Selected Works 2015-2018

SELEC TED WORKS 2015-2018

ABENA A.K. BONNA

abenabonna@gmail.com

© David Sundberg/Esto

Ecological Living Module The exhibition of the Ecological Living Module (ELM) for the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on sustainable development explores the connection of sustainable building systems and the challenges of housing, human settlements, and health. Beyond the architecture the ELM offers a framework for environmental design that takes into account the natural resources that a site’s climate has to offer. CEA’s objective for the ELM is to demonstrate the following: “1. Resilient construction techniques using renewable materials and resources, 2. Secure on-site solar energy, 3. Safe sustainable water capture and purification, 4. Indoor air quality remediation, and 5. Waste management in support of distributed micro farming.” This framework for the design can then support each other for the architecture to stand off-grid from major municipal infrastructure. In working with UN Habitat and UN Environment, the matter of building systems, architecture and infrastructure is important when looking to issues social of housing when facing mass human migration and displaced people and homelessness.

Collaboration between the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture and Gray Organschi Architecture July 2018

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LITERS

5

65

NUTRIENT FRUIT & VE SERVINGS

GRAINS

SERVINGS PROTEIN

3

NUTRITIONAL GUIDELINES FOR FRUIT & VEGETABLES / PERSON PER DAY*

2

1

1

4

KEY

© David Sundberg/Esto

1

Microfarming Wall | 48 ft²

2

Indoor Air Purification Plant Wall***| 12 | 12 ft 2ft²

3

Microfarming Wall | 48 ft²

4

Greywater Harvesting

5

Micro-Economy

5

The Ecological Living Module’s external wall facilitates as a microfarming wall that would be provide fresh fruits and vegetables to its occupants.

Irrigation is supplied by harvested rainwater and stored grey water. The water reservoir is connected to a system that reallocates the water to the plants. The microfarming wall’s narrative shows that the produce’s yield can be enough for the ELM’s 4 occupants, provide easy access to necessary nutrients, and support a micro-economy within a community.

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ACTIVE MODULAR PHYTOREMEDIATION SYSTEMS-CERAMIC

MAIN DIAGRAM: Focusing on Chania, Accra, and Marrakesh to see how enviromental factors work with the design of AMPS-C and its impact on soft infrastructures (social programs and markets) and hard infrstructures (urban built enviroment of streets, green space, cityscape).

SOLAR DATA WATER

The Active Modular Phytoremediation Systems Ceramic or AMPS-C explores the potential of wall systems to use existing climatic data while implementing ceramics, plants, and soil as building material aiding in air filtration.

Research into AMPS-C is a continuation of an existing system, the Active Phytoremediation Wall System by SOM and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. AMPS-C is currently under the research of architect and engineer Andreas Theodoridis under RPI. The diagrams are an investigation of his research into alternative systems that challenge the conventions of traditional HVAC systems, cooling strategies and air filtration. This is a reaction to western building practices that do not consider the “the environmental patterns of specific geopolitical territories�

(Reyner Banham). AMPS-C can think about building materials aiding in areas of health and urban food markets. At the same time bridge the hardscape of urban infrastructure to social and economic infrastructures.

We focused the use of AMPS-C on the environmental and climatic variables of Accra, Ghana, Marrakech, Morocco and Chania, Greece along with data into cost of living, population density and sources of air pollution.

These cities present cultural ideas of fluid urban and social spaces, where indoor and outdoor interaction of such spaces is opposite to the isolation often from sealed buidling systems.

Accra, Ghana

Marrakech, Morocco

Chania, Greece

Team: Andreas Theodoridis & Abena Bonna

CERAMIC MATERIAL

Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture December 2018 Agriculture of Place

Soft Infrastructures

Feedback Loop of the DNA of Urban Architecture

Stack Effect Hard Infrastructures

Water

(Footprint of Food to market )

Humidity Air Flow Light Source

Plant

Human

Social Program Humans (economical, social, and space)

Markets

Street

Green Spaces

Cityscape Buildings

Water Flow

Dry Bulb Temperature

Mediterranean Climate (Csa,Csb)

