Floating Permaculture is a polemic utopian statement by Dietmar Koering (Arphenotype), which explores creating a system in the North Sea to connect renewable energy, rainwater capture, natural ways of cleaning grey water, organic food production and re-circulating hydroponics.

Floating permaculture as a development of discursive systematic models

Current status
The research is widely based on the argument that, in the past, fatal errors were made when mankind developed its “permanent culture”. Humans act as parasites, taking resources from the environment – in many cases in much larger amounts than nature and the environment can stand. Moreover, the different areas and processes required to gain the essentials to support human life are not systematically or synergistically combined. Energy is converted into food with the aid of mechanized agriculture. First: frugality must be paramount. Second: better and more efficient systems need to be developed to source the basics for human needs.

Floating Permaculture presents a polemic utopian statement: how to create a system that interlinks systems without exploitation. Rapid urbanisation and overpopulations have eaten away at traditional farmland. This proposal presents floating permaculture as a crucial re-action to social expansion, while acknowledging that present-day cities are vulnerable systems. The shallow waters of the epi-continental North Sea are an ideal location for permaculture. The cybernetic process is embodied in a closed feedback loop connecting energy and food production, fused with 1960s utopian ideas of metabolism and adapted to today’s society.

This project uses the term “permaculture” to indicate a rhizometric system which theoretically connects to form a sustainable system. A system which interlinks renewable energy, rainwater capture, natural ways of cleaning grey water, organic food production and re-circulating hydroponics. Permacultural systems were – and still are – used by the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. The so called “Chinampa’s” are small floating islands dedicated to food production. These islands were born out of the need to provide food for the larger cities; today, with a modern society to sustain, we are in a similar situation.

Systems and cycles
Each permaculture seeks to combine sustainable energy and agriculture in closed feedback loops. The input divides into natural and waste feeders. Natural feeders gather input from wind and sun resources. Waste feeders, on the other hand, draw input from sewage and biomass resources generated by the mega structures. Focusing first on the waste feeders – detritus or sewage is pumped into a field of Vetiver Grass, then over a layer of Zebra Mussels before being channelled into a fermenter. The Vetiver Grass is reused later in the cooling engine, or desert cooler, for greenhouse and oil production. The Zebra Mussels, or lake parasites, form a closed system which acts as filter feeders admitting detritus and pre-cleaning the biomass in a natural way. Furthermore, the shredded shell of the Zebra Mussels acts as a source of food and calcium for animal production. After the biomass is cleaned, it is pre-purified in a fermenter. The waste is then run through a dewatering machine to a bioreactor, ending up in a ‘settler’, which is linked to the compost, before being used in crop production to water rice fields and greenhouses. The rice fields are unique in that they use combined fish groups for increasing crop production in the paddies. Water enriched by fertilisers from the paddies is then fed into the greenhouses by the hydroponic systems.

Principal energy
If we focus on the first system – harvesting natural energy resources like wind and sun – we can draw on a considerable amount of experience with proven systems; however, due to a lack of technology, energy cannot easily be extracted from natural sources. In fact, storing solar and wind-generated energy is one of the major challenges we need to tackle. One solution is to use electrolysis combined with a hydrogen-fuel cell; electrolysis transforms the generated electricity into hydrogen, which the fuel cell can convert back into electricity later. Auxiliary electricity is generated by wind, sun, wave turbines and biogas from the fermenter. A second reactor is also hooked up to the circular flow via an ‘algae bioreactor’. This is optimized by LEDs that are driven by the fuel cell to increase the production up to 24H. This algae press cake from the bioreactor is high in protein and can be feedback into animal feed or directly into the Megastructures.

Future dreams
Homo Ludens has broken out of his ecological dinner jacket – his food supply is no longer limited by what he can grow, but by what he can transform. In another sense, Lavoisier was right: “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.” Therefore, we should aim for transformations, which are bound up to sustainable feedback loops.
We may be unable to prevent climate changes, but we are able to minimize their effect by taking action now; creating hope of a way out of the crisis by modifying our cerebration and combining serious energy efficiency and a wide variety of new technologies. Floating Permaculture as a sophisticated part of a new metabolism; a positive organism which will adapt to bodies and culture creates the battery which will provide the modern “Technobody” with energy. Humans must aim for autarky as a solution to our current over-exploitation of resources.

The Image “Architecture – To Protect and To Serve, by Dietmar Koering” has been selected at the Sydney Festival of Architecture, “Advertisement for Architecure 2010″ organized by OPEN haus. Opening Night: 6:00 pm – 8:00pm; Thursday 21. October 2010 /// Surry Hills Library, 405 Crown Street, Surry Hills, New South Wales

For more details

http://www.openhaus.org/

Abstract:

Architecture serves as second skin, which protects us for environmental conditions. Sometimes it even scares us, if the proportion of the architectural form is out of scale related to the human body. The picture itself raises the question, why mankind gets frightened by looking at soldiers, who are in a protection skin against biological weapons – the defending us, funny enough, against problems created by mankind.

