Coming off the contagious energy of the Foodprint.TO event last weekend, and the whirlwind of conversations (now thankfully on video) on Toronto’s food infrastructures, it was a pleasure to see the finalists of the ONE Prize competition included an agro-centered proposal by students – Drew Adams, Fadi Masoud, Denise Pinto, Karen May, and Jameson Skaife – from the University of Toronto.

The ONE Prize competition had asked for proposals of productive landscape strategies  in urban contexts. This team’s proposal re-considered the extensive network of publicly-owned hydroelectricity corridors cutting through urban infrastructures. They identified its potential as a food line – turning a land-use detractor (powerlines) into a land-use amenity (agriculture). Here is an accurate portrayal of a typical hydroelectric corridor from Toronto’s resident flaneur.

[Intersections of the proposed Hydro Fields at various sites along the corridor.]

The Hydro Field design team writes that:

Within a 125 mile radius of downtown Toronto, there is approximately 8,145 acres of space to grow within Greater Toronto’s Hydro Corridors. This is the equivalent of 51 full 160-acre commercial farms, or 294 28-acre urban farms, or 58,500 0.14-acre community gardens. Such vast amounts of arable land suggest not only considerable feasibility but significant potential for a reduction in imported produce.

[Toronto’s hydroelectric network carves green lines through the city’s grid.]

[World crop import dependence and seasonality for produce into Toronto.]

The team suggests the origanization of a body called FeedToronto (similar to BuildToronto and InvestToronto) will modulate seeding, harvest and distribution. Though the current land is owned by the hydroelectric company, the team proposes a provocative solution of a split ownership of ground rights (for cultivation) and air rights (for electrical transfer).

[Land-use typologies for Hydro Fields.]

[Typology deployment along Hydro corridors and in relationship to existing transportation networks.]

Converting the corridor into an (economic) amenity will dramatically affect adjacent land uses. Toward this, the team offers a range of types to demonstrate various Hydro-field edge developments – residential, institutional, commercial, and light industrial. You can imagine the possibility of harvest time cruising down a corridor in a Gleaner combine harvester in a single, continuous line, experiencing the field as an urban section through the city’s back hydro-electric (agro-)avenue.

[Nutrition facts!]

For more on corridors, see Terrestrial Discontinuities and Power of Ecosystems / Ecosystems of Power.

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

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 Matthew Spremulli. Matthew will be continuing this work in his MArch thesis, which will be blogged at the ever-expanding reField.

———–

Corn has unquestionably become the dominant crop farmed in the United States, which on average as a country produces in excess of 12.1 billion bushels/year. However, the story behind corn’s abundance at the large scale is actually a story of abundance on the extra small scale of the kernel itself, and that of a very specific corn-kernel type: Yellow Dent. Yellow Dent represents 99% of all Corn grown in the USA, grown principally for its amazing ability to yield a high amount of starch, yet none of which is able to be eaten directly off the cob by neither man nor animal! Thus, all of this “potentially” abundant food enters a long and varied chain of transportation and processing, to turn the inedible grain into something useful. Another way of looking at the story of corn is recognizing the vast amount of separate processing infrastructures.

[The Corn Belt accounts for more than half of the corn grown in the US.]

Most of this corn (approx 50%) is being grown in a very specific area in the US, called the Corn Belt (Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana), thanks to the very specific climate and soil types that exist there the Yellow Dent crop (originally from Southern Mexico) flourishes. The Corn Belt is also where most of the processing occurs.

US Corn has five major consumption uses:
1. Feed for livestock
2. Ethanol production
3. Exports
4. Food additives
5. Food products.

[Corn Input-Output.]

[Corn processing plant. From the Iowa-based Pine Lake Corn Processors LLC.]

