Gan.Os 101 | Geological adversarial network of shelters

GAN.oS 101 [GEOLOGICAL ADVERSARIAL NETWORK OF SHELTERS ]

The Bartlett School of Architecture MArch Urban Design 2020 - 2021

Member:

ShuSheng Huang Sheng Cao Meng Zheng

Tao Chen Anshika Tajpuriya

Tutor:

Claudia Pasquero Eirini Tsomokou

Filippo Nassetti Emmanouil Zaroukas

Bartlett School of Architecture 丨 MArch UD 丨 RC16

INDEX

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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ABSTRACT

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METHODLOGY

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CHAPTER 01: Site Introduction

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CHAPTER 02: Non-human Intelligence Computation

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CHAPTER 03: The Deep Ground

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CHAPTER 04: Materiality and Context

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CONCLUSION

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Students ShuSheng Huang, Sheng Cao, Meng Zheng

Tao Chen, Anshika Tajpuriya

Cluster Tutors Claudia Pasquero, Filippo Nassetti, Eirini Tsomokou

instagram

History and Theory Tutor Emmanouil Zaroukas

Skills Tutors Filippo Nassetti, Eirini Tsomokou

The Bartlett School of Architecture MArch Urban Design 2020 - 2021 London, United Kingdom, 2021

project video

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This research project is the result of our hard work over the last few months. It would not have been possible without the support and understanding between the team members.

We would like to express gratitude to our research cluster mentors, Claudia Pasquero, Filippo Nassetti and Eirini Tsomokou, for their constructive criticism ,helpful advice and for pushing us out of our comfort zones and to push our own limitations of design thinking which enabled us to successfully complete this project.

We would also like to thank our theoretical supervisor, Emmanouil Zaroukas, who pushed us to explore design theoretically and for brainstorming on the project name with us.

We would like to thank Filippo Nassetti and Eirini Tsomokou for their skills course workshop.

We would also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Maria Kupstova, Vadim Smakhtin and Artem Konevskikh for a wonderful spatial informatics workshop that has helped us derive the project majorly.

Finally, we would like to thank our parents for always encouraging and supporting us in times of stress and need.

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ABSTRACT

Geological Adversarial Network of Shelters //Gan.Os 101 is a speculative project that proposes to reimagine the intersection of architecture and landscape, the role of artificial intelligence and biological intelligence in rethinking ecologies and existence of humans and non humans as co-creators of a new fabric that explores and redefines the boundaries of what is conceived as architecture, landscape and urban design. This project uses the generative adversarial network models as a methodology to speculate new topographical forms. The research spans from studying slime mold’s ability in forming shortest path networks and usage of StyleGan to imagine evolution of the landscape data collected.

The project is a scenario based in the Kamchatka Islands of Russia which is a volcano active site that deals with the idea of sheltering ecologies in a volatile environment and redesigning the landscape strata that acknowledges and enforces that the deep ground resources could be redesigned for creating sheltering spaces.

These deep ground structures are procedural landscapes that integrate natural underground resources while proposing new systems as well. As a research it aims at confronting the notion of coexistence with various of form intelligences that help sustain the idea that ecologies can be designed for at various scales and that creating a co-existence of intelligences is an ecology in itself that aims at challenging the boundaries the terminologies like architecture, landscape and urban design create.

The non humans in this project are not just the animals but anything outside of human consciousness is conceived as the non human that has its own agency of intelligence within the systems and is used to design speculative deep ground structures understanding the demands of Kamchatka as a site and that an ecology creates as an environment. The volcanoe's impact is studied over the years that even though brin immediate disruption to the site, they help in converting existing landscapes into fertile landscape.

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METHODOLOGY

This project provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of human activities on the planet's environment in the post-industrial era and what the consequences of these impacts will be in the future. The project also examines the causal relationship between global warming and the frequency of ecological crisis and concludes with a study of how existing fabrics can be turned into a giant ecological shelter to protect humans and non-humans before a hurricane disaster strikes.

The project uses a number of interdisciplinary studies in biology, architecture, urban design and computing technology to approach urban problems in a more complex and intelligent way.

