Procedia Engineering

Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000000 www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

2011 International Conference on Green Buildings and Sustainable Cities

Interwoven landscape
Alessio Eriolia, Mirco Bianchinib, Piero Bruschi, Andrea Baschieri a*
a

Universit di Bologna, 2 viale Risorgimento, Bologna 40136, Italy b Universit di Venezia IUAV, Venezia, Italy

Abstract Human specie has always engineered the environment to set the conditions for its own settlement, producing in its evolutionary development superorganisms (cities) and the necessary networks of connections among them. Instead of rejecting cars as an extraneous object to a picturesque nature, this project starts from a perspective in which cities and technology are the metabolic extension of human specie and therefore a necessary part of its own nature; the vessels (vehicles) for human transportation, or better, the vehicle-host symbiotic system thus becomes a necessary part of human ecology, and so the network of connections upon which they live, operate and interact with: infrastructures. The project of an environmental enhancer for the Nogara mare highway in Veneto (Italy) provides the unique chance to bring together ecological thinking, host interaction and active materials. Its location (an open country planar area among cultivated fields) enucleates as critical variables the impact of pollutants and the phenomenon of dazzling. With respect to such criticalities, the project uses digital generative and parametric strategies to generate a performative structure in which densification and rarefaction of elements is a local morphological response to dazzle. The structure itself acts as a scaffold for a photo catalytic PET based material that, mimicking the behavior of coccoluti (marine microorganisms) is able to reduce CO2 (and potentially other pollutants) to salts and nitrates that are then naturally deployed to the neighboring cultivated fields as fertilizers. The material has been tested for photo catalytic integration and is currently under development. Present building and production techniques privilege the industrial assembly of inert materials, with a one-way flow of energy and process from raw material to finished product. Instead of this mono-directional energy consumption the project promotes the continuous exchange of information (as code and matter-energy) at all levels and from the digital to the material domains: use of dazzle information, morphogenetic rules and structural behavior to generate the scaffold, a photo catalytic material that responds to pollutants and produces fertilizers, making the structure symbiotic with their hosts and the environment.

2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of APAAS
Keywords: architecture; ecology; infrastructure; highway; photocatalysis; dazzle; new materials;

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39-051-2093183; fax: +39-051-2093156. E-mail address: alessio.erioli@unibo.it

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1. Ecology and architecture 1.1. Nature and ecology: a perspective in the field of complexity Since its first steps out of the caves, human specie has always engineered the environment in order to set the conditions of its own settlement [1]. One of the biggest engineered environmental changes ever made by man on nature is agriculture: intensifying the energy from the sun producing monocultures in order to prevent the exhaustion of food during harsh periods. When speaking of nature though, it is important to specify that there is no reference to a picturesque and stereotyped green arcadia [2], rather to the set of relations intervening among things. The concept of nature is not about some kind of transcendent substance but about those relations [3]. This statement, first given by A.N. Whitehead, opens the way for a more accurate definition of ecology: it is the study of the system of relations between an organism and its environment, where the environment itself is defined as the complex of climatic, biotic, social and edaphic factors that act on an object determining its morphology and survival. Every time a set of relations is defined, an economy is established: ecology is then the study of dynamic economies between organism and environment. Every transaction is negotiated and it is subjected to transaction costs in terms of matter, energy and information: all dynamic systems need a perpetual energy input in order to maintain its far from equilibrium dynamic state and perform its metabolic processes. The same definitions of organism and environment are relative as one organism can be part of another species environment: trees are part of our environment as they perform the transformation CO2 > O2 (photosynthesis) and we are part of the trees environment since we perform the O2 > CO2 transformation (respiration) that trees use for photosynthesis. Such definition of ecology goes beyond (and expands) a static notion of sustainability towards an understanding of an architectural thinking that better frames the ambition of a more seamless environmental integration. The definition can be deployed on several system scales, from the bottom up: Behavioral ecology: concerns individuals and the way in which they are affected by (and can affect) their biotic and abiotic environment; behavior is defined as a detectable answer or action of an organism or a specie to environmental factors. Population ecology: involves the dynamic of populations (the base unit of evolution: groups of individuals of the same specie sharing an habitat) within the same specie and their interaction with environmental factors. Community ecology: communities are species interacting together in a specific region under relatively similar environmental conditions; community ecology embraces the interactions among species within an ecological community and their shared environment General ecology (biosphere): the higher level, encompassing the dynamics among all other levels.

