Our Friends at Animal Architecture are launching the inaugural Animal Architecture Awards.  The competition seeks "exciting projects that engage the lives, minds and behaviors of our alternate, sometimes familiar companion species — insects, birds, mammals, fish and microorganisms – each one with unique ways of world-making. As our society re-examines its place in the global ecology Animal Architecture invites your critical and unpublished essays and projects to address how architecture can mediate and encourage multiple new ways of species learning and benefiting from each other – or as we say it here: to illustrate cospecies coshaping."

Cospecies coshaping is an intriguing ecological principle that has the potential to integrate the "human" world with the "animal" world, so in fact we can eliminate these "terms" altogether.  What interests me most is that architecture is sought as the mediator to bridge these two worlds (not just human but any species).  I am very curious to see the projects from the competition and happy that it will expand our knowledge on the relationship between form and symbiosis.  If you are interested in applying, the deadline is May 15th, and all information can be found here.

[Bat Tower Project by Jury Member Joyce Hwang]

Increasingly, carbon emission issues will need to be addressed at a very large, even regional and urban, scale to offset a downward spiral. And nowhere is this more pressing than in parts of rapidly-developing China. London Metropolitan University’s Unit 8, led by CHORA (Raoul Bunschoten) and Tomaz Pipan is exploring just such an initiative in a studio titled “Urban Incubators.” They write that “Energy is the city’s new design force.” Unit 8 investigated this by inviting students to develop a energy map of an area of Xiamen, documenting it as a “cohabitation of processes.” Index maps and scenario-modeling, techniques and methods well demonstrated in much of CHORA’s work, provides a catalyst for a prototypical urban approach. Each proposal was held accountable to 4 criteria: branding, earth (site prototype), flow (processes and exchanges), and incorporation (development strategy). The scale of thinking is powerful and ambitious.

There are many fantastic provocative projects that emerged from the studio – though we thought to only highlight a few here, as the website itself is very effective. Proposals range in terms of implementability, scale, and degrees of publicness. Below is Patrick Fryer’s “Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure.” This project strategically inserts a vein-like network organization of agriculture in a site of expanding industrial lands. Aquaponic greenhouses form the primary agent in site, with a complementary matrix of composting and other ground-based agro-processes. The center spine is host to an intensive nutrient flow system, integrating the greenhouses. Intermittently strung along the spine are public programs including housing and schools.

[Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure - Branding, by Patrick Fryer.]

[Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure - Earth, by Patrick Fryer.]

[Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure - Flow, by Patrick Fryer.]

[Peri-Urban Aquaponic Infrastructure - Incorporation, by Patrick Fryer.]

Another provocative project is “Algal Economies” by Tom Down. This project recognized that much of China’s “urban villages” have limited access to land and have struggled to find agency other than as a overcrowded hub for transient populations. Instead, this proposal offers biofuel, specifically algae harvesting, as a new economy for the residents. Scaffolding-like structured farms are integrated into the village architecture in semi-public and semi-private spaces, such as roofs, patios, and courtyards. Banks of algae production line these structures, offering a new produce for the new city: renewable energy.

[Algal Economies - Earth, by Tom Down.]

[Algal Economies - Flow, by Tom Down.]

A third project is “Bamboo Components” by Benjamin Walton. This proposal capitalizes on the wasted land that has emerged through the combination of rapid development and land ownership laws of Xiamen. These sites are then tested for intense bamboo farming.  Bamboo is harvested for engineered timber construction in newly constructed production towers.

[Xiamen Bamboo Components - Earth, by Benjamin Walton.]

[Xiamen Bamboo Components - Flow, by Benjamin Walton.]

Editors Note: File under Feedback: Architecture’s New Territories, an InfraNet Lab seminar at Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design / University of Toronto. Guest post and images are by Gerard Gutierrez.

———–

The four species of Asian Carp, Bighead, Black, Silver, and Grass, have become a menace in the Mississippi River basin as desperate attempts have been made to stop its entrance into the Great Lakes. Its seemingly insatiable appetite has endangered many local species by consuming much of the local food sources as different Asian Carp species feed on aquatic grasses and various types of phytoplankton. The fish can reach a length of 4ft long and weigh up to 100lbs. This extreme size has also become a danger to recreational boaters and fisherman as the fish can jump up to 6ft out of the water when startled by incoming watercraft.