Firstly, computational tools are used to collect and analyse large amounts of relevant data, and then bio-intelligence is cultivated and simulated at various stages of the project, controlling the growth conditions of the organisms to the point where they can be used flexibly. The project involves the analysis of the behaviour and growth patterns of the nonhuman organism 'physarum' in the laboratory.

Computational simulation and generation algorithms are used in the research to create mapping and visualisation data. The project proposes design solutions at different scales, at the macro scale level, at the future level and at the symbiotic level of humans and non-humans.

In addition, the project proposes a new design language - the idea that naturally eroding deep ground structures can provide shelter for humans and non-humans alike. This new design concept allows for a closer integration and symbiosis.

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The Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1,250-kilometre-long (777 mi) peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about 270,000 km2 (104,248 sq mi).[2] The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively.

The Kamchatka Peninsula, the Commander Islands, and the Karaginsky Island, constitute the Kamchatka Krai of the Russian Federation.

The vast majority of the 322,079 inhabitants are ethnic Russians.

The Kamchatka River and the surrounding central side valley are flanked by large volcanic belts containing around 160 volcanoes, 29 of them still active. The peninsula has a high density of volcanoes and associated volcanic phenomena, with 19 active volcanoes included in the six UNESCO World Heritage List sites in the Volcanoes of Kamchatka group, most of them on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the most volcanic area of the Eurasian continent, with many active cones. The Kamchatka Peninsula is also known as the "land of fire and ice".

Chapter 01: Site Introduction

Kamchatka boasts abundant flora. The variable climate promotes different flora zones where tundra and muskeg are dominant, succeeded by grasses, flowering shrubs, and forests of pine, birch, alder and willow.

The wide variety of plant forms spread throughout the Peninsula promotes a similar diversity in animal species that feed off the flora. Although Kamchatka is mostly tundra, deciduous and coniferous trees are abundant, and forests can be found throughout the peninsula.

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Introduction to site selection

Layout of the Kamchatka Mountains

Areas of human concentration Areas of lush vegetation Low Range area Major mountain ranges

Site selection：Poluostrov Kamchatka

Frequency of volcanic eruptions

"land of fire and ice" The Kamchatka River and the surrounding central side valley are flanked by large volcanic belts containing around 160 volcanoes, 29 of them still active.

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Diagram of the area of volcanic ash spread over time The ash emitted by a volcanic eruption can travel at speeds of up to 724 kilometres per hour. The ash will spread over thousands of kilometres, severely affecting the surrounding ecosystem.

Time(1h):

Speed:

Coverage:

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The impact of volcanoe eruption in the range of red to blue.

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As the site is an expansive Peninsula with all types of landscape features due to a highly variable climate, a data set of over 200 site features in the scale of 150-300m were collected to input into the styleGAN algorithm.

The Algorithm then learns these features to evolve new ones as a set of images that get converted into a video that helps us derive a time scale of the possible evolution depending on the scientific research suggesting the impact of volcanoes on site.

Then, slime moulds ability to find shortest path is used to simulate a a new network that is envisioned with the help of cycleGAN algorithm.

Chapter 02: Non-human Intelligence Computation

The use of artificial intelligence ability to derive new topographical maps and slime moulds ability to compute networks helps in designing the existing landscape with the proposed methodology of creating new morphologies through the pointcloud conversion of the styleGAN video.

The methodology of the point cloud helps in extracting the pixel information of the landscape features that are arranged in layers of points. These points are used to generate and design new morphologies in three dimensional manner .

