Pack Up and Plug In: car charging away from home . . . and anything else When oil has peaked and electric cars become ubiquitous, a charging infrastructure for them will come along for the ride. Often this will be little more than a plug at home or perhaps in parking lots outside places of work and consumption. But what about in the wilderness where there are no plugs? Rather than forgo distant and remote travels, they should now be undertaken with less guilt! This thesis proposes a model for self supporting stations serving tourists and adventurers needing a plug and waiting on a charge. Located in the Taiga near the James Bay, where substantial portions of Quebec’s and even metro Boston’s power originate, it is a mirage of the city living under and feeding off of the transmission lines powering distant metropolises.
In unsettled places without an electrical distribution grid, new stations will need to be built that are not only capable of charging cars with power they source or produce themselves, but are also capable of occupying travelers while they wait for their cars to charge, batteries to be swapped, or simply take a break from the road.
Thesis Project Fall 2010 Zachary Tyler Newton For this station - over 500 km from civilization for travelers going North - cars drive into pods and are literally plugged into a grid to charge. Power is sourced through induction: the building steals its power from the lines traveling overhead. Formally it evokes turbine halls and citiy skylines, while the program is a projection of the metropolises the lines power so far away. In addition to pods for charging, there are ones for shopping, relaxing, visiting artists, eating, and catching a film. This station is a hub of culture in the wild and a destination on its own. One can select a pod for a quick charge, spending a day, or even spending a night or few.
Thesis Project cont’d. Fall 2010 Zachary Tyler Newton
LEFT: view of full sized charging pod with sleeping berths; pods are moved around the station by gantry cranes, seen in the background. BELOW: plans and sections of theatre pod, charging pod, and stair pod.
FAR LEFT: site map illustrating local terrain in regional frame, with important roads and transmission lines marked. TOP LEFT: rendering of charging station from Southern approach. TOP RIGHT: site model showing project from Northwest, illustrating the station’s relation to power lines and line cut.
Miller-Heller House as Zadok the Priest First Year Studio Fall 2007 Zachary Tyler Newton
BOTTOM: complete drawing of the dinner party, containing all sections in their proper spatial relationships; final drawing measures 18” x 184”.
The first assignment required us to draw the dinning room of this house in plan and elevation, and then prepare and host a dinner party in that space. We were to then record that party and redraw the space based on our method of recording. This is that redrawing. I recorded the party by noting pieces of music which came to me over its duration. I then used one of these pieces - Zadok the Priest, from G.F. Handel’s Coronation Anthems - to develop a system of architectural drawing arrising from the musical notation of this piece.
ABOVE LEFT: detail; plan of dinning room redrawn based on the first part of Zadok the Priest.
BACKGROUND: detail; elevation of dinning room, redrawn based on the second part of Zadok the Priest.
BELOW LEFT and ABOVE AND BELOW RIGHT: details; extrapolated system of architectural drawing, originating from figures in the first two sections, drawn to the third part of Zadok the Priest.
Speculative Urbanism: cellular automata in Cerdá’s Barcelona The studio began with an investigation of the Cerdá block in Barcelona, its individual configurations, and how those configurations accumulate to form larger urban conditions. This analysis was then used to break down the block and develop a media center building, using similar iterative techniques. The studio was led in groups of three, my contribution - presented here (including the title-block graphic design) - began with combinatorial investigations of the Cerdá block, their densities, and their aggregations into larger urban gestures. I then used this analysis to develop an organizational strategy for the vertical elements of the building (from structure to circulation cores and library) and their horizontal structural connexions. This organization then informed the placement of program.
Second Year Studio Fall 2008 Zachary Tyler Newton ABOVE/BELOW: model photographs LEFT: map of Diagonal neighborhood of Barcelona’s Eixample, with site indicated in red. SMALL INSETS: floor plates of the project distributed on this page using organizational logic of project. OPPOSITE LEFT: diagram of Cerdá blocks strategies morphing into building analysis. On the city side, organizational units decrease in size: from the light pink 20x20 block sector, to the darker 10x10 block district, to the darker still 5x5 ward, and onto the darkest - the individual block. Different programs operate on the scales of each.
On the building side, a similar strategy is employed, with solid elements erupting on the grid nodes, from the library core, down to the smallest 10x10 cm columns. Once again, different programs operate at the different scales, with the larger nodes more functional and the smaller ones more Both the vertical and horizontal elements are developed according to a programatic and structural algorithim, which governs pure structure, mechanical runs, lavatory cores, circulation cores, dinning cores, and the central library.