The inversion of scenery- thinking about sea as the land and land as the sea that cannot be inhabited- is very interesting. It makes you ignore all the technical standards and paradigms of living on the land and start building concepts from the scratch. But for the humanity of the settlement, it is still related to existing references, in this case, we used Tai O as a starting point for cultural and behavior/ organizational analysis.

Focusing on a low budget solution to shelter population was a new experience for me. Keeping all the time this perspective in mind really made us go far into detail to keep the project both simple and rich.

Besides that challenge, we also had the scale issue- starting from the small unit and going in the direction of the large scale. This makes the process of coming back and forth between concepts and details even more frequent, but I believe that one of the biggest challenges of this work was the group at the same time, it helps to have a more solid relationship between both. work because there were three minds with different backgrounds, ways of thinking and creating. In other hand, with this differences I could learn more Adding to all of that, we had the advantage/challenge of having three people and even open my mind for new possibilities of project and design process. working together. Lucckily, at one point, everybody had the same idea, just with different ways to express it, eventually causing a small disagreement.

But obviously, digging documentation about a material I didn’t know was the most exciting part for me. Elaborating a modern structure in bamboo using traditionnal and accessible ways was a good challenge.

Both of those studies are really practical knowledge to use again in the futur.

For the conceptual basis, Tai O analysis was important. Not only as a study case, but as a strong link to a real community.

In this project, some fragments of the previous analysis can be seen. For example, the organization of spaces and streets creating a kind of nebulosa.

As the first project of the entire programme, it seemed to be effective to put in practice some concepts learned/ reviewed in class such as the circular metabolism and the city as an ecosystem, among others.

Maybe personally, I would like to keep working in this project and try to report it to PolyU project fund. It was one of the few projects that the result fit my expectations.

POSTFACE

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It was also the opportunity for me to study Tai O village, bringing a new perspective on Hong Kong, as well as good base to think The Swarm.

At last, growing an organic master plan, with moving units and no precise shape was also something I enjoyed, and that really show the power of building on water compared to land.

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URBAN ENVIRONMENT DESIGN HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY NOVERMBER 2016