ARCH 401 On the Butcher's Block

ON THE BUTCHER’S BLOCK

Cameron Wahlberg & Mae Murphy | ARCH 401 | Prof. Shelby Doyle

“Staying with the trouble does not require such a relationship to times called the future. In fact, staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings.�

(Donna Haraway, 2016)

Prologue: Befor e t h e F e a s t

pg. 4-9

Chapter 1: On t h e B u t c h e r ’ s B l o c k

pg. 10-23

Chapter 2: Prim e C u t s

pg. 24-35

Chapter 3: Diss e c t i n g S p e c i f i c s

pg. 36-55

Chapter 4: The F i n a l C o u r s e

pg. 56-64

Donna Haraway Reflection Site Analysis Robot Precedents (Stereoform, Oseteobotics)

Urban Mining Map Butcher Drawings Masonry Material Analysis Pocketbook Guide to Butchering Material Elevations Axonometric Diagrams Section Cuts with Details Passive Section

Floor Plans: Site, Egress, Daylight, Program & HVAC Construction Details Process Diagrams Brick Wall Iterations

Collage Perspectives Interior & Exterior

Prologue: Before the Feast

Examining the intersections of historical significance, environmental conditions, adaptive reuse, and innovative technological practices are at the core of On the Butcher’s Block. Initially examining the text of Donna Haraway, the ideals of Making With provided a junction at which the strings of speculative practice and conceptual design were able to knot. Building off work of precedents, essays, and different media the final work evolved into a collection of speculative journals, images leading to an eventual real-life booklet of exploration.

The East Des Moines Depot at 120 E 5th St in Des Moines, IA was built in 1909 and served as a train depot along the rail line through the 20’s. It outgrew its original program and was developed into a tomato storage unit. Its eventual abandonment signaled the end of its programmatic use being placed on a list to be demolished. A development project by the Des Moines Heritage Trust seeks to reinvigorate the dilapidated depot, and align its’ path to a new reception venue, and office space. Talks with BNIM, the architects on site, painted a picture of all the building once held, and contributed in the form of physical space, as well as memories.

Thoughts of rejuvenation and material care/preservation became a forefront of thought in continuing the process. How does one respect the initial structure and site while questioning the facets that have become the norm in restoration and material use?

In this proposal we seek to question these practices in the form of a knotting of robotics, preservation, and material.

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HARAWAY THOUGHTS & A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE

Kin, from Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble is described as a speculative process in which circumstances can be imagined for collaboration between the living and nonliving. Haraway begins the analysis between human and machine / abiotic and biotic.

“Staying with the trouble does not require such a relationship to times called the future. In fact, staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings” (Haraway 2016, 1).

Perhaps our robotic counterparts can work with us in order to counteract the looming Earth Overshoot day to provide resources, synthesize materials, collaborate with and make kin. Architecture has a role in this process. In order to sustain the future, new technologies are needed to create a mutual relationship between material usage, resource extraction and infrastructure. A new relationship with kin.

Instead of practicing dangerous toxic extracting/deconstructing processes, why not reuse what already exists currently on the planet? The composting humus process? Perhaps robots such as the ERO Concrete Recycling Robot could resume existing material and ‘make kin’ in a new form of architecture, while also preserving significant cultural and historical sites with a level of inclusive and awareness. The vacuum-like robotic arm captures toxic dust and debris. The robot essentially eats existing concrete, turns it into a dust which is then available for a new structure. Preserving these existing materials is an extension of historic preservation by recreating with the same essentials before. But in a more sustainable way.

120 E 5th st, Des Moines

The Des Moines Heritage Center located at 120 E 5th st, Des Moines IA is a 320’ by 80’ plot of land located in the historic East Village. Currently, BNIM Architects is constructing a new event space to host activities on the site and restored the existing dutch revival style Depot built in 1909. The new space is proposed to provide 49 new jobs and pay about $1,000,000 in workers’ wages. The surrounding community will be provided with new infrastructure and a location to gather in downtown Des Moines.

