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 As our society re-examines its place in the global ecology Animal Architecture invites your critical and unpublished essays and projects to address how architecture can mediate and encourage multiple new ways of species learning and benefiting from each other – or as we say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]

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.

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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.

Following a trail from our Dust Bowl post last week, we read with great interest that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) "plans to conduct sweeping ecological assessments of public lands across the West." (via) More specifically:

The BLM says it will study the Colorado Plateau, southern Californias Mojave desert and Nevadas central Great Basin desert. It announced Monday it would use the studies to decide how to make use of the public lands.

In part this is likely based upon increasing interest in potential for energy transport corridors as per the Energy Policy Act of 2005. And funding for 2011 comes from a US$8 million increase to the BLMs annual budget for 2010. Federal land management has certainly been a little less than anything to be inspired about in the intervening decade. Whatever the regional equivalent of pothole filling would be the appropriate descriptor here. (Lets just say considerable money goes into a regular horse census.) So atention to these lands, however fractured and discontinuous it might be, is refreshing.

To put this in context, the Bureau of Land Management is responsible for administering about 253 million acres of land, or about one-eighth of the total land mass of the United States. Repeat: one-eighth the land mass is public lands managed by BLM.

[The BLM manages about 37,000 horses on its land, which is an considered 10,000 surplus over a sustained balance with other species and resources.]

[Significant domain of the BLM at lands surface. Counting sub-surface, the BLM empire expands to one-eighth US land mass.]

And they are in the hot seat from the proposal last year for the  not-so-popular West-wide energy Corridor, presented in 2007, which spawned a lawsuit from a hefty list of agencies invested in land protection, such as: Sierra Club; The Wilderness Society; Western Watersheds Project; the Center for Biological Diversity; Defenders of Wildlife; National Parks Conservation Association; National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The West-wide corridor cuts a 6,000 mile webbed-network figure through 11 states, covering some 3 million acres of public lands. The Energy Corridor is intended to deliver (combined) oil, gas, hydrogen pipelines, and electrical transmission lines.

In a post last year, Power of Ecosystems / Ecosystems of Power, we noted Ryder and Rosas stunning documentation of power corridors, and their ability to create their own vectorial landscape. A landscape–with very little human intervention–of clear cut trees or branches, untended or cleared groundcover, and quite often human waste. This linear network, estimated at some 300,000 miles, supports an ecology that has flourished under these conditions. It seems the West-wide corridor system could begin to embrace that possibility as well. Recognizing its status as an infrastructure likely to be devoid of extensive human presence, these corridors range from 3,500 feet wide to upwards of 5 miles wide. With these widths, we could almost being to see these corridors as an ecology in and of themselves – rather as a ecology competing with National Parks. they could BECOME the New National Parks, infrastructural vectors, protected as natural reserves by virtue of their very danger to us.

[Lots of anti-big government types like to show this comparison of BLM and associated agencies to various European countries. It is impressive.]

The Guzzler is a useful resource on everything BLM that the BLM doesnt always want let out.

Also, possibly related is the Landscapes of Quarantine opening next week at Storefront for Art and Archietcture. (If we had time to do so, this would have been an InfraNet Lab contribution to what looks to be a fantastic exhibition.)

Editors Note: File under Glacier / Island / Storm, a studio run by BLDGBLOG at Columbia University GSAPP. Storm edition.

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"It is time  /  It is time for  /  It is time for stormy weather" – The Pixies

Storms deal in simple materials: air, water (in various states), and other particulates, such as dirt or dust. Though, not unlike species swarming in nature (or microcosmic viruses for that matter), they assemble, grow, pulse, and respond to environmental conditions. All the while, luring other similar material into their agitated state. Storms move somewhat indifferently to us and often in spite of us. They are often predictable and just forecastable enough to tease those of us that want to know when, where, and how much. All of this is done through pattern play, and behavioral modeling at two-scales: the massive regional and continental airpsaces, and the molecular or particle-based scale. Storms work in cycles, some small seasonal cycles, some century long, and even some on significant larger timespans (quasi-periodic). We are looking here at three storms; all recurring, swirling, pulsing, and shifting–of various particulate matter: dust, water, nitrogen (air). This is through the filter of states of matter: solid, liquid, and gaseous.