However, one of the more interesting threads through this story of abundant starch is that of the energy inputs/outputs in the transformation processes and how that can be traced. The production of corn both exhausts a large amount of energy and imported material and leaves behind a massive amount of wastes and by-products. One of the first things to consider in re-wiring the system would be to tie together the outputs from one process and potentially use them for an input of another. After examining the energy input/output process of making ethanol (as found in PDF The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol), which represents one of the most energy intensive processes and also the most amount of useful by-products, there was potential to tie together points in the system and create closed-loop circuits. Another point to consider is how consumers never really get to experience any of these transformative corn-processes before it becomes an array of products on their store shelves.

[Existing corn embodied energy: production, processing + inputs/outputs.]

Thus, a proposed intervention is to exploit the existing main mode of transportation for corn, the train, and turn it into a system of a traveling processing plant, corn product store, waste recycler, and industrial museum. The train breathes in the outputs from corn sub-systems, such as the waste run-off from cattle farming and then turn it into a fermented fertilizer by the time it reaches the corn crops of the Corn Belt. The train mechanics would need to be redesigned in order to double as the large mechanical processing gears and drums found in the Dry and Wet Milling processing plants. The train would travel along a dedicated loop that would sync the cities that create the food demand and the landscapes capable of producing the abundance. City folk would have the chance to see the processing of the corn as it passes through its line, and each train car would be designed to both perform its part of the processing while becoming an interface for the consumers and users.

[Rail network synchronized to corn belt prodcution.]

[Proposed re-wiring of corn embodied energy: production, processing + inputs/outputs.]

Also from the Feedback seminar:
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]

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 Ali Fard.

———–

With an estimated 1,733,993,741 users and a global growth rate of 380% since 2000 , it is easy to think of the internet as a free-flowing cloud of information accessible by all. However, unlike popular belief, our connection to the internet is not mediated by an uber high-tech network of satellites (or any of the other usual suspects). In fact, satellite links account for only 1% of all internet connections. Automatically, and incorrectly, thought of as a complex metaphysical network of information, the Internet consists of a highly physical network of lines and nodes; a simple system with inherent complexities.

Simply put, it is a network of submarine communication cables laid across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and other water bodies that connect us to information databases in other continents. Although the technology has changed significantly, the network itself does not differ greatly from the network of submarine telegraph lines which existed as early as 1901. Much like long umbilical cords, these cables are the not-so-visible proof of our dependence on concentrated sources of information. These very real and physical “communication highways” establish links between information super hubs, while controlling internet’s dissemination of information. These lines, coupled with the terrestrial network of land lines and data centers, are the medium of the internet.

[The existing global network of submarine communication cables.]

The lines and nodes of the internet, much like any other physical infrastructure, are prone to an array of politico-economic issues. Closely related to the politico-economic reading of the hierarchical structure of the world, much of this understanding of internet has to do with its very physical backbone. Areas with the least number of users get the best connections and others, like most of Africa, get nothing. We can clearly make out the users from producers. The redundancies of the submarine lines to North America and Europe have caused internet prices to plummet, which in turn has encouraged not only higher usage of internet but an active participation in the information world. Meanwhile, you can count the number of lines feeding Africa on one hand. As a result, prices are so high that even the lines that are already in place become meaningless, because of lack of use.

[Submarine cable system, from left to right: Cable + Repeaters + Landing Points + Termination Stations.]

[Submarine communication cable: 1. Polyethylene cover; 2. & 4. Stranded steel armor wires; 3. & 5. Tar-soaked nylon yarn; 6. Polycarbonate insulator; 7. Copper sheath; 8. Protective core; 9. Optical fibers.]

[Cable-laying ship.]

[A submarine cable arriving on land in Bangladesh, April 10, 2009. REUTERS/Gina Din Corporate Communications/Japheth Kagondu/Handout.]

The Internet can be read as a dynamic network, but a network which is far from equally distributed. This unequal distribution is not because of lack of potential, but lack of means. It is clear that in today’s information heavy economy, to compete means to be connected. So, areas with little or no internet connection, which are already among the most economically unstable, get left behind and cannot compete. It is clear that the current state of the network privileges the most developed countries. This outcome is merely due to economic factors and not necessarily based on efficiencies and strengths of the network. So, how can this unequally distributed network be rewired to be able to function efficiently? How is this network affected with regards to the recent crisis in the economic structure of the world? How can a more logical rewiring of the network help African countries or other poorly connected areas of the world, while improving the system as a whole?

