Category Archives: Mary Katherine Heinrich

Greyless: A Phytodepuration System

By c4rmenez | Published: December 6, 2013

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GreyLess designers hiked to Valldaura for a pre-installation site visit to determine an ideal location to place the phytodepuration system. The ideal location would be adjacent to: crops that need to be irrigated, water tank, and visible from the house. After the site visit we acquired more information about the tanks that can be accessed. Currently, two rain water basins about 2 meters from the back end of house provide the house with clean water. Farther into the forest resides a black and gray water tank that are combined and unaccessable. In the future, the residents of Valldaura plan to separate black and grey water tanks. For this installation we will use the existing water tank to simulate grey water that will flow through our system.

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GreyLess Phytodepuration-Midterm Review

By c4rmenez | Published: December 1, 2013

Greyless_1

Design Approach

An interactive water diversion system, linking Valldaura’s plants and residents to its grey water.  The interactive system will, via the GreyLess App, allow users to make decisions based on real information of their plants soil humidity levels.  The model will also be used as a screen to project live data on the soil conditions.  Combining experiments, research, and lessons learned from previous prototypes, the GreyLess system is ready to clean grey water and turn it into irrigation water.

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Cleaning Water with Macrophytes and Form

By Mary Katherine Heinrich | Published: November 7, 2013

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Valldaura, with a location in the hills surrounding Barcelona and an objective of self-sufficiency, is dependent on natural spring water. The house at Valldaura currently does not have access to potable water directly from its site–it is using an inefficient system that does not take advantage of the existent well water. Phytodepuration could potentially supply the house with clean water from the mountain without the assistance of mechanical or chemical treatment.

Our Design Approach to the Scientific System

Phytodepuration systems are most effective at a large scale. The system’s treatment of water is intrinsically cumulative, and therefore is most advantageous if it includes many iterations in a repetitive module. This repetitive technique will help us reach the level of potability we are aiming for, so our design investigation is focusing on finding one discrete and efficient module for phytodepuration that can be repeated with slight variations (to accommodate different macrophyte varieties). The generation of energy will also be included in the module, in an integrated, nimble technique that requires only lightweight infrastructure. Read More »

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