Installation
Designed by:Natalie Jeremijenko and Ángel Borrego.
This prototype of a parasite for urban buildings was designed to "sequester the carbon dioxide emissions from buildings and return oxygen-enriched air in exchange" and is presented as the final frontier.
It addresses New York City's existing buildings, approximately 750000, which account for nearly 80 percent of New York City’s total carbon dioxide output.
Redesigning urban socio-ecological systems means dealing with the dense array of competing interests
The prototype recognizes and addresses such problems as constrained zoning requirements, and "prohibitive construction and maintenance costs that are dominated by tremendous human capital costs" and states in opposition that the energy cost in demolition, site clearance and rebuilding any (or many) of these structures costs almost 3 times as rehabilitating these.
The installation and study bases its research on the knowledge that "the world largest cities while occupying only 2% of the surface area account for 75% of the worlds carbon emission; by 2008, for the first time, more than half of the globe’s population will reside in urban contexts" . yet density, vertical population stacking coupled with mass transit is the most carbon-efficient lifestyles. "New Yorkers, produce 71 percent less carbon dioxide per capita than the average American placing the need to continue improving this type of dwelling within a complex socio-ecological realm, is worth exploring".
Therefor the USS Interprise purpose is described as a product "to reimagine and reengineer our relationship to the urban ecological systems, now; to demonstrate, promote and advance closed and coupled system design for major improvements in resources cycling (a principle that can be widely applied if it can be concretely communicated to nonengineers); to produce a glamorous highly functional new space / facility that will seize, excite and engage the public ; to exploit the environmental services and functionality of vegetation and engineering microlandscapes; to provide and maximize habitat and nutritional resources for nonhuman organism with whom we increasingly share urban space (including small mammals, birds; insects; soil microbes; and aerobiology); to facilitate urban agriculture and beyond: to facilitate our productive interdependence with diverse organisms (beyond instrumental calorie production); and, perhaps, most critically, to invite and maximize the participation and potential of a new generations of human capital for hands-on engagement with redesigning our urban environmental systems."
USS is designed as a closed approach of a space station for an urban agriculture facility for urban roof systems with an open green roof. it is designed to address the structural constraints of a roof space with specific focus on loads coupled with the use of HVAC CO2 enriched output air and capturing more radiative heat energy. Its form is designed to to maximize radiative heat and internal thermal distribution etc. in addition the space station can generate its own energy plus provide a surplus of energy to the building.
In an interview with treehugger Natalie Jeremijenko explains the problems associated with green roofs; how most roofs can only support 1 or 2 inches of soil because it becomes extremely heavy when wet... so in this the urban space station, which is strategically positioned on the load bearing elements such as beams offers an interesting alternative that can combine urban farming with reduction of the buildings' energy expenditure.
ReplyDeleteHowever, a question that might arise is that of the scalability of this project... due to the costs related to the use of space station technology..