Animation of system growth and movement

the system of movement through a pilot site where it collects methane and selectively leaves behind the residue for a new energy self-sufficient settlement.

Rethinking Resource Infrastructure

By: Natasha Harper, Katie Adee, and James Baldauf

This project proposes a mobile collection and sequestration system that searches the terrain for methane rich permafrost deposits while leaving behind "off-the-grid" settlements across the Arctic landscape.

In light of the current climate crisis, we began looking at ways in which architecture could serve a more fundamental role in the issue of sustainability. As permafrost (perennially frozen soil) melts, it releases methane into the atmosphere. Methane, is 30 times more effective than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. However, hidden within the permafrost is what is known as gas hydrate. Gas hydrates are gasses trapped within the crystalline structure of ice. Methane is a potential clean-burning energy source 2x larger than that of all other fossil fuel reserves. In our thesis project, we chose to capitalize on this naturally occurring phenomenon by collecting the methane for use as a new energy source while using the infrastructure erected as the bones for new communities that would be energy self-sustaining.

lifespan of the collection system

lifespan of the residue system

sectional drawing of the stages of inflation during the collection phase

stills from animation depicting the movement, growth, and residue of the energy collection system

plans at both ground level and platform level of new settlement

physical model of settlement

physical model of the collector

physical model of potential settlement looking at flexibility between spaces

physical model of creeper (earlier study)

The Other Ultimate Archive

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault  vault in Norway opens this week. From Andrew Revkin's posting at NYTimes Dot Earth:

"The new repository is intended to be an insurance policy for individual countries and also for humanity more generally, should larger-scale disaster strike (anything from pestilence to an asteroid impact).

The Norwegian government put up more than $7 million for construction. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing money to help developing countries package and ship seed samples, as part of a broader $30-million project to protect the genetic diversity of the world’s main food crops.

The ongoing operation of the seed vault will be paid for through the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is maintained by contributions from countries, international agencies, and foundations.

A secure supply of thousands of varieties of keystone crops like rice and wheat will be ever more important, experts say, as populations grow, climate changes, and people keep moving species around the global, both intentionally and accidentally."

Material Experiment Aggregation

By: Natasha Harper, Katie Adee, James Baldauf








Aggregation Model 1:



this model takes a lattice connected with pivot connections and uses circles of varying circumfrences connected at their tangents. This deforms the original lattice and creates areas of more density and rigidity.








Beginning of Aggregation Model 2:



This takes a similar logic to the first model, but the lattice is less defined and can easily grow in the Z direction, and/or branch off in plan.

Rethinking Resource Infrastructure

by: Natasha Harper, Katie Adee, James Baldauf


































When a tribe comes to a clearing and discovers a pile of timber, two possibilities exist for providing warmth. The power operated solution is to create a campfire, enjoy the warmth of the fire and then move on. The structural solution is to create a rain-shed or wind break from the timber. [1] While the campfire solution is much more nimble and responsive, it requires the existence of additional timber when the fire is out. Today, we find ourselves in a world where the pile of timber is rapidly decreasing and in danger of running out. This calls for a new kind of solution, one that considers using resources that are renewable, and not in danger of running out and re-thinking the way we use the resources that are available. The time has come to re-evaluate our relationship with our resources. We are proposing a more hybridized system between the structural and power-operated solutions, a more sustainable solution. It becomes necessary to radically transform what it means to capture and distribute energy. Investing now in these critical issues will decrease the burden currently being placed on the planet, and will save money in the long-term. Traditional practices will become more expensive as regulations on carbon emissions continue to increase in the face of a global crisis.
Many of the problems caused by global warming originate in the melting of the arctic. Permafrost (perennially frozen soil) in the arctic has been melting at increasing speeds in recent years. Because of the sensitivity of the active layer of permafrost, a one to three flux in average ground temperature foreshadow larger trends in the global climate. As permafrost melts, the methane trapped underneath the surface is released into the atmosphere. Methane, as a greenhouse gas is thirty times more effective. However, if that methane is captured, it can be burned for use as a renewable fuel source. In order to extract the gas hydrates from the permafrost, carbon must be pumped in, the process of which, releases the methane. This process not only sequesters carbon,
it collects a renewable fuel source, and slows global warming by not allowing additional greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. A
nomadic system that is minimally invasive is the best way to deploy a methane capturing, carbon sequestering system in the Arctic. The border of the permafrost is changing as it melts, making the most critical permafrost the discontinuous, the isolated, and the sporadic as it is melting the fastest. The ecosystems that are the most navigable and occupiable are crucial when looking at the most ideal locations for deployment of the system. [1] Reyner Banham, “The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment” pg.19

Ice Cube

From BLDGBlog:

Last week, New Scientist reported that a neutrino detector called IceCube, once constructed, might just do exactly that.
Because the Earth rotates, we read, distant neutrino sources – such as black holes – will be blocked at certain predictable moments by the Earth's core; piecing together all these temporary blindspots, we can then infer the shape of the core itself.
It's an absence that generates absences elsewhere.

According to The Daily Galaxy, building the IceCube is less an act of construction than a kind of archaeology in reverse; the process will consist of entombing "glass-globed sensors the size of basketballs on 1-mile-long strings, 60 sensors per string, in 80 deep holes beneath the polar surface."

For more on the IceCube and Antarctic science in general give this article in The Economist a quick read – then check out NOVA's round-up of weird detectors.
Then, if you're looking for a good book on Antarctica itself, consider picking up a copy of Terra Antarctica: Looking into the Emptiest Continent by William L. Fox (a book previously mentioned on BLDGBLOG here).