For them this combat suit is not the only layer of architecture; there are several layers of architecture. The architecture of the suit, the architecture of the dugout, the environmental architecture with a clear horizon and over all the architecture of the big unknown and the communication of the observer in front of the picture – the picture itself becomes an object and therefore architecture.

The whole situation is surreal, while we could imagine that in the picture Max Ernst and Dali are being confronted with a mirror.

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.Sinfonia Orchestra Varsovia

Author: Tobias Klein and Dietmar Koering with Anneli Giencke and Paul Giencke

with Alexey Marfin

in collaboration with Buro Happold

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Along with becoming the new home to the Sinfonia Orchestra Varsovia, Warsaw’s1800 seat concert hall is also meant to become a cultural hot spot for the city’s right bank. Situated in the area of Praga Poludnie, the new concert hall is located in a plot of land amongst the historic neo-renaissance buildings of the former Veterinary Institute.

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The form of the building is driven by the pre-existing restrictions and parameters of the site. Its square block aspects derive from the dimensions of the green square in the centre of the site. However, whilst the Northern and Eastern facades appear to be the side of a square , the Western and Southern ones contrast in being dynamic and fluid, accommodating more exclusive public programs. Another predominant aspect of the design is the impressive cantilever. This element extends over part of the green park and subtly interacts with the western historic building. Not only can the cantilever be seen from the street as a gentle protrusion of the concert hall into the city, but it also acts as a viewing platform for the spectators of the concert hall.

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The building in the day is a stereo-metric volume, underlining the new presence in the historic context – at night though the facade reveals a playful light circulation that allows a gentle wandering through the foyer. As calm and unspectacular the building appears at day, the building volume turns into a lighting parade at night, showing its metropolitan character. Within the Sinfonia, we spend particular attention to the integration between the concert hall and the foyers, creating an interwoven multilayered construct that reveals itself to the visitor along a procession like ascend into the vineyard-like concert hall. The entrance hall itself is a glass volume intersecting sharply the curved main volume of the sinfonia and creating a large interstitial public space over two floors. The Sinfonia becomes a meeting place, a public foyer and an invitation to national and international visitors, facilitating concerts as well as a public program during the year.

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The concert hall itself reveals the aesthetic fluid curvilinear essence of the interplay of formal sharp and clear lines as well as the warm and gentle soft flow. The building is in constant dynamic reaction to its environment, playing with the hard symmetry of the urban set-up and the fluid characteristics of its orientation, circulation and programmatic interfacing between the meandering foyer and the hidden exuberant concert hall.

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.meandering jetty

Author: Tobias Klein, Dietmar Koering with Paul Giencke

with Eleanor Dodman and Graham K. Smith

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The scheme’s main concept is to integrate a soft and malleable approach towards viewpoints, journeys and scenic beauty. As well as an intelligent and environmentally responsible approach towards the natural complexity of the surroundings. The ‘meandering jetty’ is composed out of a gentle pathway system that imitates the multiple root system of a rhizome. This allows one to slowly stroll through the natural reserve on one of the many pathways or to go directly from the entry point to the beach. The pathway is framed by two buildings that host the main functions and give shelter as well as educate about the history and natural resources. Both buildings are sustainably built out of timber shingles that can be individually replaced. Furthermore in the forecast of a storm flood the ‘beach building’ can be entirely dismantled and stored within the upper pavilion. At the core of this project we believe in the integration of architecture within nature and accept nature’s geological, biological and dynamic forces. The proposal works intensively with the natural contours and envisages structures that excitingly choreographs a theatrical descent while barely evading or disrupting the ground and the complexity of the flora and fauna.

updated shortly

Animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSgyBWVRSdw

Download 3D Files Warehouse inclusive C4d / Vray Rendersettings:

http://www.arphenotype.com/warehouse.rar

Fractal Transformations deals with the blurring of different software modeling / generating techniques and scripted fractal generators into a spidernetnet-like sculpture. The object deals as visual stimulator for a poetic reaction in human mind; it generates space like a toxic cell, while the human being feels displaced in space, not location. THe shadows and light are generating as surreal gap between realizing the statement of a fabric of reality and the will to be inside of the object; to squat the object to touch to feel. The skin mimics an artificial porcelain with its subsurface scattering effect; the reflections of the human as performer are getting blurred on the skin of the object; while in real-time the reflections of the sourounding glass walls are hard and sharp. where is the seduction in AIR? Is Lucy Irigaray still fighting the war of the genders? where is now Heidegger? In there? The blood of the the enlightended is white like flashlight in thunders, no red stripes in snow, like an golden ear, van gogh cut an nice sphere, we are here, what else is there?

