A s p e c t Aq ua p o n i c s
Alexander McCulloch 140318027 . Semester 2 . 2019/2020
Contents
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Semester One
Studio Themes Recap A Notion Of Oikos Site Recap Aspect Plasticity Recap
Oikos Transformed 22 24 26 30 46 58
Aspect Aquaponics What is Aquaponics? Program Design Walkthrough Journey & Final Imagery Technical imagery Reflection
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Semester Two Reflection Amended Work New Work/ Unseen Work Alexander McCulloch 140318027 Newcastle University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Semester 2 . 2020
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Care Caring for the non-human. Reconfiguring our modes of inhabitation and technology so that our actions may enhance ecologies within and around our own, be it other species, the environment or our own creations, repairing and nurturing them.
Living Technology
Living technology embodies technology with the characteristics of a living organism, while not necessarily considering them to be alive. The abilities of growth, repair, movement, adaptation to change speculate on new forms of technology that can engage much more closely with living environments.
Studio Themes
Metabolism
Metabolism is explored as the all-encompassing process of an organism, the accumulation of useful materials, the breakdown of them and the separation of waste. The implications of metabolism principle can lead us the theorise ecological assemblages that can passively process, maintain and provide for others.
Worlding Our world is made up of many intertwining, overlapping worlds that can feed into one another or nestle within. This theme seeks to explore worlding as a way of creating networks of varying scales and bridging relationships between them.
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Oikos Transformed Thesis Recap Decades of anthropocentric torture imposed onto the planet has pushed our worlds habitability to the brink of collapse. Climate change dawns upon our era, threatening mass extinction of both human and non human life forms. Radical innovation is desperately needed to rethink and reform our harmful, one directional method of sustainance. This studio ethos speculates on how we may achieve a two way relationship with our environment, from our exchange with the microbial world that surrounds
us, up to a new metabolising macroscale ecology. Oikos as home is the starting point for our journey. The richness of our household assemblages and the interplay between its inhabitants may offer clues to how we can rethink our world beyond the home, allowing this density of life to empower and entangle communities. Oikos is the collective dependency that expands the unit of the household to engage with the economy beyond the home, with nature.
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Prelude: Furniture - A Notion of Oikos
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As a starting point for developing a vision for a house of nature, the semester one furniture assignment encouraged the creation of an interactive body that would align the key themes of metabolism, care and worlding through an exploration of speculative living technologies.
collecting unused microbes such as those left over by plants and animals in flower beds and underwater. The processor converts these useful nutrients from their unused position into a solution that can be reused as an invigorating food supplement.
The embodiment of my notion of oikos concerns that of nutrition, health and a sense of community. The implementation of a nutritional superfood distribution system, as an advanced plumbing network into the oikos. This centres around a bioprocessor, capable of linking up to various environments and
The key underlining idea of this concept was the manifestation of a rich culture of living technologies into a community, driving a new way of life for its inhabitants and expressing an architecture that describes a vigorous spirit of participation and life enhancement.
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Key Principles Derived from Prelude A New Community An all-encompassing outlook on the dynamics of the urban commune and how aspects of community engagement and participation can be multiplied to improve the efficiency of the Oikos and create a new breed of relationship between all members of the community, human, non-human, technology and the built environment.
Exchange: Oikonomy The principle of exchange within the Oikos suggests a metabolising system and the conversation of a material cycle. A community driven by the notion of converting unused materials and waste into usable formats that can be fed back into a system of metabolism.
Thriving on Venice’s Microbial Diversity The Venetian canal networks make Venice a hub for bacteria. The cycling tides regularly renew the urban fabric with rich ocean water microorganisms and algae. This aspect could greatly enhance a community if harnessed and introduced into to a metabolising cycle, allowing the residents to make the most from their unique environment.
