Life Support
This workshop investigated the notion of containment and self-sustenance in contemporary ecological and environmental theories by experimenting with the technique of vacuforming plastic.
Students designed and fabricated full scale aquaponic structures that combined a fish habitat and plant nursery into one single contained ecosystem. Students were challenged to formulate a response to ongoing debates about isolation, equilibrium, and survivalism behind projects such as the Institute of Ecotechnic’s Biosphere 2 and R. Buckminster Fuller’s proposal for a dome over mid-Manhattan. Embedded in this work is a logic of containment played out in the construction of enclosures, seals, valves, openings, and feedback loops that recycle water, air, and nutrients. Students are invited to generate new strategies of enclosure by exploring vacuforming’s ability to produce air- and watertight interiors, and seamles transitions from container to opening to distribution system.
Master of Architecture Visual Studies Course
One Comment
do you worry about the endocrine-disrupting effects of plastic on the fish? just curious.