Steemed Greens

ARCH802, ARCH804, ARCH806, ARCH808
Students: Yuran Liu, Riley Studebaker, Yuxuan Wang
Instructors: Robert Stuart-Smith (ARCH802), Nathan King (ARCH806), Billie Faircloth (ARCH808), Jose-Luis García del Castillo y López & Jeffrey Anderson (ARCH804)
TAs: Patrick Danahy (ARCH802)
 
Steamed Greens explores the utilization of urban steam waste to support community gardens and the greening of dense urban centers. A distributed series of green facades is envisaged that attaches to existing buildings, and distributes waste heat and water to support plant growth. As each site varies in geometry, solar exposure, and use, a variable design and production method was required. A materially efficient 6-axis incremental forming method for architectural ceramic panels was developed that enables custom doubly-curved ceramic panels to be fabricated from flat slabs of clay without requiring the production of molds which involve substantial material waste and cost. A micro-relief surface treatment method to support plant irrigation was also developed that is adaptive to the geometry and solar radiation conditions of each ceramic panel.  These fabrication methods were supported by site thermal and geometrical data capture and a generative design method that enabled for ceramic green-wall designs to be developed that were adaptive to individual site solar radiance and desired plant species growth conditions. Steamed Greens advocates for a situated architecture that is custom tailored to site conditions and can recycle existing urban steam waste.