MEGAblog in ARCHITECT Magazine

The January 2007 issue of Architect Magazine features MEGAblog.

"There’s nothing radical about students with blogs, and websites showcasing the projects of architecture studios are easy to find. But MEGAblog is something different: A site designed and run by students as a course requirement, it is a portal to the inner work- ings of one studio’s semester, from initial meeting to final review. It’s also, says Ronald Rael, whose students created MEGAblog, a step toward a new way of teaching architecture."

[ download pdf | Architect Magazine ]

Seismic City

EARTHQUAKE RISK

Earthquakes are known to occur mostly along fault lines, which are the edges of the earth's tectonic plates. These sections, large and small, of the earth's crust shift at approximately the same rate that your fingernails grow in one year. Along the fault lines, earthquakes are bound to occur and very frequently because of their uncontrolable and constant motion. Earthquakes form our mountains and create valleys, even at the bottom of the ocean (of course this process has occured over a long period of time). Small earthquakes can move the plates millimeters at a time, where a single large earthquakes can move the earth's crust one or two meters. The positions of continents in our world today are beleived to have drifted from the supercontinent, also known as Pangaea, and settled somewhat permanently into their current positions.



Earthquakes are much more common in specific areas than others, even along the fault lines, where they are most prevailent. High population and conscentration of buildings puts pressure on the earth and has been known to cause plate movements and earthquakes. For example, Taipei 101, the tallest building in Tokyo [at more than 500 meters] is beleived to have reopened an old fault line. Speculation says that the building has caused two earthquakes since it's construction due to the 700,000 tons of stress that the building puts on the earth. Recently, an earthquake was provoked by engineers attempting to extract geothermal heat from deep inside the earth. They stopped their experiment in Zurich due to the fact that their "drilling" caused an earthquake [magnitude 3.4] in nearby Basil, Switzerland. Although population may not directly cause earthquake activity, megacities and megastructures can certainly trigger a quake.

About 1/3 of the world's megacities [cities with a population of 2 million or more] are located near fault lines. Of the 13 most populated cities in the world, 10 are located in areas of high risk for earthquakes alone. However, it is purely coinsidence that populated placed along the coast, an aesthetically pleasing and popular location [frequently in high demand], lie parallel to fault lines. This idea follows along the same lines as the theory of the supercontinent, seeing that a land mass, once a single intity, broke apart creating new coastline along the fault lines [edges of the today's tectonic plates].

These areas are subject to repeat seismic activities and damages from earthquakes that have occured and will continue to occur. It is ironic that fault lines double as popular areas prone to urban growth and development. Since these areas of risk are now heavily populated they receive the most destructive impacts from earthquakes due to damage and casualty.





Earthquakes occur several hundred times a day. Earthquakes are so powerful that they have been compared to their energy equivalents [other natural disasters, bombs, etc.] according to the destruction that they both ensue. Because of these disasters and the physical and economical damage that they cause, there are seismic monitors that record the earth's reverberations and can even predict future occurances. There are seismic monitoring stations located around the world to monitor these earthquakes as they occur and record the effects of the shock and aftershocks to come. This data can be viewed publically on certain educational websites such as www.iris.com. The quakes are measured using the Richter Magnitude Scale [1 - 9.9]. Since this technology can prevent casualties, but cannot prevent damage, warnings are the only way to avoid an earthquake. One of the factors that most contributes to damage after an earthquake is fire. [As if the damage from the actual earthquake weren't enough!]

MAPPING

The mapping shows earthquake data which occurs over a period of 2 1/2 months, from April 15, 2006 - June 30, 2006. The fault lines, although not physically represented, start to appear by the earthquake patterns that occur over this short amount of time. Columns stand in the epicenter of each earthquake. [the height of the column representing the magnitude of the earthquake measured by the Richter Scale 1-9.9] These columns extend in a plane according to the directional movement of the tectonic plates at each specific location. The length of the axes is dependant on the amount of time that has passed since the earthquake occurred. The direction of the constant plate movement is apparent and time causes these conditions to intersect. Frequency and density of the earthquakes create masses that are the beginnings of a new world.



What if there was a way to construct or develop a city that embraces an earthquake instead of constructing to withstand the physical effects of a quake [like most cities]? The idea of "sutures" applied to the city is the beginning of a city system solution.


[these images show how buildings are like sutures which address the fault line as a wound]. The buildings must also have connections with the city [a suture connection as well, following a linear path such as the earthquake plane].