[Carp tracking since 1972. The US and Canadian Governments formed the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in 1955 specifically to battle sea lamprey, which had devastated the fishery.]

The initial introduction of this invasive species to the United States occurred in 1973 as Bighead, Silver and Black Carp from Taiwan were first introduced to the U.S. by an Arkansas fish farmer who used his own stock of Grass Carp as an experimental weed control agent. In 1979, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, working with a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), utilized Silver and Bighead Carp as an experimental cleaning agent in sewage treatment plants around the state. By the 1990s, a large population of Silver and Bighead Carp escaped into the Mississippi River when Southern aquaculture facilities became flooded. This event started the migration of the fish up the Mississippi River and has resulted in the great proliferation of the various species, especially bighead and silver. At its most extreme concentrations, the Carp has accounted for over 90% of the total biomass within certain stretches of the Mississippi and Chicago river systems.

[Tests for an electric fish barrier in Chicago.]

The Chicago River system has become the final battleground for preventing the Asian Carp from entering Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes at large. Numerous attempts have been made to prevent the carp’s movements, amongst these has been the installation of two underwater electric fences by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2002 and 2006. These experimental barriers soon proved to be a failure as fish were found upstream from the fence. When the barriers needed maintenance, a poison was dumped into the river to stop the fish as vital work was completed. Most recently, extreme measures have been proposed that would close the Chicago Shipping Canal as a last resort to stopping the Carp from entering Lake Michigan.

[Bow-hunting Carp as kill sport.]

Many entrepreneurs are currently developing new ways of utilizing the carp. The most obvious has become turning the many carp into a viable food export to various parts of Asia and certain parts of North America. Other emerging uses include processing the fish into animal feed, omega-3 oil and even using the fish as a source for bio-fuel. With these emerging uses, the fish can be envisioned as a lucrative future commodity that can be farmed on a large regional scale. In a future where the Asian Carp has entered the Great Lakes ecosystem, can large-scale Carp-farming help control the rampant growth of the invasive species? Certain stretches of the Great Lakes shores can be converted to large fish farming beds while many parts of the Mississippi River system can also become fish farming areas that would capitalize on the abundance of Carp that would be processed for food export, animal feed, omega-3 oil, and bio fuel.

Also from the Feedback seminar:
Corn Belt 2.0: Syncing the Starchscape, Matthew Spremulli
Re-Link: The Physical Network of Data, Ali Fard
Border Economies: the Maquiladora Export Landscape, Juan Robles
Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, Fei-Ling Tseng

Excess typically implies in addition to what is required, a by-product, or residue.  The continual growth model of our economic system produces a vast amount of excess.  Could excess become part of a larger productive system if it was put to work?  This meaning, is there an ecology of excess?

This notion of Ecologies of Excess was the premise of an intriguing studio taught by Eva Franch Gilabert at Rice University, that I had the pleasure of reviewing last week.  According to Franch, the ideological succession of machine for living by organism for living perpetuated the same social, political and environmental dilemmas of the previous century.  Franch envisions a new movement, Ecologies of Excess, during the 22nd century that "provide us with a guide to thinking, designing and building based on what we, human beings, produce without measure: endless amounts of energy in social [crowds], political [wars], and environmental terms [pollution].  In sum: Excess"

Set in the year 2101, the studio centered on the design of a Worlds Fair Exhibition Pavilion, deemed "Great Exhibition of the Works of Excess of All Nations".  Each studio participant was to site their project in a different country and analyze the productive aspects of excess.  The studio produced fascinating results, two projects of which are highlighted below.

