"Fictional worlds empower people with the tools to transform their own environments...the craft of making our world, where our knowledge and technology doesn't limit us but rather enables us to turn surreal dreams into habitable space. To turn fiction into fact."                  

- Bjarke Ingles

In this studio, you will create your own 'piece of the puzzle' of an imagined Island. Over the course of project development, we will learn the skills of precedent research, brainstorming, sketching, hand prototyping, and digital fabrication  to inform the creation of your piece. We will consider Urban Design strategies as well as ecosystem based thinking. Each piece can take the form of an element of a neighborhood, city,  infrastructure, or landscape, man-made or natural... real or imagined. 

During these unpleasant times, it is good to always be prepared. What would happen if the stores stopped shipping in goods that the people of Maui needed? This where the idea came in, what if there was something that grows food but also maintains its self? A hydroponic eco-system! This system can be an indoor or outdoor system depending on your living situation so that it will fit your needs. The Hydroponic Eco-System is a self-sustaining food production chamber aimed to combat food insecurity. 

This hydroponic system is going to be built with every new house to ensure that people who live there have the option to grow their own food. The system only relies on a source of power to run the pump. The plants will grow in little tiny rocks to act like dirt so the water will maintain a clear color longer.  Water that is on the top of the system will filter through the rocks and end up at the bottom of the system where the freshwater fish will be staying.

The bottom part of the system will be where the tilapia fish will be. They will eat any of the scraps from the veggies. They will also need to be fed. Other than a source of power and fish food the system is 100% self-efficient. A solar panel will be used to power the pump during the day and each house will have a battery bank for the extra power that is from that current day for the night. Depending on what types of food grown the system works amazingly.

The beautiful building project is a customizable dwelling that supports greenery growth directly on the façade of the structure. A network of planters are attached to all surfaces of the structure to allow residents to farm on the vertical surfaces.

The inspiration for this project was to suggest the fact that cities or where there is an abundance of structures can be looked at differently. Because there is not a lot of oxygen in large scale cities putting plants on buildings would increase the oxygen income. The project is helping people socially because they could have something to talk about, and how nice the structures are. Everyone who either lives in an apartment or house could be amazed at how there scenery would drastically change. The project assists people to get out and explore the new view and structures that have changed. There is no technology behind the project because instead of buildings that have no use and just take up space, there will be multiple uses for it when you put plants on it.  People can interact with it by literally customizing their choice of setting and what plants they want on it. They can revolutionize the way they look at things. This project was made for a big audience and hopefully will provide a new prospective in people eyes when they go outside.

The Power Platform is a near shore renewable energy platform that produces electricity by harnessing wind, wave, and solar energy. Composed of windmills, solar panels, and a wave paddle wheel, this platform produces energy with minimal impacts to the environment.

The project addresses the reduction of environmental pollution from fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gases. The Power Platform will help cut down on these pollutive sources to help improve the overall health of the planet and its inhabitants. Countries will be more independent and not rely less upon fossil fuel producing nations for energy. The platforms energy production can be employed around the globe to benefit all people. It will help improve peoples lives because it will make energy readily available to all. The basic technology of this project captures energy from wind, wave, and solar sources and converts into electricity through turbines. The platform takes several existing energy producing technologies, combines and condenses them into one small location to create an efficient, environmentally friendly power plant. People everywhere around the world will be using the energy produced by these platforms in their everyday lives in their cars, homes, businesses and recreational activities.

The Bike Energy Hub is a small disk shape hub that connects easily to the user’s bike wheel, which then collects energy and stores it into a battery pack as they ride their bike. The energy can then be used for charging your phone or other devices wherever you ride your bike and increases safety when biking in remote places. This gives bikers a way to contact and connect to others wherever they are.

Bikers get lost or hurt every day for many reasons and it can sometimes be hours or even days before they can properly get help. The Bike Energy Hub creates and stores power when the wheel simply just spins, so technically if the user was badly injured they could just sit and spin the wheel to create power. The hub then holds power in a battery pack and also has storage space to hold a charging cord, so the user’s phone will always be charged. This gives another very useful lifeline to bikers, of all ages who can ride, so that they can feel and be safer when riding.

Thesis:

The “Sea-Wall-Sea-Haul” aims to address the issues of unsustainable fish-farming and coastal erosion by combining the fishing techniques of ancient Hawaiians with the efficiency and durability of modern design. The “Sea-Wall-Sea-Haul” uses system of gates, pipes, and sea walls to maintain the right environment for a fish farm while providing the coast with protection from the wind and waves.

Brief:

As resources and coastal space continue to diminish, the need for multi-purpose and creative solutions to humanity’s problems increase. With this in mind, the ‘SWSH’ was made to combat the erosion of coastlines while also providing the framework for sustainable and community-accessible fish farms. The inspiration for this project traces back to ancient Hawaiian fish ponds known as Loko I’a. These farms operated on the premise that baby fish would first, enter through small-under water holes; second, feed on the algae and coral reef systems within the ponds; and third, be unable to leave due to being too big to swim out of the holes they once entered. Since these farms are part of the ocean ecosystem and rely not on the active pursuit of wild fish but on the passive collection of fish, they are much less ecologically and environmentally damaging relative to commercial fishing. The added benefit of any underwater structure is that it weakens oncoming swell and waves, decreasing forces absorbed by the nearby seawalls.

Although based on an ancient premise, the “Sea-Wall-Sea-Haul” is designed with a modern-degree of accuracy and productivity in mind. Made of reinforced concrete, able to channel specific amounts of freshwater, and able to adjust its gate holes according to the size of fish in the area, “SWSH” is a more durable, precise, and systematic form of the Hawaiian Fish Farm. If implemented on a large scale, and if certain regulations are in place, the public should be allowed to use the farms because every person, not just those with commercial fishing equipment, should have access to a reliable and steady source of fish.