The East Des Moines Depot at 120 E 5th St in Des Moines IA was built in 1909 served as a train depot along the rail line through the 20s. It outgrew its original program and was developed into a tomato storage unit. Its eventual abandonment signaled the end of its programmatic use being placed on a list to be demolished. But the building consists of valuable elements such as terra cotta brick, hardwood floors, and slate shingle roofing. What can we do with this existing material narrative?

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RO B O T I C P R E C E D E N T S

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Stereoform // SOM Robotics Lab. The KUKA robot is a large factor in the construction process of the Stereoform pieces. The robot arm uses hot wire forming to create geometric and curved shapes from reusable expanded polystyrene (eps) and form molds with the robots. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill used this technique to create molds for concrete structures. The seemingly random forms create a beautiful almost life-like appearance.

Curves and straight lines form the molds and concrete pours into the shape. The Stereoforms were used in the Chicago Architecture Biennale in a pavilion exhibition. “The concrete pavilion is a prototype of a single-story concrete bay found in high-rise buildings. It is built using robotic fabrication methods that the American firm argues is more sustainable than traditional construction methods, and could reduce its carbon footprint.’’ The slab uses 20% carbon reduction. When applied to the entirety of the built environment.

Osteobotics // AA Robotics Lab Analysis. The conversion with biodegradable materials with two KUKA robotic arms in order to create a self-balancing structure. The KUKA bots are tethered to the tetrahedron shape.

Heat is used to pull and stretch the two pieces apart. After the arms stretch, humans are required to apply resin for a permanent shape. The arms themselves work with computer programming on software such as Rhino Grasshopper to create the stretching impact. The robotic arm is essentially an extension of the human arm with wires, tendons, muscle and intelligence. It relies on the intelligence of the human operation in order to function.

Osteobotics // AA Robotics Lab Analysis

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Stereoform // SOM Robotics Lab

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Ch a p t e r 1 : O n t h e B u t c h e r ’ s Block

Butchering the Past to Serve the Future Now more than ever, the current architectural building construction methods are contributing to an immense amount of earth exploitation and permanent resource depletion also known in slaughterhouse terms as hacking. What happens when there are no more resources left to feed a consumerist appetite of extraction, abandonment and exploitation of materials? How can we rebuild a system that instead reclaims existing building features and chops material together? We butcher.

To butcher is to carefully extract, examine, and reconstruct artifacts. It is to carefully take pieces from existing sites and reassemble into new structures. When one prepares a butchered feast, they reckon with what was given, how it was in its previous life, & how it is beneficial now.

So what does it mean to butcher a building, to refine its structural qualities and to preserve its material cultural significance in Des Moines, Iowa?

The setting of Des Moines has been growing for the past two decades bringing with it new infrastructure and material. In August 2020, the city of Des Moines has currently declared 54 sites in the local area a ‘public nuisance’ which are predicted to be demolished in the next five years with more in the future. We propose techniques to provide care on a material scale through the process of circular construction economy. A practice keeping materials and products in the economy as long as possible by re-using or butchering them.

“A major challenge for re-using building debris is knowing the quality, quantity and temporal availability of demolition material.” Cities become material mines available for future reuse.

Robotic analysis, deconstruction, & maintenance is key to kickstarting the process of creating a material library, research database and a path forward in the construction industry in the U.S.

URBAN MINING MAP

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We created a printable pocket book guide enabling you explore the world of reuse around us.

Examining different case studies of manual butchering as community engagement and supplemental construction/material resources are available.

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Ch a p t e r 2 : P r i m e C u t s

To create this site in Des Moines, machines will carefully dissect/butcher the Existing Depot in order to preserve the materials.

