Jay Hallsworth Portfolio

ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO JAY HALLSWORTH 150304809 Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Semester 2 - Summer Portfolio ARC8052 - Stage 5

ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

The Coal Industry Coal mining shapes Newcastle’s infrastructure power and economy

EXPLORING OUR INDUSTRIAL PASTS AND THE FATE OF OUR PLANETARY FUTURE

Direct Air (Carbon capture)

Coal burning

Design proposal to take responsibility of Newcastle’s carbon debt and by utilizing dormant infrastructures from the coal age, capturing CO2 and addressing the climate emergency

The burning of coal produced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases warming our environment

Planetary emergency The world declares a planetary emergency and recognises climate change, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, pollution and deforestation as unsustainable human actions.

Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Critical introduction

6

Project synopsis

9

Existing technical isometric (assumptions)

64

Using demolition waste to sequester carbon

129

9

Integrating proposed elements

66

Environmental and programmatic isometric

130

Existing structural grid study

71

Microbrewery & Grey water recovery

134

72

Passive Environmental strategies

136

When we abandoned coal we abandoned the city

CONTENTS

This document forms a continuation of my Semester 1 portfolio. Many themes and ideas are a continuation from the work in that document, to better understand them please refer to that document.

New or improved work will be indicated by a solid or hollow circle respectively at the bottom (inside) of each page, where relevant.

This document has been assessed in conjunction with the ARB General criteria (GC) at Part 2. The definition of these criteria is available here: < https://arb.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2016/05/ARB_Criteria_pt2. pdf>. The GC will be listed in the bottom corners (outside) of each page, where relevant.

Systems and processes

10

Project location

13

Interpreting the site

14

Newcastle’s coal mining heritage

72

Growing out of the strata

140

Relics of the coal industry

17

Decentralising power & Community ownership

75

An extension of the strata

143

Why shopping centres?

18

Burrows and coal seams

21

Carbon movement & engagement

80

Ground floor plan

146

Coal as an economic driver

22

A building that breathes

83

Typical upper level

149

Why we need to remove CO2

25

ETFE lungs

84

Transparent civic space

153

Making the invisible - visible

26

Tectonic integration

87

Atmospheric technical section

154

Learning to live off our waste

29

ETFE precedent study

88

Using Newcastle’s past to address its future

30

Spatial & light well voids

90

Regional proposal

32

Lung atmospheric

92

Understanding material

Building reveals the process

38

Adjacency & programme diagrams

Ethical materials

38

Design development

Materials from carbon capture

40

Materials found on site

41

Carbon sequestering ‘self healing’ concrete

42

80

96 100

Massing studies

100

Modular intervention

102

Ethical joints

104

44

Integrating programme

107

Concept model

44

Sectional programme

108

Cellulose as a building material

48

Edge conditions

113

Further material studies

55

Thinking through making

Understanding Eldon Square

56

Addressing consumer waste and environmental pollution

114

Rhythms of Eldon

56

Waste-to-energy Amager Bakke power station

Challenging traditional life cycles

58

Eldon retrofit and energy integration systems

119

Integrated energy systems

122

Understanding embodied labour,

4

The process of healing

Improved work

energy, ethics and environment

61

Anaerobic digestion & net zero carbon

New work

Existing technical section (assumptions)

62

geothermal ground source heat

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125

Proposal 146

SUPPORTING FRAMEWORKS Climate vs Capitalism

156

Ethical framework

158

Why do we need an ethical framework?

158

Existing capitalist metabolic processes

160

Regional phasing proposal

164

Eldon Square phasing proposal

166

The role of technology

169

Degrowth systems

170

Redefining capital

172

Cumulative emissions 1750 – 2010

174

Responsibility 177

Final crit presentation

179

Reflective conclusion

182

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Critical introduction During this semester I have built upon my semester 1, wider scale, research and planning looking at applying these principles with more rigour and detail to Eldon Square. Throughout my project I have investigated global entrenched socio-political power structures to conclude how they are inhibiting a meaningful response to climate change by architects and planners. Through this project I want to critique our current systems and how they directly prevent climate action through their fundamental modes of continuous expansion and inequality. I have explored the industrial heritage of Newcastle’s coal industry as a gateway towards addressing the fate of our planet.

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infrastructure and degenerating shopping centres, their social, cultural and material legacies, and how an ecologically and planetary oriented practice might respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by the current shift.

My project aims to address societal issues of consumerism and labour, alongside systemic issues of extractivism and inequality through a regional ,context specific proposal of carbon capture and utilization, driven by community responsibility for Newcastle’s carbon debt from the coal industry.

My proposal has been supported by an ethical framework exploring how we define capital, technology and degrowth economics; expanding themes of sharing and decommodification whilst articulating architecture’s intrinsic coexistence with global capital systems.

My studio group: ‘unlearning architecture’, was born out of this period of huge social and political change that we are facing. Our political and economic systems, that have shaped our experience as architects, citizens and students seems increasing unviable. Architecture’s intrinsic relationship to these cycles renders its future uncertain. The construction of buildings depend upon the cultural norms and hierarchy of entrenched systems of knowledge and power. We have a problematised interaction with ecology, and further we problematised the ‘me’ that has power and agency. We are operating within a system of continuous growth, underpinned by, and solely dependent upon extractivism and inequality.

We are all complicit in perpetuating these practices that are no longer sustainable and we are at a crucial point of action. Our studio group sought to question and rethink these systems to see how by reshaping our practice we may in turn reshape what the world might be like in the future.

My project exists in the current year 2021, it acknowledges the issues of modernity and sets a path for how we might operate within these existing systems. Promoting new forms of practice constituted, as regenerative, collective, and healing.

I will explore the future of the North-East, old

Our studio brief was extremely lose, we were intentionally given no outputs so we could form our own journey and to challenge traditional student, tutor power relationships. We started in groups and decided to begin our exploration of the site through the eyes of a chosen marginalised protagonist.

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My first semester work grew out of the rat as a protagonist and ended up focusing around coal miners through the parallels of burrowing. This took my project in an environmentally conscious direction developing a direct response to the historic coal mining industry with the aim of healing the region and its community, utilising relics of the by-gone industry.

When we abandoned coal we abandoned the city. Coal is not the solution but it is the reason Newcastle exists. The coal industry has been elevated into an exhibition match between the past and the future. Local jobs versus global climate.

My proposal continues this dialogue with the coal industry, spatially inhabited burrows emerge out of the strata of rock, still being utilised but in carbon negative ways such as granite heating ground source water. We are seeing these industries pop up in Gateshead, funded by The Coal Authority, returning jobs to old mine workers, using their skills in this New zero carbon capacity. The strata of the building flips coal mining on its head and rather than mining from the ground it mines the air, turning pollution into possibility, anaerobic digestion waste to energy provides power, as symbolic lungs breathe pure filtered air. The building stands literally and symbolically as an apology to residents and in directs opposition of the privatisation and pollution of the coal industry.

I have been analysing Eldon Square as an existing site, from technical and material standpoints. My

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

critique of material has been a direct extension from my ethical framework in semester 1 and I have aimed at bringing this all together in my environmental and technical strategies, all stemming from this foundation of carbon capture. I have been exploring how I can reduce my concept and themes to their essence and apply them at various scales through my detailed and technical building design. Finding materials such as ‘healing concrete’ which actively breathes in CO2 from the atmosphere, a reflection of the programme as well as translating the rhizomatic regional philosophy into a spatial quality through plasters casts of mushroom rhizomes.

As my project has developed I have seen it take on a function and a programme of its own, growing out of this foundation of carbon capture it has become a palimpsest of energy systems and strategies and also a symbolic, social hub of bringing together community, council and faculty in an attempt to unify the city and engage people with the process of carbon capture and of empowerment to bring about the healing of the city.

Ultimately the environmental crisis is a crisis of consciousness. Many people are aware of the challenges the natural world is facing, but few know the full extents of the suffering and deprivation we all face. During this critical period of human anthropogenic impact we are tasked with reversing the damages of industrial civilisation and overcoming perhaps the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Project synopsis When we abandoned coal we abandoned the city The city of Newcastle has been mining and exporting coal since the 13th century. The coal industry has now been elevated into an exhibition match between the past and the future. Local jobs versus global climate. Historically, the coal industry has seen local communities unwillingly give up their land, allowing privatised companies to make vast profits whilst they received only pollution in return.

Semester 1: Conceptual section

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My project forms a response to the social and environmental damage of Newcastle’s coal mining industry using carbon capture and utilisation to flip coal mining on its head, mining carbon from the air instead of the ground. As the traditional retail model dies out and moves online, shopping centres become available for retrofit. In utilising these dormant infrastructures and those of the coal industry, such as old colliery lines and mines shafts we can create an interconnected rhizome of distribution networks throughout the North East for distribution and utilisation of captured carbon, creating new products and materials to drive the

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

move towards a zero carbon future. In this dialogue with this coal industry my building is seen to emerge out of the strata which we once mined, symbolic lungs breathe in CO2 via direct air capture purifying city air and providing a testament to the clean air of the future.

My proposal takes the form of a public civic energy plant in the heart of Newcastle’s city centre, Eldon Square. Traditionally these types of buildings are marginalised and ignored, but by bringing in local authority and community to engage with climate change I hope we might better understand the relation of our activities to their impacts. Bjarke Ingles describes this as hedonistic sustainability, a sustainability that improves the quality of life and human enjoyment. This proposal aims to not only be sustainable but carbon negative, seeking to actively heal the city and its community from the damage of the coal industry.

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Building operation

Direct air carbon capture <Building reveals process>

Spent crop

Grey water recovery

Fertiliser

Anaerobic digestion

Microbrewery

Organic

Community growing

Material production

Lungs

Kinetic facades

Consumer waste

Public engagement

Public engagement

‘self healing’ microbes

Public engagement

Passive ventilation

Systems and processes My project is best explained as a public and civic energy building composed of a series of systems and processes, informed and supported by an ethical mode of practice.

The programme and building all stems from carbon capture, in the aim of every aspect of the building either sequestering carbon or engaging people with the process. As I had identified in first semester there is a difficult in proposing this project in a system underpinned by extractivism, inequality and carbon production. You can’t just paint capitalism green and call it green capitalism because it creates this conflicting ideological dichotomy. Many people see technology as this paint brush, but there has to be a change in life style and the ethical framework depicts this through degrowth economics, redefining capital, phased building growth, responsibility, ownership and critique on the application of technology. Developing this framework was integral in order to prevent the project undermining itself or not being used towards meaningful climate action.

Biogas CHP

This different way of living allows for change and flexibility in the building, reducing carbon through our actions and increasing responsibility in the general public. As the building is powered by a series of energy systems if one fails there is an assortment of decentralised systems which can function to support the building and its carbon capture, and as this single facility is plugged into the regional proposal of shopping centre retrofits they can all sustain each other. In this I acknowledge the politics of precariousness, allowing for contingency.

Onsite education on pollution

The diagram opposite sees the building operation processes colour coded to match the areas of the ethical framework in which they have been considered.

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Ground source heat pumps

Public engagement

Recycle hub

Solar shading

Material exchange

Coal mining context

Geothermal flooded mineshafts

Material mineshaft distribution

Ethical f ramework

£ Redefining capital

10

Biogas bus fleet

Co 2

Degrowth economics

Phasing building growth

Questioning role of technology

Create responsibility

Community ownership

Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

PONTELAND

A19

WHITLEY B AY

A1(m)

NORTH SHIELDS

NEWCASTLE

Project location

SOUTH SHIELDS

G AT E S H E A D SUNDERLAND A19

A G R I C U LT U R A L LAND WASHINGTON A1(m)

Newcastle Upon Tyne: Location map

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Primary roads

Greenspace

Secondary roads

Industrial areas

Metro line

Urban development

Newcastle upon Tyne is the most-populous city in the east of Northern England. It forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation, the eighth most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Newcastle is one of the UK’s core cities, as well as part of the Eurocities network of European cities.

Newcastle played a major role during the 19thcentury Industrial Revolution, and was a leading centre for coal mining, shipbuilding, engineering, munitions and manufacturing. Heavy industries in Newcastle declined in the second half of the 20th century; with office, service and retail employment now becoming the city’s staples. The city was recognised for its commitment to environmental issues, with a programme planned for Newcastle to become “the first carbon neutral town” however those plans have slipped considerably and they now hope to be carbon neutral by 2050.1 There is great potential for a unification of this dormant industrial infrastructure and this commitment to environmental action.

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

The image opposite denotes the wider infrastructure of the North East. The cities metro line, repurposed from the coal mining tunnels circles Newcastle and the coast finishing at the air port. This also stretches south through Gateshead and down to Sunderland.

The region is inclosed by a green belt of agricultural land and the North Sea to the East. The port at Tynemouth played a huge role in Newcastle’s export infrastructure. The black areas denote Eldon Square and the Metrocentre shopping centres which will form our initial sites of interest.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_upon_Tyne

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Interpreting the site The rat’s perspective

Unlearning: Site exploration

What significance does the rat’s experience have for understanding these places and developing a wider framework?

As a studio group we wanted to approach our site in a different way. Traditionally we inspect a sight from an economic human eye, looking for areas of development, mapping from the authoritative and distanced birds eye view. For me, inspecting the site would be as a cis white male and along with this comes all my learned interpretations through my world lense. This was a poor starting point to in order to understand things from an ecological perspective. In order to address the issues our studio group presented we needed to start somewhere else.

In the Anthropocene humans are damaging the planet and ecosystems at an alarming rate. As architects and planners we create spaces for ourselves and encroach upon the land of other species. If we learnt to understand the city from the rats perspective perhaps we could learn to design cities as an ecology to support a balance between all species?

The rat On our first site visit we walked around with no intentions, just absorbing the site without aim. Our micro-group stumbled across a dead rat and at first we joked about this being a protagonist through which to understand the site. Soon after we realised the opportunities of the rat. The death of the rat epitomised the human intervention with nature, it also symbolised the ecological cycle of life and death and rebirth. To challenge our learned perceptions of rats and to perceive life from their eyes would give us a greater understanding of a different species in relation to ecology and humans. Additionally, the rat and the human are not so different. Like a rat in a maze, humans scurry around sprawling shopping centres motivated by meaningless gratification. Humans crowd together on transport like rats in sewers on an endless, self-defeating and pointless pursuit, attempting to earn a reward in vain. No wonder it’s the rat race.

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Dead rat found of site at the Metrocentre

What questions does this narrative pose for architectural practice?

The status quo of architectural practice isn’t working for the planet. We need a shift in perspective and objective to start to implement change. I believe this has to happen at a systemic level, politically, economically and ethically. The narrative of the dead rat, our failure and rejection of the ecosystem, starts to scrape the surface.

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Relics of the coal industry The North East is the oldest intensive coal mining district in the country and most of its infrastructure and economy was born as a result of the coal industry. Rats now inhabit our past burrows and use them to move around the city. The collieries that once dominated many parts of North East England have now gone and the pit heaps have been reclaimed and naturalised into the landscape, but there is no doubting the important influence that coal mining has had upon shaping the modern character of North East England. Many of the relics of the coal industry can be seen to have shaped the current landscape such as the town moor. I will look at the coal industry as an economic driver. I am interested in a flow of use and re-use, systems of products and by-products through which we will be able to address our consumer, urban, industrial and environmental waste. Most specifically the CO2 waste in the atmosphere as a by-product of the coal industry, could this become a new product?

Relics of the coal industry: Movement through the city 16

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Traditional retail system High street

“Perhaps the greatest single example of architectural vandalism in Britain since the war. Until ten years ago this most handsome piece of old Newcastle, with its blackened, post-classical f rontages survived intact.

Spatial

Social

Product/ Enviro consumption

E-commerce retail

Shopping centre

Spatial

Social

Product/ Enviro consumption

Online

Spatial

Social

Product/ Enviro consumption

Future retail retrofit Carbon Capture

Spatial

Social

Product/ Enviro consumption

Evolution of retail

Today only one side remains, the rest dominated by the astonishingly brutal shopping centre put up by Capital and Counties, turning its brick backside on the world in the most aggressive way, in order to lure Novocastrians into the softly-lit womb of the air-conditioned shopping malls within.”1 - Christopher Booker (1978)

Why shopping centres?

Fuelling global warming If we think about what enables shopping centres to exist, we walk into a privately owned structure, powered by fossil fuels created from the last mass extinction event, a highly engineered building that is inextricably linked to our current extractivist world problems, all stemming from a capitalist logic. The emergence of the post-war city has always been off the back of the oil and coal industry.

The retail apocalypse Today retail is dying as commerce moves online, leaving these big structures to adapt or die. This provides us an opportunity for radical change, both environmentally and socially. Shopping centres can form a base structure for retrofit rather than become derelict. They could also feature new social spaces for interaction rather than the typical commercial and retail that dominates the city centre, again an issue underpinning many of the consumerist issues we are facing with capitalism.

1 Urban rides (1978) The Spectator Archive”. Archive.spectator.co.uk.

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Eldon Square 1960

Eldon Square 2020

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

“Rats are Rhizomes. Burrows too, in all of their functions of shelter, supply, movement, evasion and breakout.”1

Corner, J. The Agency of Mapping

Burrows and coal seams Open-ended and indeterminate characteristics can be likened to the process-form of the rhizome.

‘Unlike trees or their roots’, writes Deleuze and Guattari, the rhizome connects any point to any other point… It has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle (milieu) from which it grows and overspills, [constituting] linear multiplicities. Rats are rhizomes. Burrows too, in all of their functions of shelter, supply, movement, evasion and breakout.”

By contrast to traditional forms of top down mapping, the infinitely open, rhizomatic nature of mapping affords many diverse entry ways, exits and “lines of flight“, each of which allows for a plurality of readings, uses and effects. The burrowing and extending is what Deleuze and Guattari refer to as the ‘plane of consistency’. This viewpoint privileges actions and effects over representation and meaning. Removing the authority of power from the traditional mapper looking down upon a subject. 1 Rhizome mapping: Correlation between humans and rats (opposite)

As we moved from group work, exploring the ideas of the rat, towards our individual work I enjoyed exploring the likeness between humans and rats, as burrowers. Through this rhizome map I have tried to show the parallels between rats and humans and our burrowing behaviour and the disseminatory effect of our ‘burrowing’ for coal on global warming. Mining for coal contextualises the project in Newcastle. I then correlated this to carbon dioxide levels and mass extinctions. The nature of the rhizome map also challenges the traditional authority of a top down map, this puts rats and humans on the same plane.

Just as James Corner says, ‘rats are rhizomes’, but so are the mineshafts and tunnels created by humans under the city of Newcastle. Perhaps these by-products could be utilised in a strategy to function for ‘shelter, supply, movement evasion and breakout’. Could the city become interconnected as a Rhizome?