[Map showing plume expansion rate, dircetion and growth of the Australian dust storm of 2009. Image by Advanstra.]

1. Solid Storm: Dust // Certainly as one of the most fantastically documented storms of our young century, the Australian Dust Storm of 2009, you have no doubt seen the surreal images of highly saturated red and orange airspace. For this event, air particulate readings were about 15,400 micrograms per cubic meter. A typical day registers at about 50 micrograms, and a bushfire registers around 500 micrograms per cubic meter. It was thick. What was interesting though when this 2-day event rapidly escalated was that its long-term effects were somehow overlooked in favor of the evocative photography of a Mars-like outback. Within two weeks after the flash storm, scientists realized that the event caused a massive shift of phosphates and nitrogen as 4000 tons of desert topsoil particulates were dumped in the Sydney Harbour. Beyond that, the estimates for materials dumped in the Tasman Sea were an astounding 3,000,000 tons. And, as if a massive simulation of ocean fertilization, it was believed that this spurned phytoplankton growth to triple. So, what was in limited supply–yet was needed to grow life–in the desert ocean is ironically abundant in desert land. Further estimates put the additional phytoplankton in the Sea at 2 million tons, and, more impressively, with that about 8 million tons of CO2 captured. Eight million tons; thats a full months of a coal-fired power plant CO2 emission. Estimates for the amount of fish spawned from the increased phytoplankton are not known, but one can only imagine. Storms spawn swarms. Ocean fertilization inadvertently simulated at a massive scale by nature itself. Should it still be called geo-engineering if, in fact, it already occurs naturally on a massive?

[Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas. Dust bowl surveying in Texas, April 18, 1935. Courtersy of NOAA George E. Marsh Album.]

A note should also be included on the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, aka dirty thirties. The Dust Bowl phenomenon lasted during a drought in the Great Plains from 1930-36. After the dust had settled, it was shown that farming practices in the region were irresponsible with crop rotation, deep plowing, and erosion prevention. On numerous occasions during the dust clouds, the sky would turn black by day as far East as Washington DC. Dirt fell like snow in Chicago. The winter of 1934 red snow fell in the Northeast. And on April 24, 1935, the day became known as Black Sunday.

Some believe the Dust Bowl was predictable. Here is a PBS video on the Dust Bowl years.

Another interesting diversion on dust storms is the alkali storms found at Owens Lake and other salt flats. This is well documented by Barry Lehrman in The Infrastructural City. (Pruned has an excellent writeup on this here.)

[Thermohaline circulation based on a "dolphins perspective" that is where the oceans are shown as a single body of water and the flux can be easier understood without cutting it anywhere. via Avsa.]

[Trend Velocities in North Atlantic in meters per second per decade from May 1992 to June 2002. vectors trace the following graphic of the subpolar circulation in reverse direction, which denotes a slowing gyre. Credit: Sirpa Hakkinen, NASA GSFC.]

The seasonal movement of the ice shelf constitutes one of the largest annual transformations in the Arctic and is the basis for the arctic ecosystem. As the summer months thaw the ice shelf, causing it to migrate northwards, fresh water is released into the sea. This freshwater promotes a blanket of fertile phytoplankton that forms the foundation of the arctic ecological food chain. Ecosystems that migrate with the annual retreat of ice traverse the Arctic seasonally. In the last 30 years, however, the summer sea ice extent has reduced by approximately 15 – 20%, while its average thickness has decreased by 10 – 15%. Both of these rates continue to increase, decreas­ing the foundation of the food chain and consequently applying pressure on species higher in the food chain.

Recent data points to something not-so-innocently called the Great Atlantic Shutdown. As increasing amounts of freshwater enter the THC water is more bouyant and less likely to sink, slowing or even stalling circulation.