[Top: The floating, tangled settlements of trash facilitate the spread of invasive species (like mussels, barnacles, invertebrates, and pelagic crabs) across the ocean. Middle: Invasive species often attach to floating plastic settlements, affecting the oceans oxygen, phytoplankton, and zooplankton production, to the detriment of native ecosystems. Bottom: The average cubic centimeter of ocean water holds about one million phytoplankton-producing-bacteria; however, if this bacteria attaches to plastic, it creates biofilm colonies on the surface of the ocean, depriving lower depths of an even distribution ocean nutrient cycling. Images Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

Polymergy Waterscapes by: Igraine Perkinson

Polymergy Waterscapes looks at the garbage gyre written about by InfraNet Lab last year.  The great pacific garbage patch is comprised of floating plastics that swirl within slow winds and ocean currents.  Entitled Polymergy Waterscapes, Igraine envisions a future typology that builds upon and with this trash.  Igraine states:

Whereas traditional patterns of urbanity sought to settle away from trash, Polymergy Waterscapes creates a floating aquatic society that inverses this relationship, using garbage as a generative device for new urbanism. The pavilion adopts a labyrinthine open system of channels that brings the trash to its proximity by disrupting the clockwise currents of the gyre. These systems grow by means of compaction, reducing debris by a factor of ten.

[Siting Strategy. Top: The gyre occupies an area of slow wind currents; as a result, fishermen and sailors rarely travel through it—hence, a lack of awareness of its presence. Middle: Warm water from the south crashes into cooler water from the north, creating a spiraling current that collects the floating garbage. Bottom: Each season affects ocean water temperatures, pushing the location of the gyre about 1000 miles north and south every time. Images Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

Sited at an opportune location for gathering garbage – where winds and currents are slowest – Polymergy Waterscapes not only raises awareness of this emerging continent of garbage, but also incorporates programmes that can take advantage of garbage – spas (heat generated by recycling process), research labs, and various recreational activities of play.  The accumulation or densification of the island over time slowly clears the larger mass of water.  Here, garbage is the unit of growth and the subject for occupation.

[A labyrinthine strategy of open water channels collects trash by disrupting the clockwise currents of the gyre, following a specific path typology that relates to process and program. Image Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

[Accumulation Legs, View of Model. Image Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

[Each program zone architecturalizes collected garbage uniquely (zone1 ex: accumulation wall, soft square, synthetic dunes, garbage whirlpool) constructing collective aspirations that result from the design process. Image Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

[Sections. Top: Other water channels empty debris into the collection ponds and topography terraces of Plastic Laboratories, which can then be closed off and left to dry in order to store contents for energy or research. Bottom: Polymergy Spa is an underwater refinery that melts plastic and converts it into energy, releasing mist as a result of the process, and adding a layer of privacy for each user—the relaxation seeker. Image Courtesy of: Igraine Perkinson]

Species Indetermina by: Ashley Johnson
Species Indetermina tackles the issue of species migration in ballast water.  As globalized markets put increasing pressure on shipping, ballast water becomes a large issue.  This water is typically polluted (with the residue of the cargo) and often contains alien species, which are dumped in ports far from their origin.  These alien species often alter and eliminate parts of the local ecosystem.  Ashley Johnson takes advantage of these alien species in her project, Species Indetermina, by containing the ballast water and creating core samples of wildlife and landscape from different parts of the globe.  These contained ecosystem core samples essentially create a new zoo typology that is curated by shipping routes and alien ballast water.  Johnson sites her project in New Zealand, where she notes,  "in 2010 twenty new species of algae were discovered from samples taken in Auckland Harbour labeled species indetermina".

[Placement of a single port outside of Auckland Harbour where Ballast Water is typically dumped. Image courtesy of Ashley Johnson]

[Plan of Port at low tide. Image courtesy of Ashley Johnson]

Her containment port located outside the harbor would allow "The people of New Zealand to sail five minutes off their own coast and enter exotic new environments, on sea level with the new life, as well as up above in restaurants and observation decks." What is interesting about this scheme is that while sited in New Zealand, it could provide a prototype for dealing with ballast water at all international shipping ports across the globe.  A travelling network of contained (and contaminated) ecosystems, which introduce the public to new exotic worlds.

[Proliferation of exotic life. Image courtesy of Ashley Johnson]

[Exploded Axonometric showing public layers hovering above container. Image courtesy of Ashley Johnson]

[The amphibious landscape of Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories]

At 4,200 kilometres in length, the Mackenzie River in North-western Canada is one of the longest rivers in the world (11^th). Its watershed, 1.8 million square kilometres in size, drains one-fifth of the country. The River, whose headwaters begin in the Peace and Athabasca rivers, flows north, across the Arctic Circle to the Beaufort Sea, a territory rich in oil and natural gas resources.