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Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

Corner, J. The Agency of Mapping (245)

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Coal as an economic driver The past I began looking at the history of coal as an economic driver in Newcastle, plotting a time line of economy and infrastructure from the conception of the coal fired steam engine, what Tim Morton labelled “The inception of humanity as a geophysical force on a planetary scale and the end of the world”. The red rectangles plot the significant improvements in economy and infrastructure. The yellow rectangles plots the levels of CO2 increase in parts per meter in the atmosphere. As we reach the 21st century it can be seen that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has doubled since the industrial revolution.

Does coal have a future in Newcastle or the world?

The future?

I hope to utilise this infrastructure and economy to address the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. From mining the ground to mining the air there may be potential for the past to address the future.

(Opposite) https://englandsnortheast.co.uk/CoalMiningandRailways.html Plan of the Northumberland and Durham Coalfield in 1854 by Thomas Young Hall

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(opposite) Timeline of coal use in the North East of England

Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

T he CO2 bath What if we stop increasing emissions?

The University of Victoria’s Andrew Weaver

Even at the current emissions rate, CO2 is released into the atmosphere nearly twice as fast as it is being removed - so the bathtub will continue to fill

and his team concluded that, “Even when emissions are stabilised at 90 per cent below present levels at 2050, [the] 2.0°c

IN

threshold is eventually broken. Our results

9.1 billion tons a year

suggest that if a 2.0°c warming is to be avoided, direct CO2 capture f rom the air, together with subsequent sequestration, would eventually have to be introduced in

450 ppm 412

2020 average

additions to sustained 90 per cent global

299

Highest ice core reading (333,000 years ago) Preindustrial level

carbon emissions reductions by 2050.

271

Weaver, A . J. et al.

0

Long Term Climate Implications

Where does our CO2 go?

Plants and soil absorb about a third each year, and ocean surface waters absorb about one quater.

The rest stays airborne for a long time

Why we need to remove CO2 OUT

in 45% Remains atmosphere by 30% Absorbed plants & soil Absorbed by 25% oceans by <1% Absorbed rocks

The Paris agreement

5 billion tons a year

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015 and entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to preindustrial levels. To achieve this long-term temperature goal, countries aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century. The Paris Agreement is a landmark in the multilateral climate change process because, for the first time, a binding agreement brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects.1

C02 map UK

How much is too much?

Some scientists think we need to reduce the CO2 level back down to 350 ppm to avoid serious climate impacts.. But if current emission trends continue, 450 ppm will be passed well before mid-century

The CO2 bath So, why does this matter, why not just plant more trees? I like to use this analogy of the CO2 bath. We have had a steady stream of CO2 pouring into our atmosphere since the industrial revolution where we only had 271 parts per meter of CO2. We are currently inputting 9.1 billion tons a year and only 5 billion tons of this is sequestered by natural means. We are now at 412 ppm and the bath is about to over flow, at 450 ppm we do irreversible damage. Even if we tapper the stream, we turn off the tap and go zero carbon, this high concentration of CO2 still remains. We have to actively remove CO2, pull out the plug. Many scientists see carbon capture as an essential tool in mitigating CO2 levels as we move towards a carbon neutral or negative society.

Technology

Hasn’t CO2 been this high before?

Not for at least 800,000 years, say the oldest air bubbles found in Antartic ice cores, and probably not for millions of years

(opposite) CO2 bath analogy mapping

The Paris Agreement speaks of the vision of fully realizing technology development and transfer for both improving resilience to climate change and reducing GHG emissions. It establishes a technology framework to provide over arching guidance to the well-functioning Technology Mechanism. The mechanism is accelerating technology development and transfer through it’s policy and implementation arms.2 Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

1 https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-parisagreement 2 IBID

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Newcastle Upon Tyne Annual emissions (2015) Total:

1,384,478t CO2

Direct Air Capture Annual capture capacity Total:

CO 1.32: to Meg nn a es

Making the invisible - visible The Climate Change (Mitigation) Strategy 2018 document published by Newcastle City Council illustrates the CO2 emissions calculated in the BEIS data set at 1,384,478 tCO2.1 This allowed me to visualise this as a carbon cube across the city centre. Climeworks Orca Direct Air Capture facility in Iceland captures 4,000 tCO2 a year.

This means if 346 shopping centres in the North East were converted to Carbon Capture facilities this would account for the daily emissions of Newcastle.

Coal: 1,802 G

tCO2

Rema ining b u 1,010 GtCO2 dget:

The carbon budget

Gas: 429 G tCO2

The red cube (left) is the actual volume of carbon dioxide gas we can emit and still have a chance of keeping global warming below 2 °C. It is 81 km high (51 miles). The other volumes are the emissions from the proven reserves of fossil fuels (according to Global Energy Outlook).

1 Newcastle City Council (2018) Climate Change (Mitigation) Strategy December 2018

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4,000t CO2

Oil: 629 G tCO2

The carbon budget

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Learning to live off our waste Climeworks precedent Climeworks CCU systems strategy - Typical

Climeworks CCU systems strategy - Typical

“With our technology we capture carbon dioxide directly from the air. The air-captured carbon dioxide can either be recycled and used as a raw material, or completely removed from the air by safely storing it. Our machines consist of modular CO2 collectors that can be stacked to build machines of any size. Climeworks direct air capture machines are powered solely by renewable energy or energy-from-waste. Grey emissions are below 10%, which means that out of 100 tons of carbon dioxide that our machines capture from the air, at least 90 tons are permanently removed and only up to 10 tons are re-emitted. “1 Climeworks often adopts an area/region specific strategies for their implementation of CCU systems for example in Iceland utilising the Geothermal potential of the landscape in conjunction with the air capture system. Likewise I would like to implement a similar strategy in the North East.

(opposite) Climeworks direct air capture facility Climeworks CCU system strategy - Iceland

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1 https://www.climeworks.com/co2-removal

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Using Newcastle’s past to address its future My aim was to develop an urban strategy that used Newcastle’s past mining heritage as a means to address its future. By utilising the by-products (the CO2) and the products of the industry (the power, infrastructure and economy) in a new technology to turn pollution into possibility through- Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) via Direct Air Capture (DAC).

The strategy looks at coal as an economic and infrastructure driver in the North East and hinges upon a reutilisation of these old colliery infrastructures as a means to distribute Captured Carbon to existing industrial areas where it would be of use in making new thermopolymers to replace plastics, new materials and new zero-carbon fuels.

This then comes full circle when products created from the captured CO2 feeds back into the urban proposal. This system is then deployed regionally using the existing web of connections to create a city as an interconnected, growing rhizome.

Public engagement document extract

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Regional proposal Integration within the wider landscape The collieries that once dominated many parts of North East England have now gone and the pit heaps have been reclaimed and naturalised into the landscape, but there is no doubting the important influence that coal mining has had upon shaping the modern character of North East England.

The energy grids, transport networks and subsequent economy generated from the coal mining industry offers a great opportunity to address the environmental issues which they once helped sustain. Laid out is an existing network connecting to power plants, industrial areas and renewable energy plants, at the heart of which is Eldon’s direct air capture facility. This network has been already utilised by the new rail routes and the metro but much of it is still unused. I will turn these byproducts of mine shafts into products once more for distribution of captured CO2 to areas where it can be utilised most effectively. Using Newcastle’s coal heritage to address its future.

Electricity hubs Coal power plant Wind farms 32

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Land fill gas plants Old collieries

Metro system Old colliery routes Railway Electric lines Potential shopping centres

S I T E PLAN:ECOL OG Y & C OAL 0

200

500

1:10,000

1000

500m grid

Potential retail sites for conversion to Direct Air Capture facilities Potential local site for captured carbon processing Ecology improvement potential along SITE P L AN : E C OL O G Y & C OTyne A Lcorridor 0

L O GY

L O GY

1000 1000

Existing metro stations

200

500

1000

1 : 1 0 ,Carbon 0 0 0 Capture fans fitted

Wildlife enhancement opportunity zone Wildlife enhancement zone Tyne ecological corridor Old collieries Coal veins Old surface mining pits Shallow pits Coal veins Railways Metro lines

New work

SI TE P L AN:EL DO N 0

50

100

1:2,500

250(m)

500m grid

Bus system converted to run on biofuel from biogas/ CCS energy system.

Potential local site for captured carbon processing Existing bus route is pedestrianised with cycle route Existing metro stations Carbon Capture fans fitted

New work

Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Ethical materials Reclaimed , Recycled or Sustainable timber Reclaimed or recycled wood has a much lower environmental impact than harvesting new timber.

Easy to source, excellent energy-saving material.

AshCrete

Understanding material

Composed of about 97% recycled materials, AshCrete is an environmentally friendly concrete using fly ash instead of cement. It consists of borate, a chemical from the chlorine family and bottom ash (fly ash is known to be cost-effective).

AshCrete usually has smaller pores, resulting in better strength, having roughly twice the strength of Portland cement.

Ethical materials The global trade in construction materials and products is worth about US$305 billion.1 Construction accounts for 40% of the total flow of raw materials into the global economy every year— some 3 billion tons.2 The majority of these materials are stone, gravel, sand, clay, iron ore and other quarried products.3 Construction and the operation of buildings also account for 25% of all virgin wood use.3 Architects usually copy specifications from previous projects without considering the contextual and ethical implications. I would like to look at alternatives to the traditional material pallet and their counterparts that can be used to sequester more CO2 or reduce CO2 production to support the carbon capture facility design principle.

Ethical materials Ethical and sustainable materials often go hand in hand but are not identical. The ethical materials I would like to look at implementing into my design should be low carbon, a more environmentally friendly alternative to existing typical materials, locally sourced or up-cyclable from the existing Eldon.

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Carbon capture materials

Ferrock

I would like to explore as many materials that can be created from the carbon captured on site allowing the building to grow organically from the first captured fan and not producing more CO2. This phasing strategy will allow the community to engage and understand the carbon capture and take pride in healing their city.

Ferrock is as a largely iron-rich ferrous rock. It is made from recycled materials like waste steel dust and silica from the ground up glass. It is typically used as an alternative to cement. Ferrock is great at absorbing, binding CO2 and overall reducing pollution.

Weathers well. 5 times stronger than Portland cement. 10 to 25 %weight than a structure made of bricks. The process of Ferrock development is sustainable.

Contextual materials I will also explore the existing vernacular and materials and see what can be improved or used to help the building fit into its existing context. The materials are essential to supporting the concept so the carbon capture facility does not contradict itself in construction.

1 MAK S.-L. Where are construction materials headed? Building Innovation and Construction Technology, 1999, 8, 1–3. See: http://www.cmit.csiro.au/ innovation/1999-08/ pdf/innovation_sustainable.pdf 2 ROODMAN D. M. and LENSSEN N. A Building Revolution: How Ecology and Health Concerns are Transforming Construction. Worldwatch, Washington DC, 1995, Paper No. 124. (Cited in: SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION TASK GROUP. Reputation, Risk and Reward. Centre for Sustainable Construction, Building Research Establishment, Watford, 2002, p. 2) 3 SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION TASK GROUP. Reputation, Risk and Reward.

Centre for Sustainable Construction, Building Research Establishment, Watford, 2002. ppp_en.shtml (last accessed 13 June 2004).

Plant-Based Polyurethane Rigid Foam Plant-based rigid foam is often used as insulation and furniture material. It’s made from hemp, kelp and bamboo, which makes it resilient to moisture and heat. It has better insulation and thermal resistance than fibreglass.

Sound insulation and heat resistance.

Enviroboard Enviroboard is a fire-resistant board made up of magnesium, sawdust, and fibre cloth, typically used for wall lining, roof lining, and underlay systems. Environmentally friendly fire board products are stronger than conventional boards and don’t warp over time due to their water resistance. Due to its natural drying and curing process, they don’t release extra carbon emissions.

Replacement for traditional plaster board which is bad for the environment

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Materials from carbon capture

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Materials found on site

Thermopolymers

Dark purple brick

Finding an alternative to plastics is one of the key ways of facilitating a move away from global dependencies on crude oil. Sustainable materials company Newlight uses captured CO2 or methane emissions to create a bioplastic called AirCarbon – a thermopolymer, which means it can be melted down and reshaped.

Replaces the highly polluting plastic making process. Produces rigid materials like PVC

Sheep’s wool is entirely natural and environmentally friendly material that can be re grown quickly. . Usually, you can see wool incorporated in the ceiling, walls or attics.

Easy to source, excellent energy-saving insulative material.

Clean concrete

Sandstone

Making concrete is a notoriously dirty process. Cement, the main binding agent in concrete, is thought to contribute to as much as 5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions captured can be used as a raw material from which to create the concrete, effectively ‘locking in’ carbon and storing it for the long term.

CO2 chemically transforms into limestone, reinforcing the concrete- reduces cement

Reclaimed or recycled wood has a much lower environmental impact than harvesting new timber.

Easy to source, excellent energy-saving material.

Metal alternatives

Metal cladding

Carbon nanotubes are stronger than steel but lighter than aluminium, which makes them a hugely useful material. They’re currently used in jets, sports cars and even in industrial structures Its C2CNT technology splits captured CO2 into oxygen and carbon in a molten carbonate bath using electrolysis. From here the carbon is repurposed into carbon nanotubes at a high rate and lower cost than previous methods.

Composed of about 97% recycled materials, AshCrete is an environmentally friendly concrete using fly ash instead of cement. It consists of borate, a chemical from the chlorine family and bottom ash (fly ash is known to be cost-effective).

AshCrete usually has smaller pores, resulting in better strength, having roughly twice the strength of Portland cement.

Carbon neutral fuels

Glazing

Californian company Opus 12 has developed a device that recycles CO2 from ambient air and industrial emissions and turns it into fuels and chemicals using only electricity and water. The device has the CO2 conversion power of 37,000 trees.

Although not a material - using carbon neutral fuels can reduce emissions in the transportation of materials

Ferrock is as a largely iron-rich ferrous rock. It is made from recycled materials like waste steel dust and silica from the ground up glass. It is typically used as an alternative to cement. Ferrock is great at absorbing, binding CO2 and overall reducing pollution.

Weathers well. 5 times stronger than Portland cement. 10 to 25 %weight than a structure made of bricks. The process of Ferrock development is sustainable.

bio-based hybrid foam

Interior

The material is a bio-based hybrid foam infused with a high amount of CO2-adsorbing ‘zeolites’ – microporous aluminosilicates. The porous, open structure of the material reportedly gives it a great ability to adsorb the carbon dioxide.

Extremely lightweight. 90% CO2 by weight. Potential insulative

Plant-based rigid foam is often used as insulation and furniture material. It’s made from hemp, kelp and bamboo, which makes it resilient to moisture and heat. It has better insulation and thermal resistance than fibreglass.

Sound insulation and heat resistance.

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Carbon sequestering ‘self healing’ concrete Self-healing concrete

What if we could create buildings that not only exist to serve us but can actively heal themselves and the environment?

Researchers at Newcastle Universities Hub for Biotechnology in the built environment have been working with a form of ‘self-healing concrete’ via microbial induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) and its potential in bio-concrete. I spoke with Dr Magdalini Theodoridou who informed me of the process and potential applications for carbon sequestration.

MICP – Microbial Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation MICP is a widespread biochemical process in soils, caves, freshwater, marine sediments, and hypersaline habitats. MICP is an outcome of metabolic interactions between diverse microbial communities with organic and/or inorganic compounds present in the environment.

Microbial spore

CSH CaCO3 Ca(OH)2

Process MICP bio-concrete works by mixing microbes, naturally occurring in soil (sporosarcina pasleurii and sporosarcina ureae), into the material mixture.

When isolated in the material the microbes produce spore capsules to protect themselves. Once a crack appears and breaks the spoors the microbes are exposed to the air and moisture, triggering metabolic crystal formation - calcium carbonate precipitation via ureae hydrolysis. This changes the microstructure of the material through reduced porosity resulting in a denser material healing cracks in the concrete through carbon in the atmosphere.

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Bioconcrete and has demonstrated an improvement in the mechanical and durability properties of concrete. Bioconcrete is a promising sustainable technology which reduces negative environmental impact caused by CO2 emissions from the construction sector, as well as in terms of economic benefits by way of promoting a self-healing process of concrete structures.1 1 Castro-Alonso María José, Montañez-Hernandez Lilia Ernestina, Sanchez-Muñoz Maria Alejandra, Macias Franco Mariel Rubi, Narayanasamy Rajeswari, Balagurusamy Nagamani (2019) Microbially Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) and Its Potential in Bioconcrete: Microbiological and Molecular Concepts : Frontiers in Materials.

VOLUME=6 < https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmats.2019.00126/full> Work at Newcastle: http://bbe.ac.uk/index.php/tag/micp/

CO2

H2O

Spores

CO2

H2O

Thinking through making Concept model In order to develop my project I spent a week on critically focused material exploration, using this in conjunction with the rigorous technical studies to develop spatial and conceptual ideas to drive my project. The first thing I wanted to create was a conceptual model that would spatially convey my word map and conceptual building section.

Modelling this posed difficulties in Covid-19 requiring a lot of forethought and correspondence with the workshop when working from home. The model illustrates the curvaceous spaces of the burrows and caves with floors created ontop of them using vacuum formed thermoplastics which can be created from captured carbon. Columns span out of the floor connecting the direct air capture fans at the top to the lower levels. These columns free up the ground floor allowing for a permeable deprivatised space and they break at the centre intending to reveal the process of carbon capture as it happens, acting to engage the community with the process.

This is an essential part of the narrative of healing in contrast to the privatisation and disconnection in the coal industry which caused the damage in the North East.

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First semester: Concept word map

Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

The model staging required a series of CNC’d foam and MDF forms to create the vacuum forms for the roof and floor. The foam CNC’s were cast to create the DAC unit components and top of the structural columns. I had anticipated being able to drill and connect the DAC plaster shells via wire as I had done for the columns, unfortunately these were too thin and would break so I had to improvise with the brass dowel making supporting hooks. If I had better access to the workshop and could do this again I would have made slightly thicker DAC units and drilled these into the top column components, removing the need for the thicker supporting brass dowel in the centre giving a feeling of weightlessness.

I now intend to explore how the materials and processes I have been exploring can be implemented into the building using this model as a base study.

Top: Model staging process

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Bottom: Workshop component creation

Concept model exploded

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Cellulose as a building material Cellulose is the most abundant macromolecule on earth and most cellulose is produced by vascular plants. It can be usually found in a solid state – fibrous usually in nature. Cellulose plays the role of a tough, fibrous polysaccharide that chains in arranged fibrils which suggest the biomaterial’s strength and superior mechanical properties.

Bacterial cellulose is a living material with a fine and intricate structure that can be grown to virtually any shape and thickness and be produced on a variety of substrates. Bacterial cellulose responds to the medium that it is surrounded by and reacts promptly to the stimulus sent by the proximal biome (weather, stress, tension, time weathering).

Ethics Bacterial cellulose is a material that is obtained from natural occurring compounds and it is a biodegradable matter, it does not break the ecosystem chain and it does not pollute with its presence. It can be ecologically produced and easily recycled/ regenerated.