[A current map of the global internet connection.]

[A possible re-wiring scenario in which Africa becomes an internet hub, taking advantage of its geographic location.]

One possible rewiring scenario has to do with the strategic geographic location of Africa. With cheap land, availability of natural resources and proximity to Asia, Europe and South America, Africa can provide fertile grounds for international data center activity. Big Internet companies such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, whose data center activity is mostly concentrated in North America and Europe, can start investing in the internet infrastructure of African countries by providing better connections, and in return can be allowed to establish data centers in areas with little economic activity. These companies can take on an active role in shaping the information economy of Africa by not only providing internet connections, but also by providing jobs and training. All this cannot be achieved by corporate colonization, but through an active and dedicated participation in the growth of the information economy of the region.

Although great imagination may be required in visualizing such proposition, and a great deal of analysis is required in understanding the ups and downs of such a mammoth initiative, it is in no way farfetched. It is in fact such a proposal that can bring much needed attention to how information is distributed throughout the world and provide grounds for discussion of possible new futures of the network.

Also from the Feedback seminar:
Border Economies: the Maquiladora Export Landscape, Juan Robles
Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, Fei-Ling Tseng

Related: Rewiring (Tele)Geography

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 Juan Robles.

———–

The ongoing processes of trade and communication that now integrate the 21st century regional economies have created numerous territories of abundance. Among these spaces the maquiladora landscape, in the northern border of Mexico, has seen the greatest change in the last 50 years. From a manufacturing sun-belt territory limited to an area 20 kilometers south of the U.S.-Mexico border and saturated by U.S. investment; to an industry gaining strength across the Mexican country from Asian and European investment and reorganization.

[Even though the biggest concentrations of maquiladoras are found at the border, these territories of assembly are found all around Mexico.]

[Of the top 100 maquiladoras in Mexico; 66 are owned by companies from the U.S., 7 from Japan, 2 from the Netherlands, 1 from Germany, 3 from Canada, 1 from Singapore, 4 from Korea, 1 from China, 1 from Sweden, 1 from Sweden, 2 from France, 1 from Australia, 1 from Taiwan, 1 from Finland, and 5 from Mexico.]

With maquiladoras mainly producing electronic equipment, clothing, plastics, furniture, appliances, and auto parts the industry has grown from under 2,000 factories in the early 1990s to over 3,000 maquiladoras concentrated along the major border cities of Tijuana, Nogales, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, and Matamoros.

[The growth of the maquiladora industry along the U.S. - Mexico border and the increase in export goods and labor across the main border towns has created a unique interdependent but unequal economic sister-city relationship between the paired metropolises.]

These plants began as part of a Mexican Border Industrialization Program in 1965 to solve the problem of rising unemployment along border cities caused by the end of the Bracero Program in 1964 when close to 180,000 Mexican farm workers were left without work. At its peak it employed over 445,000 braceros while the current maquiladora industry employs over 1.3 million Mexican workers. The intention of the maquiladora program was to clean up the border, attract more tourists, and create more jobs, not knowing that the new manufacturing landscape would bring numerous socio-political, economic and environmental problems to the region.

[Since the maquiladora industry offers thousands of low-skill jobs, the border has been a magnet to Mexican workers seeking economic opportunity for decades. The opportunist nature of this industry creates an industrial ecology of trade, supported by and supporting millions of migrant workers living in shanty towns around the industrial parks while industry logistics are controlled on the U.S. side.]

Unlike the typical manufacturing industries in the U.S., maquiladoras are labor-intensive assembly operations that import materials and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly under the condition that the assembled product is exported out of the host country. These plants are mostly owned by European, Asian and U.S. corporations who take advantage of more lenient industrial development regulations and exploit cheap labor in close proximity to the U.S. market.