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Site
II Cannaregio, Venice: A Site for Activation
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Whilst exploring the Cannaregio district of Venice as a group, we identified a clear gradient of activity from the canal side of the region to the lagoon, where the chaos and glamour of tourism transitioned peacefully into residency and cottage industries. Along with this gradient of culture came a distinct lack of effective path finding along this axis, and so our group work set to “Activate Cannaregio” by enlivening the between spaces of this venetian world. Split into three regions, the northern most area of the Chiesa Madonna Dell’ Orto would become the site for my individual contribution: Aspect Plasticity.
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Vaporetto
Major transportation dock (Vaporetto)
Existing routes through Cannaregio
Lagoon Venetian Jewish Ghetto
Site: Madonna Dell’Orto
Chiesa della Madonna dell’Orto
Proposed new route through Cannaregio Intervention II
Major Route
Cannaregio parallel canal orientation
Grand Canal
Intervention III
Major Route
Highlighted islands: Extent of Urban proposal
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Zone for Intervention
Madonna dell’Orto Residence This remarkably desolate housing scheme demonstrates the conclusion of Cannaregio’s diminishing concentration of activity. The streets of the estate are wide and empty, encouraging only movement through the site. The communal landscape appears as a form of no-man’s land, seemingly forbidden to inhabit. The desire for garden space is evident when observing the facades of the housing blocks, residents essentially build their own gardens outside their windows and Juliet balconies. Whilst showcasing potential for an improved urban environment, this resonates the issues surrounding the community of the area regarding the way the members seem isolated from one another.
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Aspect Plasticity: Urban Intervention Recap Combing the themes from the furniture prelude, Aspect Plasticity sought to bring life to this venetian community spirit and urban landscape through the implementation of hands on, environmentally engaging biotechnologies. Piecing together a method of developing bioplastics from the rich microbial nature of Venice and embedding this method within a tight communal world can greatly rethink the activity and engagement between residents and their environment, reconfiguring relationships with the non-human. This would in turn create a new dialogue within the oikos, transforming it into an metabolising ecology driven by the
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engagement with the natural world and powered by elaborate, cutting edge biotechnologies. In beginning to imagine the possibilities of the preliminary hypothetical bioprocessor, Aspect Plasticity pursued the realisation of the production of biobased, biodegradable plastic materials. These innovative materials would provide a basis for the creation of the theorised advanced plumbing system elements. Aspect Plasticity st to set a precedent for the development of biotechnological systems and their adverse benefits.
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Aspect Aquaponics This project explores the technology of aquaponics and its capabilities for integrating into a community driven urban intervention. Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture (cultivation of aquatic animals) and hydroponics (soilless cultivation of plants) to create an arrangement where both subsystems complement each other; the plants clean the water from the fish tanks whilst the excrement from the fish provides ample nutrition for the plantlife.
method does not require soil for plants to grow in, it can transform the capabilities of the venetian landscape as a place with no natural fertile land, into a hub for food growth, ultimately speculating on the integration of aquaponic systems into urban landscapes as a vision for the future of agriculture. The accompanying image describes intial concepts for an architectural landscape infested with aquponic technology, driving an ethos derived from the work of Aspect Plasticity.
Hydroponics is at the cutting edge of agricultural technology, as this
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Actuator (mixer) Aquaculture Tanks
Sedimentation Tank
Control Valve
Settling zone Effluent Biofilter
The Aquaponic Loop
Influent Oxygenating Actuator (Mixer) Minor power source Overflow Zone
Sediment/ Sludge waste outlet
Rotary mixer
Hydroponic trays
Localised sumps
Aquaponics is an extension to hydroponics that greatly improves the efficiency of the system, emulating a natural marine ecology through a controlled environment. The loop consists of three key phases. Firstly, the water is used by the aquatic animals and their excrement enrichens the volume with valuable nutrients and also some waste products, then the water is filtered through a sedimentation tank and biofilter, removing solids and bacteria from the solution. Finally, the filtered, invigorated water is sent to the hydroponic plants that absorb its nutrients for growth, it is then circulated back to the fish tanks.