Bacterial cellulose and 3D fabrication

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Autogenic manufacturing growth of bacterial cellulose on scaffold framework

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

Mechanical growth system and maintenance of bacterial cellulose on scaffold framework

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Day 4: Thin transparent growth

Day 6: Air bubbling beneath the cellulose film

Day 7: Cellulose film sunk top corners after an attempt to press out the air pockets

Day 11: Cellulose film sunk bottom corners after an attempt to press out the air pockets

Day 12: Almost all liquid has been turned into cellulose

Day 14: No visible liquid remaining, darkening of cellulose film

Day 14: Removal and separation from scoby

Day 14: Cleaning with soap and cold water to stop the process

Day 14: Transparency of film roughly 8mm thick

Day 15: Air drying on MDF (later move to olive wood as less porous/ likely to stick)

Day 20: Cellulose leather darkened and shrunk after drying, still tackey to touch

Day 20: Cellulose leather wrapped around metal wire with light

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Day 3: Skin growth (potential contamination at centre)

Day 3: Boiling and sieving of fine aggregate

Day 3: Addition of aggregate scattered cellulose submerged after trying to push down slightly

Day 6: New film growth separate from submerged skin except centre

Day 14: Almost all liquid has been turned into cellulose, sediment has coloured the cellulose

Day 15: Removed film placed to dry on olive wood

Day 15: Aggregate and film that failed to bond where submerged

Day 15: Tear that occurred at the centre where films where bonded

Day 15: Aggregate that bonded to upper layer of cellulose growth

Day 25: Dried upper cellulose film with aggregate

Day 25: Dried upper cellulose film transparency with aggregate

Day 25: Both layers of dried cellulose film. Top layer bonded with aggregate (left) bottom (right)

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Concrete tension forms

Plaster tension forms

Home grown oyster mycelium plaster (relief)

Further material studies With my material studies I wanted to explore how a material could be made more ethical. Tension forms use their forms to create strength by using less material - this was common practice when materials were more expensive. A concave concrete component could span a module without the depth and mass of material that is used today. In doing this the building is already made more ethical by reducing the quantities of material required and the subsequent embodied energy, labour and environmental impact.

Building off the exploration of rhizome philosophy in semester 1 for connecting the regional strategy of carbon capture shopping centre retrofits I have explored the rhizome of mycelium as a spatial quality for creating the burrow like commercial spaces.

The relief of these organic forms create very lose, cavernous forms with interesting light. Suspended floors could then be created within these spaces from captured carbon like illustrated with the thermopolymers in the concept model.

Concrete components

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Home grown oyster mycelium in concrete (positive)

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Understanding Eldon Square Rhythms of Eldon In order to understand how to propose on the site it is intrinsic to understand what is there and what has been and gone. The initial development of Eldon Square saw the demolition of over 200 homes releasing an equivalent of 137,922 tonnes of CO2.

Eldon Square is predominantly brick with towering facades in excess of 15m, this wraps all around the site, with a typical brickwork system composting of 82.8% brick and 17.2% mortar this is a lot of cement, alongside the concrete frame structure. Cement is the most polluting global industry. It is important to me following the ethical vein that as much of this CO2 is kept sequestered within the material, meaning a proposal that integrates within the existing structural frame and re-uses, remanufactures and recycles the existing material.

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Phase 1

PROPOSE D EL D O N SQ UARE STAGE S O F L I FE CYCL E

One fan is installed to start carbon capture. This then allows on site captured CO2 to be used in making the material for further capture units and prevents extra CO2 production in construction.

Using biodegradable materials such as bacterial cellulose Regional/ building and social reciprocal systems of material and energy re-use

Phase 2 Rigid plastic thermopolymers are formed, using the captured CO2 from the first fan, to provide the components for later fans.

Reduce extraction of finite resources and ban extraction of fossil Sustainably harvested fules and natural materials and labour gases conditions

Waste to energy, utilising existing materials and closing the life cycle loop

Designing for post-use/ phased reintegration to nature

Carbon neurtal/ negative manufacure and inuse

Designing for longevity and adaption in building frames

Challenging traditional life cycles Capture facilities are systematically built up from their first fan installations. This creates a rhizomatic structure of growth.

IGBC STAGES OF L I FE CYCL E Sustainable transport running on biofuels and carbon neural fuels made from carbon capture

Retrofit and adaption of dying industries to address their carbon debts

Eld on Sq

Phase 4

u Sustainably powered reutilisation of colliery transport lines

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Designing for dismantling and re-use rather than demolition

ing

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Phase 3

Situat

In my process of understanding and proposing into the existing Eldon square building on the site I wanted to analyse the current stages of a buildings life cycle as given by the Green Building Council. The inner circle of the opposite diagram show the existing phases of life cycle from material extraction until demolition. I wanted to see where I could challenge each of these traditional stages within my proposal because even if you propose a sustainable building it may be very harmful throughout all the other stages and in the spirit of my first semester work I wanted to ensure my building was ethical from cradle to grave. Eldon square as illustrated is currently situated across three sections in my opinion: maintenance, refurbishment and potential demolition. My proposal aims to avoid demolition and utilise the existing building frame and integrate a radical new programme. The outer circle of icons gives a few examples for how I have challenged the existing phases of life cycle within my building proposal. I explored most of these in my first semester ethical framework and I am continuing to explore innovative and ethical materials to propose.

Ethical labour conditions

Regional facilities connect through mine shaft distribution networks in order to support each others growth

Designing buildings on structural grids that facilitate easy retrofit between occupancy types. I.e. offices become residential

On-site captured material for production removes transport Increasing community engagement and knowledge of materials to take care of their buildings

Phase 5 Once the number of fans are achieved captured CO2 can then be used in new materials to help construct the rest of the retrofit: deprivatising the ground and new commercial spaces.

Semester 1 Proposal: Challenging traditional construction methods organic, ethical phased building growth

Maintenance of buildings can be performed with microbes just as interior would be cleaned

Self-healing (MICP) concrete acts to organically maintain the building structure by inhaling CO2

Using ethical materials such as bacterial cellulose that remove the need for extraction and biodegrade Using on-site captured carbon materials allowing the building to grow organically

IGBC launches programmes to increase measurement of embodied carbon in new construction

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MINING

Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Raw materials employed in the manufacture of cement and concrete are extracted by quarrying in the case of hard rocks such as limestones, slates, and some shales, with the aid of blasting when necessary. Some deposits are mined by underground methods. Softer rocks such as chalk and clay can be dug directly by excavators.

ENVIRONMENT: Effects to biodiversity occurs in diverse ways, it can disturb plant growth by settling on leaves and hinder photosynthesis thus disrupting food chains. This can also settle in water bodies and cause pollution.

LABOUR: Many mines and quarries abroad use modern day slave labour, child labour and exploitation. Dust from quarries causes many respiratory diseases and conditions.

ENERGY: The heavy machinery used in quarrying and subsequent transport uses alot of fuel that produces CO2 aswell as explosives which release harmful chemicals.

Concrete

ETHICS: As a conseqence of dubious sourcing and labour conditions alsohigh energy consumption and environmental impact the material extraction of concrete is unethical

processes required to extract from the environment the raw materials included in the product.

MATERIAL EXTRACTION

Clay

Clay or brick pits quarried in same process

Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s, has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production.

Coal CONCRETE/ CLAY/ COAL: The excavated materials are transported to a crushing plant, the materials will need to be sieved to remove unwanted material such as rocks, twigs, and roots. They are then pulverised and dried, soaked or sieved depending on the material. For concrete the processed materials are then blended in their determined ratios (water not yet added.)

ENVIRONMENT: This is generally the least damaging stage simply drying and processing. The enviorment is damaged by CO2 and landuse for machinery in this stage.

LABOUR: Labour conditions are generally minimal as most of these processes can be provided by machinery. Labour used in transportation of goods.

ENVIRONMENT/ LABOUR/ ETHICS AND ENERGY AS ABOVE

Cleaning & crushing

ENERGY: The heavy machinery used in processing raw materials can be energy intensive and high in CO2 production.

Semester 1 Ethical Framework: Embodied labour MATERIAL PROCESSING

RECYCLING

ETHICS: Generally ethical in terms of labour, still highly dependent on fossil fuel energy and is hence harmful for the enviroment.

the industrial processes involved in transforming the raw materials for use

When water is added to cement, the chemical reaction called hydration takes place and contributes to the final concrete product. The calcium silicates contribute most to the strength of concrete. Concrete can then be poured in-situ formwork to set as a structure.

ENVIRONMENT: It is the process of hydration that produces the huge ammounts of CO2 associated with concrete. This is one of the leading contributors to CO2 production globally, 8% of global emissions. Further impacts can include acid rain as a result of emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and nitric oxide; health risks of locally high concentrations of cement kiln dust, and the depletion of drinking water supplies.

LABOUR: As this process is usually performed on-site labour is far easier to monitor.

Concrete

the industrial processes involved in transforming the materials into products

PRODUCT MANUFACTURE

CONCRETE: Concrete is the most commonly used man-made material on earth. It is an important structural construction material used extensively in buildings, bridges, roads and dams. BRICK: Bricks are a common structrual building material used in construction. COAL: The burining of coal is used as fuel primarily to generate electricity through steam turbines.

ENVIRONMENT: Concrete causes damage to the most fertile layer of the earth, the topsoil.

Concrete is used to create hard surfaces which contribute to surface runoff that may cause soil erosion, water pollution and flooding. Its thermal mass contirutes to creating thermal heat islands and concrete dust released by building demolition and natural disasters can be a major source of dangerous air pollution.

ENERGY: Huge amounts of energy are dispursed in hydration. The cement industry is the most energy intensive industries of all.

REMANUFACTURING

Brick

ETHICS: Interms of environmental degredation, markedly CO2 producion this is the least ethical aspect of concrete production, more needs to be done in reducing CO2 at this stage.

Dried clay or shale is, once ground, mixed with water and dry pressed into steel moulds with a hydraulic press moulding into the brick shape. These are then assembled in a kiln and fired upwards of 1000C. ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY: The only significant environmental impact during the raw material and production phase stems from the energy used in firing. ... The very small proportion sent for disposal causes no environmental problems, as brick has no negative impact on the soil or groundwater. Having said this the cement used in mortar to bond bricks is highly damaging.

LABOUR: As this process is usually performed locally labour is far easier to monitor.

ETHICS: Besides the energy required in firing the manufacture of bricks are ethical.

Concrete

LABOUR/ ENERGY: Little to no in-use labour and energy besides maintenance.

ETHICS: Concrete remains highly unethical at all stages due to its immense tole on the environment and inhabitants.

Brick

ENVIRONMENT: Brick has a beneficial effect on the indoor climate as brickwork emits no gases, smells or other emissions. It also absorbs sounds and vibrations, regulates heat.

PRODUCT USE

REUSE

LABOUR: There is a fair ammount of labour involved with laying bricks however this is well controlled due to locality. energy ENERGY: The porous structure of bricks enables the storage of renewable energy. Researchers estimated that 50 capacitor bricks would take 13 minutes to charge and could provide enough energy to power the emergency lighting of a building for at least 50 minutes.

Coal

utilisation of the product over its lifetime.

When concrete is demolished or fails due to age it is most oftern sent to landfill or recycled or reused as road based aggregate with other mineral waste materials.

ETHICS: Bricks are generally highly ethical in their application.

ENVIRONMENT: Concrete has a high level of embodied carbon stored within it, in the same way as a tree sequesters carbon and when it is broken down this carbon is released into the atmosphere. The dust in demolition can cause air pollution and damage freshwater.

ENVIRONMENT: The burning of coal produes huge amounts of CO2.

LABOUR: There is little labour demand today but historically coal’s labour has been very damaging ENERGY: Coal is burned in a furnace with a boiler and power electricity generators.

Coal is predominanty used to create energy.

LABOUR: Little labour is embodied in current demolition techniques oftern simply bulldozing the building in its entirety.

Concrete

ETHICS: Coal through it’s processes is highly unethical.

ENERGY: Stored energy is released in the demolition of concrete and many machines and transport vehicles are required to be powered.

ETHICS: Concrete demolition is unethical, if foundations are frames were desinged for retrofit and chnaging building uses it could be argued to be ethical due to longevity.

PRODUCT END OF LIFE processes required to recycle. remanufacture and reuse or whether the product has to be binned.

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Unless considerable care is taken to dismantle a brick structure it, like concrete, is oftern downcycled to be used as aggregate after demolition.

Brick

Understanding embodied labour, energy, ethics and environment

ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY: The brick-clad house embodied over 30% more carbon and energy, owing to the increase in minerals associated with the cladding (sand, brick and cement) and increases in transport and construction costs. The masonry house embodied 51% more carbon and 35% more energy compared to the timber framed, larch-clad house.

LABOUR: Little labour is embodied in current demolition techniques oftern simply bulldozing the building in its entirety.

ETHICS: So although bricks are generally ethical, the process of bonding with cement embodies a lot of CO2. A typical brickwork system is 82.8% brick by volume with 17.2% mortar.

Building off my work challenging the stages of life cycle within Eldon I wanted to look further in depth at the life cycle, cradle to grave, in terms of embodied labour, energy, ethics and environment of Eldon dominant materials. Those I chose were clay due to the huge amounts of brick cladding, concrete because of the building structure and coal, building on the themes explored in first semester and an assumed highly used source of power during the buildings construction in 1970. This process was hugely enlightening to me, I had initially thought bricks were an ethical material however the quarrying process is very harmful, additionally due to the cement bonds, cement being the most environmentally damaging construction industry, it actually works out to be very harmful. This is something that could be very easily overlooked. I will be aiming to minimise all embodied energies in the retrofit of the proposal, and try and utilise as much of the existing Eldon square as possible, in addition to what can be re-used, remanufactured and recycled from existing materials removed in deprivatising the ground floor level.

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

Semester 1 Ethical Framework: Eldon existing energy system

Semester 1 Ethical Framework: Eldon proposed carbon capture system

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Existing technical section (assumptions) To understand the existing technical build up of Eldon I began an exploration of a bay study through the main block and bus station, I wanted to draw parallels between this existing building and my conceptual proposal from first semester and then see how they overlay. I managed to gather some information of floor to floor/ floor to ceiling and floor/ beam depth from existing architectural planning drawings. From this I made assumptions of the building methods used at the date of construction, assuming a concrete frame with steel pan deck. The external bay study revealed a 6m structural grid and due to this I made the assumption that the brick facade was not load bearing. I was able to make assumptions on the openings based on standardised frames and brick dimensions. I was able to inspect the roof finish from the rooftop parking to be stone slabs and I assumed a greater depth for the ability to carry car loads.

The bus station interior does not have a suspended ceiling, I assumed a furring of 10 degrees with folded metal cladding and a light steel structure. There are more floors than my conceptual drawing accounted for allowing for further detailed programme integration like labs and education space.

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First semester conceptual section for proposed intervention with eldon square

Existing technical isometric (assumptions) Once I had drawn an accurate assumption of Eldon Square, I was able to trace (in black) and then begin to see how areas of my proposal would integrate into the existing section (in red). As much of my proposal is about rooting into Newcastle’s old colliery mines and creating a regional system of carbon, capture, utilisation and transport there is much more to be proposed underground. The burrow like commercial spaces can be proposed in existing voids bellow ground but new connections will have to be made into the existinf metro transport link which runs below the site, and new infrastructure will have to be put in place to strengthen the existing colliery lines so that they can be used for captured carbon distribution to research facilities in the surrounds area. The pages opposite shows a further indepth understanding of the existing structure and facade of Eldon revealing the column and beam widths and depths. Now with an understanding of the existing building frame and components I can begin to break them down in terms of their embodied, labour, ethics, energy and CO2 and begin to propose how a new building can fit within this.

Integrating the proposed section with the existing section base 64

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On-site captured material Concrete structure model

Using biodegradable materials such as bacterial cellulose

Integrating proposed elements

Pouring In-use

Maintenance of buildings can be performed with microbes just as interior would be cleaned

Material embodied process

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Carbon neutral/ negative manufacture and in use

Mixing

Crushing

Quarrying

Once I had my 1:25 technical bay study section I was able to look at certain areas in further detail and begin to look at aspects of my proposal in a more technical detail. Again I wanted to analyse interventions in terms of ethics/ material/ labour process etc. The image opposite looks at the top floors of the section. I began to integrate the carbon capture units, storage/ filtration systems alongside a series of materials and forms I have been exploring.

The DAC units could be more functional behind a more sculptural elegant frame. This would be important being in the hub of the city centre to symbolise clean energy and entice people into carbon capture. I have begun to situate the icons of where we are challenging the existing life cycle of Eldon as well as integrating some of the new carbon capture materials that can be used as ethical replacements of existing materials in the building. The adjacent images illustrate the existing embodied process of concrete as explored in my earlier understanding Eldon diagram - I will look to how these can be challenged to improve them in the carbon captured versions of the materials.

CCU concrete

Existing upstand detail

CCU carbon metal alternatives

Proposed addition of DAC units

Biobased CCU hybrid foam

Tension concrete model

Thermopolymers

Plaster DAC unit model

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Eldon Square studied facade

Waste to energy CHP

Tiered concept model

Proposed deprivatised ground columns to view CO2 movement

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Mycelium plaster cast spatial model

In-use Material embodied process

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Material re-use

Self-healing (MICCP) Carbon negative concrete acts to organically maintain the building structure by inhaling CO2

Designing for dismantling and re-use rather than demolition

Pouring

CO2 Transport mineralisation

CO2 capture

Integrating proposed elements This detailed zoom in of the bay section looks at the ground and lower levels. I am proposing to deprivatise the ground, challenging the existing politics of commercial space, returning the city centre to its inhabitants. Carbon neutral concrete structures will encase the captured CO2 as it moves through the building, visualising the process. The underground spaces will be filled with burrow like commercial spaces, I have used a material study where I cast a negative of a mycelium rhizome I grew at home to give an atmospheric illustration of the spatial qualities it could contain. Adjacent is how I have challenged the existing embodied process of concrete in using captured carbon in the process with CO2 mineralisation removing the CO2 produced in creating concrete. Within the lower levels of the building I have proposed some community crop growing which produces 30% higher biomass yield using captured carbon, the microbes used in the MICCP concrete can also be cultivated in the soil. My concept model begins to illustrate the tiered concept explored in first semester in the word map adjacent.

These material studies have been integrated in the technical study.

Crop growing spores for self-healing concrete

CCU concrete

Semester 1: Concept word map

Spores for MICCP

On-site captured material for production removes transport and reduces building materials

Existing underground spaces to occupy

Existing structural grid study Following on from the detailed section explorations I wanted to look at the existing plan. The only thing I was able to deduce with a level of certainty was the 6x6m structural grid. This gave me the idea of an ethical way of integrating within the existing frame, allowing me to maintain this structure and its embodied carbon by creating modules to fit within the 6m frames that could be connected and extended but slotted together, allowing for adaptability within such a large space for future occupancy by minimising permanent interventions. The area on the right focuses on the area of the bay study and looks at further detail the assumed column detail, with the brick cladding and a 900x900mm exterior this makes a 675x675mm column.

