Where is out?

We are in a time where the problem of waste is looming large. The magnitude of this issue still ambiguous to a large part of the population. Waste can be regarded as a human concept as there appears to be no such thing as waste in nature. Then comes the introduction of us humans into this perfect cycle. The presence of waste is an indication of over consumption and inefficient use of material, thereby reducing the Earth’s capacity to supply new raw materials in the future. Valuable resources in the form of matter and energy are lost during waste disposal, requiring that a greater burden be placed on ecosystems to provide these. The main problem is the sheer volume of waste being produced and how we deal with it.

Resurrecture_Strategy

We wish to target developed countries whose waste is mostly shipped to underdeveloped countries or landfills. Our project is a floating machine that recycles the daily waste of a region and checks the surrounding landfills and water bodies to produce fewer but efficient products which are sent back to the market. The cycle continues for 5 years and a secondary permanent structure will be created to deal with the waste in that region in the future. The mother unit moves to various parts on the coast.

Concept Development

Concept for movement

Movement of material is a crucial aspect in the factory. We were inspired by the 2d intersection of railway lines and 3d connectivity seen in coral polyps. The core, is inspired by the cross section of a coral polyp which has pockets of spaces that have been interpreted as our research cells Our factory is a one day machine.

Axonometric view

Building Section

Material entry & matter exit happens within 24 hours. Waste enters our factory via trucks & submarines & follows a linear path through recycling via pipes which start twisting to enable crossings for the placement of material research, design & prototyping cells. This creates exhibition spaces below. Quality checking, warehouse spaces and a shop have also been integrated. The waste that cannot be recycled is sent to the energy generator To induce a sense of consciousness and awareness to the visitors, we have created a path that mimics that of the waste dotted with information centres. An information bridge at the centre of the factory is a projection of the waste that entered the factory & the energy produced for the day.

Building section

Interior view

Exterior view

Night View

Night View

Model

Model_Interior view

Model_Exterior View

Model_Exterior View

Model_Exterior View

Link to the project video

The ancient greeks called her earth goddess or Gaia. Gaia was Mother Nature, gentle, nurturing but also ruthless to those who crossed her. James Lovelock defines Gaia as a complex entity, involving earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans and soil. In a cybernetic system that seeks the chemical and physical equilibrium.

In Earth’s atmosphere is an unusual and unstable mixture of many gases, thus life is present. Earth’s gas is not on chemical equilibrium, yet appeared it maintains in a constant state, this suggests a regulation of the planet’s atmosphere. The earth regulates, flows its energy and recycling of materials, energy from the sun is constant and unlimited, it’s captured by the earth as heat or photosynthetic processes and returned to space as a long wave of radiation.

The interaction of the atmosphere with the ocean is one mechanism. The release of cloud condensation nuclei, phytoplankton. When the sun is shining brightly, phytoplankton grows rapidly and produces air born particles. When water vapor in the atmosphere condenses or freezes around these particles or nuclei, clouds form. The increasing clouds, lowers the temperature on the earth but also blocks the sunlight to the phytoplankton, the phytoplankton grows more slowly, fewer clouds are formed and the temperature of the earth rises. Phytoplankton provide the base of the marine food web, they also help the planet to breathe, through photosynthesis, phytoplankton produces half of the oxygen on earth that all the animals and humans need to live.

Superorganisms are important in cybernetics, they exhibit a form of “distributed intelligence,” a system in which many individual agents with limited intelligence and information are able to pool resources to accomplish a goal beyond the capabilities of the individuals.

Our body temperatures are maintained by feedbacks between the brain and various organs and systems in the body. If it is too cold, our bodies produces heat by shivering, if it’s too warm, our body sweat and remove heat through evaporation. On earth, temperature is regulated in a similar fashion. Albedo refers to the color of the planet and its ability to absorb or reflect light. Dark areas absorb energy from the sun; light areas like clouds or polar ice caps reflect the sun’s energy away from the earth. Global temperature is regulated by clouds, if there are more clouds, more sunlight is reflected and the earth cools, fewer clouds, more sunlight reaches the surface and the earth warms.

While energy flows through the earth, matter cycles within the earth. Everything that happens on the planet, the life and death of the trees, the increasing or decreasing of emissions of carbon dioxide, the planting of croplands, all have an impact on the planet. The earth must recycle elements to make them available for other processes, otherwise the whole system would run down and the earth would be death as the moon. If the earth is not itself regulated, then will adjust to the impacts of the man. These adjustments may act to eventually decrease and limit our numbers or to exclude man, all together.

Gaia proposes an endless future for life.

You could go days without food and hours without water, but you would last only a few minutes without air.

Cities, along with the heavy industries and fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for ¾ of the total anthropogenic contribution to greenhouse gases.  It is more than clear that the fuels and energies we use have put us at an end game that is irreversible.

Particles

Jeremy Rifkin shares an impressive and timely vision of humanity living harmoniously within the biosphere of Earth through an integrated network of communication and sustainable, locally-produced energy.

He argues that the tremendous wave of social networking on the Internet represents a tectonic shift in human communication and suddenly we find ourselves intimately connected with millions of people.In addition to the phenomenon of social networking, the past decade has seen an unprecedented shift in the way data and information is made available and disseminated. Ideas spread as quick as light, and are freely shared and propagated.

So according to Rifkin, the revolution in communication goes hand-in-hand with a revolution in energy production.

The “first” industrial revolution occurred with a synergy of knowledge made widely available through the printing press and the advent of steam power and the “second” industrial revolution occurred when long-distance communication, such as the telegram and radio, coincided with the breakthroughs in oil and the combustion engine.

So what is the energy source that is inseparable from the revolution in online communication?

It is a network of locally-produced ecologically-sustainable energy, connected through a global peer-to-peer network.  For example, individual houses and businesses could produce their own power and share it on a grid that connects the regional to the national and eventually on a global scale.

We have witnessed a remarkable shift in the way humans interface with each other, and the ways in which we can sustain our existence. This shift, according to Rifkin, will deeply change the way we connect with the Earth itself.

“Today, we are on the cusp of another historic convergence of energy and communication–a third industrial revolution–that could extend empathic sensibility to the biosphere itself and all of life on Earth. The distributed Internet revolution is coming together with distributed renewable energies, making possible a sustainable, post-carbon economy that is both globally connected and locally managed.”

Jeremy Rifkin has divided the concept of the 3^rd industrial revolution into 5 pillars.

These pillars are powered by multiple inputs that have accumulated through the anthopocene epoch of the carbon era along with sustainable development and ever evolving communication to ultimately introduce new outputs that are dedicated to biosphere consciousness.

Alejandro Carrillo,

Borislav Schalev,

Denis Li

Alessia Tosetto, Maja Czesnik, Shruti Ramachandran

Alessia Tosetto, Maja Czesnik, Shruti Ramachandran

Topic 2 – Assignment – Rossana Graca