Master sump Aquaponic tech Diagram
Water pump
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Foo d
Program
Equ ipm ent S
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UA AQ
C STI A PL BIO
Bio p
oly me r
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AN CE
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Filt e slud red m ge icro bia l
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Lag oon
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Wa ter
The arrangement of spaces within the project would take key precedent from the nature of the technologies at hand. Given the loop system of aquaponics between aquacultures and hydroponic plant life, the intention was that this technology would take priority as the main characterising feature of the building, in the form of a long hall that would encase this loop in one large space, transitioning from aquaculture at one side to hydroponics at the other.
the plant in the form of filtered microbial sludge and brine would be taken to the bioplastics factory to be harvested for useful algae. The plastics area and desalination plant would be spatially separate from the aquaponics but would effectively plug into the hall. The aquaponics hall would serve both as a factory space to raise fish and grow food, and simultaneously as a recreational, showroom like space for visitors and tourists to experience and witness the possibilities of urban agriculture within a community. To accompany this, the project would feature a medium sized cafĂŠ/bar that sell food and drinks made freshly with the yield of the factory, and a small shop that would sell flatpack style kits for members of the outer community to start up their own micro hydroponic worlds, with parts manufactured from biodegradable, bioplastics in house.
The bioplastics factory from the Aspect Plasticity project would be housed within the building alongside an additional subtechnology of desalination in the form of a small plant room. This plant would be positioned close to the lagoon and would intake water from it, processing it through reverse osmosis to store clean water in a reservoir for use in the aquaponics hall, whilst waste from
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I - Communal Program Implications I - Communal
II - Urban
III - Global
Produce of the aquaponics and hydroponics HUB is harvested and sold to feed the community either as cooking ingreidents or as street food, in a celebratory weekly Sunday pop up market.
Hydroponics equipment made from bioplastics inside the HUB is sold to the outer communities. The formation of hydroponic world of varying sizes unfolds a parasitic culture of hydroponic farming through Venice.
Aspect Aquaponics serves as an international precedent for the integration of hydroponics into a community.
II - Urban
III - Global
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Site Approach Addressing the site for a potential structure requires the removal of a portion of the desolate housing blocks that make up the estate. The block fronting the lagoon has been cleared in order to provide the new building with a graceful opportunity to relate to the lagoon, whilst opening up the entire site from that side. Additionally the centre block has been cleared to allow for a square to open up for larger, more inviting public activities to take place on the approach to the aquaponics centre.
Site changes diagram
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Form Finding: A Spectacular Cantilever The desired form for the project is one that is dominated by a deep expression of the aquaponics hall itself, an elongated space stretching the length of the building and extruding out over the lagoon. As a precedent for the integration of aquaponics into a community and a demonstration of the pinnacle of agricultural technology, the structural fabric in turn reflects this pinnacle of technology, embodied as an extreme, spectacular cantilever.
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I - Base Foundations
II - Cores
III - Upper Level
IV - Structural Grid
The base of the building is set on a podium to negate the inflow of flood water. A shallow trench is cut underneath the base of the building, allowing a regular tidal inflow of water to penetrate the site. This creates a reflective water surface below the algae photobioreactors as performed in the Aspect Plasticity project.
Two primary cores are set either side of the entrance lobby. An inclined lift tours above the plastics factory, taking visitors to the back end of the aquaponics hall. The desalination plant rests above the trench and plugs into the hall above, with a staircase winding around it providing additional access and a safe exit to and from the hall.
A ceremonial stair folds around the reception area up to the first level where the shop is found above the desalination plant, linked to the plastics workshop for ease of transit of goods. The cafĂŠ is positioned behind the reception and steps down to a seating area that looks out to the lagoon.
The structural system that forms the basis of the aquaponics hall is extended regularly to the cafĂŠ, creating a logical and reliable framework. The materiality of these lower levels and commercial areas is primarily of concrete and heavyweight masonry, creating a feel of a grounded landscape, whilst the nimble steelwork of the aquaponics hall rests gently above.