Just as the wider strategy seeks to ethically situate itself within the region, building proposals must ethically situate themselves within the existing frame of Eldon Square.

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The process of healing Historically the coal industry has seen local communities unwillingly give up their land, allowing privatised companies to make vast prof its whilst they received only pollution in return. This process of healing can not be about prof iting, it has to be about community.

Newcastle’s coal mining heritage Coal mining is inextricably tied to Newcastle’s cultural identity, the industrial heritage and landscape can be seen represented in museums and monuments all across the north east. Most of the early coal mines of the region, were along the banks of the Tyne where seams were shallow and easily mined. The exposed coal outcrops along the banks of the River Tyne, were of particular importance, as the river provided a means of transportation. The Tyne facilitated the majority shipping of coal from the 1850’s. As we move from the 1850’s to the 2050’s the coal industry tapers off as the dash for gas begins in the 1990’s.

The graph correlates the millions of tones of coal use with atmospheric CO2 rise. We are predicted to reach 3x the levels of preindustrial times before 2050.

and an emphasis must be placed upon community engagement with carbon capture, empowering individuals to take control over the air they breathe and in turn undoing typical power hierarchies.

The proposal Moving forward out of Newcastle’s coal mining heritage I am placing a huge significance on the involvement of community. The coal industry operated under privatisation and harsh labour conditions. The healing process must give the city back to its inhabitants, by deprivatising the space Public engagement document extract

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Non-Government Organisation Funding

NGO

Subsidies

Non-profit organizations which are independent of government involvement who help communities to help the environment such as the Green Climate Fund.

Localised community councils Providing community and council stewardship over action in their region helps to decentralise power monopolies and incentivise locals in developing region specific climate action.

Architects & policy makers Work in tandem with local council and community to implement technology and monitor effectivity.

Community ownership Enables individuals by awakening their sense of ownership, pride and responsibility over carbon and Newcastle’s heritage. Arming them with the skills, knowledge and tools they need to be catalysts of change.

Community wealth building Stimulates financial empowerment and lays the foundations for economic vitality so individuals can directly invest and have a visible stake in the future of their community.

Stewardship of community assets £

Builds and manages tangible community assets that serves as a foundation for community healing and revitalisation.

Strengthen stakeholders This model strengthens public and community stakeholders to provide the sustainable foundation that gives rise to healthy communities.

Healthy community

Proposed strategy for building operation

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The end model is a proud and responsible community who commands the power to change their future for the better and to no longer be exploited for profit. Community members organise events and promote social exchange and carbon responsibility within the wider area.

This sets a model for healing rather than exploiting.

Decentralising power & Community ownership Community ownership is the act or degree of ownership and responsibility taken by the community towards any programs or activities running in the community. Community ownership is also an act of owning control and accountability towards any projects/programs which shall ultimately allow the communities to empower themselves.

Why is community ownership necessary?

Coal has seen communities forced to give up their land, privatised allowing companies to make vast profits whilst they received only pollution in return.

This process of healing needs to be not about profiting but about community • Community ownership encourages responsibility and accountability among the community people with regards to CO2 and their region.

• Promotes co-operation, coordination and collaboration between the stakeholders and the community people • Raise community leadership and empowerment • Promotes new ideas and strategies through the

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bottom- up approach Community ownership responds to the needs of people of respective communities Increases community participation

Challenging conventional norms of ownership and value By challenging traditional power and ownership relations we can firstly help to restore damaged communities. This is a process of healing society as well as the planet. Secondly we can start to dismantle the consolidation of wealth in the few and decentralise power structures to individual communities. This will enforce pride, and responsibility over their land, air and ecology. All of these issues are intrinsic to making genuine, effective climate action.

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Parallel protagonist to coal miners The video starts by introducing my project and how it came to be, starting with the rat as a protagonist and drawing parallels between humans and rats through burrowing. I then identify that rats burrow to shelter and survive where as human burrowing if for resources and extraction.

Contextualisation within Newcastle Understanding the socio-political scope for addressing this historic issue of coal mining both in terms of carbon debt but also the damage to local communities. With Eldon Square the site being at the city centre this gave weight and meaning to the proposal.

The process of healing video narrative This video provided me an opportunity to concisely summarise the origins of my project and its development and direction. Starting with the rat, my original protagonist the viewer is taken down its burrow following my connection to the miners.

Coal mining is explained and contextualised and leads into an explanation of our current state environmentally and our need for action. A question of the uncertainty of our future leads us into a short video of events as time speeds forwards into destruction. This is then rolled back in reverse and we are given my proposal, “what if our cities can heal the planet? What if our buildings could breathe?”

We then pan over Newcastle as the video explains the opportunity of retrofitting shopping centres and introduces my proposal of a response to the coal mining heritage of Newcastle, using the economy infrastructure and by products of this industry to create a proposal which address this carbon debt through carbon capture.

Setting the scene Clarifying the current climate situation to the audience with graphics and statistics to set up the proposal of needing to remove carbon. I illustrate why my project is necessary through the metaphor of the CO2 bath.

Watch the video here

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Initial statement and question

Turning back the tides

After introducing my project and its origins the video’s pace and audio changes. The statement alludes to us not doing enough and the question sets up the following video, what is the vision of the future if we do not change anything?

The video then starts to speed up in reverse under optimistic music. Wildfires go out, river return, ice caps reform and the video rewinds all the way to the beginning coal miners put coal back into the ground and we emerge from the burrow into bright light.

“In order to carry a positive change we must develop here a positive vision”

The vision of the future

What if our buildings could breathe?

The video then follows the earth as the years tick away faster and faster to the audio of natural disaster reporters. We start in the year 2021 as we see wildfires, floods, power outages, earthquakes and melting icecaps.

After the white light clears following the dark vision of the future I offer a contrary view. What if our buildings could breathe and heal our cities and planet? Pollution is sucked out of the streets and nature begins to heal.

STOP

The proposal

Suddenly the video stops as the earth is all but destroyed in year 2400 and offers us a choice, to turn back and prevent certain extinction by climate change.

The video concludes with my projects proposal. To respond to the coal industry using its infrastructure and economy to support carbon capture facilities to turn pollution into possibility. I identify shopping centres as a location for retrofit as retail moves online. The perspective in the background shows the initial direct air capture unit being fitted after which the building would grow from using captured carbon materials.

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Building reveals the process Carbon capture

DAC

Utilizing the process of carbon capture

Applying the processes to the building

Kinetic energy

Kinetic facades

Public visualisation & engagement

Co 2 Carbon dioxide

Community interaction with carbon capture

Bioengineered CO2 detecting material

Building reveals the process Bioengineered carbon responsive materials

Carbon movement & engagement A potential way for revealing the process of carbon capture is using the kinetic energy from the direct air carbon capture units to power kinetic facades.

This in turn would be an ethical way of retrofitting the external facade without having to demolish it, creating an animated skin over the top. Symbolically the building would appear to be breathing like a giant lung purifying the air. Internally this is also possible with hygromorphic or kintetic cladding to reveal the process of carbon capture to people within the building.

Another potential option is to bioengineer a molecule within a material that can detect carbon dioxide and when the CO2 is brought down from the DAC units the materials change colour.

Kinetic, responsive facade

Kinetic, responsive facade

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Integration of kinetic and responsive elements into existing detail

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ETFE envelope - the Eden Project - Grimshaw

ETFE facade US embassy London - MakMax Group

A building that breathes

3 layer ETFE cushion diagram

lin

g

Mechanical ventilation

Oxygen

ea

CO2

tin

g

Coo

Whilst having a visual external experience it is also important that the process of carbon capture is revealed within the building. At the heart of the building I will propose a large atrium, on one hand to help bring light into the deep existing structure, but also within this to provide a lung or lungs made from 3 layer ETFE. These can be inhabited spaces that use the air pressure from the fans to inflate and deflate the cushions. Additionally, an atmospheric quality can be achieved with shading printed on the two layers which when deflated provide more shading. This lung would use the pure air cleaned of CO2 before distributing it to the rest of the building. This passive space providing in turn a testament to the clean air being generated in the building. A further air purifying can be provided with the vegetation on site. Symbolically the building stands as a lung breathing in the pollution of the city, engaging the community with carbon capture and clean air potential. As a plastic polymer ETFE could potentially be made out of captured carbon, alternatively a similar 3 triple envelope could be made using bacterial cellulose, a biodegradable material I am exploring in linked research.

H

Carbon capture machines Environmental strategy - reciprocal CO2 and oxygen

Area focused conceptual section (24m shown of 70m width)

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The brain Direct air carbon capture units using the captured carbon to feed the carbon lung and using the purified air to feed the oxygen lung

Carbon lung

Oxygen lung

The captured carbon is used to feed plant life within this lung, a visual of the significance of plants in cleaning up our polluted air.

The clean filtered air enters this lung as is then used to passivly pump clear air around the building.

This is a space that can be inhabited.

This lung would be slighly smaller, shrivled and static representing our lungs when we breathe in carbon dioxide. This material darkens with its presence, providing a stark contrast.

Entering this larger healthier lung allows the community to breathe the fresh air that they could have in their city, a testament to the work being done at the facility.

Using positive air pressure from the DAC units, the lung expands and contracts breathing an inturn changing its atmospheric qualities through shading printed on 2 layers of the ETFE cushion.

ETFE lungs The diagram opposite illustrates how the ETFE lungs could work. Initially I was going to have one lung but decided to push the symbolism that these lungs could represent. I decided on two lungs, one oxygen which would have the purified filtered air pumped through it. This would actively breathe with the triple layer ETFE and could be inhabited by the public as a testament to the work being done at the facility.

I then decided on a second lung which would have the carbon pumped into it. Again this symbolically would be smaller, darkened, slightly shrivelled like the air we breathe now in the city. But at the same time I wanted it to demonstrate the use of the carbon to grow plants, almost like a micro Eden project. This would again provide the community with another way to engage with carbon capture healing the city. There is also potential for the captured carbon to be used as a replacement for new carbon in the ETFE plastic.

Alternatively, new materials could be proposed for the skin such as the bacterial cellulose experiments I have been growing at home. These material are in their infancy and I am currently exploring their uses in my Linked Research module alongside the PhD students at Newcastle University.

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+ve

-ve

Wet bacterial cellulose

Concentratd captured CO2 pumped to other energy/ commercial services

Ventilate surrounding building

Dried bacterial cellulose leather

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Will Alsop molecules

Cellulose leather

Tectonic integration The traditional geodesic dome structure was pioneered by Buckminster Fuller and drives its strength through it equal compressive and tensile forces pushing outward from each joint. It is my understanding that in elongating this structure most of the triangulated forces would remain but additional external supports outside the structure such as the cables in Will Alsop’s molecules could help redirect some of the forces. There are a variety of ways to detail the geodesic dome hub detail which I have explored on this page.

The lungs would require a fixed rigid structure but would be breathable in the ETFE cushions.

Eden project ETFE Dome construction Grimshaw (left)

Geodesic dome hub detail

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Precedent study National Space Centre Museum in Leicester Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners Limited, London

Forming part of the National Space Science Centre, this 42-metre-high exhibition tower adopts the aesthetics of space travel. Stretched between a lightweight steel structure, the facade consists of three-layer ETFE-membrane cushions 3 m high and up to 20 m in length. The polythene material is resistant to UV radiation and has a self-cleaning surface. With a gridded coating it was possible to achieve varying degrees of transparency. Although the material has an expected life of 60 years, the fixings are designed to facilitate the replacement both of individual cushions and of the existing rockets with new ones. The three-dimensional curved form of the tower and the lightweight facade material allowed the legible steel structure to be reduced to a minimum.

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ETFE facade detail

1 three-layer inflated ETFE membrane cushion 2 clamping strip 3 two-layer EPDM membrane foilcovered on both faces, with intermediate insulation 4 perforated stainless-steel covering 5 plastic air-supply tube fixed to steel structure with stainless-steel brackets 6 primary structure: Ø 660 mm steel tube, three-dimensionally curved 7 tubular steel flanged connecting piece with stiffening plates 8 secondary structure: Ø 324 mm curved steel tube bolted to 7 9 140/140 mm steel T-section for fixing clamping strip 10 steel connecting plate 11 acoustic panel 12 steel supporting structure for roof covering 13 plastic clamping strip 14 EPDM sealing strip

National Space Centre Museum

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National Space Centre Museum

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Summer sun

Kinetic brise soleil Laboratories

Local authority and faculty

Triple layer ETFE detail

DAC filtration

ETFE light void stack ventilation

Oxygen lung Carbon lung Spatial/ light voids

Microbrewery

Spatial & light well voids As the central lungs provide an insight into the process of the building through carbon and oxygen, other ETFE void spaces reflect the qualities of the lungs but are used to create space, pushing up against walls and severed servicing from the previous building use. These create voids in the space which help light penetration into the deep building frame and encourage heat dissipation and stack ventilation.

The void provides a space for people to look down upon a civic discussion chamber encouraging transparency in governance, the same transparency which is apparent across the building with regards to all the energy systems.

Civic discussion chamber

Community facilities

Close up of kinetic facade detail, brise soleil powered by direct air capture fans Environmental overlay of detailed perspective (opposite)

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Community carbon crop growing

Microbrewery view of carbon lung

View of inside carbon lung

Lung atmospheric This atmospheric taken from the perspective of the microbrewery alludes to the sense of scale and drama created by the lungs. The carbon lung can be seen to be reflecting aspects of the vegetation on the inside and dancing in the light from the light well above the open atrium. The suspended ceiling have been removed and fixtures and fittings exposed, old services are cut abruptly but left to remain to give a sense of what came before. The board formed textured concrete is also revealed giving a sense of the structure of the building and its scale, parts of ribar are exposed as they are sawn. The fermentation and bright tanks are seen over the end balcony to engage with the process of the microbrewery and the carbonisation, likewise with the lungs the duct work would be exposed and alongside the openness of the building this should demonstrate the interconnectivity of all the energy systems and the movement of captured carbon dioxide.

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Adjacency & programme diagrams

When developing the programme I had a few things in mind. Firstly I wanted to perform an audit of the existing commercial areas and how much CO2 they produce - anything with unsustainable high CO2 production would be a contradiction of the proposal. I knew I wanted the building, being a hub at the centre of the city to become more than just an industrial building, it had to have a large element of community engagement, through aspects such as the brewery, crops, education areas, all which use the captured CO2. I also wanted an area for further research and material studies and the upper floors provided this space. The existing ground floor to Eldon has a lot of servicing and back of house which provided ample space for a semi-public zone for employees and researchers and a back of house area for the integrated environmental aspects explored in semester 1. There are points when this can then cross over into the public area, feeding into areas such as the exhibition space, microbrewery and feeding energy to the new bus fleet. Extending the large central atrium deeper into the building will make this large dark building more open to natural light.

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Schedule of accommodation

Ground floor adjacency/ programme diagram

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Upper level adjacency/ programme diagram

Lower level adjacency/ programme diagram

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3D programme Adjacency diagrams Connected floors (Opposite)

Design development Massing studies The existing mass of the focus area is very deep meaning light penetration for a change of occupancy will be difficult. Working this through will involve utilising the darker spaces with certain programmatic, light sensitive space such as laboratories/ back of house, servicing etc but also the subtle alteration of the building form whilst maintaining the ethical modes of practice in this project of minimising waste and demolition. Some subtle ways of bringing more light in will be to increase the size of the existing atrium and bring this deeper into the building with open surrounding circulation allowing a deeper permeation of light.

Staggering the facade on the southern axis allows for more terrace amenity. Additionally I will have to look at replacing some of the vast facades and roof spaces with more light permeable material whilst reusing this removed material. A more drastic approach could involve severing new routes through the building, this would act to increase permeability and light permeability although the wasted space and material and reduction in future adaptability makes me hesitant of this option.

Area of study: Eldon Square Phase 1

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Modular intervention One of the key understandings of Eldon I developed through my technical studies was that of the rational modular concrete building frame. Operating on a 6x6x5.2m building frame it offers an approach to developing an intervention that utilises the existing building and creates spaces within this where I can propose interventions ethically with minimal new materials. The domino frame construction also provides the opportunity to knock out floor portions and open up double height spaces which would be significant for devprivatising the ground floor space. As with the two precedents the key will be making the building not appear to be modular. This will be achieved by allowing different combinations of height and spaces with the modular elements connecting and adapting to each scenario. There will be a challenge in bringing in enough light with the building depth and fortress like existing walls. I enjoy the expression and grandeur of the frame in Fosters ICONE complex, grouping the servicing to open up the spaces in other zones. I also enjoy the idea of bringing some nature into the deprivatsied ground like Penda - giving back to the city and rewilding.

Existing building frame

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A Thousand Yards Pavilion by Penda

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Ethical joints In by using a building frame which can be easily slotted together we make cake the proposal more ethical in the sense that the power can be given to the community to build this project on their own.

This simple slotting design requires no professional or machinery and can evolve with the building as it captures it own materials. This design fits and attaches for bracing into the existing concrete structure.

Insulation

Corbussier domino frame

The building can either used zero carbon mycelium, grown in the community growing facilities on site or as an alternative the building can manufacture bio-based hybrid foam from capture carbon. The material is foam infused with a high amount of CO2absorbing ‘zeolites’ – microporous aluminosilicates.

The porous, open structure of the material reportedly gives it a great ability to adsorb the carbon dioxide.

This foam is extremely lightweight - 90% CO2 by weight - and is an ethical insulative. bio-based hybrid foam

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Roof: plant and direct air capture units

Integrating programme Third floor: research, faculty and carbon capture facility engagement

Working within the existing building and structural frame provided a relatively simple form in which to integrate my programme.

It was important to me to have the lungs at the centre of the building and to maintain a community engagement with this all the way up through the building and also other elements of the energy creation such as the anaerobic digestion. The vast space provides plenty of opportunity for integration and designing of energy systems such as feed chambers/ brewery tanks and storage tanks to reveal the process of carbon capture and utilisation whilst making it engaging. In this first stab at organising the programme within the building form I am happy with most of the adjacencies, I would like to work at consolidating the cores/ risers and energy distribution as well as looking at coming off grid and blurring the lines between spaces and making these more dynamic through section development.

Ground floor: deprivatised space and captured carbon engagement

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Typical upper: office space, courtyard amenity and engagement with carbon

Below ground: burrow like community spaces

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Existing section

Sectional programme The existing mass of the focus area is very deep meaning light penetration for a change of occupancy will be difficult. Working this through will involve utilising the darker spaces with certain programmatic, light sensitive space such as laboratories/ back of house, servicing etc but also the subtle alteration of the building form whilst maintaining the ethical modes of practice in this project of minimising waste and demolition. Some subtle ways of bringing more light in will be to increase the size of the existing atrium and bring this deeper into the building with open surrounding circulation allowing a deeper permeation of light.