Located 2.5 hour from the Long Beach Shipping Port, Tijuana had full advantage to become the biggest manufacturer of electronics in North America, especially the production of color televisions.]

Maquiladoras export 90 percent of the assembled products to the U.S. with the electronics industry having the largest share of exports concentrated in Tijuana. The previous organization of these industries had parts shipped in from the country of origin, assembled in Tijuana, and exported to the U.S.

[In the late 1990s Tijuana became the Television Capital of the world producing over 14 million televisions and monitors per year. While Mexico’s share of world television production grew from 1.7 million in 1987 to 25 million in 1998 and continued to grow to a peak of almost 35 million TVs in 2003.]

In response to the recent economic crisis, especially seen in electronics, the industry has created new clustered maquiladora parks in the primary NAFTA distribution-based border cities. This was a strategy to make the assembly industry more efficient in order to compete with strong competition from China’s Special Economic Zones. At the turn of the century, Mexico saw close to 500 plants close and move to Asian competitor countries but has recently seen an increase in investment due to the rise in shipping costs.

[The reorganization of maquiladora industrial parks creates a new system of sub and main maquiladoras which bring the parts manufacturers and assembly plants close together while following the rules of the maquiladora program.]

The use of a cluster system started attracting part suppliers to be closer to the assembly factory. The parts that would originally be shipped from overseas have begun to be manufactured by overseas-owned companies either in Tijuana or San Diego. Each plant is an independent company that works closely with the other plants to support new just-in-time production strategies in order to increase efficiency and reduce costs. The new strategies have made the border industry more efficient but have failed to respond to the socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions that continue to surround it.

Could a new type of industry cluster provide more efficient, social, or productive trade ecologies? Would larger more integrated versions of this cluster system redefine development trends along the U.S.-Mexico border? Could the clustering of different industries along a larger territory linked by a rail system create a more efficient industrial ecology that responds to the poverty in these cities?

[Using the maquiladora cluster concept, the new border bundles whole industries into separate special economic zones between the U.S. and Mexico where one industries outputs can be used as inputs for another. The desert environment along the border is exploited to create new solar farms that would generate the energy needed in these zones.]

Also from the Feedback seminar:

Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, Fei-Ling Tseng

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 Fei-Ling Tseng.

———–

The Flower Trade is a highly sophisticated market with an infrastructure optimally tuned to the preferences of both the supply and demand side. The world knows three North-South flower markets: America, Europe/Middle-East/Africa and Asia.

[World Flower Markets.]

These markets interact little with each other due to the logistic constraints of cut flowers. As opposed to many markets that utilize multiple middle men to get a product from its supply to its end destination, the flower market has reduced number of middle men (and therefore also costs) by making sure that most trade happens as directly as possible: between growers and wholesale buyers/exporters by means of Dutch auctioning.

[Screenshot: kweker > veiling > verkoper.]

In the Netherlands, flower auctions are run by co-operatives formed by the growers. Auctions require membership from both the supply and demand side of trade, which in turn ensures optimal coordination during all stages of the transaction process. The fact that a Dutch auction clock counts down the price instead of up, ensures the best price for farmers, and the best quality produce for what buyers are willing to pay.

The result of this system is that the first buyer sets the rough market price by bidding. Subsequential buyers often purchase within the range of the first bidder. Quite often the first bidder gets the best price because, as product availability decreases, the risk of missing out increases, and so does the price. [via flowerauction]

[The Flower Market embraces the logic of an auction clock in which the price counts down instead of up.]

FloraHolland is the largest flower auction co-operative in the Netherlands–and likely the world. Specifically for the cut flower sector, it is responsible for the trade of 97% of all flowers within the Netherlands and 60% of worldwide trade. (via USDA PDF)

[Import / Export flows through Aalsmeet Auction.]