used SOftwares: Rhino / Cinema4D / VRay / Xenodream

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.Gasholder No. 8 – Urban Canopy

Author: Tobias Klein and Dietmar Koering with Paul Giencke and Lucy Woods

with Eleanor Dodman and Graham K.Smith

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Gasholder No. 8 is situated within one of the most significant regeneration projects in London, and thus, it presents a unique opportunity to reinvent the notion of public space. An augmented ground plane of hard landscaping creates a series of flexible spaces offering a variety of possible uses throughout the day: The Two Form Entry Primary School’s playground can extend into the gasholder space during the day, and at night the space can be commercially let as an exclusive venue. Profiled edges create seating, climbing walls and skate ramps. Water pools and planting subdivide the space allowing it to be used for various activities simultaneously. A second elevated landscape or ‘roofscape’ allows for year-round use of the external space, and creates internal space overlooking Regents Canal. The public space extends onto this ‘roofscape’. Conceived as an ever-changing idyll in a dense urban environment, hard landscaping is softened by native planting. Larger native trees puncture the surface from below, buffering noise from the nearby high speed railway. A canopy level walkway, wending its way through the trees re-frames the view across Regents Canal and the gasholder structure, and allows the visitors to interact with the usually unreachable canopy.

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This canopy is a living, breathing, green skin with educational routes for children. It shows the changes of the seasons, regulates the temperature below and creates an interesting quality of light with its ever-changing vegetation. At night, the canopy will be transformed with the use of carefully positioned lighting (LEDs within the walkway, and uplighters on the ground) creating a sublime atmosphere- perfect for outdoor functions.
Neither imposing nor lacking in presence, this is a proposal highly in tune to its surroundings; it celebrates the heritage of the gasholder and its structure whilst creating a cohesive new open public space integrating leisure and nature within the city.

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.Strawberry fields forever

Author: Tobias Klein and Dietmar Koering with Kleopatra Chelmi

with Eleanor Dodman and Graham K.Smith

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Cities can be very isolating; people live in high-density tower blocks but lead individual lives and do not commune with their neighbours. ‘Growing your own’ is something that can bring people together, however allotments are rapidly disappearing in cities, as land is reallocated for housing. ‘Gathering’ is initiated through social interaction and agricultural cultivation in a hybrid typology – a zero-carbon network of greenhouses and fields within high-density living; a space cultivated by the residents for the residents. Fruit and vegetable markets further extend the gathering space. Here produce is exchanged between residents; this establishes a community feel through shared activity.

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The vertical allotments are linked together, which means that not every allotment needs all layers of production. Overall goal is to introduce into the urban fabric a zero carbon network which produces food and energy; a new elastic network which will form the spine of future society and connects different cultures with there basic needs in an nowadays anonymous urban environment. This green fabric forms a new gathering space for the people who live in this district. The social aspect is farming, which tries to adapt historic idea of a village has now become an urban village. the aspects of social order with the equilibrium of nature to the idea that human being itself fills the gap, a gap which should taken care of and forms a gathering space. this feedback loop of production and social care also educates young people. The new gathering spaces transform the brutalist high-rise into a projected situation of urban farming, a symbiosis between nature and social order.

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‘GREEN STYLE’  (author: Marta Serrats) features the work ”Transmission Line Towers” by Dietmar Koering.

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GREEN STYLE brings together the concepts of the eco-philosophy prevalent in the 21st century, offering the reader alternative ways of living which reconcile design and aesthetics with sustainable development. This book contains ecological values and basic principles to achieve a better quality of life.

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link to Amazon.co.uk

The design of the Lion Gate Project creates an urban spine as main generator, an organism which will structure Dubai new and reactivate the link between Dubai historical old town and the future projects – communication between Bur Dubai to Deira, or vice versa.

Dubais new Spine will start from the Burj Dubai – 310 Sheikh Zayed Road, over the trade center road, which will lead into the Lions Gate onto the 103 Omar bin Al Khattab Road. The Lion Gate refers to symbolic bridges, like Golden Gate Bridge, Tower Bridge, Pointe Vecchio or the Rialto Bridge in Vennice; each of different size, but rich in traditional meaning for each town – the urban environment is part of them and they add cultural value and symbolic power to the cities.

ON the crosssection between the Creek and the urban spine is a concept space, which will inhabit according to the Du(b)ailities – micro ethnic localities a “Point of Exchange”; indoor / outdoor lounge, recording studios, broadcasting studios, etc. . The Interactive wall / billboard structures into two membranes which are overstretching the carriageway of the bridge; it creates for travellers and commuters a daily update of news and life in Dubai itself.

The transient inhabitant of Dubai feels not foreign anymore, they are part and will set the seeds for the new culture of Dubai.