From here we using the unique structural capabilities of brick and working with the modularity as well as the innovation of precast veneer systems in our assembly type. The construction process will be automated with the help of Brokk robots, Kuka arms, and drones as means of delivery as construction moves up the wall. As more brick and masonry are taken from other sites, the stock pile will eventually be turned into one of two facade systems. Precast panels, or integrated into a load bearing masonry wall. Each brick will be assigned a ranking of its integrity and where it should be placed in an assembly on the facade. The load bearing masonry walls will be stacked from most integral to least, forming a strong foundation to support the height of the walls while also creating a material storage within its own walls. These walls will be the north and south facades, and create a patchwork of these bricks, and will be tied together using reclaimed steel members.

This steel structure will provide the framework for the precast concrete panels with the reclaimed brick veneer. After completion A mutual relationship between human & robot will carefully remove, salvage and care for the material of offsite buildings These materials will be collected, tagged, analyzed, and researched, with material samples brought back to the lab in DSM. Here it will be tested for quality, half life, & construction capabilities which can be implemented in the remaining material offsite. Using construction design software (grasshopper) the robots have the capability to produce a variety of facade iterations, structural components, and sculptural pieces. Contractors, Architects, & Engineers are invited to investigate these tests until they are again deconstructed, reused or recycled by using robotic construction, artificial intelligence, and machine learning methods. The public is also encouraged to visit these material archives in order to recall the story behind artifacts.

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PASSIVE SECTION

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Ch a p t e r 3 : D i s s e c t i n g S p e c i f ics

The layout of the building allows for a distinction between public versus private, keeping public spaces towards 5th street and the private spaces oriented towards 4th street with a collision space in the gallery between the two halves. The surrounding site will be used for material storage and a public access space of an annual pavilion located on the now butchered DEPOT. Interior spaces will include education workshops, as well as galleries for hands on experiences. The space is divided into 4ths allowing for visual collisions. Placing programs of education, research, and workshops in the center allows for the blurring of public and private in the central core space. This allows for the demystifying of these deconstruction and reconstruction practices. Our construction space will house a system of robots and resources focused on the storage and testing of masonry with labs directly connected to the depot, and rail line for material transportation. To help offset the energy consumption, we are incorporating solar panels across the roofs as means of collection.

Due to the construction of the load bearing walls, opportunities for northern and southern light exposure are limited. We mitigate this by exploring different passive overheard lighting options including clerestories, monitors, and light diffusing louvers. The lighting condition in the building is set up for passive solar heat gain in the 2,000 sf lobby space as well as solar energy production and operable ventilation systems in conjunction with passive chilled beams in high traffic public areas.

FLOOR PLAN

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FLOOR PLAN: LEVEL 1

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FLOOR PLAN

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LEVEL 2

LEVEL 3

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LEVEL 4 FALL 2020 | CAMERON WAHLBERG & MAE MURPHY

PROGRAM PLAN

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LEVEL 2

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LEVEL 3

LEVEL 4

EGRESS PLAN

LEVEL 1

LEVEL 2

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LEVEL 3

LEVEL 4

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HVAC ZONE PLAN

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LEVEL 3

LEVEL 4

DAYLIGHT PLAN

LEVEL 1

LEVEL 2 45

LEVEL 3

LEVEL 4

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TYP. DETAILS

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DETAILS

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CONSTRUCTION DIAGRAMS

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Load Bearing Brick Construction

Brick Pre-Cast Construction

Brick Pre-Cast Wall Iterations

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Ch a p t e r 4 : T h e F i n a l C o u r s e

Our perspective drawings utilize journaling, sketching and collaging to create a dialogue between the material, people, and robotic inhabitants within the space. This incorporation of drawn media collage builds on the experiences of occupants. The act of visual material memory as well as the innovation of material for memories to come. These three views are prime locations of these collisions represented in the gallery space, rail line connection, and research towers.

The Butcher Block technique utilizes material analysis and maintenance. It challenges the way preservation is defined through robotic synthesis in the building and allows for an alternative form of preservation and remembrance of deconstructed structures. It recognizes the importance of the material narrative in terms of its memory, journey, and larger role of the building components Butchering the past to serve the future.

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On the Butcher’s Block: Butchering the Past to Serve the Future