Though FloraHolland has six auction locations in the Netherlands, their Aalsmeer location (called Vereniging van de Bloemenveiling in Aalsmeer prior to the merger in 2008) deals primarily with the auctioning of cut flowers for export. Located strategically close to Schiphol Airport and many major highways, flowers arrive both globally and locally within 12 hours before the auctions starts at 6:00AM. They are stored in cooling rooms with varying temperatures–each type of flower having their own ideal temperature to be kept in stasis. Around 4:30AM, the auction trolleys (Dutch: stapelwagens) that fit 27 buckets (Dutch: fust) of flowers per trolley, are neatly lined up and hooked to a complex internal rail system.

[The unique tools of he flower auction: the auction trolleys and flower buckets, or stapelwagens and fust.]

Everyday, this rail system guides 21 million flowers and plants through any one of the five auction rooms (four for cut flowers, one for potted plants). These flowers and plants are traded between grower and buyer typically within 4 hours (6:00AM to 10:00AM), through 55,000 individual transactions on average. In other words, on each of the 13 auction clocks that Aalsmeer Bloemenveiling possesses, a new transaction is made every five seconds or less.

[The Aalsmeer auction hall opens at 6:00am and closes four hours later.]

After the transaction has been made and the flowers roll out of the auction halls, they enter a distribution hall where employers of the auction buzz around on electric trucks (Dutch: electrotrekker), grabbing one auction trolley at the time and distributing the individual buckets of flowers to empty auction trolleys that belong to their new owners.

[Electrotrekkers!]

[Distribution hall.]

As all the morning trolleys have been emptied onto the new trolleys, the flowers are re-packaged by their new owners for transport to their end destination. This takes about two hours, at which point–around noon–the flowers would be on the road again headed towards their new destination. Flowers usually hit the storefront the next day following the auction. All in all, it takes about 36-42 hours for flowers to get cut until they reach their storefront end destination.

For more information about flower auctions:

There is a video that describes the internal workings of auction halls, but it only exists in Dutch.

A bit off-topic but still infinitely fascinating is how technology has transformed productivity in greenhouses. Here is a video of the walking-plant-system.

Watch as the auction trolleys move like zombies across the distribution halls to their end stations where they are individually fetched and redistributed by the electric trucks.

The New York Times wrote a nice piece about Aalsmeer back in 1993 that is available online here.

Total Design has two meanings: first, what might be called the implosion of design, the focusing of design inward on a single intense point; second, what might be called the explosion of design, the expansion of design out to touch every possible point in the world. – Mark Wigley, from "Whatever Happened to Total Design?"

This past Winter, I taught a seminar at the University of Toronto called Architecture’s New Territories [PDF]. In the coming weeks, I will be posting some of the research the students conducted during that term, which coincided with various readings and discussions. The position of the course began with a few key observations.

++ The idea of architecture as a self-reflexive, isolated, and willful internal wrangling of formal preoccupations does not have the ability (alone) to address and re-dress the opportunities and challenges in our contemporary design climate.
++ Architecture operating as a singular act on a singular site overlooks its capacity as a large feedback machine extending increasingly beyond itself. Its footprint, always already, is wide and complex.
++ Architecture’s potential, today, lies as much in its functioning as a surface, conduit, and container for ephemeral flows of resources, cultures, and energy as it does in its symbolic cultural and formal capacities.

However this potential is increasingly hijacked by a "good practice" sustainable agenda often reducing it to efficiency and performance. How architecture gets its power, economy, materials, and labour, among others, is as essential to understanding the future role and operational capacities of a building on its site. In many ways this paradigm shift suggests a natural (economic) evolution in building culture toward privileging operational costs over capital costs. In short, the building response to its future time is valued as much as, if not more than, the building at its inception.

[Rosalind Krauss, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, 1979.]