The concept of scale in a system is not related to its mere measurable extension but to its emergent properties and subsequent levels of complexity: emergent properties are properties that pertain to a whole but are not shared by its constituent parts, they cant be predicted but they can be detected in a systems behavior; the appearance of a property defines a scale within the system. For example, urban scale is not defined by a specific metric extension but by the point in which specific dynamics arise and are detectable; the same dynamics can bring up different territorial extensions according to different environments. Ecology is then a multi-layer hierarchic system in which the higher levels (community ecology) define the distribution of the community of individuals over a territory and the modalities by which the limits as well as the extension of their habitat are negotiated, while the lower levels determine morphologies and characteristics of individuals and their interaction with their ecological niche.

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Depending on their environmental interaction strategy, buildings can be distributed and/or aggregated in proper ways so to accumulate or disperse the effect of their interaction and their impact on the evolution of future relations. On lower levels for example, its possible to consider the distribution of components or characteristics over a buildings skin. The lowest level of environmental interaction is based on behavior, and basic behaviors are conditional, they sense and react to conditions: plants, for example, grow wherever the environmental conditions are beneficial for them, regardless of coded limits in their developmental space. This brings interesting implications that challenge the negotiation of space and the definition of threshold.

1.2. Ecological thinking in architecture The arousal of ecologic thinking in architecture promotes a more in depth investigation of our reality and thus the intensification and convergence of subjects encompassing environmental studies, complexity and emergence theories, new materialism in philosophy, computation, biology, chemistry, physics and genetics towards novel architectural sensibilities. The common ground on which these sensibilities thrive is an immanent ontology in which matter is morphogenetically pregnant, which means its not an undifferentiated heap shaped by transcendent values or figures (such as symbols or eidos), rather it embeds the rules for the generation of its own morphologies: each material system is not only pure substance but dynamically structured information endowed with behavior and constraints in continuous exchange with the environment; such constraints are the building blocks of the virtual system that is able to actualize itself in a multiplicity of ways. An energy flow constantly injecting a morphogenetically active system is able to trigger self-organization processes and patterns, which in time engender its morphology and regulate its metabolism. Understanding these economies (as matter-energy-information exchanges) as the driver of morphogenetic systems able to manage formation and metabolic processes and exploiting them in architecture is the key to a more ecologically conscious, sensible and seamlessly integrated architecture.

2. The Project The project of an environmental enhancer for the Nogara mare highway in Veneto (Italy) provides the unique chance to bring together ecological thinking, host interaction and active materials. Its location (an open country planar area among cultivated fields) enucleates as critical variables the impact of pollutants and the phenomenon of solar dazzle. With respect to such criticalities, the project uses digital generative and parametric strategies to generate a performative structure in which densification and rarefaction of elements is a local morphological response to dazzle. Performance is then used as a design driver in the search of an efficient and harmonic solution that is able to generate a specific response to local conditions while maintaining a global consistency and systemic coherence. The design process was then necessarily carried through finite elements analysis software (Autodesk Ecotect and Oasys GSA) as well as generative and parametric software (Grasshopper running on Rhinoceros): these kind of tools are so far the only way to study and simulate the complex and dynamic processes and behaviors of a system that interacts and responds to an active data space, as well as build the active dataspace itself. As mentioned before, ecology is the study of matter-energy-information exchanges between an organism and its environment: building an active data space and designing through generative tools allows us manage the necessary complexity level in order to simulate and design these exchanges and behaviors ranging from local to global level. This means optimizing the process while being able to access a wide range of differentiated and specific