PROPOSAL

LOCATION : The San Andreas Fault. The fault, 1300 kilometers long, runs near the pacific coast from the west to the south of California. A right-lateral strike-slip fault, the San Andreas forms the boundary between two tectonic plates : the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. Located in the San Francisco area, the San Andreas fault is surrounded by urban development. The cities in the San Francisco peninsula [and surrounding area] include : Daly City, Pacifica, San Bruno, San Francisco, and South San Francisco.

San Francisco is the second most densely populated city in the United States.

Because the San Andreas fault is a strike-slip fault, the city takes on these characteristics. This is an early collage of how components can slide and lock into other key structural components.













A Seismic City is a megacity located on or near a fault line [one that "cuts" through the land, not the ocean]. The Seismic City is constructed as a continuation and an improvement to a populated city that already exists and experiences earthquakes frequently or is located in a high risk area. The Seismic City is dedicated to research facilities, public aid, and seismic stations. The city monitors the movement under the earth's crust.

The cities begin to form from linear axes that parallel the direction of the tectonic plate movement at that specific location. One of the axes follows the path of the San Andreas fault on the left side, in the direction of the movement of the Pacific Plate. This axis consists of a series of three Research Centers. The other axis is -35 degrees, the direction of the North American Plate. All of the Earthquake Towers, which are the destinations for the Earthquake Complexes, are turned at this angle.

Seismic City is a proposal that a high-risk city embrace an earthquake as it occurs while also serving as a haven for research. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, 5,600 Earthquake Shacks were constructed to house approximately 16,000 of the people that had just become homeless. The proposal is derived from this concept of constructed housing units for relief, but units that are portable and ready-made.





COMPONENTS

1] Earthquake Complexes. These complexes leave the Research Centers upon detection of an earthquake occurance. When an earthquake strikes, the earthquake complexes are shipped to one or more stations in the city or cities nearest to the epicenter. They are stocked with damage supplies, first aid, vehicles to aid in moving debris, firetrucks, and ambulances. They also provide shelter for people that have been temporarily put out of a home. There are three different sizes of units that are sent out for earthquake relief depending on the magnitude of an earthquake. Whether it be a magnitude of 1-3, 3-6.5, or 6.5-9.9, three units of certain size are released from the Research Center.





Transportation : The shacks are somewhat large buildings [comparable to an average low-rise commercial building] and are transported by cable. San Francisco is well-known for its use of cable cars throughout the city. They were first introduced in 1873 and are still used today. Although the earthquake shacks do not travel on the ground, the system is integrated into the city as they function similarly to ski-lifts. T-bar lifts, the most durable lifts, support the cables and allow easy transportation of the supply units. Earthquake Shacks slide in and out of the Research Centers on cables and are transported to their destination tower where they are locked in place.







The city is a combination of static and dynamic components. The Earthquake Shacks are dynamic in movement from the Research Center to the Earthquake Tower. They are in transit while the earthquake is occuring. The Research Centers and the Earthquake Towers are both static.



2] Research Centers. There are three Research Centers aligned on the left side of the fault. These centers monitor seismic motion and project exaggerated vibrations and sounds during an earthquake. The centers project these sounds at an audible level. People that live in the city will be able to hear an earthquake as it occurs. Earthquake Shacks are manufactured and shipped from these locations. The Research Centers cover the span of eight city blocks [allowing for required space to manufacture the supply units].

3] Earthquake Towers. At least one tower is located in every city surrounding the San Andreas fault. The tower is not only the destination of the Earthquake Shack, it becomes the permanent location. When a shack arrives, a "cradle" slides out of the tower from an available space. The shack is lowered onto the cradle from the cables above. The cradle then retracts into the tower, locking the unit in place. After the supplies have been used and people have been sheltered or treated, the shack remains in the tower becoming a permanent construction. The program of the unit can then change according to the needs of the city after the earthquake.

Solar Molecules

PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS

In 40 minutes of daylight the sun releases upon the earth the amount of energy that is consumed by the entire population of the planet in one year. Each day more solar energy falls to the Earth than the total amount of energy the planet's 6 billion inhabitants would consume in 27 years. Currently, we harness about 1% of this energy. Photovoltaic cells are currently being used in large groups known as arrays to gather this energy and convert it into usable electricity.
A two-dimensional mapping was constructed to delineate areas of high Btu consumption, since the Btu is how we measure energy. Research shows that a considerable amount of energy is consumed in North America and areas throughout Asia. A datascape was then constructed based from solar absorption and irradiation along the earth’s surface. This information is an average of data gathered from satellites over a period of one year. The datascapes were combined to reveal further information at their intersections. After taking this new solar surface map and overlaying onto the Btu consumption map, it is apparent that areas the energy falling onto the earth’s surface lies in areas where energy consumption is not so prevalent.