Staggering the facade on the southern axis allows for more terrace amenity. Additionally I will have to look at replacing some of the vast facades and roof spaces with more light permeable material whilst reusing this removed material. A more drastic approach could involve severing new routes through the building, this would act to increase permeability and light permeability although the wasted space and material and reduction in future adaptability makes me hesitant of this option.

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Proposed section

Proposed section integrating programme

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Spatial qualities

Study of ‘lung’ and spatial characteristics of retrofit.

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In an attempt to visualise the spaces that I was proposing in the building I created a couple material spatial models. This helped me to move away from the flat zoning plans and figure out these respective spaces. I knew from this that I wanted to maintain the existing servicing, to have it severed as it hit up against the lung or concrete which had been cut.

Sections of floor would be visible wedged between columns, ribar on show as it had been cut through.

This aim would provide transparency to the process of retrofit, and allude to the memory and the services of the old shopping centre, without which there would be no carbon capture building. Once more this would reflect the transparency in governance which is the approach in the building, the transparency in construction and energy. Through this we might better understand the relation of our activities to their impacts.

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Study of microbrewery and spatial characteristics of retrofit.

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Edge conditions Although my proposal only focuses on the central retrofit of Eldon Square in this phase, I thought it was important to address the two edge conditions as these would be the main points of entry. My proposal was to make these green spaces, to the north demolishing the car park, in a move towards better public transport and reduced car capacity, and to used this demolished material to landscape the space. In mixing crushed up cement and the lime with that into soil, microbes are able to sequester the carbon from the material and calcify it underground. This would rationalise this bus station and not use further carbon.

Eldon Square Gardens Park to South

Bus station and car parking to the North

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Addressing consumer waste and environmental pollution Hedonistic sustainability: a sustainability that improves the quality of life and human enjoyment.

Bjarke Ingles

Waste-to-energy Amager Bakke power station The Waste-to-Energy Plant designed by BIG Bjarke Ingels group in Copenhagen replaced the neighbouring Amagerforbraending plant and functions as a treatment facility that transforms waste into energy. Known for its iconic ski slope, the hybrid plant produces district heating for 60,000 households annually from waste generated in Copenhagen, and electricity for 30,000 houses.

but also cognitavely and symbolically through the visual interaction with the waste burning. It would be great to symbolise how much CO2 my design in sequestering so the community can engage and take pride in carbon capture.

In the competition design the smokestack was supposed to expel rings of smoke 30cm in diameter whenever a ton of fossil Co2 is converted to clean energy, acting as a signal to raise awareness of ecological issues and energy consumption amongst the inhabitants of Copenhagen. These rings would then be lit up by laser lights.

The ideas I most enjoy about this building and would like to bring into my design is how BIG have transformed an otherwise inaccessible piece of infrastructure into something the public can engage in, both physically through the public ski slope

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Waste-to-energy Amager Bakke power station smoke rings

1 https://www.power-technology.com/projects/amager-bakke-waste-energy-plant/

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The future?

Eldon Square Consumer waste

Mining the air Syngas captured hydrocarbons Eldon BioWhale™

Crops

Direct air CO2 capture

carbon sequestering products ‘soup’

biofertilizer Heat & power

“When we think f rom [a] waste management f rame, it makes it easy to connect the nascent direct air capture industry to environmental justice concerns”1

Cut further CO2 production

Anaerobic digestion

Pretreatment

“Lackner suggests thinking of windmills as miners that pull kinetic energy out of air. With direct air capture, pulling the CO2 out of the air is like mining it.“ If it’s mined for disposal, perhaps all he gets is a tipping fee, a fee for the waste disposal- and say $30 a ton. So now I say, okay. I have a cubic kilometres of air. Which sounds huge, but it turns out a big windmill sees this in an afternoon. You can ask, how much kinetic energy is there? Turns out, it’s $300 worth. If you ask how much CO2 is there, turns out it’s $21,000 worth. Even though CO2 is dilute, it’s relative – the CO2, by this measure, is 70 times as concentrated as wind energy and the geographic footprint would be smaller than that of wind energy.” 2

- Holly Jean Buck

- Klaus Lackner, Director Centre for Negative Carbon Emissions

Closing the carbon/ consumer cycle: Integrated Carbon capture and Anaerobic digestion system

Turning pollution into possibility Mining the ground Mining the ground, or human burrowing to extract resources has been the template of capitalism or industrialisation for as long as it has existed. Today we have new solutions and techniques that can reverse these traits. There is a huge industry emerging around the use of captured CO2, where we no longer need to further extract materials but we can use the by-products in our atmosphere. At a time when CO2 is causing a life threatening problem to the Earth there has been no better opportunity for turning pollution into possibility.

ELDON SQUARE

ANAEROBIC DIGESTION

Biowaste

Pre-treatment

Mass consumer waste at Intu Eldon Square is converted into BioWaste using an onsite facility called the BioWhale™. This produces a ‘soup’ for anerobic digestion

Pre-treatment is a process in which the biomass is made ready for microbial attack.

CARBON CAPTURE AND UTILIZATION

Ambient air

Anaerobic digestion A process through which bacteria break down organic matter without oxygen. As the bacteria “work,” they generate biogas.

Energy system proposal

Direct Air Capture biogas

CHP CHP could reduce CO2 emissions by 30%.

CO2 is captured at retrofitted shopping centres. Concentrated captured CO2 is exported to become part of the cyclical energy process as well as for new CO2 based products.

Post treatment

By looking at Climeworks systems for Carbon Capture and Utilisation I have developed my own system proposal for closing the carbon cycle, integrating existing energy systems found on site. Excess CO2 and energy can be sold to the grid or other industrial sites in the region.

New commerical space Co-opted food growing Carbonated beverages Thermoplastic productions Material productions Future research

Post-treatments are necessary if anaerobic effluents need to be discharged into surface waters, because anaerobic digestion alone is not able to produce effluents that can meet the discharge standards.

CO2 free air Biofertilizer Microorganism rich fertilizer used to promote growth.

Captured CO2 Captured CO2 used to close the carbon cycle and feedback into existing renewable energy processes.

CO2 capture and nutrients recycling using a patented algae system for bio-fertilizer production (COFERT) 1 H. J Buck (2019) After Geoengineering Climate tragedy, repair and restoration. p. 131 2 IBID p. 129

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UK C02 emissions map (2020)

Closing the carbon cycle: My system proposal for integrating Carbon Capture with the existing Eldon BioWhale and landfill gas plants located across areas within the North East regional strategy.

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Eldon retrofit and energy integration systems CO2 waste The proposed retrofit of Eldon Square maintains the core building and structure. Direct air capture units are fitted to the roof, the existing plant distributes this down to the top level where filters are heated to remove the CO2 so it can be stored. This is distributed to the new commercial area to be used in greenhouses and carbonated drinks. The majority of the CO2 is then distributed in the existing coal mines to be used in clean thermopolymer and material production.

Consumer waste

(opposite) Semester 1 retrofit strategy

The CO2 capture system is integrated with an anaerobic digestion system that converts the consumer waste from Eldon into biogas to power the existing bus fleet. Combined heat and power from this process powers the air capture units and the biofertiliser is used in the greenhouses. CO2 is pumped into the greenhouses for higher biomass yielding crops.

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Existing

Intervention

Raw material

By-product green house gas emission

Carbon capture

In-house CO2 application

Distribution network formed using old mineshafts

Regional CO2 application

Refinement Commerce Co 2

Coal

Natural gases

CO2

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Research

Distibution carts Bio-fuel

Comprehension

Materials & products

CO2

Direct air

capture

Permeable ground floor

De-privatised New commercial CO2 use Drinks crops products

Enriched concrete and fuels

Existing industrial New thermopolymers to replace plastics Existing transport links Existing power plants New carbon dioxide energy production Green houses boost plant growth high biomass yield

“Today, many companies and researchers are developing new uses and products for captured CO2, such as varieties of concrete, chemicals and fuels. McKinsey & Company estimates that by 2030, CO2-based products could be worth between $800 billion and $1 trillion, and the use of CO2 (opposite) The stratum of Eldon - proposal

for producing fuel, enriching concrete and generating power alone could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a billion metric tons yearly.”

- Turning CO2 into prof its

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Integrated energy systems This drawing builds from the wider regional eldon retrofit and integrated systems drawing I did in first semester.

As my building continued to evolve in terms of its energy systems I decided to map these interrelations and facilities within the building. This gave me a better understanding of how to design my building programmatically but to also see what else could be interwove. This drawing had become the best representation of what the building was.

Bjarke Ingles describes this as hedonistic sustainability, a sustainability that improves the quality of life and human enjoyment. These systems define the building and its ethos supporting one another in order to be carbon negative and in this it is a reflection of what is required of us in combatting climate change. There is no single solution but a whole host of relationships and systems that we must develop together. The bottom right key shows the 4 integrated systems and the movement arrows track the movement of these. Everything stems from the direct air carbon capture fans and ends with carbon products such as beer, community growing facilities, carbon distribution via old colliery lines and inhabitable spaces such as the carbon and oxygen lungs.

Process of a anaerobic digestion

(opposite) Integrated energy systems Process of a microbrewery

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Anaerobic digestion & net zero carbon geothermal ground source heat Anaerobic digestion Anaerobic digestion (AD) is the breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen by microorganisms called methanogens. The process of anaerobic digestion provides a source of renewable energy, as the waste breaks down into biogas (a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide).

(opposite) Extract from section showing building processes

The introduction of anaerobic digestion stems from an extension of the carbon capture energy system as shown on the previous page to develop reciprical energy systems that can support eachother and provide carbon neutral or negative energy. Additonally anaerobic digestion working in the context of Eldon Square, utlising the existing Biowhale which converts consumer waste into a ‘soup’, the digester then takes this and the biogas produced is to be utilised in the combined heat and power until as well as supplying the existing bus station with a converted fleet of biogas buses. Finally the biofertiliser from the final stage of this process can be utlised in the underground community growing spaces, a further way of engaging the community with the importance of carbon capture and clean energy.

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Process of a anaerobic digestion

Process of a anaerobic digestion

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Geothermal mineshafts With a number of the UK’s abandoned coal mines being repurposed for green energy projects, Jon Excell asks whether the legacy of Britain’s polluting industrial past could hold the key to its low carbon future?

From a conversation i had with Professor of soil science and carbon capture, David Manning I was informed of another way of utilising the coal mine shafts in my project. A process of using flooded mineshafts as ground source heat is underway in Gateshead. The granite under Newcastle keeps the water at a constant 15 degrees which makes it a zero carbon source of heat with little ground work. This follows my technical design strategy of reutilising dormant infrastructures and turning pollution into possibility. Additionally this aligns with the social aims of my project, providing an opportunity to give back to the skilled and knowledgeable members of the community from the coal industry healing the community and city.

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Geothermal energy schematic - the coal authority

Geothermal strategy - the coal authority

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SOIL SEQUESTERING CARBON DAVID MANN

Using demolition waste to sequester carbon

Demolished aggregate mixed with new landscaping to sequester carbon.

Research at Newcastle University Brownfield sites – those unloved areas of stony rubbish usually dismissed as wasteland – could be a vital new tool in the fight against climate change, ecologists have discovered.

Carbonation involves the combination of calcium – which is abundant in brownfield soils that contain demolition wastes such as concrete dust and lime – with atmospheric CO2 to form calcium carbonate (calcite).

Speaking at the British Ecological Society’s annual meeting this week, Newcastle University researchers reveal that urban brownfield soils have huge, untapped potential to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – provided we manage our soils more seriously.

But whereas the large amounts of organic carbon locked away in peatlands have accumulated very slowly, inorganic carbon in calcite can form very rapidly in brownfield soils, making them more useful in cutting atmospheric CO2.

Newcastle University’s Dr Mark Goddard, a research associate in urban ecology, explains:

Professor David Manning, Newcastle University

“The soil beneath our feet is a major reservoir for carbon. Our research shows that we mustn’t neglect brownfield soils because they have huge potential for carbon capture via a process called ‘carbonation’.”

1 https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2016/12/carboncapture/

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Environmental and programmatic isometric The axo I have drawn here alludes to the building but is not complete in its entirety. In order to see enough detail I have taken the core of the building, surrounding the proposed courtyard, to illustrate all the elements of the programme and the energy systems. The spatial voids use a difference in air pressure created by heating of the voids from the lung or vice versa in winter.

This draws the heat out of the surrounding thermal mass structure into the voids where stack ventilation circulates the air and vents it through the top. The yellow lines track the movement of carbon from the DAC units. The red lines below ground show the ground source heat pump and the geothermal energy from the mineshaft below and into the floor slab. The green line follows the organic material that is brought into the facility by waste truck, to the Biowhale, this then feeds through the anaerobic digestion chamber to biogas storage and CHP unit. The underground mycelium growing shows the carbon being brought into the soil and producing oxygen.

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Oxygen lung Carbon lung Spatial/ light voids

(opposite) Extract from iso showing building processes

Microbrewery & Grey water recovery After developing the carbon capture and the anaerobic digestion energy systems I wanted to explore a facility that could be a further extension of these energy systems and could better engage the public by providing a product that uses the captured carbon. During the 2018 world cup carbon dioxide shortages saw the country running out of beer. Drax, the worlds leading zero carbon biomass facility, supplied the carbon to carbonate beers. 1 I decided to adopt this strategy into my facility in the form of a microbrewery using captured carbon to carbonate beers. This would help to engage the public and target the large student community in Newcastle.

Captured carbon enters the bright tank and the clean filtered oxygen air enters the fermentation tank, additionally spent hops can then be fed into the anaerobic digester. As beer uses a lot of water a grey water recovery system would be designed in and filtered to provide carbon negative beer products.

1 https://www.drax.com/technology/can-made-captured-carbon/

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(opposite) Extract from section showing building processes

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NOON SUN

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Passive Environmental strategies 10

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Summer day •1 Net zero carbon geothermal ground source water in flooded mineshafts, heated to 14 degrees by granite is used sourced via borehole and used through a water to air heat exchange as well as being brought through the screed to provide cooling.

•2 Shading on contracted triple layer ETFE cushions helps to reflect solar heat gains.

•3 Kinetic energy from the direct air capture units power kinetic facades to provide solar shading on the southern facades.

• Facades being used to create light shelves 4 bringing light deeper into deeper areas.

•5 Lungs cutting through spaces provide voids to allow cooling from slabs and promote stack ventilation.

6 • Thermal ground mass stores heat.

•7 Cross and single sided ventilation.

•8 Photovoltaics help to power the DAC units.

•9 High albedo surfaces reflect solar heat.

• Ground source heat pump collects heat

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Summer night •1 Night time purging of heat. Heat absorbed in thermal mass radiates out aided by voids. Heated floor slabs create negative air pressure. The lungs supplied with cool filtered air from the direct air capture units create positive air pressure. This difference in air pressure sucks the heat out of the thermal mass which is ventilated at the top.

2 • Heat stored in the strata radiates out into the lower burrow spaces.

•3 Energy is stored in the ground source heat pump and heated ground water.

1 Summer day environmental strategy

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+VE

-VE

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-VE

+VE

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Summer night environmental strategy

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NOON SUN

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5 Winter day environmental strategy

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3 2 Winter night environmental strategy

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Winter day

Winter night

•1 Kinetic facades retract and allow southern glazed facades to soak up the sun and heat the internal thermal mass.

•2 Triple layer ETFE cushions expand via air pressure, providing spacing between the two layers of printed shading allowing for solar gains to permeate via the lung voids and stack ventilators.

•3 The heated lungs then radiate heat to the surrounding interstitial spaces through a difference in air pressure.

4 • Net zero carbon flooded mineshafts pump geothermal granite heated 15 degree water through the screed alongside ground source heat pump to provide supplementary heating.

•5 Heat retained in the strata from the summer months radiates out to heat spaces.

•6 Photovoltaics point south to maximise exposure.

•7 The ground source heat pump which collected heat during the summer heats freshly brought in purified air from the DAC units via a heat exchanger.

•1 Holding onto heat gains, airtightness is essential to stop heat rising and leaving the building. Thermal mass and strata radiates heat, this is kept in the space. The lower amounts of heat during the day create less difference in air pressure helping the heat to stay in the building.

•2 The constant temperature geothermal mine shafts are pumped around the screed.

•3 The ground source heat pump which collected heat during the summer heats freshly brought in purified air from the DAC units via a heat exchanger.

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Growing out of the strata Growing out of the strata My proposal grows out of the historic strata of Newcastle’s city centre. As you move from the lower levels of strata you start to see humans intervention in the cave mining. As you move further up to the surface the building grows out of the anthropogenic layer of human existence. It is a decision to make this final surface layer flip things on its head and start mining carbon from the air instead of the ground. The proposal then looks to re-utilise all these previously polluting existing caverns of for healing the city. Using geothermal heating from flooded mineshafts heated to 15 degrees by Newcastle’s granite foundations. Allowing for supplementary heating in winter and cooling in summer. Other mineshafts are reutilised for distribution of capture carbon products to the wider region. This section illustrates in a thin sliver all that my proposal intends to do, from the carbon capture, to the lungs, anaerobic digesters, microbrewery, educational facilities, grey water harvesting and communal growing spaces coming out of the ground like old mineshafts. The proposal roots itself into Newcastle and addresses its polluting history.

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Conception

Production

A G

From mining the ground to mining the air

An extension of the strata My proposal grows out of the historic strata of Newcastle’s city centre. As you move from the lower levels of strata you start to see humans intervention in the cave mining. As you move further up to the surface the building grows out of the anthropogenic layer of human existence. It is a decision to make this final surface layer flip things on its head and start mining carbon from the air instead of the ground. The proposal then looks to re-utilise all these previously polluting existing caverns of for healing the city. Using geothermal heating from flooded mineshafts heated to 15 degrees by Newcastle’s granite foundations. Allowing for supplementary heating in winter and cooling in summer. Other mineshafts are reutilised for distribution of capture carbon products to the wider region. This section illustrates in a thin sliver all that my proposal intends to do, from the carbon capture, to the lungs, anaerobic digesters, microbrewery, educational facilities, grey water harvesting and communal growing spaces coming out of the ground like old mineshafts. The proposal roots itself into Newcastle and addresses its polluting history.

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An extension of the strata of Newcastle

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Public exhibition Energy use

Conception

Production

Zoning carbon movement

A G

A G

Proposal Ground floor plan There is difficulty in working with such a rational existing building frame. The 6x6m existing grid provided a structure but I did not want to be constrained by it. I had a toss up between a potential modular system which would be very light and ethical in terms of waste and then that of creating something more striking and something that would better attract people to the building and define the new era moving forward. I decided to break the building down the middle, this one on one hand help to ring light into the deep frame and on the other hand it would better promote the permeability of the deprivatised ground level. By chamfering the building I created a spiral with two back of house sections either side. The spiral and programme starts with the civic thinking, conjuring up a new future for the city and the carbon move from there, through the energy systems which are used to create a feature in the building, then through material exhibition and public engagement and then it concludes at the carbon to product use with the workshop and the microbrewery. From conception to implementation, pollution to possibility. The symbolic and visual representation of carbon capture: the lungs, are kept central and visible from all areas of the building.

