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It may sound like a plot device out of Margaret Atwood’s latest, but two Boston design firms take their micro-algae seriously. Seriously enough to propose turning a half-built Filene’s downtown into a vertical tower of “pre-fabricated eco-pods” that incubate the green stuff. Ideally, the tower would become a center to test new bio-fuel producing algae species. Sci fi!
Howeler Yoon Architecture and Squared Design Lab have proposed a little before-and-after action called Filene’s Eco Pods, a series of modular pods that harbor an algae bioreactor. (Scared yet?) The idea isn’t totally outlandish, either, as oil giants BP and Exxon have both recently announced plans to explore the arena of algae-based biofuels. As originally reported in the Boston Globe, in a think piece asking architects what they envision for city buildings half abandoned by a slowing economy:
Robotic arms attached to the building would move the pods around to optimize growing conditions. Voids are created when the pods are reconfigured, leaving behind space for public parks or botanical gardens. Bio-fuel created within the pods is used to power the robotic arms and the remainder would be used elsewhere, possibly to assist construction. Once construction is complete, the pods could be taken and reinstalled on another building and be reused. As Höweler + Yoon says about the project, “This is anticipatory pre-cycled architecture, capable of generating a new micro-urbanism that is local, agile and carbon net-postive.”
Consider us intrigued.
The Filene’s building in its current abysmal state.
[via Inhabitat]
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5 Responses
This is what you get when imagination isn't contained by a basic knowledge of what is being imagined. The designs fails economically, technologically and probably from a structural engineering standpoint as well. Did anyone imagine the structural requirements to support a stack of liquid filled cubes like this. (BTW – the cube is most cost inefficient structural shape for containing water – or for growing algae for that matter.)
No one has produced algae fuels profitably yet – not even close by an order of magnitude if you separate the unsupported claims from the actual demonstrated at scale real numbers. Current demonstrated algae fuel costs are about $20/gallon. Profitable means competitive with current petroleum production prices. Most of the economic feasibility work done over the past 50 years (NREL Report particularly) says that any production process more costly than those of open pond cultivation, isn't going to be economically feasible. Developers say things have changed since NREL – but no one successfully shows what and how any of those changes have positively effected the general lack of economic feasibility in algae oil development. Technically, bioreactors like these imagined cubes simply don't work because of the inherent nature of algae to coat and obscure any surface transmitting light – in a matter of a few days – not to mention that most bioreactors are made of… petroleum products. Apparently, these design firms aren't taking their micro-algae serious enough to do the homework necessary to make them seem minimally credible..
Ok so it may not work…but I do love the visual! Really makes me wonder what the future would look like if all these green engineers took over (and what they made actually worked) I wouldn't mind plant covered skyscrapers and giant robot arms…..ok robot arms would be a bit unsettling…
slow economy = abandoned buildings = no projects = free time
A little bit of having a dream doesn't hurt in these kinds of times
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Not that far off if you ask me! It's true, the architects and engineers are a little skinny on algal culture knowledge. Algae is growing all over building envelopes now, but the productivity is very, very low and the energy advantages are not utilized.
How to get the productivity higher and use the other advantages?….. glad you asked.
I am an architect and have been culturing attached algae at the scale of large building envelopes for over 20 years. Recently we patented a Periphyton Roof, conceived over 10 years ago, which we feel has a lot of potential for success in culturing algae on a building envelope. The benefits may surprise you.
You can read about this Periphyton Roof concept recently patented by Aquafiber Technologies Corporation, at kylejensenarchitect.com
Thanks for your interest,
Kyle