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Landscape features in Kamchatka

Bartlett School of Architecture 丨 MArch UD 丨 RC16

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Geographic information extraction and model evolution TIME:1920

TIME:2020 90％ green

10％ bard land

TIME:2120

60％ green

40％ bard land

40％ green

60％ bard land

TIME:2120（point clouds） 40％ green

60％ bard land

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Algae Production Landscape

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LANDSCAPE PATTERN LANDSCAPE PATTERN

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PRODUCTIVITY INDEX MODEL PRODUCTIVITY INDEX MODEL

LANDSCAPEPATTERN PATTERN LANDSCAPE

POINT POINT CLOUD CLOUD

PRODUCTIVITY INDEX MODEL PRODUCTIVITY INDEX MODEL

LANDSCAPE LANDSCAPEPATTERN PATTERN

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PRODUCTIVITY INDEX MODEL PRODUCTIVITY INDEX MODEL

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1KM 1km ALGAE CULTIVATION ALGAE CULTIVATIONPONDS PONDS

SYNTHETIC EXTRACTION SYNTHETIC EXTRACTIONSYSTEM SYSTEM

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Bio Intelligence Computation

Cultivate 01

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Cultivate 02

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Physarum polycephalum Physarum polycephalum

Erosion

First output

Physarum

Mosaic physarum

Site

Fake A

Second ouput

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Path simulation for shelter clusters On this basis, we then selected another of our own cultures to expand the structural features of this series of shelters. In this diagram, it is clear that the park system has potential as a systematic natural shelter for future disaster models.

Our goal is exploring how the self-growth of the park system can change the urban fabric, so that in the end the city and the park system can have a systematic integration or even exist as a landscape on its own.

GROWTH 01

GROWTH 02

GROWTH 03

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GROWTH 09

Eroding mountains

Original site

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This project then aims at using the procedural means of designing the topography as a new strategy to envision new systems and being of coexistence that the research tries to culminate into sheltering ecologies of a larger landscape.

This deep ground strata is a ground-scape of ecological systems and designed for at all scale of intervention from the site , to the human and different scales of non humans in an effort to create symbiosis of all species.

Chapter 03: The Deep Ground

The deep ground also aims at redefining and redesigning what the underground sources can be and how their systems of existence could be incorporated as a form of intelligence to derive a system in the sheltering spaces.

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100％ exposed areas

70％ exposed areas

Plants cover 50％ of the areas

Plants cover 70％ of the areas

Underwater areas

Shelter Network Distribution

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Section I Volcanic ash propogation algae mycleium moss human non human

Section III Volcanic ash propogation soil formation rock formaions mineral depostions

Above-water section

Section II Volcanic ash propogation algae cultivation bio mass bio fuel farming Enerygy reiteration 60 M

Macro Scale Deep Ground 18

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Mycelium

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Algae

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Water bodies

Energy generating layer

Farming system

Section I | This section explores the distribution of different types of microorganisms in the section that is partly above the ground and majorly below the gorund.

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Human spaces Algae is envinsioned as a non-human co-worker in the human spaces as nonhuman - human coexistence

10 X 12 X 4 Housing

26 X 24 X 10 Medical attention Space

20 X 24 X 8 Housing

20 X 24 X 8 Community Gathering

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Bio - Fuel Generating Deep Ground - Section II 0M

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This section consists of human- non human sheltering spaces where the deep ground is converetd into algae based source of energy and food production.

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Underwater Shelter Morphology | This morphology supports the cosexitence of algae , corals and the non human species that prefer to coexist with them.

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Section III - This deep ground section explores the ecology that supports hydrothermal fluids and coexitence of species that live at higher temperatures and the formation of different soil layers and mineral depostion as an uderground strata for sheltering spaces.

VOLCANIC DEPOSITION

Topsoil -8M

V. D. Zone.I 38℃ Subsoil -16M

V. D. Subsoil -24M

Zone.II 52℃

V. D. Regolith -32M

Zone.III 94℃

V. D. Hydrothermal 40M

Zone.IV 126℃

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Morphological Details VOLCANIC DEPOSITION TEMPERATURE:38C SOIL COMPOSITION: Fsp、Plg、PR、G SEDIMENTARY ROCK FROMATIONS

UNDERGROUND

NON HEATED ANDISOL ZONE I

WHITE CORALS COLONY HYDRO THERMAL FLUID:40C SEA WATER FLUID PH:9

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TUBE WORM COLONY HYDRO THERMAL FLUID:40C SEA WATER FLUID -16M

PH:9

VOLCANIC DEPOSITION TEMPERATURE: 52C SOIL COMPOSITION: Fsp、Plg、PR、G SEDIMENTARY ROCK FROMATIONS NON HEATED ANDISOL ZONE II 24

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Section IV - This section explores the existence of a structure that is above the water dealing with the eb and flow of the context, showing how a sheltering system can exist in various conditions of a volatile environment.