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response: differentiation and variation are key strategies in nature to adapt and respond to environmental changes. The structure itself acts as a scaffold for a photo catalytic PET based material that, mimicking the behavior of coccoluti (marine microorganisms) is able to reduce CO2 (and potentially other pollutants) to salts and nitrates that are then naturally deployed to the neighboring cultivated fields as fertilizers. 2.1. Driving and perception Driving is a continuous sequence of perceptions and reactions, in every moment the driver is stimulated to exert control on speed, trajectory and signals providing further information in form of prescriptions. Space and movement in a continuous space-time interaction determine the drivers perception. The vehicle becomes an extension of the driver as space perception is projected on the outside and extended by means of the vehicle, stimulated by the interaction of the man-vehicle hybrid with the routes dimensions, as well as the morphology and conditions of the environment. Man extends its senses through the vehicle, using it as a prosthetic device to enhance its capacities. Sight is the most involved human sense, followed by listening and touch (by means of which man exerts his sensibility to control and interact with the vehicle). The eye organ is then the most stimulated instrument in driving, by factors such as light, speed and route. Despite the binocular field of view on the horizontal plane has an extension of 120, sight is sharply focused only on a small area (Fovea Centralis), in proximity of the line of sight. In dynamic conditions the width of the field of view is related with traveling speed: since focusing is not an instant process (average subjects require around 0.9 seconds), the driver tends to focus on farther objects as the speed increases in order to consider them as relatively fixed objects and use them as a reference point; this allows to concentrate energies on useful references for driving while letting aside more dynamic and close objects that would require more energy and concentration [3]. Human field of view can be described through two main variables: Accommodating distance: the distance between the observers eye and the element on which the image is fixed (the reference point); Width of the field of view: the size of the viewing cone on which the driver focuses his attention; Based on these indications, a simulation of the possible perception changes according to speed variation within the considered segment was made. Speed variations causes a change in the width of the field of view, which is mapped on a sequence of nodes along the highway's path within the considered segment. The distance between nodes is determined with regular time intervals, therefore it varies according to the simulation speed in the various traits of the segment; dilatation or contraction of point in space is also connected with the relative widening or narrowing of the driver field of view. The geometric data in space was then used to model longitudinal curves (perception trajectories), which then served as

Fig. 1. Solar dazzle analysis: study of the sun's angle of incidence in solstices and equinoxes

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the base geometry for a surface. This surface is the materialized space of perception of the driver and is used as a proliferation substrate for the structure morphology.

2.2. Solar dazzle Acording to CIE solar dazzle is defined as condition of vision in which discomfort or a reduction of the capacity to perceive details occur caused by inadequate light distribution or excessive contrast. Solar dazzle depends on size, position and luminance of the source, as well as from the number of sources and the luminance level to which the observer's eye is used to. The Nogara-Mare, in the considered segment, is oriented West-South-East, with two critical moment (morning and evening) where the sun has an azimuth angle of about 10 to 20 degrees; this particular domain places it at the height of the driver's eye (average value is 1.14 m). These moments, according to data collected from the municipality of Legnago, are then cross-compared with the most intense dayly periods of private car use (that reach peak values in the timespans 9,00-13,00 and 17,00-20,30). This is where the highest probability of dazzle and the most intense traffic conditions overlap. Another analysis, mapping the worst case scenarios of solstices (summer solstice, June 21 and winter solstice, December 21) and equinoxes (spring equinox, March 21 and autumn equinox, September 21) gave evidence to the value of incidence (the angle between the sun direction and the driver's sight direction, assuming the sun at 15 azimuth angle and the driver's field of view at 30 opening), assigning the highest criticality where the two vectors tended to overlap. The gradient of values obtained was then used to map on the previous surface the peak areas of sun dazzle: this is where the structure will respond by densification to improve visual conditions.

2.3. Structure morphology and ground negotiation The role model for the structure morphology was extracted through the observation of growth and densification processes of roots and the structure-morphology relation in cactuses. Phase 1 of the generation consisted in the individuation of areas of major stress (torsion, compression and traction) through a simulation in a Finite Element Analysis software (in this case Oasys GSA) considering primary (snow, structural weight) and secondary (wind) load conditions. The position of fixed nodes on the ground was chosen according to the pattern of existing irrigation channels: this will help the dispersion of

