Weather Museum

WEATHER MUSEUM The main focus of our studio this semester has been architecture as a part of the whole planet’s ecology. With sea levels rising with climate change, 6 Mile Island becomes a testing ground for new types of forms and insfrastructure to work harmoneously with natural forces, rather than fight against them.

Mapping

One of the most interesting aspects of our site for the weather museum was that the island moved over time, until the 1950s when the Navy Corp installed a concrete bunker on the island in order to slow down the movement. This map shows the movement of the island as a timeline along with the history of the Allegheny River and Pittsburgh. The tags describe different legislation that has been passed over the years to clean the air and water in the Pittsburgh region, as well as national legislation that has been passed. The darkness of the river correlates with the dirtiness of the river during that period of time and the thickness of the river represents the amount of fish species in the river. The pink on either side of the river represent the Pittsburgh and Sharpsburg sides of the river and the thickness of the pink represents the population of those areas over time. As many industries left Pittsburgh the quality of the water improved, but the population of Pittsburgh decreased as there were not as many jobs.

This map depicts the island as a series of photos taken on the island that are laid out at the location at which the photo was taken. Through the images one can see the views around from the island and the types of vegetation and how it differs across the island, as well as understanding the edge condition of the island.

This map depicts the densities of different natural elements on the island as a gradiant condition, rather than a hard edge condition. The blue represents water on and around the island, the pink represents the vegetation on the island, and the white represents the topography of the island. It is important not to think of the island simply as an object but to understand all the natural forces that make up the island.

Algae Ecomachine The main energy source for the building is an algae energy production system. When doing studies on existing architectures with algae energy production, I noticed that all of the systems had very rigid systems consisting of controlled mechanics and glass and steel that completely opposed the fluid and organic algae processes. My building attempts to operate in a more fluid manner that could stretch, shrink, expand, and curve according to factors such as rainwater and sunlight. In order to achieve this I devised of the algae system as composing of two layers of a clear flexible ETFE material with the water and algae held between these two layers.

Nucleus Pyrenoid

Island Analysis

Brackets with Thermal Breaks Metal Plate

Starch Granules

Back Support Panel

Phycobilin

Piping Support Beams Piping

Chloroplast

Pipe Casing

Mitochondria

Cytoplasm Frame

Algae

White Anti-Reflective Laminated Safety Glass Argon White Anti-Reflective Laminated Safety Glass Piping

Decorative Laminated Safety Glass Argon Decorative Laminated Safety Glass Frame Front Panel

Shell Inlet

Shell Vent

Shell-side Gasket

Tubesheet Tube-side Gasket Waterbox Sanitary Ferrule

Front Support Panel

These drawings explore the logic of the aggregation of the trees within the island. I first mapped the general canopies of trees on the island and then I mapped each tree individually (simplified as a circle for the sake of this exercise). I then reimagined the trees organized according to a grid of ten foot squares, while still fitting within the general canopy shape.

Understanding the location of the trees helped me determine where the most carbon dioxide was on the island, which coincided with the areas with less trees. I then mapped a grid that deformed based on the trees and a diagram of the splitting of the island. This helped me to determine where to put different parts of the building on the island.

My design for the weather museum consists of a series of programs spread out over the island that anchor certain parts of the island. The areas of the island that are not anchored would slowly erode over time and eventually the island would transform into several smaller islands. The idea of a dynamic architecture and island helps to depict the effects of natural elements such as the river and weather and people going several times over a long period of time would get a different experience each time. Because the island would be splitting into multiple islands, I organized the structure of the building in a rhizomatic manner. The rhizome has a relationship that operates similar to that of roots.

They spread with no direction or a start and end, unlike a tree structure that has a starting point and branches out from there. While a tree has a clear hierarchy, the rhizome operates as a plane of consistency. It can be argued that society as a whole is rhizomatic in that it is adaptive to change.

Structure of Each Program Based on Sunlight Simulation Reception

Amphitheater

Classrooms

Research

Maintenance

Caretaker House

Unused Program 1

Structure

Inside Surface

Outside Surface

Gallery

Each of the programs consists of two layers of an ETFE membrane filled with water and algae as the outermost layer covering the entire structure, an overall structure that could bend and move like a mesh-like material, an inner structure that comprises the individual rooms within each program, and an inner ETFE membrane for each room. Underneath each of the programs is a sprawling foundation that fits the language of a rhizomatic structure. Within each tower is a spiraling staircase that leads to the top and a foundation for the staircase that sticks further into the ground than the rest of the foundation. Over time as the island and building moves, the foundation would leave a trail and parts of the foundation would start sticking out of the sides of the newly formed islands.

In order to determine the structure for each program on the island I first ran a DIVA sunlight simulation on each of the eleven membrane surfaces to map the areas with the most sunlight and the least sunlight. This helped me to map which areas of the membrane would have the most or least algae growing in them. I then created a Grasshopper script that created a pipe-like structure based off of the DIVA simulations with the density of the structure and the distance it sticks out from the surface determined by the amount of sunlight. This allowed for a structure that was respondant to the sunlight and allows those within the building to see the connection between the sunlight affecting the algae growth and the density of the structure within the building.

ETFE Membrane

Chain Mail like Framework construction

Each of the programs would have a tower that serves a different purpose depending on the program. These towers are meant to stick up beyond the canopy so that it could be seen from the areas around the island. Pittsburgh has historically been synonymous with industry and pollution and the smokestack towers for the factories have been a symbol for this. By having algae towers emerging from the canopies, hopefully it will come to symbolize a new green age in technology and a redefinition of Pittsburgh’s identity.