digital aptitudes - Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012 - 2:00PM - 3:30PM
Emerging Materials, Renewable Energy, and Ecological
Design (1)
Franca Trubiano, University of Pennsylvania
Drawing Energy Abu Dhabi: Critical Reflections
Lisa Moffitt, University of Edinburgh
Energy is central to sustainable discourse and yet it is often taught
in a static, quantitative manner that denies it a more productive
role in design thinking. As a design tool, energy’s behavioral abstraction
and invisibility overwhelms, leading to conceptual inaccessibility.
But it is only by engaging with energy as a spatial entity
with organizational consequences and physiological impacts
that it can take on agency in design thinking. In Autumn 2010, I
taught Drawing Energy Abu Dhabi, a third year design studio that
explored energy’s spatial and organizational consequences using
the act of drawing energetic exchanges as a design generator.
This paper is not an exploration of the aims and ambitions of the
studio but a critical reflection of the gaps and misfires that occurred
within the course. A reflection of these gaps reflects larger gaps in
energetic thinking within the discipline. After generally introducing
the Drawing Energy studio structure, the paper explores how contemporary
educators and practitioners engage with the topic of
energy as a “spatial project” (Ghosn 2009). More specifically, the
paper provides an expanded platform for discussing the behavior
of energy, its scale and extents of operation, the taxonomic limitations
that constrain thinking about it, and the representational
opportunities that have the potential to deepen and enrich its role
in design. The paper explores energy/matter exchanges at a foundational
level in order to help build a shared understanding of more
subtle ways in which energy informs the built environment.
Biographical Statement: Lisa Moffitt is a Lecturer in Architectural
Design at the University of Edinburgh. Lisa studied, practiced
and taught in the US and Canada before moving to Edinburgh. In
addition to teaching, she currently runs an independent practice,
Studio Moffitt, which recently completed a design/build off grid
house in rural Canada. She is also completing a PhD in Design on
Drawing Energy, which looks to establish a disciplinary vocabulary,
tools and techniques for discussing and designing spaces that foreground
thermodynamic principles.
EcoArchitectural Machines
Brook Muller, University of Oregon
Ecological imperatives provide impetus to develop new materials,
ones that are efficient, that adapt to environmental stimuli, minimize
negative impacts on human and ecosystem health, etc. Yet
it is not simply a matter of what assemblies we might devise and
evaluate: a deeply ecological architecture calls for new forms of
‘accountability,’ new modes of describing materials, assemblies
and their co-dependencies. Such an approach would emphasize
projects as open experiments in the ‘arrangements’ of the living
and nonliving. This essay considers how conceptual predispositions
affect our ability to describe ecological materials and environments.
It provides a speculative basis for aligning heterogeneous,
event-laden ecologies and dynamic architectures of the city. It asks
how urban interventions as hybrids of architectural fabrication and
ecological regeneration might support a trajectory of enhanced
human and biological diversity. Lastly it considers a proposal for
an eco-architectural machine, a modest intervention that could be
replicated throughout urban public spaces and that collapses architecture
and ecology, establishes correspondences at vastly different
scales, and aligns multi-sensory awareness, sociability and
dramatically enhanced biological performance.
Photosynthetic Energy and Ecological Recycling: The
Architectural Potential of Algae Cultivation
Gundula Proksch, University of Washington
Designers are expanding the definition of Ecological Design by incorporating
biological processes and systems directly in their design.
Systems like green roofs and living machines have proved
themselves invaluable for reducing a design’s overall environmental
footprint. Algae-based energy is almost 30 times less expensive
per unit than energy generated by photovoltaic technology, and
algae biodiesel can already be produced at market-competitive
prices. With its efficient energy production and potential for improving
the health of the surrounding air and water, algae cultivation
is the next photosynthetically driven system primed for architectural
integration.
This paper examines the various methods of algae farming, its opportunities
to support cyclical systems, its design implications, and
its integration into urban space. The paper will support its findings
with examples from built and speculative projects that centrally
feature algae farming: The WPA 2.0 Competition winner, Carbon
T.A.P.; Metropolitan Magazine’s 2011 Design Competition winner,
Process-Zero: Retrofit Resolution; the Blenheim Municipal Wastewater
Plant in New Zealand; a Algae Photo-Bioreactor in Klötze,
Germany; and the Green Power House in Columbia Falls, MT.
Cultivation methods range from low-tech open ponds to computer-automated
bioreactors. Each method varies the balance of
yields, land, water, and energy usage, susceptibility to contamination,
initial costs, and operating costs. Each system has very different
design implications. Algae can effectively sequester carbon dioxide
and treat wastewater while increasing its growth efficiency.
These properties give it great potential for integration with other
intrastructural systems like wastewater systems. These synergies
can be developed into closed-loop systems within the built environment,
resulting in lower CO2 emissions, nutrient reuse and efficient
energy generation.
These multi-layered benefits of algae cultivation initiate a rethinking
of the relationships between sunlight, alternative energy and
material recycling. This paper argues these new relationships have
strong potential for future development of algae-integrated systems.
Possibilities include integration into urban landscapes, existing
building stock and power generation on the neighborhood
scale. Challenges include economically down-scaling algal systems,
onsite harvesting and the logistics of combining new infrastructures.
To conclude, algae’s high ecological performance generates a
multi-fold contribution towards improving the health of the environment.
With its combination of carbon neutral/negative energy
production and ecological recycling of environmental pollutants,
the integration of algae cultivation in the built environment opens
a new dimension to ecological design.
Digital Apptitutes + Other Openings - Boston, MA - 21