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Typical upper level Although the building would have 4 floors I have chosen to only represent 2. The typical upper floor takes a lot of the components of the brief and merges them into one floor. There is a public element to the upper level, a cafeteria leading onto external terraces formed by the chamfered building frame and the cut backs in the building form as it rises.

The cafeteria allows access to the carbon lung which is filled with tropical forna fed by the carbon rich atmosphere. It also overlooks the laboratories where carbon material experiments are taking place.

Everything has a degree of transparency designed to promote an engagement with climate change so we might better understand the relation of our activities to their impacts. The upper floors also support local authority and council as this is important in a building of this programme and also provides space for researchers and architects, bringing together policy makers, designers and legislators under one roof with one aim to work together and to heal the city. The oxygen lung provides a space for the public to breathe the fresh purified air and think how their city air might be if they acted towards healing it.

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Transparent civic space Civic spaces are designed to be transparent, encouraging transparency in governance, the same transparency which is apparent across the building with regards to all the energy systems. The views are maintained towards the energy systems and the symbolic lungs. It is important to keep these systems central to the thinking and planning of future developments. The microbrewery systems can also be seen to the right.

As a caveat, this design of a transparent civic space was redeveloped on the next page, using the verticality of the light well ETFE voids to provide the transparency of governance like that seen in Norman Fosters Reichstag dome extension.

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Atmospheric technical section As the central lungs provide an insight into the process of the building through carbon and oxygen, other ETFE void spaces reflect the qualities of the lungs but are used to create space, pushing up against walls and severed servicing from the previous building use. These create voids in the space which help light penetration into the deep building frame and encourage heat dissipation and stack ventilation.

The void provides a space for people to look down upon a civic discussion chamber encouraging transparency in governance, the same transparency which is apparent across the building with regards to all the energy systems. This precedent stems from Norman Fosters Reichstag dome extension. A symbolic repair of the German parliamentary building following WW2. This design mirrors and provides views down into the governance chamber, promoting a transparency in future governance. Although this is soundproofed so there is still a barrier. My void is punctured by balconies which allow a true transparency into the space.

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Oxygen lung Carbon lung Spatial/ light voids

Norman Fosters Reichstag dome extension.

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Climate vs Capitalism ARC 8051 Tools for thinking Essay extract

“Today, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.”1

We live in an era where our current relationship to nature is predicated on extraction and exploitation.

The world is only valuable in the sense that it is valuable to human beings. Our work life and political systems alienate us from the world because we assign cold, detached meanings to the environment.

The air is set upon to yield oxygen, the earth to yield coal and oil. As we have set upon seeing the world as a resource, we ourselves have become a resource for exploitation and labour extraction.2 Capitalism is underpinned by an economic system that necessitates perpetual growth - consumption for consumptions sake - bankrolled by nature. Given this facticity* we are born into, facilitated by technology and mass media propaganda, it is easy to perpetuate the quotidian ritual, it’s part of our nature.3 We have become apathetic. Our failure, globally, to meet carbon mitigation targets illustrates that “the political machinery that emerged to govern the age of fossil fuels, may be incapable of addressing the events that will end it.” ⁴

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In this essay I will explore the relationship between capitalism and global warming through a series of examples and case studies in order to prove that a capitalist system, predicated on inequality and perpetual growth, is preventing meaningful climate action. I will examine the foundations of neoliberal inequality and alternatives to growth economics and then question what could follow.

We are, as Aristotle theorised, a being who’s very nature is social and as a result; political.⁵ Humanity has forever questioned sociopolitical relations, prospects of an existence that is fulfilling and valuable, rather than one that generates exchange value and a politics that supports a vibrant, sustainable world. However, it is “the defining characteristic of their present intensity that they have an ecological deadline. […] The urgency that global warming imposes does not cut us off from the past, but only reignites the past with the present.”⁶

We are living in a state of transience, experienced as both crisis and opportunity, yet we are not without the capabilities to create change. As Naomi Klein explains, “we need to have the audacity to think differently and conceive of alternative futures”.⁷ In using our ability to imagine and design, through critical thought and practice, we can develop and adopt new narratives moving forward. This is not only possible, but it is essential.

The ARC 8051 Tools for Thinking Essay document 1 Wainwright, J & Mann, G. (2020) Climate leviathan. A political theory of our planetary future. Verso, London. p.47 2 E Roemer, J. (1982) Origins of Exploitation and Class: Value Theory of PreCapitalist Economy, Econometrica, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 163-192 3 Dahlstrom, Daniel O. (2013). The Heidegger Dictionary. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 71–2 *Facticity in the heideggerian terminology- to be thrown into the world or situation, into existence or Dasein, without will.* ⁴ Mitchell, T. (2009) Carbon Democracy, Economy and Society. 38(3), pp.399432. ⁵ Gintis, H. Van Schaik, C. Boehm, C. Chapais, B. Flack, J.C. Pagel, M., Pruetz, J.D. Spikins, P. Whiten, A. Erdal, D. (2015) Zoon politikon: The evolutionary origins of human political systems. Current Anthropology, 56(3), pp.340-341. ⁶ Wainwright, J & Mann, G. (2020) Climate leviathan. A political theory of our planetary future. Verso, London. p.48 ⁷ Klein, N. (2014) This changes everything. Penguin Books. p. 89 ⁸ Collier, P. (2018) The future of Capitalism. Penguin. p.17

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is designed to be read in conjunction with this portfolio and offers a critique of neoliberal f reetrade in relation to climate change. The politics and morality of adaption and an exploration of the possibilities of an ethical capitalism or postcapitalism.

Proposals “are seldom developed into implementable strategies ….[because they are not] grounded in an ethical f ramework”⁸ - Paul Collier The Future of Capitalism

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Ethical f ramework

INEQUALITY Cheaper global labour forces are exploited to reduce costs and increase consumption.

“Growth is functional for capitalism. It’s a necessary condition for a capitalistic economy.

INTERVENTION

And for this reason, the idea of doing without growth is seen as tantamount to doing away with capitalism.”

- Bill Blackwater

Why do we need an ethical framework?

As Naomi Klein advocates in her book: this changes everything, the current capitalist system is incompatible with meaningful environmental action.

This is because capitalism functions off an economic model of perpetual growth and production. Growth is a material increase in economic production and consumption. Systems based on growth, extraction and consumption are the fundamental root of climate change, and to operate within this system is to facilitate continued planetary destruction even when designing carbon negative architecture.

To propose a project post capitalism is utopian.

Ultimately we do live in an extractivist capitalist system and we are the site of these capitalist metabolic processes of energy production, labour and consumerism. My ethical framework acknowledges this and looks at what we can do as architects or planners to make ethical proposals within this system.

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MONOPOLY POWER

Ethical capitalism Paul collier, in his book: the future of capitalism, advocates for an ethical capitalism. An ideology fraught with contradictions as capitalism only functions on a basis of unethical labour inequality.

Many express that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

An ethical framework for future development must address: • Global inequality • Labour demands • Consumerism • Extractivism • Technology • Capital • Authority • New technology/ technocapitalism

In the context of Newcastle power monopolies have grown out of the privatisation of land and coal. This has seen communities suffer and recieve only pollution and poor labour conditions in return. This centralisation of power in turn feeds inequality.

INTERVENTION This process of healing, environmentally and socially needs to not be about profiting but about community. Perhaps CO2 product based profits could feed the services in the building, allowing everyone to engage with CO2 capture, interact with people and act to remove power and ownership from companies.

Retrofit provides an opportunity to use an existing structure and not add to futher production. An ethical framework advocating degrowth for future proposed developemnt could insist on local labour or a level of equality. A new form of commercial space could help break our modes of consumption

ECONOMIC INSTABILITY Instability is created through a single mode of currency exchange, which puts us at risk in market failure

PROBLEMS WITH CAPITALISM

INTERVENTION Capital is a basis for greed and self value.

The impersonality of the currency makes every economic transaction a cold exchange between strangers, diluting social and community ties. To challenge capital within my proposals is to take away the power of capital. I wish to advocate interaction through different forms of exchange within the commercial area.

ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS Systems of perpetual growth, extraction and consumerism are damaging and unsustainable.

INTERVENTION An ethical framework challenges the existing systems of extraction, growth and consumerism. The proposal looks to counteract extraction by removing CO2, it advocates systems of degrowth in order to reduce CO2 more generally and implements new modes of consumerism around interaction and exchange.

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Existing capitalist metabolic processes

Human labour machine

Intu Eldon Square food processing machine The BioWhale ™

How can an ethical f ramework of production address issues in our capitalist metabolic

Does a system like this food waste converter facilitate perpetual food waste?

process?

Would a carbon capture machine facilitate the continued production of CO2 waste? 

How could we change our modes of consumerism in order to facilitate less waste and change our position in the capitalist system?

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Direct air carbon capture machine A carbon capture machine is still a capitalist machine, operating within the extractivist system - how do we change this?

An ethical capitalism Ultimately we live in an extractivist capitalist system and we are the site of these capitalist metabolic processes of energy production, labour and consumerism. I wanted to develop an ethical framework to go alongside the design proposal to develop and hopefully answer a series of ethical questions. Most importantly: does a carbon capture machine built by the same extractivist logic not facilitate perpetual CO2 production and the continuation of the system it stands to oppose?

These capitalist metabolic diagrams begin to ask some questions - if we are at the site of this capitalist metabolic process, how could we change these? Through shifts in modes of consumerism and labour demands? You can’t just paint capitalism green and call it green capitalism because this creates a conflicting ideological dichotomy. Many people see technology as this paint brush, but there has to be a change in life style towards an ethical capitalism if this itself is not also a contradiction.

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Phasing As we explored earlier one way towards a more ethical capitalism for this project would be to implement a phasing strategy that utilises CO2 as it is collected to ensure there is far less CO2 used in the retrofit.

(Explored later in ethical framework) Community A project like this addressing issues around coal monopoly and privatisation, needs to be about community and about healing. This should take the power away from the capitalists and local production and CO2 collection in the community should prevent further extraction for raw materials.

(Explored later in ethical framework)

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Regional phasing proposal “The process results in polymers containing more than 40 percent CO2 by weight. The CO2containing polymers can be tailored for applications with a broad range of material characteristics f rom solid plastics to soft, flexible foams, depending on the size of the polymer chain [...]

Conventional production of plastics such as polyethylene and polypropylene is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. The Novomer process reduces the use of these fuels by replacing up to half of the mass of the petroleum-based product with CO2”

- Off ice of Fossil Energy

Breaking the extractivist system An ethical issue with using technology or machines to fix a problem is that they are unpredictable.

Machines currently accelerate production and extraction in the capitalist system. I will address the ethics of labour and machines in an ethical framework to accompany this proposal later.

To prevent this carbon capture machine facilitating the perpetual production of CO2, by its very nature of sequestering it; to prevent it from facilitating the extractivist system it stands to oppose I have implemented a community run phasing programme.

Only 1 initial fan is provided to the facility, this forms the foundation. The captured CO2 from this unit is sent out to an industrial site and new fans are created from rigid chain thermopolymers. Growth only occurs in conjunction with the amount of CO2 captured. This happens from many source facilities with the aim of these facilities connecting through distribution networks to support each other.

164

Phase 2

Phase 3

Rigid plastic thermopolymers are formed, using the captured CO2 from the first fan, to provide the components for later fans.

Capture facilities are systematically built up from their first fan installations. This creates a rhizomatic structure of growth.

Phase 4

Phase 5

Regional facilities connect through mine shaft distribution networks in order to support each others growth

Once the number of fans are achieved captured CO2 can then be used in new materials to help construct the rest of the retrofit: deprivatising the ground and new commercial spaces.

Phase 1 One fan is installed to start carbon capture. This then allows on site captured CO2 to be used in making the material for further capture units and prevents extra CO2 production in construction.

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Eldon Square phasing proposal Reembody the captured CO2 By systematically capturing the CO2 and expanding the buildings individually across the North East we create the region as a rhizome. This also prevents extra CO2 from being emitted in the production of materials. By engaging the community in these actions the invisible is made visible. People are more able to visualise the size of CO2 tangibility. This would in turn increase community responsibility over CO2.

Phase 3 interventions

Phase 2 interventions

Eldon Square can be broken down further into 3 section for intervention. The sketch opposite illustrates how Phase 1 could look. A clean, sculpted material has connotation for health and restoration of the city. This could form an iconic precedent for the city and future carbon capture developments.

Phase 1 interventions

Existing site with key internal connections

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Phase 1 proposal

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

What are the unknowns?

With this being a new technology there are plenty of unknowns - just like the coal industry. We have to monitor a steady phased deployment of DAC in conjunction with climate mitigation.

What if it goes wrong?

Direct air capture is not a final solution. This should allow us time to achieve a carbon neutral society.

The best form of contingency is achieving a carbon neutral or negative society so if it goes wrong we have natural sequestration backups in place.

Is it sustainable?

Climeworks have proven this technology is effective. However it only perpetuates the system unless its implementation is monitored with ethical and labour frameworks.

Is it feasible to achieve climate mitigation targets?

Direct air capture could be very effective but only in conjunction with lifestyle reform. It may be most effective in helping to visualise CO2 and form a collective conscious climate movement.

Doesn’t this facilitate capitalist labour and extraction issues?

The climeworks model shown was made from off the shelf components. If this system was developed to use materials and thermopolymers from the captured CO2 this could prevent further raw material Who owns it?

To avoid greed through privatisation and to promote extraction. responsibility this should be a community owned building in conjunction with local councils. This should give people a feeling of control over their city.

168

The role of technology Technology is fundamentally changing the way we live, work, relate to one another and to the external world. The speed, breadth and depth of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent and is disrupting almost every sector in every country. Now more than ever, the advent of new technology has the potential to transform environmental protection Let’s be clear. No human technology can fully replace ‘nature’s technology’ perfected over hundreds of millions of years in delivering key services to sustain life on Earth. A productive, diverse natural world, and a stable climate have been the foundation of the success of our civilization, and will continue to be so in future. A fundamental issue in previous technological revolutions has been the lightness with which we have taken for granted healthy natural systems like forests, oceans, river basins (all underpinned and maintained by biodiversity) rather than valuing these as a necessary condition to development.

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

Can technology help to a cultural shift to take place?

The hunt for new smarter ways to support our development has always been a key driver of technological advancement. Today as our civilisation faces a new unprecedented challenge, technology can play a crucial role in decoupling development and environmental degradation.

Indeed many scientists see Carbon Capture as an essential tool in mitigating CO2 levels as we move towards a carbon negative society. Carbon Capture is by no means a final solution, however we have reached a point of criticality where technological assistance will be necessary.

Technology has a role in everything we do, it is up to us as planners and policy makers to ensure there is planned contingency and ethical frameworks to ensure they are put to use in environmental repair.

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

REALITY

EQUALITY

EQUITY

LIBERATION

Capitalism

Equal support

Equitable varied supports

Systemic barrier removed

Individuals are given different supports to make it possible for them to have equal access. They are being treated equitably

All individuals have equal access without any supports or accomodation because the cause of the inequality has been addressed

The current system makes it easier for the better off to exploit the worse off, widening the gap of inequality.

H ea

De-privatise shopping centre space and give back to the community, create new progressive social space.

fa

ll

al

e E n at F re on m a ti ne em arke t Pr i va t i s o li b e ra li s m

i ty

Energy & Materials Investigate how existing systems and byproducts can be reutilised.

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

er

ot

m

Privatisation

ov

o sh

CO2

Provide incentives for localised production and transportation without obstruction from the WTO.

Bi od i

l

rg y ia & ls

Free-market fundamentalism

Sh

t or

a

lture ricu Ag

Create a social consciousness around responsibility and carbon debt, remove systemic barriers of accumulation of wealth.

si

ic

Inequality

lth

u

It is also important to look at alternate forms of capital to prevent the perpetual exploitation and extraction of humans and material. If we could centre our lives and architecture around a new form of capital we could create a better environment for ourselves and the planet.

Degrowth of agriculture and dependence on meat products will provide more land to rediversify.

ical Ceilin g Ecolog C l i n m ate iro Env lism chang a t e n me l foundatio a i c n So

hy

ity rs ve

In order to achieve liberation we must develop an ethical framework for future developments that address issues of labour, in an ecological degrowth format. We must additionally address trade, race, gender and colonial issues in order to create a global equality to move towards breaking down the existing ideologies that form the systemic barrier, Preventing us from moving towards a carbon neutral world.

Biodiversity & Agriculture

Aware nes s

Equality, Equity & Degrowth

Making this the heart of my design proposal to actively remove CO2.

c

foundation, this is what can be considered to be fundamental human rights I.e. Healthcare, equality etc.

eq

170

biop

Climate change & CO2

In

One way we can simultaneously challenge the existing ‘capitalist metabolic process’ and global warming is through degrowth.

The degrowth diagram (opposite) situates us in the light green band where above us is the ecological ceiling. Overshooting this is the point at which we start to damage the environment. Below is the social

facilitating more CO2 producion and individual dissatisfaction?

in g

Degrowth

Increase peoples awareness of climate change by finding ways to make the invisible (CO2) - visible.

Wellbe

The current capitalist system sites the body at the centre of its process. The human body is the producer of labour to make products and also the site at which they are consumed. Capitalism was formed on the exploitation of human labour whether slaves or colonials and this continues today. Today, in the era of globalisation, we export our labour production to the cheapest parts of the world.

China’s energy consumption is intrinsically linked to the deindustrialisation of the west and China becoming world commodity exporters. This is made possible through mechanisms of state oppression, division of labour and unequal rights.

What are the systemic barriers and how to prevent my carbon capture proposal from

ural t l u

Labour and capital

Awareness

er

Degrowth systems

It is assumed that everyone will benefit from the same supports.

People are being treated equally

socio-e

c

on

o

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Redefining capital We live in a world where only one type of currency dominates, and this is causing many problems for the global economy. The monopoly of one type of currency leaves the worldwide economy without resiliency and subject to harsh ups and downs.

Bubbles start to burst with alarming f requency, causing grave damage.

Our interest-bearing, debt-based currency is forcing the economy to unsustainable levels of growth beyond the renewal possibility of their natural and human resources.

The impersonality of the currency makes every economic transaction a cold exchange

Social exchange - communications with the elderly or lonely

Material exchange - bring in scrap and old material for exchange

Performance exchange - come entertain people

Knowledge exchange - educate people at the social hub

Knowledge exchange- run classes I.e. yoga

Product exchange - a place for people to exchange like for like products

Cash in - exchange receipt for paying carbon responsibility for ‘carbon credits’

Shelter - Free shelter for homeless if you collect a certain amount of litter?