[The jet stream. The northern hemisphere polar jet stream is most commonly found between latitudes 30°N and 60°N, while the northern subtropical jet stream located close to latitude 30°N. AP Photo/NOAA.]

3. Gaseous Storm: Jet Stream // Winds have names: Katabatic, Foehn, Mistral, Bora, Cers, Marin, Levant, Gregale, Khamaseen, Harmattan, Levantades, Sirocco, Leveche, and many others (all exhaustively documented here). But all pale in comparison to the steady circulations of the tropospheric jet stream. The jet stream is a shifting river of air about 9-14 km above sea level that guides storm systems and cool air around the globe. And when it moves away from a region, high pressure and clear skies predominate. The jet stream marks a thick shifting swirling line that separates airspace that warms with height and airspace that cools with height. In short, it is the jet stream(s) that creates weather – all kinds of weather, from the ordinary, uninteresting dull gray sky to the devastating life-changing weather phenomenon.

The path of the jet typically has a meandering shape, and these meanders themselves propagate east, at lower speeds than that of the actual wind within the flow. Each large meander, or wave, within the jet stream is known as a Rossby wave. Rossby waves are caused by changes in the Coriolis effect with latitude, and propagate westward with respect to the flow in which they are embedded, which slows down the eastward migration of upper level troughs and ridges across the globe when compared to their embedded shortwave troughs.

[The jet stream core region averages 160 km/h (100 mph) in winter and 80 km/h (50 mph) in summer. Those segments within the jet stream where winds attain their highest speeds are known as jet streaks.]

When the jet stream fractions off an eddy, such a minor event at the scale of the stream generates an cyclone as it hits the ground. Thought to be weakening and moving poleward, the jet stream would produce less rain in the south and more storms in the north. Though in the meantime, there is considerable ongoing research on how to harness this steady streaming power.

[A wind machine, floated into the jet stream, would transmit electricity on aluminum or copper cables--or through invisible microwave beams--down to power grids, where it would be distributed locally. via SFGate.]

One study (above) shows a range of kites responding to the stream in a variety of ways and at different altitudes. The possibility of a series of kites–ladder, rotor, rotating, or turntable–hovering 1000 feet in the air generating anywhere from 50- 250 kilowatts is hard to refute. Afterall, they are just kites. Or maybe, to test this possibility, we just need to tap into all the already ongoing leisurely kite-flying practices–so that regular kites are no longer available, but instead streaming kites only. Streaming kites flying much higher, and of course bigger, and equipped with gear that helps store and harness energy. At the end of a pleasurable day flying a kite you have next weeks electricity in a black box to tote back home.

Post inspired by: Star Archive, Storm Archive, Storm Control Authority, Meteorological Alchemy, Carcinogenic Storms, Life on Mars, Average Natures.

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.

We were excited to see that MedSec and UNEP have released a series of recent maps on various aspects of the environment dependent upon Mediterranean Sea. The series is titled, appropriately enough, "Environment and Security in the Mediterranean." They have documented Agriculture and Fisheries, Migration, Water, Population, Non-renewable resources, and Desertification. Here they are in all their geo-informational glory. 1000+ possibilities…

[Mediterranean: Water. Zoï Environment Network.]

[Mediterranean: Population. Zoï Environment Network.]

[Mediterranean: Non-renewable resources. Zoï Environment Network.]

[Mediterranean: Migration. Zoï Environment Network.]

[Mediterranean: Desertification. Zoï Environment Network.]

Acting as a defense barrier, these 10 massive towers form a line in the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, UK. They are the vision of Nicholas Szczepaniak, a recent graduate of Westminster, and the winner of the RIBA Presidents Medal. The project, titled "A Defensive Architecture," envisions these towers simultaneously as a militarized coastal defense and a repository of knowledge in the form of a library … a kind of smart-ark.

[Defense infrastructure within the estuary and a detail of the approach.]

