TRANS-SCRAPER
eco-colonization
Housing of Tomorrow, 2014, USA
third prize
D3 space
third prize
D3 space
50% of world’s population lives in the urban area, the figure is expected to rise 80% by 2050. Individuals living in high-rise flats on upper floors and in multiple-occupancy units experience worse MENTAL WELLBEING than those living in detached dwelling occupied by a single family or person. Some researchers suggest that inner city children seem to be exposed less and less to the open invitations of nature. An American nonfiction author, Richard Louv, created the term “nature-deficit disorder” to describe negative consequences to individual health and the social fabric, as children move indoors and stay away from physical contact with the natural world.
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According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1943), humans have a wide variety of it. At the very basic level, we need fertile soil to plant food, shelter to sleep and sex. We need fire for cooking and feel secure. But at the same time we are looking forward to spend time with other people and develop friendships in our community. And finally we ask to be respected by others and also possess the ability to create art, and pursue personal goals then challenge ourselves and other. Some of these needs can be fulfilled in private realm, whereas others can only happen in a community. Therefore, we are constantly looking for our own space in the midst of a community, a "VILLA IN A CITY".
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In May 2013 Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory recorded the concentration of CARBON DIOXIDE in the atmosphere has passed the milestone level of 400 parts per million (ppm) and it seems to keep rising. Concentration of this gas in atmosphere has been changing through the ages in natural order, but has never reached a level as high as it is today. Human activities cause an increase of abandoned CO2, which is actually a resource that can be reused, to keep our environment sustainably.
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We believe technology to be part of nature, and its development should be inclined to help us come back to our origins. Technological evolution should take the primary nature into consideration and develop accordingly.
Heavy rains, volcano eruptions or Earthquakes have been part of Earth's environmental phenomena since the dawn of time. Yet the biggest ongoing disaster to this date is a man locked in a glass cage one thousand feet over the ground, in polluted air. And neither green roofs, nor favourable air conditions can save him. Skyscraper or high rise building is generally seen as an efficient way to accommodate as many inhabitants as possible in the small plot of land. However Louv argued by tapping into the restorative powers of nature, we can boost mental acuity and creativity; promote health and wellness; build smarter and more sustainable businesses, communities, and economies; and ultimately strengthen human bonds.
Our proposal for housing tomorrow is a ground-placed settlement in the cities’ outlying areas, connected with the inner city by high-speed (600km/h) elevators within the shaft. Futuristic Trans-Scraper 2050 is built with Protocell, self-growing material, and mainly focuses on two elements: Transportation and Transformation. It translates the nature of the plant into the architecture language, by transport people as any plant is transferring nutrition from its roots to its bulb.
At the same time, Trans-Scraper transforms carbon dioxide into Methanol, pretty much like the process of photosynthesis that can be found in many living beings. Due to the excessive air pollution that the Earth is currently experiencing, our design imitates the natural process of recycling C02. By using state-of-the-art technology we are able to reuse Carbon dioxide from ambient air, to stabilise the CO2 level, and also produce Methanol efficiently enough so that it can store or run the city and the settlements, and then recycled again and again.
The design was a direct result from the conditions we concerned and promote to live in better quality of the physical environment and accessible dwellings. We believe exposure and access to nature can positively impact mental wellbeing and achieve real sustainability.
CONSTRUCTION
Living systems are in constant conversation with the natural world, through different sets of chemical reactions called metabolism. Scholars Rachel Armstrong and Martin Hanczyc develop a line of research that deals with what is in between the alive and the not-alive and work with a system called the Protocell.
The Protocell is a simple chemical model of a living cell. Created by self-assembly. That is to say, by mixing certain chemicals together, they will self-reproduce and associate to form larger and larger structures. On the order of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of molecules will come together to form a large structure that didn't exist before.
It is possible today to program protocells to move towards i.e. dark or bright part of environment. Our project assumes the development of these processes and programs protocell to create previously designed shapes. They could be with constant interaction with the surroundings while growing, and afterwards set the final shape.
CHEMICAL REACTION
Methanol fuel (CH3OH) is created with two main components which are Hydrogen (H2) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2).
CO2 can be extracted from ambient air by passing a stream of polluted air through a CO2 Filter device which was invented by ISEEE researchers back in 2008. Air Contactor with Sodium Hydroxide reacts with the CO2 in the air and then turns it into a solid state. Afterwards, it is burnt to capture the pure form of CO2.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, is the most abundant chemical substance since it constitutes roughly 75% of the Universe's mass. It can be relatively easy extract from ambient air, by using Solar Cell, invented by MIT researchers in 2012. It contains a thin sheet of semi conductive silicon coated with different catalysts on each side that separate H2 from O2 (elements of water) via the presence of sun light.
Pure elements of CO2 and H2 then undergo a synthesis chemical reaction
(CO2 + 3H2 › CH3OH) via cooper-aluminum catalysis (Cu-Zn-Al2O3) at a temperature of 250°C and a pressure of 5-10 Mpa. The outcome is methanol and water. To extract pure methanol, the mixture has to go through a distillation process. Such gas will be stored or used to run the city, so it can be recycled again and again.