{"id":5765,"date":"2018-04-05T07:45:56","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T11:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/?p=5765"},"modified":"2018-06-27T15:46:14","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:46:14","slug":"7-public-art-designs-powered-by-algae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/archives\/5765","title":{"rendered":"7 Public Art Designs Powered By Algae"},"content":{"rendered":"

Algae is awesome. There’s no other way to\u00a0put it.<\/h2>\n

Ranging from single-celled to complex multicellular organisms,\u00a0algae has\u00a0existed for at least three billion years, according to the Smithsonian<\/a>. Today,\u00a0its potential to\u00a0disrupt modern life is increasingly coming into focus. On the one hand, algal blooms are suffocating many waterways contaminated by excess nutrients \u2014 frequently as a result of agricultural runoff. On the other hand, as climate change accelerates the imperative to\u00a0walk away from fossil fuels, say, in the aviation industry, algae shows great promise. It can be used for food, for fertilizer, to control pests, and\u00a0as an emissions-free alternative to jet fuel. So, it should come as no surprise that several\u00a0past LAGI participants have incorporated algae into their designs. With the deadline to enter LAGI 2018<\/a> coming up, we thought it might be\u00a0inspiring to\u00a0share\u00a0a few.<\/p>\n

\"algaescape,<\/p>\n

ALGAESCAPE<\/a><\/p>\n

Tobias Anderson and Adam Pajonk from Germany\u00a0submitted Algaescape to LAGI 2014,\u00a0held in Copenhagen. They envisioned a giant mesh\u00a0of woven plastic sleeves that use carbon dioxide and nutrient-rich wastewater to produce algae biomass and oxygen \u2014 through photosynthesis. The resulting\u00a0algaescape would then act as an air and water filter for the city. At night,\u00a0it would be illuminated with energy-efficient LED lights, providing an exciting new\u00a0public space for urbanites to spend their evenings. (If you’ve ever been to Copenhagen, you will know how much the locals\u00a0love\u00a0to while away summer nights outdoors.) As with all LAGI designs,\u00a0this one is\u00a0safe\u00a0and educational.\u00a0Not only is it possible to walk on and under the infrastructure, but its luminescence\u00a0varies with the increase or decrease of biomass, providing an\u00a0intimate\u00a0look at algal\u00a0multiplication (minus the\u00a0slime).<\/p>\n

\"Alexandru<\/p>\n

\"Alexandru<\/p>\n

RING GARDEN<\/a><\/p>\n

With Ring Garden, Alexandru Predonu from Romania\u00a0enlisted algae to solve multiple challenges at once. Designed for the 2016 competition in Santa Monica, where the threat of\u00a0drought constantly looms, the rotating wheel is a desalination plant, an aeroponics farm and an algae bioreactor.\u00a0Powered by solar panels and tilted 8.5 degrees to ensure the sun shines right through\u00a0its belly on Earth Day, Ring Garden is theoretically capable of producing 60 million liters of drinking water every year, as well as 18,000 kilograms of aeroponic crops, and 500 kilograms of spirulina to be used as livestock feed. The solar panels drive the pump necessary to\u00a0make\u00a0seawater\u00a0potable, and of course the infrastructure itself would require materials to build, but algae is beautiful in part because of its\u00a0remarkable simplicity.\u00a0It doesn’t need much more than water, sunlight and CO2 to grow.<\/p>\n

\"Factoryscape,<\/p>\n

FACTORYSCAPE<\/a><\/p>\n

Yasin Toparlar, Onur Can Tepe, and Huseyin Penbeoglu from Eindhoven\u00a0took an entirely new approach to LAGI design with their Copenhagen entry, Factoryscape. Tucked away in a giant red grotto of sorts, algae harvested from a field of bioreactors is used to power a steam turbine and produce energy that way. Charting the history of key energy-producing technology with a boiler, condenser, heat exchanger and other\u00a0innovations associated with the fading fossil fuel era, the trio\u00a0envision an entirely new\u00a0functionality\u00a0for algae that is equal parts surprising and shocking. Theirs is a\u00a0multi-sensory\u00a0design that\u00a0enlists all of our senses: “Within this grotto, the sounds from the machine are echoed, its connectivity is accentuated, and its aesthetics are exploited.”<\/p>\n