THE SITE

After constructing solar maps, new areas were revealed at the intersections of the absorbed and the irradiated energy datascapes. These newly discovered boundaries become interesting areas for investigation since they exist in a solar environment and offer us suggestions of development that were not visible before. The new formations inhabit the sky, varying in height depending on the total area they cover- the largest being the highest in elevation. The only restrictions given by the site are its boundaries. The site remains in a static position above its location relative to the earth by either tethering itself to specific locations on the earth’s surface.

PROPOSAL

The sun is a body in constant motion. The spherical mega-body moves across our sky each day, east to west, in a repetitive cycle everyday. Utilizing photovoltaic technology, the surface of the panels needs to remain perpendicular to the sun’s rays in order to optimize its performance.

With all this information in mind, the boundaries designated by the site now become materialized into what can now be called transmission archipelagos. The transmission archipelagos function to constantly gather, convert, and redistribute energy to designated locations on the earth’s surface. This distribution is done by means of microwaves. Based on research of the Matrioshka Brain, energy gathered by the photovoltaic panels would be fed though wires to microwave generators, converting solar electricity into microwaves. The microwaves are sent to screens that reflect them to stations in various cities where they are converted back into usable electricity. To optimize the amount of surface area that is in contact with solar energy, a sphere is used as a form. The sphere is clad entirely with photovoltaic panels, becoming a massive photovoltaic farm. It is multiplied to occupy the inside volume of the transmission archipelagos, defining the exterior from within.
Since the transmission archipelagos are located within irradiated regions of solar energy, it is able to still collect this energy, as opposed to a surface. The newly defined solar molecules are constant moving bodies remaining bounded by the area defined by the transmission archipelago. Similar to hot air balloons, the solar molecules function in a similar manner. Buckminister Fuller’s project, Cloud Nine, became the precedence for this move. He proposed that uplift would be created within a geodesic sphere with the temperature of air within the sphere being increased by one degree Fahrenheit. The infrastructure sustaining the form would actually be one-thousandth the weight of air inside. Since the transmission archipelagos cover such a massive amount of land area, the constant moving solar molecules would benefit allowing sunlight to penetrate through creating animated shadows on the earth’s surface. People below may still enjoy the comfort of bright days and sun bathing.

Looking into detail at one solar molecule, it is constructed in three parts: the core, stabilizing/transfer rods, and solar panel cladding. The core functions to store the energy gathered where possible microwave generators can be located. Rods are a medium between the core and the exterior that offer structural support. Energy collected on the surface is fed into each rod then transferred to the core. A cavity is also formed as a result between the exterior and core. Since energy is transferred though the rods, excess heat is emitted slightly raising the temperature in the cavity creating uplift. Finally the exterior serves to collect solar energy. With this proposition, the percentage of energy harnessed can greatly increase to a point where it will solely sustain our needs.

Scale of one solar molecule compared to Empire State Building


Detail of solar molecule with solar panels exploded out

New site plan

Some final conceptual images..


hovering over cities in Brazil

Olympic stadium on Montjuic


Image at night revealing the Moon

proposal: Tsunami (resistant) Architecture

It was late on the morning of April 1, 1946, and on the island of Hawaii, children from the school at Laupahoehoe Point were the first to see the Pacific Ocean disappear. They watched, awestruck, as 500 feet of sand and coral emerged glistening into the sunshine. A few of the braver ones ventured out onto the exposed reef. Suddenly the water came roaring back, sweeping away the children along with the buildings near the shore and the entire waterfront of nearby Hilo. For nine hours, a teacher, 21-year-old Marsue McGinnis, clung to a piece of driftwood before she was spotted by her fiance, who had mounted his own rescue in a borrowed motorboat. "I saw a number of children floating near me, clinging to wreckage," she said. "We just kept floating out to sea, and some of the children disappeared." Five hours earlier, an earthquake had erupted under the ocean floor off the coast of Alaska. Officials of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, a branch of the Commerce Department, knew what might be coming toward Hawaii, even if they didn't know enough to call it a tsunami. (msnbc.com)

A Tsunami is a significant global threat that can exist wherever there is a large body of water. A mega-tsunami, is a much larger scale disaster ranging anywhere from 30 ft to thousands of feet in height. These events occur when a very large amount of water is displaced all at one time. Examples of this displacement include a meteor impact or a LARGE scale landslide (in contrast to a tsunami which can be caused by earthquakes and plate subduction). The explosion of volcanos can also lead to a mega-tsunami as the land from the volcano rapidly displaces water. Mapped below are 3 active volcanos that are potential threats for megatsunami's. One in the Atlantic (La Palma, Canary Islands), one in the Pacific (Kilaueau, Hawaii), and one in the Indian ocean (Piton de la Fournaise, La Réunion Island).