[Mackenzie River Basin]

Landjacking, by University of Waterloo students Virginia Fernadez and Meaghan Burke, is a project which deals with the confluence of significant ecosystems, hydrological systems and resources.  Burke and Fernadez write: “The Mackenzie Basin is just one incidence of a major Arctic river coinciding with significant oil or gas deposits. Such sedimentary basins – where over time marine organisms have been deposited, and decayed to form oil or gas – are also found in the Russian Arctic."

By 2050, environmental pressures will increase melting ice and precipitation, increasing the annual discharge of the northern rivers such as the Mackenzie by 12-20 precent. This freshwater flows into the Beaufort Sea, becoming salt-water at the Delta. Collecting, treating and distributing just 4% of this excess water annually would produce 3 trillion m3 of water, enough to satisfy the annual water needs of 2 million Canadians.

Burke and Fernadez explain: “The existing Mackenzie Gas project is proposing an infrastructure for extraction and processing facilities and housing; all centered on a finite resource, natural gas.

[The river has served to gather several settlements and extraction sites along its length, to service the projected gas pipeline which is to run parallel to the river for approx. 1220km.]

Landjacking seeks to hijack the construction of the pipeline and build a water pipeline alongside the gas infrastructure, introducing a new renewable resource to the region’s economy. The river delta presents the opportunity for co-opting the natural lake system, to develop a freshwater industry that would promote local economies with longevity.”

Located close to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, the project profits from the relatively immunity from rising sea levels and storm surges while still collecting water from the river’s highest runoff.

[Geography of the Mackenzie Delta with its existing lakes, and proposed walls and canals networking the lakes into a new ecosystem]

The project essentially consists of three walls totalling 114km in length, which encircle 700km2 of territory near the Mackenzie Delta – a landscape ‘pock-marked’ with endless lakes. The project proposes to co-opt some of the lakes to act as natural wetlands to treat water flowing northward in the Mackenzie River.The water of the Mackenzie is polluted as various points downstream by mining, oil and gas works.

[Elements of an amphibious landscape: Existing lakes; River tributaries, New Flood walls; and Canals supplying and diverting water to lakes]

A combination of mechanical treatment and a gravitational network of collection, cleaning and storage lakes treat the highest water volume in the summer, and are supplanted in the winter by an entirely mechanical system. Smaller systems of wastewater management, aquaculture, snow collection and electricity production are connected to the water treatment diversifying the output of the system.  The clean water is then sent back south for irrigation and general consumption.

[Chemical and mechanical water treatment, as well as housing, recreation, services and transportation are embedded in the walls.]

The project is composed of a collection wall along the river where primary/initial water treatment occurs, and two secondary treatment walls linking the river with the land, all connected to the wetland system through pipelines and canals. The walls act as a levee shielding the wetlands from salt water and further pollutants when the water level rises, while perforations controlled by sluice-gates allow the maintenance of the natural hydrological and ecological systems.

[Inhabiting the infrastructural water landscapes]

The wall changes its width responding both to program and landscape. Transportation, pedestrian paths and pipelines span the wall merging water and human networks. A port for small barges coming along the Mackenzie, a road connected to the Dempster highway and four, four meter diameter pipelines are the connections to rest of the world.

[The Arctic''''''''''''''''s great water wall?]

A modern day Hoover dam, the project is a colossal infrastructure that seeks to find a way in which it might co-exist with its surrounding landscapes, albeit in an altered state. One might imagine this enclosed Arctic landscape like a modern Lake Mead – a natural landscape transformed, but supporting recreation, economies, and newly emerging ecologies.

Last month I had the pleasure of attending final reviews at University of Michigan Taubman College for two days. I saw an incredible range of work within a studio premise called "Perimeter." Each studio developed a position relative to the condition of a perimeter as a site. Perimeter to what? In what way is the perimeter advantageous for divergent forms and formats of urbanism? And is the perimeter just a slumbering future center?