Fig. 2. Stress analysis

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Fig. 3. Steps of structure generation process

fertilizers that will grow in the structure (as the CO2 from the vehicles is reduced to salts and accumulates) through rainwater flows that are directed and channeled thanks to the morphology of the structure itself. The structure, through its roots, will help feeding the surrounding fields with nutrients. In organic systems, the structural function is performed in a redundant way through the selorganization of fibrous and light material. Uneven stress patterns (due, for example, to a change in environmental conditions) are balanced by a redistribution of the quantity of material, which grows in the major stress area in order to increase local resistance thus remapping evenly the stress pattern itself. It is an adaptation of mechanical properties through organic material and living processes based on local information exchange. Cactus structures act alike, growing fiber layers to enhance local resistance, performing resistance through lightness thanks to their material organization. A layered fibrous material is one of the most efficient ways of material self-organization in nature, adapting to differences in the stress pattern by generating a stress-related self-regulating density pattern. Starting from the fixed points that follow the existing pattern of irrigation channels, the ground negotiation strategy follows the growth process of plant roots. They grow in any direction in which the find the necessary conditions to do so, following a primary growth (that of apical meristems) around which a secondary hierarchy of elements grow The growth of the secondary system is linked to the curvature of the primary roots system [4]. In fact, curvature plays a causal role in triggering the development of the secondary roots: auxine and other chemical composites accumulates on the external part of the vascular system of a plant in the regions of maximum bending, the same are where secondary roots are more probable to develop. This process is the base for the ground negotiation and the search for the structures landing zones: after the stress-driven first deformation, structure shows an increase of curvature zones that, just like the roots, according to points curvature and terrain distance, activate a process of positive gravitropism (a spontaneous growth in gravitys direction). Phase 2 is about determining structure stratification through density and redundancy patterns within the structure itself. While density is a change in the amount of material within a given volume, redundancy is a strategy that relies on abundance, possessing capacities or complexity beyond a specific necessity. In engineering the reliability of a system, redundancy is measured as the number of alternatives available to reach a certain goal. Speaking in building terms, so far redundancy was a layer of added security working on top of (but not together with) the design and construction system. This project explores the possibilities of using redundancy as an opportunity for design. The project allows then for local adaptability according to the pattern of pollution and solar dazzle through extensive and accurate digital simulation and tests: the primary structure is made of repeating fibrous components that differentiate the performance by raising their density in critical areas and dissipating the effect in other, non stressed places. Structural thickening in this way is non-uniform and is also able to engender a multi-performance driven aesthetic.

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2.4.4. Photocatalytic reaction compared to photosynthesis Fig. Material research The increase in pollutants percentage that a highway will bring suggests the search for a strategy that copes with such variable: according to previous statements in terms of ecology, a simple mitigation of effects by emissions containment would still thrive on a passive strategy unrelated to environmental exchanges. The research then investigated the field of metabolic materials, focusing on properties of an active fibrous material which, in the same way nature recycles, is able to incorporate pollutants into its own fabric and transform them into fertilizing salts used by the neighboring country fields, a material that has the capacity to fix and reduce pollutants (CO, benzene, PM10 micro particulate) and grows thanks to the perpetual fission process. The development of such a material could bring to an architectural organism that changes and evolves according to the environmental conditions, provoking a change in the surrounding landscape that feedbacks on its own form as well. Such a structure would be a tangible manifestation of its own processes and a sensor for the area conditions. The concept for the material involves a photo catalytic molecule, a support fiber and an active part able to reduce pollutants. The material research is composed of two phases: the first one is of immediate realization (with experimental evidences presented) and regards the production of a photo catalytic compound, while the second one (about material growth) is more speculative and, although theoretically possible and proved by experiments, requires further exploration before getting to a test sample. Photo catalyzers are elements able to modify the speed of a chemical reaction through the action of light, they work as accelerators of oxidation processes; titanium dioxide (TiO2) was chosen as it is cheap, widely available in nature, non-toxic for man and strongly oxidant (a requirement to trigger the reduction on a chemical level); on the other hand, it requires a support structure to be deployed on exposed surfaces. Several materials ranging from concrete to ceramics, up to paint and fabric, can support titanium dioxide; the choice was PET, a recyclable and widely available material: TiO2 can be encapsulated by dissolving

Fig. 5. Tests of TiO2 embedding in PET - SEM images (right) show evidence of TiO2 molecules trapped in PET fibers

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PET in 2-phenol chloride, mixing it with TiO2 and then re-solidify the new component through methanol. The newly compound is suitable for a wide range of applications thanks to its properties: threads, films and even be sprayed on surfaces.

Fig. 6. Organic PET spray application on structure and material life cycle.