The ripples do not represent the waves themselves but rather their travel times spreading from an origin, with each peak being approximately 400 miles apart. The wave travels at speeds in excess of 550 mph.

section relating distance traveled to height:

each hash mark on the arrow represents 1hr of travel time

The above image is an overlay of all 3 potential mega-tsunami locations

Interesting sites of wave interference were noted.

The following is a death map created using noteworthy historical tsunami's as data points. The largest points being locations where deaths exceeded 300,000 and the smallest being under 5,000. The areas of interference from the previous map were then overlayed to produce the image below.

Two areas overlapped, one of these being the Indian Ocean disaster of 2004. This tsunami was triggered by an underwater earthquake that registered with a magnitude of 9.3 on the Richter scale. It was the deadliest tsunami recorded in history and killed people in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Tsunami(resistant)Architecture is being proposed to provide housing and counteract the thousands upon thousands of deaths that occured in these regions due to structures being unable to withstand the destructive force of the tsunami. Below a typical Sri Lankan house is pictured.

These dwellings typically consist of 4 solid cement brick walls and are fairly susceptible to a tsunami.

Analysis of tsunami debris was conducted. It was noted that load-bearing walls perpendicular to the coastline, vertical elements of buildings, and bridge supports most often survived the tsunami waves. With this information as a starting point, and using these images to learn from the tsunami it was decided that a modular, structurally sound unit was needed as a starting point. The shipping container fulfills these requirements.



The container is manufactured with heavy-gauge Corten steel, is very sturdy and resistant to the elements. They are built to withstand the violent forces on the deck of a ship at sea. So it makes perfect sense to use them in constructing Tsunami(resistant)Architecture. Below are single and double units, comprised of a shipping container(s), steel bracing, and a column that alows for 360 degrees of rotation.

The rotation of the units is to allow them to by dynamic, and in the case of a tsunami, to be oriented perpendicular to it. This is done in order to put up the least resistance to the wave and to remain intact as a living space. During calm periods, or increments of time where there is no threat of a tsunami, the units will be organized based upon user preference, being optimized for livability, creating both internal and external spaces, and not necessarily perpendicular to an impending tsunami. An example of this is located in the cluster of units below.

This image represents a single cluster that is part of a much larger whole, consisting of hundreds or even thousands of these clusters stretching along a coastline.

While the containers in the "calm state" are oriented based upon user preference, the containers in the "tsunami state" are oriented perpendicular to the impending tsunami. This is illustrated below. The first image represents the calm state, while the second represents the tsunami state.

calm state

tsunami state

plan view of a calm state cluster (left) and a tsunami state cluster (right)

In order to orient the clusters perpendicular to a tsunami, you have to know where the tsunami is coming from. In order to do this, thousands of nodes will be placed in the ocean hundreds of miles offshore. These nodes will relay information such as direction and speed of a tsunami via satellite to the clusters on shore.

node detail

Tsunami(resistant)Architecture consists of 2 components, the clusters and the nodes. The nodes relay information, but also act as part of a public warning system. Upon alerting the clusters of the direction the tsunami is coming from the clusters orient themselves perpendicular to it, essentially pointing at the tsunami. This gives the comunity time to react to the situation and either evacuate the area or seek refuge. While acting as a beacon pointing to impending danger, to an extent, the clusters also protect the inland by breaking up the tsunami waves.

diagram portraying the relay of information

the clusters orienting themselves (the distance between the nodes and the clusters is shortened for representation)

Future Proposal: Archipelago of Surveillance

The nodes floating offshore could be applied and used to warn communities not only of impending tsunamis but of a variety of elements. These elements could be anything from other forms of natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes to issues such as refugee migration, military surveillance, drug trafficking, or even algae blooms. The nodes could be placed surrounding entire continents to act as a type of global warning system. Obviously there are many factors that must be addressed when creating this "archipelago of surveillance." Negative factors include potentially impeding migration routes and changing ocean ecologies, while the positive outcome would be a constant stream of information that allows the entire globe to react/adapt/change in response.

speculative image of surveillance archipelago