N

5-15 C

15-20 C

25-30 C

10-15 C

20-25 C

30-35 C

Humidity

0-20%

N

Chania, Greece

H2O in g per kg of air

W

40-60%

80-100%

20-40%

60-80%

0-5 g/kg

10-15 g/kg

5-10 g/kg

15-20 g/kg

E

S

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEPT

OCT

NOV

DEC

S

Mediterranean Climate (Csa,Csb)

N

N

Marrakech, Morocco W

E

S JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEPT

OCT

NOV

DEC

S

Tropical Savanna Climate (Aw) N

N

Accra, Ghana W

E The year-round regional climatic data (Humidity, Drybulb, Water Content) and solar data as variables to use as a design tool for AMPS-C.

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEPT

OCT

NOV

DEC

S S

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N

Chania, Greece

Monthly Income $100

$1,000

Population of Greece: 10,768,477

Cost of Living Index

Population of Chania: 108,642 with a population density of 310 per per km2

Living below the Poverty Line

GDP of Greece: 200 Billion USD

W

E

34.8% of the population lives under the Poverty Line

Concentrations of PM10: 50-75 μg

S N

Marrakech, Morocco

Monthly Income $100

$1,000

Cost of Living Index

W

E

Living below the Poverty Line

Population of Morocco: 35,740,000

4.6% of the population lives under the Poverty Line

GDP of Morocco: 109 Billion USD

Concentrations of PM2.5: 25-30 μg

Population of Marrakech: 1.380 million with a population density of 527 per km2

S N

Accra, Ghana

Monthly Income $100

$1,000

Cost of Living Index

W

E

Living below the Poverty Line Population of Ghana: 28, 308,301 GDP of Ghana: 47.3 Billion USD

24.2% of the population lives under the Poverty Line

Population of Accra: 1.594 million with a population density of 1300 per km2

Concentrations of PM2.5: 25-30 μg

S Popultion density and urban metropolitan size campared to green space. National of living to help understand how the urban enviroment can have a disconnect to needs to a population. In tinking about the population of and economic data there is of sources of air polution with the biggest factors being car pollution, urban buildings,

GPD and cost social econmic also the matter and agriculture.

Agriculture

Electricity and Heat Production

Industry

Waste

Transportation

Urban Buildings

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Ecosystems of [that] Matter Iceland’s natural infrastructures are connected to its cultural systems of dwelling and housing, helping give another perspective of permaculture and urban farming in Reykjavík. Through reading Donna Haraway, the project reflects on the concept of death and waste and their place in the Chtulucene as non-hierarchical ecosystems with both human and non-human actors. Humans living in the units provide waste that is reused in the greenhouses that provide food and public programs in farming for both residents and Reykjavík. This creates an opportunity of the building systems and technology of housing to blend help with the non-human systems and organisms (bees, decomposition, molecules, plants) in the greenhouses, giving matter (waste and water) purpose. This creates another level of consciousness of the waste and its place in different natural cycles. This speaks to Haraway on how “response-abilities” can rethink the connections that, as she puts it, entangle and link the lives of many species through corporations, farms, clinics, homes, and technologies that strengthen multi-scalar, multi-temporal, multi-material worlding.

Critics: Hildigunnur Sverrisdottir & Kyle Dugdale Spring 2018 Advanced Studio: “City of Mercy-House of Grace

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Organic waste and recycling of water

Greenhouse

Biodiversity of insects, animals, and molecules.

Life Support Systems : Donna Haraway and Mike Waters explore life support systems that help to understand the man-made and natural cycles that support the chthulucene. For Reykjavik this mean a system where the architecture of urban housing takes into account the cultural and natural processes that offer opportunity for and a intimate understanding of organisms (plant, human, insect, molecules, etc.) that have a place in the cycles of life and renewal.

Geothermal Energy of Iceland: The main power source for housing and industry

Housing for Residents

Fruits and Vegetables serving the nutritional needs of both the residents and Reykjavik

Produce from greenhouse to be sold through local farmers’ market

Burial mounds serving as a memorial park and supplying seeds for the seed bank.

TOP : Mike Waters’ diagram showing the “imagined historical evolution of green cyborgs as inspired by cabin ecology research.” Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble (BOTTOM)

Citizens can choose to be lay to rest in the burial mound park through morality composting.