Phase two of the material research will regard the realization of material growth behavior by means of encapsulating in PET, along with TiO2, biological elements called protocells, microscopic bladders formed by a membrane that encloses chemical elements without genetic materials. Dr. Rachel Armstrong has discovered and studied the behavior of protocells; some of them have the property to transform CO2 (the main pollutant element and product of degrading activity of TiO2) in carbonate, a salt able to become part of the structure itself. This behavior mimics the one of coccoluti, small sea algae able to transform CO2 in carbonate shields they use for defense. During an experimental session conducted by Dr. Rachel Armstrong in the Venetian lagoon in May 1, 2011, direct observation proved how protocells dropped on glasses of lagoon water were able to transform CO2 in carbonate discs. The polymer/bacteria compound material would then be sprayed on the scaffold as a film. Spray technologies are already a reality: the Department of Chemistry of Michigan State University has developed a spray polymer in 2009. Such technology has a high multi-scalar impact, from membranes and clothes at the small scale up to a skinactive material on building surfaces.

2.5. Conclusions The whole project in time could be able to work on a continuous metabolic cycle: recycled PET as a support material allows another potential function for that material, Titanium dioxide fixes pollutants and creates nitrates in form of salts as fertilizer for the fields; the recycling of chlorides produces also fertilizer for the proliferation of plants in the proximity of the structure or o the structure itself; the CO 2 developed by the photo catalysis processes of Titanium dioxide is then eaten and transformed by the protocells making the structure grow like and organism.

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Present building and production techniques privilege the industrial assembly of inert materials, with a one-way flow of energy and process from raw material to finished product. Instead of this monodirectional energy consumption the project promotes the continuous exchange of information (as code and matter-energy) at all levels and from the digital to the material domains: use of dazzle information, morphogenetic rules and structural behavior to generate the scaffold, a photo catalytic material that responds to pollutants transforming them into fertilizers for the neighboring fields, making the structure symbiotic with their hosts (man/vehicles) and the environment. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Dr. Rachel Armstrong for consulting on protocells and support to the project; the class IVD of Chemical Institute Fermi in Modena, coordinated by prof. Brunella Balestrazzi and prof. Domenica Maurizi, for the support given in developing the material research. References
[1] Van Mensvoort, K. Ancient man impacted the environment already. Article on Nextnature.com

(http://www.nextnature.net/2009/09/ancient-man-impacted-environment-already/) [1] Van Mensvoort, K. Real nature is not green. Article on NextNature.com (http://www.nextnature.net/2006/11/real-natureisnt-green/) [2] North Whitehead, A. T The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919, available online at Project Gutemberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18835) [3] Canale, S., Torrisi, S., Nicosia, F., Leonardi, S. Adeguamento delle corsie di uscita autostradali mediante informazioni ricavate da rilievi sperimentali, [4] Root system architecture from Coupling Cell Shape to Auxin transport Andrew N. Cammidge, An Undergraduate Experiment in Polyester (PET) Synthesis, School of Chemical Sciences, University of East Anglia T. Kanazawa, A. Ohmori, Behavior of TiO2 coating formation on PET plate by plasma spraying and evaluation of coatings photocatalytic activity, Osaka University, publication 10.11.04 Daniela Carta 1, Giacomo Cao Claudio D'Angeli, Chemical Recycling of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) by Hydrolysis and Glycolysis Chin-San Wu, In Situ Polymerization of Titanium Isopropoxide in Polycaprolactone: Properties and Characterization of the Hybrid Nanocomposites, Department of Chemical Engineering, Kao Yuan Institute of Technology, Kaohsiung County, publication 20.10.03 Ranga Rao, A., Dutta, V. Low-temperature synthesis of TiO2 nanoparticles and preparation of TiO2 thin films by spray deposition, Photovoltaic Laboratory, Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, publication 20.04.07 Masakazu Anpo, Utilization of TiO2 photocatalysts in green chemistry, Department of Applied Chemistry, Osaka Prefecture University, Sakai, Pure Appl. Chem., Vol. 72, No. 7, pp. 12651270, 2000. A. Ridgwell, I. Zondervan, J. C. Hargreaves, J. Bijma, and T. M. Lenton, Assessing the potential long-term increase of oceanic fossil fuel CO2 uptake due to CO2-calcification feedback, publication 6.07.07 Merlin Bruening and David Dotzauer, Just spray it, nature materials, Vol 8, June 2009