RELIEF PACKAGE

Architecture at Zero 2023 Competition Allensworth

Academic work_SCI-Arc

2023 Spring

Instructor: Ramiro Diaz-Granados

Partner: Yiyu Zhou

Software: Rhino, Twinmotion

As a TAC teaching and innovation farm lab, the project is an architectural relief package delivered to the site and unpacked with an initial provisional status about its context, program, and users, which changes over time. This dual nature can be considered a mutual assemblage and characterized as a kind of parallel computing design strategy that addresses a set of mutual concerns by working in parallel on two different configurations.

Allensworth lies in the Central Valley of California, one of the most productive agricultural regions on the planet, providing more than half of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States. More than 7 million acres (28,000 km 2 ) of the valley are irrigated via an extensive system of reservoirs and canals. Farmers and farmworkers are the cornerstones of the larger food sector, which includes the industries that provide farmers with fertilizer and equipment; farms to produce crops and livestock; and industries that process, transport, and distribute food to consumers. Despite the dominance of agriculture in the area, Allensworth and many communities in the Central Valley are food “deserts” with no place for residents to purchase fresh food and vegetables.

This project aims to connect the farm lab to its aspiration to become a destination for sustainable agriculture.

Cycle of 2 years

The array is structured in two phases, and the gantry is the way to move the program space volumes. We adopt the local climate, farming, and people activity schedule as the basis for placing each activity space on the base in volume.

Initially, the entire design will arrive at the site in a complete package. Then the packages will be opened up and placed on the site and become the paving. Then, the amenities and spaces that need to be accessed by local people will be placed on the base in the first phase. In the second phase, the remaining programs related to the school will be incorporated into the stack and arrayed on the base according to the climate and academic schedule of the school. This stack and array routine is a 2-year cycle.

In order to transform Allensworth into a suitable land for planting in the long run, water, and soil purification is one of the main considerations in our design. There are two types of greenhouses, one that can be moved on the site and one that is fixed to the site.

Beasts as Characters

In this relief package, the gantry plays an important role. We reimagined a gantry as a beast and character that remain after construction and participate in the overall assemblage over time. Just like oxen strapped to a cart, it is like a Beast performing work by stacking and arraying the program space volume around the site to reform the landscape. It contains effective infrastructure (elevators, stairs, energy) but also be designed as characters that bring delight and affection.

By utilizing the industrial gantry as a base model, we will convert them into beasts/ characters by AI text-to-image generators and 3D model them. In addition to performing construction work, as well as other seasonal performances within the assemblage, it has water storage and a greenhouse embedded and serves as an overview point for the Allensworth.

The gantry contains water bag to store the water and greenhoouse. The horn of the gantry can slide to the side of the stack and serves as elevator for the people to circulate inside the stack.