Understanding of and closeness to the natural cycles of matter and life.

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Communal Living Room and Kitchen

Apartments

Orangery

Communal Bathroom

Aviary

Seeding and Harvesting

1:100 1m

2m

5m

Composting Room TOP : Apartments creating a place for contemplation and rest.

BOTTOM : Connection from the interior courtyard welcomes the citizens of Reykjavik to take part in the cultivation of plants and food.

Permaculture and Housing in reflection of Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble Sympoietic Systems in the adjacencies of different organic and cultural and ecosystems. This is achieved through distributed control and open boundaries and internal and external coupling.

Organic Waste collection and composting room for disposal of waste from residents.

Biodiversity of bees and butterflies to help cultivate the plants

Recycling of water

Composting of waste Biodiversity

Propagation Room for seeding, cutting and grafting of new plants and produce

Communal engagement among Reykjavik citizens through greenhouse activities.

Citizens from Reykjavik are welcomed to take part in the cultivation of plants and food

Micro-economies and jobs for residents through greenhouse programs

Local farmers’ market for Reykjavik

Grey water from the residents is filtered and recycled as grey water for use in the greenhouses

Aviary for bees to help pollinate plants and produce

Communal Compost center for city residents

Water Pump filter

Decomposted organic waste used for burial mound for morality composting

Communal Compost center for city residents: Natural Bacteria in the biofilter removes odors from the exhaust before releasing air back into the environment

In-Vessel Composter and Biofilter

Seed Bank of seeds collected from trees grown in the burial park which are later shared with residents of Reykjavik

TOP : As a way to tie together life and death, there is a burial mound park in which human decomposition becomes compost from trees. The next phase would see to the transformation of the human compost into seeds to be shared with the community.

BOTTOM LEFT : Precedents to understanding human burial and compost through decomposition. (Carthusian Burial, Capsula Mundi Project, Katrina Spade of Urban Death Project). Strategies in understanding the personal and biological input of human burial in ways that connect one’s empathy to the natural cycles of nature

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Freeport Louvre Abu Dhabi The Freeport Abu Dhabi project extends the promise of both the Louvre and Louvre Abu Dhabi to uphold the spirit of the universal museum. The Freeport’s intention is to oversee the continued exchange of art between the sister institutions, and establish a financial and culturalexchange through investing in the art markets of private collectors.

By tapping into the private market and reaching out to private collectors, the Freeport provides a branded service to attract private collectors, as their art will be attended to and exhibited by such a prestigious institution as the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

The submerged building provides safe storage for art within vaults. This allows the Freeport to connect to other buildings throughout Saadiyat Island to the Louvre Abu Dhabi. This creates a walkable waterfront park at ground level, allowing for residents and tourists on the island to glimpse into the inner workings of the conservation and research.

Partners: Audrey Yifei Li & Gordon Schissler

Critic: Todd Reisz Spring 2017 City-Making on the Arabian Peninsula

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The project aims to strengthen the linkage between the established and ongoing cultural centerpieces in the Saadiyat Island Cultural District, while benefiting Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, the Louvre Foundation, and the many education institutions in Abu Dhabi.

Envisioned as an integrated whole rather than an isolated building, Freeport Abu Dhabi will engage with and benefit all of the different people and institutions on the island, such as NYU or Paris-Sorbonne University, while also engaging with international art organizations such as the Agence France-Museums or Institut National du Patrimoine.

Abu Dhabi Tourism Art Institutions

The private art stored at the Freeport Abu Dhabi will be in a continuous cycle of exhibition, raising and lowering, so that visitors at the ground park level can experience a new type of museum that is integrated with public space.

Public Galleries Art Park

Conservation and Research

Louvre Art Storage Rooms

Private Viewing Rooms

Transportation

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EOC A Cautionary Tale

SITE MODEL : Enclosed space that is to allow that visitor it feel welcome but yet the massing of the EOC is a singular entity that forces does its best to control and watch the courtyard space.