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The material experiment is a small scale experiment to explore the possibility of construction and fabrication in clay as clay is one of the soil components that can be derived from a volcano active site locally.

The experiment uses casting as method to focus on building on the details of the sectional design and an attempt to create modules that could be then arranged together to form new morphologies of the same.

Chapter 04: Materiality and Context

The final visualisations offer a connection between the material experiment and the proposed design sections. The visualisations are also an attempt at showing the design of the underground strata and how the proposal acknowledges different geological details of the site.

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3D printed models

Mould making concepts

Clay model moulds

Clay model moulds

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Clay model module Portfolio

Rotation angle_01

Rotation angle_02

Rotation angle_03

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Rotation angle_11

Rotation angle_12

Rotation angle_13

Rotation angle_14

Rotation angle_15

Model Module Portfolio

Model Module Portfolio_01

Model Module Portfolio_02

Model Module Portfolio_03

Model Module Portfolio_04

Model Module Portfolio_05

Model Module Portfolio_06

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Volcanic Ash Deposition Landscape Evolution Time Frame Rock Compositions - Metamorphic // Igneous Human Non Human Redefined Strata

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Volcanic Ash Deposition Landscape Evolution Time Frame Rock Compositions - Sedimentary + Metamorphic Human Non Human Redefined Strata

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CONCLUSION

Geological adversarial network of shelters aims at questioning the boundaries of architecture ,landscape and urban design. At all scales of the design proposal ,the projects has utilised artificial intelligence and biological intelligence to drive and derive design.

All scales of intervention are unique visions of interventions that also involve and propose sheltering for as an ecology of better co-existence. It is a speculation that derives its vision and idea from an ever conceived as a dystopic environmental crisis to put forth that evolution lies in evolving with often conceived crisis as a state of environment.

Volcano active areas are often volatile , unpredictable and its impact introduces different time scales that the design proposal tries to acknowledge with the use of artificial intelligence.

It Is a speculative vision that tries to better use the massive and expansive terminology of an ecology to the scales of a built environment that can be conceived by the human architect , but tries to map and design the realm of possibilities of this ecology with help of artificial and biological intelligences.

While Kamchatka island helps offer a unique proposition on tackling the vision, the island itself proposes unique landscape features that are explored in terms of evolution of a landscape over a period of time and the geological details existing are integrated in the sectional design in the project. The project encourages to build a design dialogue where the underground strata of the landscape is envisioned as an ecology of coexistence.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Tero Karras, Samuli Laine, Timo Aila "A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks" https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.04948

7. Natalia L Belkova - "Activity of bacteria in water of hot springs from Southern and Central Kamchatskaya geothermal provinces, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia " https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0944501306000085

2. Satellite data https://earthengine.google.com

8. Volcanoes of Kamchatka. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanoes_of_Kamchatka

3. Andrew Adamatzky, Jeff Jones "Road planning with slime mould: If Physarum built motorways it would route M6/M74 through Newcastle " https://arxiv.org/abs/0912.3967

9. Soils from Volcanoes https://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/soil.htm

4. Thomas J Browning "Volcanic ash supply to the surface ocean—remote sensing of biological responses and their wider biogeochemical significance" https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2015.00014/full 5. Hydrothermal Fluid https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/ hydrothermalfluid 6. Volcanoes of Kamchatka https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/84427/volcanoes-of-kamchatka

10. Volcanic rock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_rock 11. Kiyoshi Koga -"Coupled water and heat flow in a grass field with aggregated Andisol during soil-freezing periods " https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229419691_Coupled_water_and_heat_ flow_in_a_grass_field_with_aggregated_Andisol_during_soil-freezing_periods 12. G.P Thomas -"Volcanic Environments & Their Mineral & Ore Deposits " https://www.azomining.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=32

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The Bartlett School of Architecture MArch Urban Design 2020 - 2021

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