In Rosalind Krauss’s 1979 essay on sculpture’s expanded field, Krauss observed the practice of sculpture had been obscured and could only qualify itself in opposition to architecture and landscape. Using a Klein group structure, Krauss identifies three additional practices of sculpture that sculpture had been recently burdened with, and names them site-construction, marked sites, and axiomatic structures. Similarly, Architecture is in need of a range of situational qualifiers to establish its position amongst the rapidly expanding disciplinary terrain of landscape architecture and within the fractured and troubled territory of urbanism. But marking the expanded field in architecture can also be productive toward addressing new functions for architecture as a conduit, transmitter, and receiver for opportunities found within local and regional networks. To do so, we have removed architecture from the original Kraussian diagram and replaced with the problematic term "infrastructure." The resulting terms are: productive surface, civic conduit, and spatial container. Arguably architecture can now be any of these as a result of the pairings.

[InfraNet Lab, Architecture in the Expanded Field, 2009.]

[InfraNet Lab, Architecture in the Expanded Field, 2009.]

[FEEDBACK sections / readings.]

The course was structured around five territories: flows, velocities, ecologies, economies, and energies.

Flows will look at questions of scale within architecture’s operation? Where is the end of a building’s envelope? How does it extend or how might it extend? And where does the site end and building begin? Velocities will look at the territory of mobility and its influence on architecture. will look at the territory of mobility and its influence on architecture. How could architecture engage directly its condition as a hub within a larger network? Ecologies will look at the question of architecture’s culpability within larger complex industrial and natural ecologies. How does architecture participate in urban (infrastructural) ecologies? How does or might architecture participate in natural ecologies? Economies will look at the influence of our global economies on architecture. What is economic influence beyond merely a design budget? How do economies produce architectural typologies? Energies will look at the opportunity of resources and climate in the formation of architecture. How does architecture address its airspace? How is architecture culpable in the production of energy beyond itself?

[FEEDBACK structure.]

Students were asked to investigate and document a "space of abundance, excess, or inundation and tracks its relevant flows." These spaces would be considered typological of forms of urbanism as informed by globalization. It was argued in the course that these types of spaces are superlatives, but have been forgotten by design and architecture and, like an unmonitored species, have flourished to dominate the built landscape. In the coming weeks, we will share the projects of the students in a series of guest posts.

The melting of the polar caps will not only open up new shipping routes such as the North-West and Northern Passage, it has the potential to connect existing communities in the Arctic to a larger network of distribution.  Presently, most Arctic communities depend heavily on imported goods which are largely distributed via air.   As shipping routes emerge, local economies are enabled by producing and distributing goods both locally and regionally.  The following project, developed by Amrit Phull and Claire Lubell, in the Frozen Cities/ Liquid Networks studio at the University of Waterloo, examines how new infrastructure can be produced in the Arctic that allows for the transference from air to shipping logistics and, while doing so, addresses the issue of food production and coastal erosion in the Arctic.  It questions how remote coastal communities throughout Canada’s Arctic can establish self-sufficiency in anticipation of economic and environmental fluctuations.  As stated by Lubell and Phull:

The proposal seeks to provide a hard infrastructure which responds to the  immediate needs of the community, but is also the root of growth in a context where change in landscape, resources and community occurs at varying speeds. In particular the project examines the potential development of Port Churchill as well as a major international port in the Northwest Passage and how this can create a network of small ports, at existing communities, along the west coast of Hudson’s Bay.

[Systems Diagram showing the relationship created between the new infrastructure and community, cultural programmes, food production and energy. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Permafrost - current and projected showing areas of predicted coastal erosion. Freeze/ Thaw maps outlining new transportation routes. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull].

Many Arctic communities are currently serviced weekly by combi and turboprop aircraft, which are expected to be obsolete in the next decades.  These communities also rely on seasonal service by Sealift operations from Churchill and Montreal.  Many families eagerly await their seasonal shipping container of goods – whether food, clothing or cars.  The proposal by Lubell and Phull focuses on the community of Igloolik, situated at the opening of the Fury and Hecla Strait.  Igloolik is poised to be an ideal regional port that is opportunistically sited between the NW Passage (and its associated future international shipping ports) as well as local ports along the western edge of the Hudson Bay.  Igloolik currently has a populace of 1600, and home to centres of research and cultural programmes such as film and circus production companies.  Over the next five years, Igloolik has a projected population growth of 6800 – requiring vast amounts of resources for the increasing population.  The project is more specifically sited on the Northern shores of Igloolik, to reduce the coastal erosion in this vulnerable area.