Farming exchange - come pick the CO2 crops

Neighbourhood help - exchange in trade I.e. help fix someone’s cupboard

Open information exchange - no patents on information, helping each other

Time slot exchange - volunteer shifts at Kofi bar to reduce prices

between strangers, diluting social and community ties. We also face growing wealth inequality.

To f ight back, Newcastle’s council and architects developed an ethical f ramework for future developments. They took it upon themselves to create several complementary currencies in an attempt to solve some of these problems and build an economical ecosystem much stronger and healthier than before.

Alternate forms of exchange Surplus The fundamentals of the human processing unit is labour exchange. In a capitalistic society we exchange our labour, usually around 45 hours a week, for capital. However the capital we receive does not equate to the labour we produce. A portion of what we produce is surplus capital and this is what the capitalist keeps. This isolates wealth and creates inequality. Different ideologies have challenged this, for example communism, but have failed due to human inherent greed and the remaining focus on capital .

Redefining capital In the light of the slow decay or retail, shopping centres will have to evolve. Their space will need to be retrofit with new purpose as stereotypical consumerism moves online. I propose a new form of consumerism - one that attends to our social humanistic tendencies. A community based space, de-privatised, that offers fundamental social exchanges: performance, knowledge. This could

172

form a basis of a new social capital in order to reflect the progressive action of the building, creating tangible social and environmental change.

Why this is important?

I believe it is important to look at capital within my ethical framework as it challenges the current system. The existing system is still exploitative of labour and materials and to propose a regenerative, carbon capture architecture within the existing framework would only perpetuate further extraction and production of CO2. If we are able to redefine capital as something centred around love, social interaction and responsibility this would make the biggest strides towards combatting global warming and abolishing the alienation inherent in the modern world.

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

173

vron

Remaining carbon emissions t budge

Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Sh el l

ConocoPhillips

Peabody l OccidentalLukoi

BP

China

Coa l

Talisman

Holcim

Rio TintoAlpha

Cumulative emissions 1750 – 2010 Ukraine

Kazakhstan

Czechoslovaki a

chance of keeping global warming below 2 °C is 2,900 GtCO 2**. By2010, 1,450 GtCO 2 * Richard Heede, ‘Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide andmethane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers,1854 - 2010’, Climatic Change (2014) 122:229– 241 DOI 10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y

Rather than attribute emissions to nations, the study aggregates historical emissions according to carbon producing

** IPCC, AR5 WG1 Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers, p 25.

entities themselves. Heede concludes dioxide emitted since the 1750s can be

Emissions attributable to Investor-owned companies

traced to just 90 fossil fuel and cement producers, most of which still operate.

Fifty are investor-owned companies such as Chevron, Peabody and Shell.

Thirty-one are state-owned companies such as Saudi Aramco and Statoil, and nine are government-run industries in Poland, and the former Soviet Union.

2,985

Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia

46,033

Former Soviet Union

129,717

Yukos, Russia

2,858

Gazprom, Russia

32,136

China, Peoples Rep. (coal & cement only)

124,089

Hess, USA

2,364

National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Iran

29,084

Poland

26,750

Xstrata, Switzerland

2,223

Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico

20,025

Russian Federation (not including FSU)

11,243

Massey Energy Corporation, US

2,199

British Coal Corporation, UK

19,245

Czechoslovakia

7,347

Alpha Natural Resources, USA

2,149

Petroleos de Venezuela, Venezuela

16,157

Kazakhstan

4,442

Cyprus Amax, USA

1,748

Coal India, India

15,493

Ukraine

3,370

10,564

North Korea

2,802

10,503

Czech Republic

on Climate Change (IPCC). The total amount we can emit and still have a 66%

PetroChina, China

1,695

Devon Energy, USA

1,690

Kuwait Petroleum Corp., Kuwait

BG Group (British Gas) UK

1,543

Abu Dhabi NOC, United Arab Emirates

9,672

Westmoreland Mining, USA

1,530

Sonatrach, Algeria

9,263

Suncor, Canada

1,407

Iraq National Oil Company, Iraq

7,137

Kiewit Mining Group, USA

1,295

Pertamina, Indonesia

6,829

46,672

North American Coal, US

1,181

Libya National Oil Corp., Libya

6,693

BP, UK

35,837

Ruhrkohle AG (RAG), Germany

1,138

Nigerian National Petroleum, Nigeria

6,540

Royal Dutch Shell, The Netherlands

30,751

Luminant / TXU, USA

1,049

Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), Brazil

5,991

ConocoPhillips, USA

16,866

Lafarge, France

1,044

Petronas, Malaysia

5,274

Peabody Coal Group

12,432

Holcim, Switzerland

1,008

Statoil, Norway

4,367

Total, France

11,911

Canadian Natural Resources, Canada

958

Oil and Gas Corp India, India

4,163

9,096

Apache, USA

951

Qatar Petroleum, Qatar

3,410

BHP Billiton, Australia

7,606

Talisman, Canada

925

Egyptian General Petroleum, Egypt

2,768

Anglo American, UK

7,242

Murray Coal Corporation, USA

796

Rosneft, Russian Federation

2,723

6,843

UK Coal, UK

794

Petroleum Development Oman, Oman

2,663

Aramco

China

Egyptian General Petroleum

CNOO C

Singareni

Syrian Petroleu m

Polish Oil & Gas Co.

Bahrain Petroleu m

Sinopec

Ecopetro l

Petrobras

Sonangol

Abu Dhabi NOC

Statoil

Kuwait Petrole um

Petronas

Czech Republic

Sh el l

PetroChina

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Peabody Sasol

Anadarko

BG Group

Talisman

Arch

Murray

Italcement

UK Coal

Murphy

OMV

Heidelber g

Holcim

Rio TintoAlpha

Husky N American Coa l

ENI

RAG

RWE

PEMEX Pertamin a

China

Libya National Oil

British Coa l

Iraq National Oil Co.

Aramco

Rosneft

Petroleum Development Oma n

CNOO C Syrian Petroleu m

Polish Oil & Gas Co.

Singareni

Bahrain Petroleu m

Qatar Petroleum

Sinopec

Ecopetro l

Petrobras

Sonangol

Oil and Gas Corp Indi a

5,961

1,809

Arch Coal Company, USA

5,888

HeidelbergCement, Germany

587

Sonangol, Angola

1,794

Anadarko, USA

5,195

Cemex, Mexico

551

Sinopec, China

1,532

Occidental, USA

5,063

Italcementi

463

Syrian Petroleum, Syria

1,402

Lukoil, Russia

3,873

Murphy Oil, USA

418

CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Co.)

1,123

Sasol, South Africa

3,515

Taiheiyo, Japan

402

Bahrain Petroleum Corporation

931

Rather than attribute emissions to

Repsol, Spain

3,381

OMV Group, Austria

346

Polish Oil & Gas Co.

473

nations, the study aggregates historical

Soviet Union

Nigerian National Petroleu m

Egyptian General Petroleum

Sonatrach

Ecopetrol, Colombia

Abu Dhabi NOC

Statoil

Kuwait Petrole um

Ukraine

Kazakhstan

Petroleos de Venezuel a

Petronas

Czech Republic

PetroChina

chance of keeping global warming below 2 °C is 2,900 GtCO 2**. By2010, 1,450 GtCO 2 * Richard Heede, ‘Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide andmethane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers,1854 - 2010’, Climatic Change (2014) 122:229– 241 DOI 10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y ** IPCC, AR5 WG1 Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers, p 25.

Fifty are investor-owned companies such as Chevron, Peabody and Shell.

2,985

Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia

46,033

Former Soviet Union

129,717

2,858

Gazprom, Russia

32,136

China, Peoples Rep. (coal & cement only)

124,089

such as Saudi Aramco and Statoil, and

Hess, USA

2,364

National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Iran

29,084

Poland

26,750

nine are government-run industries in

Xstrata, Switzerland

2,223

Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico

20,025

Russian Federation (not including FSU)

11,243

‘command economies’ such as China,

Czechoslovakia

Alpha Natural Resources, USA

2,149

Petroleos de Venezuela, Venezuela

16,157

Kazakhstan

Cyprus Amax, USA

1,748

Coal India, India

15,493

Ukraine

EnCana, Canada

1,695

PetroChina, China

10,564

North Korea

Kuwait Petroleum Corp., Kuwait

10,503

Czech Republic

Devon Energy, USA

NIOC 1,690

BG Group (British Gas) UK

1,543

Gazprom Westmoreland Mining, USA

1,530

Suncor, Canada

46,672

North American Coal, US

Abu Dhabi NOC, United Arab Emirates PEMEX Sonatrach, Algeria

1,407 1,295 Pertamin a Iraq National Oil Co.

35,837

Ruhrkohle AG (RAG), Germany

30,751

Luminant / TXU, USA

16,866

Lafarge, France

12,432

Holcim, Switzerland

11,911

Canadian Natural Resources, Canada

1,044

Petroleum Development Oma n

CNOO C

1,008

Syrian Petroleu m

958

Polish Oil & Gas Co.

Sinopec

Apache, USA

951

7,606

Talisman, Canada

7,242

Murray Coal Corporation, USA

6,843

UK Coal, UK

794

5,973

Husky, Canada

665

Singareni

Bahrain Petroleu m

Qatar Petroleum

9,096

Ecopetro l Sonangol

925 Oil and Gas Corp Indi a

Abu Dhabi NOC

796

6,829

Libya National Oil Corp., Libya

6,693

Statoil

651um Kuwait Petrole

6,540

Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), Brazil

5,991

Petronas, Malaysia

5,274

Statoil, Norway

4,367

Nigerian National Petroleu m

Egyptian General Petroleum

Sonatrach

Pertamina, Indonesia Nigerian National Petroleum, Nigeria

1,049 Rosneft

Aramco

7,137

British Coa l

1,138

9,263

Iraq National Oil Company, Iraq Libya National Oil

1,181

9,672

Oil andaGas Petrobr s Corp India, India

4,163

Qatar Petroleum, Qatar

3,410

Egyptian General Petroleum, Egypt

2,768

Petroleos de Venezuel a

Petronas Rosneft, Russian Federation

2,723

Petroleum Development Oman, Oman

2,663

Singareni Collieries Company, India

1,882

Coal India

5,961

Nexen, Canada

5,888

HeidelbergCement, Germany

587

5,195

Cemex, Mexico

551

Sinopec, China

1,532

5,063

Italcementi

463

Syrian Petroleum, Syria

1,402

3,873

Murphy Oil, USA

418

CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Co.)

1,123

3,515

Taiheiyo, Japan

402

Bahrain Petroleum Corporation

931

3,381

OMV Group, Austria

346

Polish Oil & Gas Co.

473

Ecopetrol, Colombia

PetroChina Sonangol, Angola

1,809 1,794

Shel l

Thirty-one are state-owned companies

ConocoPhillips

The ‘remaining carbon budget’

4,442

refers to the figure quoted in the fifth

3,370

report from the Intergovernmental Panel

2,802 Peabody

BP

BG Group

Talisman

Arch Unattributable emissions

Italcement

CNR Cemex Holcim

OMV

Heidelber g

Taiheiyo

Husky N American Coa l Nexen

CONSOL

Soviet Union

Hess

BHP

emissions according to carbon producing

Anglo American

which still operate.

Gazprom Ukraine producers, most of

Fifty are investor-owned companies

such as Chevron, Peabody and Shell.

Pertamin a Rosneft such as Saudi Aramco and Statoil, and

Petroleum Development Oma n

Egyptian General Petroleum

nine are government-run industries in

CNOO C

economies’ such as China, Russi‘command a Poland, and the former Soviet Union.

Syrian Petroleu m

Polish Oil & Gas Co.

Sinopec

Resources and data by Carbon Visuals Carbon Visuals helped make sense of big environmental challenges – climate change, air pollution, water and resource use. At the personal, local or global level. http://www.carbonvisuals.com/resources

Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico

20,025

Massey Energy Corporation, US

2,199

British Coal Corporation, UK

19,245

Czechoslovakia

7,347

Alpha Natural Resources, USA

2,149

Petroleos de Venezuela, Venezuela

16,157

Kazakhstan

4,442

Cyprus Amax, USA

1,748

Coal India, India

15,493

Ukraine

3,370

EnCana, Canada

1,695

PetroChina, China

10,564

North Korea

2,802

Devon Energy, USA

1,690

Kuwait Petroleum Corp., Kuwait

10,503

Czech Republic

2,000

BG Group (British Gas) UK

1,543

Abu Dhabi NOC, United Arab Emirates

9,672

Westmoreland Mining, USA

1,530

Sonatrach, Algeria

9,263

Iraq National Oil Company, Iraq

7,137

Pertamina, Indonesia

6,829

Libya National Oil Corp., Libya

6,693

BP, UK

35,837

Ruhrkohle AG (RAG), Germany

1,138

Nigerian National Petroleum, Nigeria

6,540

Royal Dutch Shell, The Netherlands

30,751

Luminant / TXU, USA

1,049

Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), Brazil

5,991

ConocoPhillips, USA

16,866

Lafarge, France

1,044

Petronas, Malaysia

5,274

Peabody Coal Group

12,432

Holcim, Switzerland

1,008

Statoil, Norway

4,367

11,911

Canadian Natural Resources, Canada

958

Oil and Gas Corp India, India

4,163

CONSOL Energy, USA

9,096

Apache, USA

951

Qatar Petroleum, Qatar

3,410

BHP Billiton, Australia

7,606

Talisman, Canada

925

Egyptian General Petroleum, Egypt

2,768

Anglo American, UK

7,242

Murray Coal Corporation, USA

796

Rosneft, Russian Federation

2,723

RWE, Germany

6,843

UK Coal, UK

794

Petroleum Development Oman, Oman

2,663

ENI, Italy

5,973

Husky, Canada

665

Singareni Collieries Company, India

1,882

Rio Tinto, UK

5,961

Nexen, Canada

651

Ecopetrol, Colombia

1,809

Arch Coal Company, USA

5,888

HeidelbergCement, Germany

587

Sonangol, Angola

1,794

Anadarko, USA

5,195

Cemex, Mexico

551

Sinopec, China

1,532

Occidental, USA

5,063

Italcementi

463

Syrian Petroleum, Syria

1,402

Lukoil, Russia

3,873

Murphy Oil, USA

418

CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Co.)

1,123

Sasol, South Africa

3,515

Taiheiyo, Japan

402

Bahrain Petroleum Corporation

OMV Group, Austria

346

Polish Oil & Gas Co.

Emissions attributable to Investor-owned companies

Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia

46,033

Former Soviet Union

129,717

Gazprom, Russia

32,136

China, Peoples Rep. (coal & cement only)

124,089

2,364

National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Iran

29,084

Poland

26,750

2,223

Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico

20,025

Russian Federation (not including FSU)

11,243

Massey Energy Corporation, US

2,199

British Coal Corporation, UK

19,245

Czechoslovakia

7,347 4,442

Alpha Natural Resources, USA

2,149

Petroleos de Venezuela, Venezuela

16,157

Kazakhstan

Cyprus Amax, USA

1,748

Coal India, India

15,493

Ukraine

3,370

PetroChina, China

10,564

North Korea

2,802

1,690

Kuwait Petroleum Corp., Kuwait

10,503

Czech Republic

2,000

1,543

Peabody 1,530

Abu Dhabi NOC, United Arab Emirates

9,672

Sonatrach, Algeria

9,263

1,407

Iraq National Oil Company, Iraq

7,137

Pertamina, Indonesia

6,829

Devon Energy, USA

1,695 ConocoPhillips

BG Group (British Gas) UK Westmoreland Mining, USA

l OccidentalLukoi

Suncor, Canada

North American Coal, US Anadarko

Ruhrkohle AG (RAG), Germany Devon

Saso1,295 l

BP

BG Group

30,751

Luminant / TXU, USA

ConocoPhillips, USA

16,866

Lafarge, France

Peabody Coal Group

12,432

Holcim, Switzerland

Total, France

11,911

Canadian Natural Resources, Canada

Arch

Talisman

Italcement

CNR Cemex Holcim

9,096

Apache, USA

BHP Billiton, Australia

7,606

Talisman, Canada

Murray Coal Corporation, USA ExxonMobil ENI UK Coal, UK

Murphy

OMV

Heidelber g

UK Coal

1,049

Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), Brazil

1,044

Petronas, Malaysia

1,008

Statoil, Norway

Kiewit

Taiheiyo

Husky N American Coa l Nexen

RAG

Lafarge Luminan t

Massey

1,138 Repsol

958

Yukos

Hess

Xstrata

Marathon

CONSOLOil and Gas Corp India, India

3,410

Egyptian General Petroleum, Egypt

2,768

796

Rosneft, Russian Federation

2,723

794

2,663 1,882

651

Ecopetrol, Colombia

1,809

HeidelbergCement, Germany

587

Sonangol, Angola

1,794

5,195

Cemex, Mexico

551

Sinopec, China

1,532

5,063

Italcementi

463

Syrian Petroleum, Syria

1,402

Lukoil, Russia

3,873

Murphy Oil, USA

418

CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Co.)

1,123

Sasol, South Africa

3,515

Taiheiyo, Japan

402

Bahrain Petroleum Corporation

931

Repsol, Spain

3,381

OMV Group, Austria

346

Polish Oil & Gas Co.

473

Husky, Canada

5,961

Nexen, Canada

5,888

RWE

Anglo American

Chevron

S h el l

PEMEX

535,749

4,163

Qatar Petroleum, Qatar

Singareni Collieries Company, India

5,973

Unattributable emissions

5,274

925

Investor owned companies

Ukraine

Kazakhstan

Czech Republic

N Korea

Czechoslovaki a

Poland

Russia

Nation states

ConocoPhillips

175

Peabody l OccidentalLukoi

BP

Anadarko

Sasol

BG Group

Westmorelan d

Devon Talisman

Libya National Oil

5,991

Soviet Union 4,367

Petroleum Development Oman, Oman

6,843

ENI, Italy

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

China

6,540

951

BHP

All other sources

6,693

665

Petroleos de Venezuel a RWE, Germany

NIOC

Pertamin a

Murray

Suncor

Apache

EnCana

National Oil Corp., Libya Total Libya Nigerian National Petroleum, Nigeria

1,181

Westmorelan d

Cyprus Amax

Rio TintoAlpha

CONSOL Energy, USA

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report Gazprom

S h el l

Kiewit Mining Group, USA

State owned companies

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

2,858

35,837

PetroChina

Emissions attributable to Nation states (command economies)

2,985

46,672

Petronas Abu Dhabi NOC The ‘remaining carbon budget’ Statoil Rio Tinto, UK Arch Coal Company, USA refers to the figure quoted in the fifth Anadarko, USA Coal India Kuwait Petrole um report from the Intergovernmental Panel Occidental, USA

amount we can emit and still have a 66%

473 Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Xstrata, Switzerland

51,096

7,242

535,749

Hess, USA

PEMEX Dutch Shell, The Netherlands

Unattributable emissions

Yukos, Russia

BP, UK

Nigerian National Petroleu m

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Marathon, USA

ExxonMobil, USA

Ecopetro l Sonangol

Cumulative emissions to (e)) 2010 (MtCO 2

All other sources

931

State-owned companies

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Chevron, USA

Petrobr as Anglo American, UK

Oil and Gas Corp Indi a

on Climate Change (IPCC). The total

11,243

2,223

1,181

Singareni

Bahrain Petroleu m

Qatar Petroleum

Chevron

26,750

Xstrata, Switzerland

Russian Federation (not including FSU)

1,295

British Coa l

Iraq National Oil Co.