The Emergency Operation Center (EOC) is an investigation of the theater of politics and decision-making; how the public and those in power participate on that stage is in testing the spatial adjacencies of exhibitionism and work spaces. The plan of the Colosseum gave way to the use of columns, wall, and structure in controlling how those in the EOC saw and work with each other. At the same time also how the public and peak into glimpses of the EOC. Testing what is private and public and the exhibition of power in making decisions for safety. In times of crisis, the means to protecting the public blurs the visual and spatial mechanisms shaped by political systems in the attempt to safeguard the power structure’s own private interests.

Critic: Tessa Kelly Fall 2016 Second-Year Core Studio

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ABOVE : Conceptual massing from the collaging of the Colosseum’s plan.

RIGHT : (Clockwise from top right) EOC Level, Exhibition Level, Courtyard Level with entrances to the office and the public Visitor’s Center, Office level

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EXHIBITION LEVEL : “Who Watches the Watchmen?” Here lies the frustration: to be a part of a democratic society and “oversee” just the fragments of what one’s government is doing to protect them.

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Jim Vlock Building Project In our team, we look to exploring the house and dwelling in terms of a dichotomy of outside and inside, of public and private, and nature and community. The long shotgun form of the house while extending the outside porch offers another spatial experience of one’s yard being a panorama of knowing and inviting their community while still ensuring safety and solace. Our house is about extension of connecting to one’s neighborhood and having nature being home.

Team: Isabelle Song, Justin Lai, Christian Golden, Pierre Thach, Stephanie Medel, Dylan Lee Critics: Amy Lelyveld & Joeb Moore Spring 2016 First-Year Building Project

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abenabonna@gmail.com Plan: SecondPlan: FloorSecond Floor

Plan: First Floor Plan: First Floor

Section: E

Section: C

196 Winthrop

Section: B

Section: A

Section: A

Section: C

Section: B

Section: D

Section: D

Section: F

Section: E

Section: G

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Re-Orientations Decoupage may be an active tool of interest beyond frequent disillusionments on the futility of postmodern discoveries, these many years ahead. As pieces came together for this issue, Debord and *the Danish one* made a comeback appearance on strategies to portray subjects in the city. Their conscious use of cutting elements of a discourse to even possibly counter itself according to the new rules of paste composition—thrillingly aware of the interchangeable use of content and expression they found in this technique—turned out to be an intuitive approach when people were called to express their experience in cities through personal and collective, or new and historic landmarks.

Our question for this issue was on the impacts the designed environment has had in our lives. This comes from the idea that by learning about our own subjectivities in space, we can reach closer to a design that has empathy for its subjects. There will remain a lot to be asked of YSOA culture as the starting point of an approach to design and architecture, still in this issue we started by asking: where have we all been and for how long?

To reach faraway/different places as much as you can, usually encourages new understandings of one’s own subjectivity. A wanderer nature of the architecture profession is reassured in this issue, not for the acquired culture (nonetheless that’s not a crime either), but rather to continue the politics of cutting and pasting with knowledge and comprehension of new places: places that although they may be out of the map of classic architecture, are seen not only as places for intervention, but having natures of their own to be both learned and expressed.

Fold 2-05: Fall 2016 Issue Co-Editors: Abena Bonna, Daphne Agosin, Francesca Carney, & Nathan Pyper

Anguish The statue of Laocoon and his Sons conveys a great deal of emotional anguish and pain. In observing the work came finding a way to understand material, lighting, and shadows that shape and move the subject. The goals of the project was to look into the phenomenological power within materials and engage in a process involving CNC milling and molding in the production. In understanding the facial and lighting features of the Laocoon I took to obtaining digital data in human skeletal features, as a method of further abstracting anguish beyond just muscular contortions in the human face.

Critic: Kevin Rotheroe Spring 2017 Craft, Materials, and Digital Artistry

RIGHT :The secondary part of this project was exploring other materials that had an inherent connection to portraying the contorted folds and shadows of anguish through material manifestations.

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RIGHT: Laocooon, superimposition of human skeletal bones, Caravaggio’s Medusa. The three images are inspiration for this project in understanding the manifestation of anguish thought material and light. In order to go beyond human muscular contortions, the human skeletal skull helped to create data that created soft and cavernous forms that captured the intensity of the art pieces.

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