[Ideal Siting of Igloolik to be a regional port that interfaces with an International and Local Ports. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull.]

[The difficulty and problems of imported food in the Arctic. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull].

[Typical Logistical Process for Food in the Arctic. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Delivery Process of Food. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[The delivery process of food - Detail. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

Paved airstrips are an immediate necessity to service these remote settlements, while port facilities will address the future changes in the Arctic – longer shipping seasons coupled with rapid population growth and their associated servicing.  In fact, as the melting ice sheds infrastructural isolation of these communities, air servicing will no longer be practical.  Phull and Lubell begin by designing an airstrip with a planned second life.  They ask:

How can the airstrip, a mark of every arctic community, become a highly integrated meeting place for different avenues of infrastructure? How can it provide the necessary framework to grow as a port and eventually be absorbed into a spreading community?

[Phasing Diagrams. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

Phase 1 – 2010 to 2015

Building of pneumatic silos, piles and airstrip deck of 1100 meters in length accommodates current ATR combi aircraft. Sealift vessels can dock and unload cargo onto the deck using their own cranes and cargo can be driven back to the community.

Phase 2- 2015 to 2020

Second deck is built in two stages: first the community warehouse and marina then the barge docks, large cargo dock, and under water research center / film and circus school. Barge docks can be used as ice fishing platforms in the winter. The airstrip deck still accommodates atr combi as sealift operations are still infrequent but ATR’s are aging (they were built in the 1960s)

Phase 3 – 2020 to 2040

ATR combi aircraft are reaching obsolescence, therefore only 600 meters of airstrip is required to accommodate small passenger aircraft. At the same time as phasing out food mail deliveries by air, food production connected to the barge docks and heat pump is phased in. The hydroponic greenhouse consists of a permanent portion and expands in the summer in both directions to include a community greenhouse. These expansions are appropriated for hockey, an indoor market, and extra port warehousing during the winter.

Phase 4- 2040 to 2100

Once aircraft are completely phased out other silos are built up to house formal community programs such as health care, library, and museum/archives, while smaller ones serve as general warm spaces in an open field. Paint markings on the airstrip tarmac encourage informal activities such as outdoor markets, a drive-in theatre, small recreational areas attached to the warm nodes, etc. The airstrip becomes an open public space with a few grounding amenities as the community grows towards it.

[Exploded Axonometric showing programmatic, energy and infrastructural assembly. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull].

This cohesive infrastructural typology could be emulated in similar communities and takes the form of a permanent intervention bridging between land and water as well as local and regional communities and products.  The port integrates all scales of marine traffic (cargo, container, cruise, barge, ferry, fishing) with various programmes focused on promoting self sufficiency within the community, including food production.

[Plans/ Sections of the various layers of the project. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Plan and Section Detail. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Transverse Section showing layering of infrastructure, energy and food production with Community Programmes. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

[Rendering of New Infrastructure Typology. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

The current relationship between community and the goods they rely on is faceless, and with the decline of subsistence hunting due to changing migration patterns, the connection to food is disappearing.  The project emphasizes this connection through on site food production which promotes trade between communities, not to mention decreasing reliance on the south for fresh goods and associated dependence on air infrastructure (which is both expensive and largely consuming of jet fuel).  The (air)port effectively acts as an infrastructural hub for bringing together local community around production, as well as connecting this community to larger regional networks through shipping.  The Greenhouse coupled within the port takes on different functions in the non-growing season, and is complimented with a market and cultural programs.  This not only connects the local community to their food but reintroduces the inherent skills of sharing and traditional cultural rituals.  The exchanges in this new infrastructure are manifold – economic, cultural and logistical.

[View of Interior. Image courtesy of Lubell and Phull]

All images courtesy of Amrit Phull and Claire Lubell