The towers collectively act as a bellwe(a)ther for the environment. They are "breathing, creaking, groaning, sweating and crying when stressed." The enclosure is shrouded in air bags that inflate and deflate to register subtle changes in temperature and climate. Jellyfish-like cables dangle below the facade platform and are able to spray seawater onto the heated facade emitting steam. The project conveys nothing short of iconic enviro-veillance.

[Elevation of a typical tower with tensioing hose cables dangling below.]

[Plan of tower showing interior space of inertia with circulation core to the left and tensioning system on the right.]

[Sectional view of the reading wall.]

[Studies of the sugar curtainwall.]

A sugar curtain grows and retracts seasonally, portraying immediate shifts in the weather or climate. So sweet.

[View within the space of inertia looking skyward.]

Found via Bustler.

Migingo Island, home to some 300 residents, sits precariously within Lake Victoria along the watery border of Uganda and Kenya. Its undetermined origins declare that either: a) two Kenyan fisherman settled there in 1991, or b) a Ugandan fisherman also claimed to have settled there in an abandoned house  in 2004. Regardless, since that time, the place has really taken off – becoming what one journalist called a microslum. Each successive year that the level of Lake Victoria decreased, the originally rocky tip exposed greater landmass to occupy. So, complicating matters is Lake Victoria's rapidly receding lake. But why here, why such a precious outpost?

[Population density in the Lake Victoria basin.]

[When wet borders meet receding waters, opportunistic land masses appear that werent there before. Recommended reading on this would be Gilles Deleuze's "Desert Islands" essay in which he distinguishes between originary and accidental islands.]

[Drawing the borders indicates that Migingo is about 500 m inside Kenya.]

Its all about the perch, Nile perch. Fishing in Lake Victoria, one of the largest bodies of fresh water, is essential to some of the 30 million Africans that live within its reach. Nile perch was introduced here in the 1950s and has risen to become an essential part of the economy of Lake Victoria’s fishery. (The perch was so successful in rejuvenating the fishing economy here that it decimated nearly 350 native fish species to rise to the top of the chain.) This success means that in recent years the Nile perch populations have dwindled and many native species are thought to be recovering. But really the whole Nile perch story, which in a Jared Diamond-esque way utlimately leads to weapons, is epic enough to be a film in its own right.

[The Lake Victoria Nile Perch, Lates niloticus, is considered the largest freshwater fish and can weigh in at 300lbs.]

Fishing supports an export industry in East Africa whose value is estimated at US$250 million annually. And the convenience of Migingo Island in this tightening economy (and shrinking ecology) has placed extreme presue on the island, with Ugandan police patrolling the waters and intercepting catch from Kenyan fisherman. A claim by several locals involved in the dispute has even lobbied that the fish are Kenyan because of which side of the border they breed on. Another strange claim is that the land belongs to Kenya but the water belongs to Uganda. And the dispute continues as on the island itself Ugandans and Kenyans exist within different 'neighborhoods' on this tiny acre of rock. Both sides are conducting a joint border survey in an attempt to settle this – but this does not change the rapidly evolving ecology. Both countries are spending about $1.7 million to determine ownership.

[The Semliki River has randomly ceded huge chunks of land from the Dem Rep of Congo to Uganda.]

As if Uganda didn't have its hands full already, it is also trying to assess the shifting border caused by the Semliki River, this time the dispute seems in its favor. The National Environment Management Authority’s State of the Environment Report 2008 reveals that the Semliki River changed its course in a total of 151 locations — 84 inside Uganda and 66 inside The DR Congo. This resulted in the natural ceeding of 50 square kilometrers of land from Congolese territory to Urgandan. In fact, several communities that used to be Ugandan are now Congolese and a telephone line pole which was installed by Ugandans decades ago now lies within DR Congo.

Run-off from the Rwenzori mountains is the Semliki's major tributary, but as temperatures rise water has descended the mountain with increasingly high volume causing erosion and redirection of its course. Subsequently, the river has widened by an average of 10 meters.

The politics of climate change run deep, and in many contexts are beyond co2 emissions. They are down to complex evolving geographies within which entire ecologies and populations stand to lose or (seemingly, within short terms) gain.