Inspirational


The next stage of the primer has involved thinking about the ‘life box’ system in more detail. I believe the strength of the proposal lies in the extended network itself; and, has led me towards exploring cyclical and closed loop systems where each micro-environment’s output becomes anothers input. The Biosphere ll experiment is example of one of these regulated environments which occurred in Arizona in the 1970’s. The experiment, and the unprecedented efforts made to ensure the system was kept enclosed, has made me question the practicalities and purpose of such a system. Realistically, one would never be expected to live in say Biosphere II apart from if it were for the purpose of scientific research. As long as each component of the micro environment offsets another’s output then a community doesn’t necessarily need to exist within a closed environment.
The image above explores the symbiotic relationship of different components within a system. For example, organic waste produced from living quarters could be converted to produce both CO2 for plants and mechanical energy. Through aquaponics, fish and crustaceans could fertilize the water for plants and crops which in turn oxygenate the water for the fish…. Individually, each component is function less. But when combined a system of PROSUMERS is created.
The MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is pioneering the field of automated farming. These tomatoes were tended to by the ‘robotic farmer’ dubbed as “precision agriculture” by CSAIL, and it is easy to see why. Each plant will receive only the resources it needs and each tomato is harvested as soon as it is ready. The MIT’s research could feature heavily in a self sustenant community, where the robotic and automated nature could vary in both scale and presence. My concern with such a system, is that whilst it could be exemplar in terms of efficiency- the consumer could become detached from the growing process; a process which I am looking to strongly promote and re-establish.
Philips Design Probes is a community dedicated to ‘far-future’ research initiatives which is believed to become the creative force behind innovative products that will one day become mainstream.
I stumbled across this video today and I am so glad I did. I want to describe it as one of those magical moments but for the fear of sounding cheesy i won’t. For me, the video totally optimise’s the essence of not only what I want my primer to portray but, what I want my thesis to be based on/around. I can almost imagine my thesis being apart of this very video- featuring as an architectural response after what they refer to as the ‘home farming unit’ or part 3 of the film. Sorry for the length of the film, but for me it was (possibly) the best 9 miniutes and 53 seconds I will have this year.
This the film I presented at the Crit. It is certainly a work in progress… Frustratingly, I seemed to spend such a large amount of time learning as opposed to creating but I will continue to work on it as I am confident it will eventually come together.


These are the positions we agreed on Friday. For those that weren’t there let us know if you think there will be a problem. We are planning to get everything set up during the early evening on Sunday.
3D Studio MAX
allotments
analysis
animation
automated
barges
blackfriars
boards
cardiff
centreplan 70
circulation
coriander
crit
cycling
food production
fractal
google earth
GPS
growing machine
guerilla gardening
life box
madrid
mapping
maptype
meeting
micro trading
model
mold
non contracting system
open source
origami
pilot
primer contract
programme
robotic
sewage
shinichiro matsuda
site
sketch
slime
structure
time lapse
trace
underground
urban Andrew Carr (2)
Andrew Morrison (50)
Briony Paul (16)
Chris Mugeli (22)
David Lewis (22)
George Metcalfe (51)
Mateusz Orzel (9)
Nikos Retiniotis (5)
Photos (1)
Uncategorized (17)
Wassim Jabi (23)
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