From my visit, it is difficult to select a single project, again because of the sweeping diversity of propositions within each brief, but I was struck by the simplicity and industrious viability of a project that had the Thames River as a perimeter site. Its author is Jonathan Blair working under professor Sophia Psarra's studio site of the Thames. Now you might be wondering, in what way is the Thames a perimeter? And I had similar hesitation, but generally it depends on who is asking the question of perimeter. If it is fisherman and fishmongers than it is most certainly a perimeter to a larger center.

Blair's project originates from the following two facts:

Fact 1: Britons eat one-third of all the cod consumed in the world, and 85% of cod caught in European waters is destined for plates in the UK. (BBC)

Fact 2: The very shape of the food web has changed, from plankton on up to the cod and flatfish that once dominated the icy waters, supporting rich commercial fisheries. They’ve been largely replaced by jellyfish and crabs. (Wired)

[The first fish n chips shop was opened in 1860 in London offering Atlantic Cod fried in the Jewsih traditional way from trawling in the North Sea.]

Jonathan Blair's Miles of Liquid History: A Half Real/Half Fictional Atlas of the London Thames addresses a projected near future in which the ocean's fruit is even more threatened, and to maintain fish consumption we have resorted to new forms of aquaculture. Blair embraces some of the initial successes of the aquapod for aquacultural harvesting. (read more on offshore aquaculture here.) He writes:

The oceans have been critical for maintaining food sources worldwide. What happens when we relieve them of their fruit? Just as London has replaced cod, the famous fish n' chips variety, with plaice due to overfishing, other once abundant species are disappearing. Due to such occurrences, fish farms have popped up as a way to monitor stocks. Fish farms make fishing an easy chore and stabilize fish prices.

[An aquapod submerged ready to cultivate, as developed by Ocean Farm Technologies.]

The catch, however, is that Blair rigs the aquapod's arrival point into London at the historic Tower Bridge, completed in 1894. Effectively, the bridge reels in the pod, when ready, it hovers over vehicles and pedestrians passing below as a gantry pulls it toward one of the pier-towers. After it is emptied, it is then deposited back under the raised bridge-road, into the Thames, and cast back out to sea.

[0:00 | Condition normal.]

[5:00 | Aquapod arrives.]

[6:00 | Aquapod lifted to high gantry.]

[9:00 | Bridge back to normal.]

[18:00 | Aquapod empited, and bridge opens to release pod.]

[19:00 | Aquapod cast back out to the North Sea.]

He further writes:

However, a present challenge with fish farms lies in the pollution from a large aquatic populous occupying a coastal region previously uninhabited. Antibiotics, feed, and fish waste plague the stagnant water surrounding the farm. This is currently tolerated as a positive alternative to scraping the bottom with ever-expanding nets. The Tower Bridge Seafood Market explores a fictitious urban scenario where direct access to the sea provides the ability for fish farming to becoming free-ranging.

[View of a model of one of the Tower Bridge piers rigged with over 25 handlines for the local catch-of-the-day at the proposed Tower Bridge market.]

The two towers of Tower Bridge are outfitted with a light-weight supplementary structure that allows access to the market, food court, lift operations, and a crow's nest. Each structural member is threaded with a handline that fihes for local catch. This operates in complement to the larger scale offshore aquapod.

[Elevations of the filigreed structural rig wrapping the tower-piers of Tower bridge.]

Finally, Blair writes:

The proposed method utilizes a recent invention in which a geodesic structure of aluminum and Kevlar mesh preseeded with a particular marine species serves as the vessel for off-shore farming. Autonomous feeding and satellite guidance systems navigate the spheres on predetermined migratory paths until the school has reached adequate size for its return to port. This mobile fish farm is juxtaposed with the traditional handline method, where a balance of wild versus farm-raised is played out on a central stage. The handline method also allows for a specific species not able to caught by net to be acquired. Tying in to the existing hydraulic lift systems historically used to raise and lower the drawbridge, the "AquaSphere" is hoisted upwards between the two towers where it will be unloaded while simultaneously the fishing lines retract bringing up the a wild catch and special for the day.

[Fish-eye view of the structural wrapper showing integrated reelers.]

To reach Jonathan, please contact him at blairjo [at] gmail [dot] com.