Sonatrach

124,089

Poland

1,407

Libya National Oil Royal

Thirty-one are state-owned companies

Poland Aramco

129,717

China, Peoples Rep. (coal & cement only)

29,084

North American Coal, US

Emissions attributable to Investor-owned companies

NIOC traced to just 90 fossil fuel and cement

Czechoslovaki a

Former Soviet Union

32,136

National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Iran

EnCana, Canada

dioxide emitted since the 1750s can be

N Korea

46,033

Gazprom, Russia

2,364

Kiewit Mining Group, USA

that nearly two-thirds (63%) of carbon

Czech Republic

Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia

2,858

Suncor, Canada

** IPCC, AR5 WG1 Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers, p 25.

entities themselves. Heede concludes

Kazakhstan

2,985

Hess, USA

46,672

* Richard Heede, ‘Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide andmethane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers,1854 - 2010’, Climatic Change (2014) 122:229– 241 DOI 10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y

nations, the study aggregates historical

Yukos

Xstrata

RWE

Marathon

535,749 RAG

Lafarge Luminan t

Massey

ENI

China

fuels that caused global warming.

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Yukos, Russia

of this budget had been‘spent’ (emitted).

Rather than attribute emissions to

Murphy

Cyprus Amax

Rio TintoAlpha

ExxonMobil

Suncor Repsol Cumulative emissions to Kiewit(e)) UK Coal 2010 (MtCO 2

picture to date of who supplied the fossil

Murray

Apache

EnCana

Total

Emissions attributable to Nation states (command economies)

Marathon, USA

51,096

2 °C is 2,900 GtCO 2**. By2010, 1,450 GtCO 2

report* provides the most complete

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

ExxonMobil, USA

amount we can emit and still have a 66% Repsol, Spain chance of keeping global warming3,381 below Richard Heede’s ‘Carbon Majors’

Westmorelan d

Devon

All other sources

2,000

Sasol

Anadarko

on Climate Change (IPCC). The total

Cumulative emissions to (e)) 2010 (MtCO 2

State-owned companies

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Chevron, USA

Total, France

Poland, and the former Soviet Union.

7,347

l OccidentalLukoi

Emissions attributable to Investor-owned companies

producers, most of which still operate.

Yukos, Russia

Emissions attributable to Investor-owned companies

of this budget had been‘spent’ (emitted).

traced to just 90 fossil fuel and cement

Marathon, USA

Poland

Russia

Coal India

report* provides the most complete fuels that caused global warming.

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

N Korea

Czechoslovaki a

Richard Heede’s ‘Carbon Majors’ picture to date of who supplied the fossil

dioxide emitted since the 1750s can be

19,245

Anglo American

NIOC Gazprom

651

British Coal Corporation, UK

BHP

Remaining carbon emissions t budge

Nexen, Canada

2,199

CONSOL

Yukos

Hess

Xstrata

535,749

5,973

Massey Energy Corporation, US

Marathon

Nexen

Lafarge Luminan t

Massey

Repsol

Kiewit

Taiheiyo

Cyprus Amax

Chevron

1,882

Emissions attributable to Nation states (command economies)

Suncor

Apache

CNR Cemex

Total

Westmorelan d

Devon EnCana

Singareni Collieries Company, India

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Poland

Russia

l OccidentalLukoi

BP

665

State-owned companies

N Korea

Czechoslovaki a

ConocoPhillips

Coal India

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Unattributable emissions

Ukraine

Kazakhstan

Petroleos de Venezuel a

Oil and Gas Corp Indi a

ExxonMobil All other sources

Soviet Union

that nearly two-thirds (63%) of carbon

Kiewit Mining Group, USA

BHP

Anglo American

Nigerian National Petroleu m

2,000 Unattributable emission

ng below

174

RWE

British Coa l Petroleum Development Oma n

Qatar Petroleum

entities themselves. Heede concludes

51,096

Yukos

Hess

Libya National Oil

Rosneft

Sonatrach

emissions according to carbon producing

ulative ons to CO (e)) 2

RAG

PEMEX Pertamin a

Husky, Canada

Rio Tinto, UK

report from the Intergovernmental Panel

Gazprom

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Marathon, USA

51,096

ENI, Italy

refers to the figure quoted in the fifth

Emissions attributable to Nation states (command economies)

Iraq National Oil Co.

ExxonMobil, USA

RWE, Germany

The ‘remaining carbon budget’

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

Chevron, USA

CONSOL Energy, USA

‘command economies’ such as China,

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

State-owned companies

Cumulative emissions to 2010 (MtCO (e)) 2

EnCana, Canada

that nearly two-thirds (63%) of carbon

Physical p 25.

ENI

CONSOL

Nexen

Xstrata

NIOC Emissions attributable to Investor-owned companies

of this budget had been‘spent’ (emitted).

fuels that caused global warming.

bon dioxide ment 122:229–

Heidelber g

Marathon

Remaining carbon emissions t budge

report* provides the most complete

emitted).

Husky N American Coa l

Lafarge Luminan t

Massey

Repsol

Kiewit

Taiheiyo

Chevron

Richard Heede’s Russia‘Carbon Majors’

Emissions attributable to Investor-owned companies

Suncor

UK Coal

Murphy

OMV

Poland

picture to date of who supplied the fossil

50 GtCO 2

Italcement

Cyprus Amax

ExxonMobil

N Korea

Murray

Apache

CNR Cemex

Total

Westmorelan d

Devon

Arch

Unattributable emission

Czech Republic

BG Group

EnCana

Soviet Union

ezuel a

Sasol

Anadarko

EnCana

Murray

Suncor

Apache Italcement

Murphy

UK Coal

Repsol

Kiewit

Total

China

Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Responsibility Free-Trade reforms

The price of carbon

We have a big issue with the existing WTO that allows for a huge proportion of CO2 emissions to be “unattributable”. These need to be taken account in nation/ company budgets.

Another economic issue I would like to propose is to address the price of high carbon intensive products and processes to pay for the cost of the product + the carbon. This could work on a merit based individual (shown below) but would be key on a larger company based level.

First world responsibility In first world countries we must address our colonial and exploitative past and give back to lesser developed countries to build trust and bring developing countries to an equal level of carbon mitigation. Creating climate justice is the only way towards a sovereign global approach necessary to address climate change.

“Indeed, many economists now call climate change one of the greatest market failures of history-the problem being, again, that we do not pay the true cost of greenhouse gas emissions.”

Joel Wainwright & Geoff Mann, Climate Leviathan (108)

Production and consumption distribution We must develop a new system that takes into account the location of consumption of products not just the production. China has the highest CO2 levels however 50% of their products are exported to the western world.

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Final crit presentation Newcastle has been shaped by the coal mining industry since the 13th century. Forging its cultural identity, geology, topography and infrastructure.

Although many of the pit heaps have now been reclaimed and naturalised into the landscape, railways decommissioned and mineshaft barricaded, there is no doubting the important influence that coal mining has had upon the modern character of North East England.

The coal industry has now been elevated into an exhibition match between the past and the future.

Local jobs versus global climate. Historically, the coal industry has seen local communities unwillingly give up their land, allowing privatised companies to make vast profits whilst they received only pollution in return. When we abandoned coal we abandoned the city.

My project started at this point of abandonment by looking at coal, the city and the community. I began, in the spirit of unlearning, from an unconventional protagonist: the rat. The rat as a burrower, in this I drew parallels to the miners of Newcastle as burrowers — but unlike rats we burrow for more nefarious means — to extract, burn, deplete, and consume.

I began to correlate our mining to global warming, carbon levels and mass extinction events. In understanding this dire environmental situation we find ourselves in, I was able to contextualise my proposal in this deep rooted practice of Newcastle’s heritage. Identifying that there was a need to heal the city and heal the community.

Virtual miro presentation boards

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My project forms a response to the social and environmental damage of Newcastle’s coal mining industry using the past to address the future through economy, infrastructure and power generated by the coal industry to propel a new industry of carbon capture and utilisation, turning pollution into

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

possibility by removing CO2 from the air via direct air capture.

We are currently observing the death of retail as we know it, online e-commerce stores are buying up high-street brands for instance ASOS buying top man. This means shopping centres will soon become available for retrofit and in the interest of preventing further material extraction and CO2 production, whilst maintaining the important social space shopping centres currently afford this is where I have decided to situate my proposal.

In utilising these soon to be redundant infrastructures, and those created by the coal industry, such as old colliery lines and mines shafts we can begin to create a regional strategy in the North East, using an interconnected network of existing mine and rail for distribution and utilisation of captured carbon, creating new captured carbon products and materials to drive the move towards a zero carbon future.

My proposal takes the form of a public and civic energy plant in the heart of Newcastle’s city centre, Eldon Square. Traditionally these types of buildings are marginalised and ignored, but through its central location and by bringing in local authority and community to engage with climate change I hope we might better understand the relation of our activities to their impacts. Bjarke Ingles describes this as hedonistic sustainability, a sustainability that improves the quality of life and human enjoyment.

This proposal aims to not only be sustainable but carbon negative, seeking to actively heal the city and its community from the damage of the coal industry.

In this dialogue with coal, the building is seen to emerge out of the strata from which we once mined, old flooded mineshaft are used for net zero ground source heat, old shafts for distribution of captured carbon and burrow like community spaces emerge from the ground.

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

My first semester proposal was supported by an ethical framework, the purpose of this was to understand and challenge existing socio-political issues mainly surrounding labour, energy and the environment, in order to see how you could propose a carbon capture facility within a capitalist society and not have it perpetuate the continued production of CO2. You can’t just paint capitalism green and call it green capitalism because it creates this conflicting ideological dichotomy. Many people see technology as this paint brush, but there has to be a change in life style and the ethical framework depicts this through degrowth economics, material exchanges and critique on the application of technology.

Developing this framework was integral in order to prevent the project undermining itself or not being used towards meaningful climate action. The way I’ve continued to develop the ethical framework this semester is to challenging the traditional stages of life cycle within my proposal from cradle to grave, situating Eldon within this.

So in second semester I moved from the wider regional strategy of connected shopping centres to looking in detail at Eldon Square in particular. Trying to reduce these ideas and concepts and apply them to a specific building structure. I began by looking at how my conceptual ideas ,like in this first illustrative section of deprivatising ground level, elevating my energy systems and connecting into existing transport infrastructure, could begin to integrate into the more pragmatic constraints of retrofitting Eldon Square, in this 1:25 technical section I was able to use my critique of materials and processes from the ethical framework to propose new materials and processes such as using those created on site from captured carbon. This was aimed at creating new economies in labour, energy, ethics and environment and ensure my proposal through it construction is ethical.

So as I mentioned earlier there was a need for healing, a process of healing doesn’t produce more CO2, so I developed a phasing strategy that, after installation of the first direct air capture unit, allows

the building to grow from materials created from the captured CO2 happening on site. For instance the first fan brings in and filters the carbon that can then be used to create clean concrete and thermopolymers that can build the future fans.

The process of healing has to be about community, its important socially and politically, as this building stands to oppose the privatisation and pollution of the coal industry, that this building engages the community and gives them the power and responsibility for the carbon capture.

In order to create this level of community engagement and awareness it was important that the building revealed the process and people could physically interact with this. So I proposed 2 symbolic lungs, a carbon lung and an oxygen lung, in the central atrium of the building fed by air drawn through the air capture units. The oxygen lung made of triple layer ETFE cushions which would expand and contract through the positive air pressure created within the DAC units. This bringing purified filtered air into the space, giving the illusion of breathing. This lung can be inhabited spatially and would be a testament to the clean air being produced, engaging people into thinking what their city air could be like and then also distribute purified air around the building. A second lung would be the carbon lung, a more shrivelled slightly blackened inbreathing lung inhabited by vegetation, showing how we can use the carbon but also its effects on our lungs.

can be delivered to site and is then fed through a Biowhale, which is existing on site, turning it into soup before using the carbon to help digestion, this can then fertilise the community growing and the biogas can power the building’s CHP and the new bus fleet in the existing station attached to Eldon Square.

The programme adjacency diagram integrates energy systems with public on a deprivaised ground floor. Below, community facilities are provided such as education and allotments in burrow like spaces, and the floors above see a collaboration between researchers, faculty, architects and planners in an aim to consolidate thinkers and makers of the built environment driving carbon negative designs.

All of these systems support each other to create the whole which is the energy plant, flipping traditional methods of extraction on its head, mining carbon from the air instead of the ground. This alludes to how we will have to combat climate change. There is no single quick fix but a whole assortment of changes and systems that have to work in harmony.

The ETFE lungs are also used in other areas where they are more spatial, pushing up against walls and severed servicing from the previous building use. These create voids in the space which help light penetration into the deep building frame and encourage heat dissipation and stack ventilation.

The void provides a space for people to look down upon a civic discussion chamber encouraging transparency in governance, the same transparency which is apparent across the building with regards to all the energy systems.

The plans utilise the existing grid but try not to be restricted by it, skewing the building provides two back of house areas to the sides and a split down the middle helps to de-privatise the ground floor giving back to the residents, improving the permeability of this huge space in the city centre.

The building zoning follows this movement of captured carbon from thought to action, civic conception to product creation in the microbrewery and workshop, everyplace with a view of the symbolic breathing lungs at the centre.

All these spaces stem from this programme of direct air carbon capture. Thinking how every space can either capture carbon or help the public engage with this process. So the co-opted growing came from a way of sequestering carbon in plants and soil as well as the public growing materials that can be used in the building such as mushroom spoors that create self healing concrete. The microbrewery came as a way of engaging the public, where captured carbon can be used to carbonate beer.

The anaerobic digestion addresses the consumer waste of the old shopping centre where waste Final semester 2 virtual miro presentation board

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Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

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Unlearning: How to practice architecture?

Reflective conclusion This semester has been really fulfilling, although very challenging with the restriction of COVID-19. I have enjoyed the freedom of our Stage 5 brief, being able to form my own unique narrative based around the ethical framework, free from the restrictions of specified outputs. This has allowed me to explore and integrate wider political and social issues into my proposal with less emphasis on the specific build.

I have enjoyed exploring carbon capture in rigour and piecing together energy systems and seeing how they can support each other. This has been a great way to question the role of the architect. I now see the architect as someone to plan cities and design facilities around their energy systems and use, then to utilise this to support and build up communities, those who have often suffered from privatised companies. Systems like these can be resistant to collapse via crisis, such as COVID-19, by using a whole host of small systems and changes, not relying on a single system. Integrating and working with ethical frameworks allow us to build new economies into our designs as architects, to put more significance on understanding specified elements such as material and process, in terms of their embodied labour, energy and environmental costs, to ensure we are practising ethically. I have found a new significance in my work when thinking about community. I believe we can not heal the planet until we heal the community and address inequality.

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The transition from Semester 1 to Semester 2 has felt somewhat disconnected with the submission of two separate portfolios. For a continuous project it has been difficult deciding which parts of the narrative to bring across in order to maintain the continuity between the wider scale explorations of Semester 1 and the detailed explorations of Semester 2. I feel it is all significant but in the interest of not duplicating too much work I have kept this to a minimum. I have enjoyed translating wider scale concepts and ideas from Semester 1 and seeing how I might be able to manifest them in the smallest details of my project proposal. Finding materials such as ‘healing concrete’ which actively breathes in CO2 from the atmosphere, a reflection of the programme as well as translating the rhizomatic regional philosophy into a spatial quality through plasters casts of mushroom rhizomes.

Due to the extensions and push backs of work due to COVID-19 we had 1 month less this year than last year. I wish I had a bit more time to really delve into thinking about the building spatially and designing the energy systems.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the themes and ideas the unlearning studio has had to offer and I look forward to maintaining key environmental issues at the core of my future work.

[GC 1] [G C 2] [G C 3] [G C 4] [G C 5 ] [G C 6] [GC 7] [GC 9] [GC 10] [GC 11]

Thesis

Criticality

The nature of the studio helped provide me with a strong conceptual basis to explore my interest surrounding climate and capitalism and it also helped me to develop other supplementing policies and theories. I enjoyed the unique protagonist perspective as a way to get thinking and allowing the building to form from its contextual needs.

I have aimed to derive all my processes through research in theory to develop a feasible response to the challenges we face. I have tried to avoid the desire to set the project in a post-capitalist utopia and rather set the project now and try to see how we could operate in our existing system but without perpetuating it. This project has seen a lot of research on technology and systems through which I have pieced together my own systems and narratives around the context of Newcastle. Additionally I was fortunate enough to be able to explain my project to professor of carbon sequestration David Mann who helped me derive more processes.

Design Development Through the support of the studio I have been able to seek development in unconventional areas such as in the ethical framework and retrofit strategies. It has been tricky developing a building within such a rational existing building frame but it has been fun designing and integrating energy systems. I would have liked more time to explore the minute spaces in this huge project.

Context I believe this is the strongest aspect of my proposal.

I wanted my strategy to be born out of the needs of a specific context and I was happy to be able to use Newcastle’s coal mining heritage as a basis for addressing CO2 through community responsibility and existing unused infrastructures. More widely I have throughout addressed the current sociopolitical and geographic complexities we are facing, and how we as individuals are positioned in relation to this. My proposal grows dramatically out of the strata we once mined but flips current conventions on their heads, mining the air for carbon.

Academic Portfolio Stage 5 Summer Report

Representation This year I have tried to avoid the trappings of a specific style or colour theme and rather let the context of the topic or question reflect in the representation. I am hopeful that the structure of the document acts to hold all this work together in a clear manner. I would like to continue to explore new forms of representation and hopefully be able to get into the workshop more!

Studio specific criterion Our studio focus has been to critique the status quo.

To challenge the future socio-political landscape, designing with intention and ethics. I was happy to have climate change at the heart of my project and I hope my project has been able to bring new questions to light for the reader that they might otherwise have not considered.

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“Yes, we may f ind technological solutions that propel us into a new golden age of robots, collective intelligence, and an economy built around ‘the creative class’. But it’s at least as probable that as we fail to f ind those solutions quickly enough, the world falls into apathy, disbelief in science and progress, and after a melancholy decline, a new dark age.”

Neil Degrasse Tyson, Cosmos

JAY HALLSWORTH The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Newcastle University Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 7RU UK