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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
While the science, technology and economics of turning algae into biofuel needs further research and refinement, that hasn't stopped designers from dreaming up projects using this new energy source as a point of departure in formal and systems experiments. We have been collecting many such projects over the past years and now would like to present some of the better ones to our readers in a series of posts. They vary in scales, deployment, logistics and context, so there should be something for everyone. Do take what you want from them.
We start with something regular readers will no doubt have seen before, from a year ago. The project is called Drip Feed, the winning entry from architects Thomas Raynaud and Cyrille Berger for the 2G Competition Venice Lagoon Park.
According to Raynaud and Berger:
Our project for the urban park of Sacca San Mattia consists of reinvesting the island in a Venetian, multi-functional approach to urban planning, in the context of an enlarged metropolitan, tourist centre. The Drip Feed project on the Island of Sacca San Mattia puts into place an above-ground ulva rigida cultivation device that is in keeping with the Greenfuel system. A saprophyte structure that ingests polluted waste from local industry, and conceptually redefines the lagoon’s future water level, without harming the natural state of the island.
In other words, algae from the lagoon will be harvested and “farmed” inside bioreactor tubings filled with water taken also from the lagoon.
This process of cultivation would produce the biofuel for the lagoon's transportation and somewhat incredibly, seaweed to feed the tourists. One other byproduct is oxygen, which would be used to reduce the eutrophication of the lagoon caused by industrial run-off. Supposedly, then, one would have to be careful not to reduce it too much or else a new source of algae would have to be found.
Since Venice is “codified as a city-diversion,” Ranaud and Berger wanted to program this site of production into a site of consumption as well. The tubes are arrayed trellis-like. Above and below this emerald ground plane are spaces for activities, for instance, outdoor concerts and camping.
Of course, the entire structure itself would be an attraction, an engineering marvel equal to the Renaissance churches and palazzos just across the lagoon. In fact, if the duo had followed the contours of the hills or better yet, sculpted some imaginary landforms into the structure, it might even compete with the sagging San Marco.
How about recreating the skyline of La Serenissima?
During aqua alta, unlucky tourists will rent gondolas and vaporetti to sail underneath striated onion domes and bulbous, vegetal skies, bathed in modulated light and shadows.
Until its time to eat an overpriced seaweed à la carte menu.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Speaking of Venice, there were some reports a couple months ago telling us that officials are “pursuing [a] proposal with great interest” that could save the city from sea level rise.
According to Agence France-Presse, “Local officials and engineers are planning to lift buildings under operation 'Rialto' by up to one metre (3.3 feet) using piston-supported-poles to be placed at the bottom of each structure. This will take around a month per building if each structure is raised by eight centimetres (3.14 inches) a day.”
There is another project, one that is actually being realized, to save Venice. Called the MOSE Project, it involves constructing adjustable barriers at the three entrances to the Venetian Lagoon. While these barriers may protect the city from future floods, buildings whose lower levels are already submerged will remain inundated, continuing to rot at their foundations. In other words, there is really no change in the status quo.
Project Rialto, on the other hand, will restore access and functionality to once flooded floors. There is also the possibility of lifting the building still higher if needed, for instance, if sea level rise exceeds the design parameters of the barriers and overtops them. Meanwhile, the city and its neighborhoods may begin to resemble what they were like before things started sinking.
Of course, we have to wonder why would you want to revive an image of its past? It won't reverse the exodus of its citizens or prevent it from becoming an open air museum.
Why not use this opportunity to play around with the built environment? You could, for instance, jack up this palazzo up higher than 3.3 feet. Or that palazzo by a towering 50 feet.
Sculpting negative spaces, reconfiguring campi, creating a second piazza.
Better yet, you slip in a barge under them. Venice as a tectonic jigsaw puzzle, its mini-island pieces floating but firmly tethered for most of the time until the curator of a future edition of the Architecture Biennale wants to rearrange things.
Or until the Art Institute of Chicago decides to organize a blockbuster exhibition on Venetian palazzos or Tate Britain on Turner's Venice. When their entreaties for loans are answered, chunks of the city will unmoor themselves from the lagoon. Once equipped to ward off Somalian pirates, they will simply sail away, leaving behind some scaffolding wrapped with full-scale photographic replicas of the borrowed architecture to let disappointed tourists know what they are sorely missing.
Galveston on Stilts
Thursday, May 8, 2008
This is lovely. It's London re-imagined in 1899 as La Serenissima-upon-Thames. Go see.
Of course, when London gets flooded for real by the middle of this century, the city will not look quite as charming. No Lonely Planet devotee would want to go there during his gap year. Instead, it would most certainly become a pestilential swamp, ridden with malaria and mutagenic superviruses, a methanous bog slowly digesting St. Paul's. 
And behind every crumbling facade, a coven of sub-humans patiently waits for the night when they can continue their hunt for Will Smith.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Winners of the 2G Competition Venice Lagoon Park were announced last month and here are a couple of projects that caught our eyes.
First is the winning entry from architects Thomas Raynaud and Cyrille Berger. Presented with the slogan Drip Feed, they propose to turn one of the islands in the lagoon into a sort of algae power farm using organisms that already live in the tidal marshes to convert water pollution into clean energy.
It'll be a site of production and leisure.
Or as described by the Paris team: “Our project for the urban park of Sacca San Mattia consists of reinvesting the island in a Venetian, multi-functional approach to urban planning, in the context of an enlarged metropolitan, tourist centre. The Drip Feed project on the Island of Sacca San Mattia puts into place an above-ground ulva rigida cultivation device that is in keeping with the Greenfuel system. A saprophyte structure that ingests polluted waste from local industry, and conceptually redefines the lagoon’s future water level, without harming the natural state of the island.”
Second is the entry from the Spanish team of Josep Tornabell Teixidor, Gerard Bertomeu, Miriam Cabanes and Enrique Soriano. Called Instant Gel, their proposal also makes use of existing water-borne organism and pollutants but this time they are to be used to set off a chemical reaction with layers of flexible gelly structures, creating fantastical island-sized foamy water lilies.
The cranes in the image above suggest perhaps that in the future climate-changed Venice St. Mark's will be transferred onto one of these floating islands.
Or perhaps Askin Ozcar's fake Venice will be realized here. Duplicate canals, duplicate churches, duplicate palazzos, duplicate Venetians and duplicate film festival and biennales, all floating above and tethered to the lagoon. And every couple of years (another biennale of sorts), it gets disconnected to become a mobile museum, mall and casino.
Meanwhile, it's worth comparing Drip Feed to 202 Collaborative's hydrogen-powered Icelandic cities and Instant Gel to SpongeCity by Niall Kirkwood et al.