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V - Aquaponics Floor Plate
VI - Aquaponics Arrangement
VII - Cantilever Structure
VIII - Dual Skin Envelope
The cores penetrate the floor plate of the aquaponics hall at either side of the base of the building. The elevator retracts visits to the far side, whilst the stair core is centred to allow efficient exit from any direction in an emergency.
The general arrangement of equipment in the hall is based on a transition from aquaculture to hydroponics. The light and heat conditions of the fish tank need to be controlled, with sunlight blocked out to prevent overheating tanks. Whereas the plant life can thrive in a high sunlight environment. As you enter the hall you are met with a dark atmosphere amongst the aquaculture, and your journey through the hall longitudinally progresses into a much more naturally lit, airy environment.
In order to sustain such a dramatic cantilever, the hall is fixed into a large steel box truss system, assisted by an equipment arrangement that holds all the heavyweight aquaculture live-load above the base of the building, and all of the lightweight hydroponics equipment beyond the pivot of the cantilever, reducing its structural stress.
In order to maintain the previous stated lighting, humidity and thermodynamic requirements within the hall, the sunlight facing facades are dual skinned, creating a buffer for heat to gather and be controlled within, whilst also being equipped with mechanical louvres within the two layers that can be opened or closed accordingly to address lighting needs.
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Cantilever Pivot
Live-Load: Heavy Weight Aquaculture
Live-Load: Light Weight Hydroponics
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Management Space Storage
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Aquaculture Zone
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Service Core Indoor Stream
Hyrdroponic Zone
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Hyrdroponic Core
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Viewing Area
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Desalination plant and core Double Floor Plastics Workshop
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Aquaculture Zone
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Hyrdroponic Core
Service Core Indoor Stream
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System Infrastructure
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Diagram illustrating the looping water circulation system of the aquaponics hall. The logic behind this layout is that water from the fish tanks is filtered through the service core and sent to the hydroponic life, which is then collected and circulated back to the tanks.
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Aquaculture Fish Tanks
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Failsafe Mid-Sump
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Sludge Waste Collection
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Sedimentation Tank
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Biofiltration Drum
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Primary Sumps (collection points)
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Salmon Stream Aquaculture system
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Hydroponic Trays
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Localised Sump
Aquaponic circulation Diagram (Left) Building Diagrams (Previous)
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Management Space The inclined elevator serves additionally as a key element in the arrangement of management and workshop spaces, connecting them vertically and allowing easy transit of goods to and from the aquaponics hall. The lift reaches the base floor plate of the hall and up to the primary intermediate level so that all heavy cargo can be moved without scaling stairs. This image shows the back of house area behind the elevator where various goods are kept and managed, alongside cleaning and maintenance equipment and some office space to track the projects requirements and yields.
Worker space sketch (Left) Plan View (Right)
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Approach & Building Envelope A wide stepped podium invites guests inside. The base of the project reads as a grounded concrete structure articulated with glazing in areas of great internal height such as the atrium and cafĂŠ. Such high profile glazing indicates accessibility to the building as a public venue. Glazed Area Masonry Clad Glazed with Steel Meshwork Layer Plan View (Right)
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Lobby & Steelwork Mesh Divisions between the work spaces and public spaces are politely addressed with steel meshwork panels that permeate vision between areas, allowing light to be shared and offering glimpses through, without inviting too much attention to those areas and maintaining a comfortable level of privacy for those working. Additionally, the ceremonial stair that winds around the reception area features a steel mesh barrier between itself and the reception, so as not to totally close the reception but mitigate and overlooking from behind the desk. Guests may proceed through the lobby to the cafe and shop, or address the reception to purchase a guided tour of the aquaponics hall, in which they would then access the inclined elevator . Steel Meshwork Layer Plan View (Right)
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Aquaponics Hall Aquaculture Zone As guests ascend above the plastics workshops, the elevator comes to a halt at the hall and as the doors open, they are met with a world of aquatic wonder as tanks light the space with an ominous glow. The immediate area is open for visitors to stop for a moment, whilst they can glimpse between the tanks and to the upper maintenance levels at the behind the scenes work.