\"Morten<\/p>\n

GRID SLIDE<\/a><\/p>\n

Another Copenhagen design, submitted by a team of ten. Comprised of three thin towers, GRID Slide turns waste from a nearby treatment plant (combined with CO2 harvested from an existing power plant) into clean fuel and fertilizer.\u00a0But it also interacts with the changing tides, forever acknowledging\u00a0nature’s vicissitudes, and transforming the urban landscape. Variable sea levels serve the additional, functional purpose\u00a0of\u00a0activating pumps that squirt algae-filled water into the towers’ bioreactors, where gravity takes care of distribution. Gas produced as a byproduct of the water filtration process powers a 2.5MW generator.<\/p>\n

\"Thomas<\/p>\n

DIATOM PROJECT<\/a><\/p>\n

This design doesn’t actually incorporate algae.\u00a0Instead, it celebrates the unicellular diatom, which artist\u00a0Thomas Laureyssens<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>says many scientists consider to be the species of microalgae which gave us today’s crude oil. Often\u00a0a geometrically-shaped organism encased in a wall of silicon, diatoms also play a productive role in the food chain. This project was designed for LAGI’s very first competition held in the UAE for the site between Saadiyat and Yas Islands in Abu Dhabi, a rather barren expanse that\u00a0would especially benefit from an inspiring work of energy-generating public art.\u00a0The design\u00a0mimics\u00a0a fossilized diatom in shape and texture, incorporating sculpted solar panels that generate energy. The stone base would\u00a0be carved out of local materials using a CNC machine.<\/p>\n

\"Ryan<\/p>\n

FERTILE CRESCENT: SYMBIOTIC ECOLOGIES<\/a><\/p>\n

This design by Ryan Connolly, who, at the time that he designed it for LAGI2010, was a student at The Ohio State University, demonstrates that a renewable energy plant can live side-by-side with wildlife. Typically power plants, those that depend on fossil fuels,\u00a0emit environmental pollutants that are destructive to\u00a0both fauna and flora (not to mention humans).\u00a0With Fertile Crescent: Symbiotic Ecologies, visitors enter the site via a field of fiber optic cables that funnel light to the algae plant below. Combined with\u00a0wastewater from Dubai, and CO2 from their air,\u00a0the light propagates sufficient algae that it can be harvested to produce biofuel within 10 days, according to Connolly. While the fats, or lipids, would be used to\u00a0produce electricity\u00a0for Dubai’s residents,\u00a0any leftover sugars would be used to feed migrating birds that\u00a0visit the nearby Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary.<\/p>\n

\"Gr\u00e9goire<\/p>\n

PHOTOREACTOR FARM TOWER<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0final design in the series, also submitted to the site between Yas and Saadiyat Islands in Abu Dhabi for LAGI 2010, comes from\u00a0Gr\u00e9goire Diehl\u00a0of\u00a0smoothcore architects<\/a>.\u00a0 Photoreactor Farm Tower takes a whole systems approach to their energy-generating plant, incorporating research, recycling and vertical farming functions into the overall facility.\u00a0Illuminated green glass tubes take advantage of vertical height to maximize solar exposure for greater algae production. The design brief estimates their closed system could produce as much as 100,000 gallons of algae biofuel per acre in a year \u2014 or 2,500MWh of electricity. Placed near an energy\u00a0plant that processes fossil fuels, according to Diehl, the tower could help sequester the carbon necessary for photosynthesis.<\/p>\n

The sheer diversity of these designs illustrates algae’s utter awesomeness, don’t you think? Of course, none have been realized yet, but LAGI 2018 Melbourne<\/a> is\u00a0particularly exciting because, while it is also an ideas competition, a LAGI 2018 team may be invited to be part of the larger consultant team that moves the St Kilda Triangle<\/a> development forward.\u00a0It’s time to put your creative juices to work!<\/p>\n

Tafline Laylin is a freelance communicator and journalist who strives for global environmental and social justice. Her\u00a0work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, OZY.com, and a variety of other international publications.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Algae is awesome. There’s no other way to\u00a0put it. Ranging from single-celled to complex multicellular organisms,\u00a0algae has\u00a0existed for at least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":5775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[50,49,128,124,110,111,28,112,127],"class_list":["post-5765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-renewable-energy-public-art","tag-algae","tag-biofuel","tag-energy-generating-art","tag-green-design","tag-lagi","tag-land-art-generator-initiative","tag-public-art","tag-renewable-energy","tag-renewables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5765"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74335,"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5765\/revisions\/74335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landartgenerator.org\/blagi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}