Plan View (Right)
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Aquaponics Hall Transitional Zone/ Salmon Sanctuary Progressing past the aquaculture zone, you are entered into a world that is rich with inhabitation, both in the realm of recreation and industry. Here visitors can mingle with workers, given the multitude of options regarding a route through and around the installations, circulation is always maintained freely as guests can explore the inner working of the factory whilst getting up and close to some aquatic life in the in door salmon stream that joins onto the service core and arches over a walkway towards the hydroponics zone.
Plan View (Right)
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Aquaponics Hall Hydroponics Zone/ Viewing Area As inhabitants carve their route through the hall, they are finally graced with an open segment of the hall at the pinnacle of its cantilever. An expansive glass floor offering the view directly down to the lagoon reminds guests of this dramatic structure as they gaze out across to lagoon to the alps. Here, people can choose to remain and observe the outer world in conjunction with that of the aquaponics hall before they make their way back through to the service core, in which they are then lead through the shop and cafĂŠ should they wish to extend their stay.
Plan View (Right) External View (Next)
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As we gaze out from the pinnacle of the aquaponics hall extending far out over the lagoon; our experiences throughout our journey of a community captivated by their work not only educates and informs us of the possibilities of cutting-edge agricultural technology, but the possibilities of change itself and the importance of coming together as a whole to address our global crisis of climate change. Aspect Aquaponics highlights the human capability to change.
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High Level Distribution Piping Sedimentation Tanks Sludge Waste collection Alessandro - Filter Technician, Local Healthy food enthusiast Biofiltration Tanks
Sump (used water collection)
Clean Water Output
Energy Recovery System Reverse Osmosis Chambers High Pressure Water Pump Control Monitor Cartridge Filter Multi Media Filtration Unit Water Pump Lagoon Water Intake
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Gravel Finish Rigid insulation Waterproofing Membrane Trapezoid Steel Sheeting
Construction grade silicon sealant
Parapet Coping
Rockwool cavity closer
Curtain Walling System
Ventillation control Louvres Steel frame upstand fixed to truss Louvre Opening mechanism Stainless steel spandrel panel with insulation fronting steelwork
Thermal Glazing skin with openable windows/doors Air tightness gap sealed
Structurally glazed monolithic glass
Structural Column Concrete Finish boards
Mechanical louvres
Masonry blockwork Alluminium frame to hold glazing
Rockwool Insulation Stone cladding
Handrail Galvanized steel maintenance catwalk
Wall Tie
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Reflection This semester followed on from semester one in a very satisfying manner, the engagement I had with researching real world technologies and designing around them was something I found to suit my interests wonderfully.
so easy without the help of an array of drawings and a tabletop. I feel that these circumstances have benefited myself in that they have forced me to think vigorously about the curation of work and the communication of ideas, zoning in on what is worth saying and what is not etc.
Despite all enormously commendable efforts from our staff and tutors to pursue the continuation of the course in the heat of the pandemic, I cannot hep but reflect on this semester with a looming disappointment of what could have been. I feel that I very much struggled to adjust to working without the facilities of the architecture studio and library, in which I had solely relied on in the past. The combination of work life and home was something I found to be very unhealthy and never truly found my feet with.
Whilst benefiting from an unusual restriction of freedom and information, I feel very strongly that the effectiveness of tutorial feedback was limited by this. The power of a ‘Juliet Odgers’ pencil scribble could not be absorbed without the true face to face setting of a traditional architectural tutorial and I feel that this halted the developed of detailed design throughout the project. Tutorials seemed to be much shorter online, with a conversation that generally floated around that of the big ideas or the overall picture, without the really in depth spatial discussions that would have greatly benefitted a stage 5 semester two project where such qualities are most desirable.
As both a learning experience for students and tutors, the online course alternative for our degree did address some very interesting points with regards to presenting work. Suddenly, presenting work was not
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