New Frontiers
Carbon Neutral Water-Energy-Food Nexus Research for Miami and the Greater Islands: Climate Resilient Urban Nexus Choices View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Thomas Spiegelhalter, Darren Ockert
The International COP 21 Paris Agreement was created to generally support professional and municipal architecture and urban design practice emphasizing greenhouse gas reductions and carbon-neutral city planning and operations. Miami benefits through multiple large-scale grants focused on strategic solutions to combat and adapt to the effects of global warming, sea level rise, flooding, hurricane impacts, and salt-water intrusion. However, Miami’s sustainability master plans do not sufficiently target the International COP 21 carbon-neutrality targets. This paper critically describes a recently funded three-year research project by EU agencies and the US-National Science Foundation in partnership with nineteen partners from six countries (the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, USA, and China). The paper describes how transdisciplinary, parametric-algorithmic, computational research workflows, combined with cloud-based artificial intelligence and machine learning simulation engines can produce outcome scenarios for the period from 2019 to 2100. These scenarios are generated by the Miami research team at the Urban Living Lab (ULL), part of Miami Beach Urban Studios (MBUS). The ULL’s research sectors include water management, robotic urban farming, local food production and hydroponics, mixed renewable energy design, and carbon-neutral power generation with adaptive blue-green infrastructure projects that support the local and regional Food-Energy-Water Nexus.
Gas Becomes Liquid and Qatar Meets Japan, -162ºC: Curating Geopolitics - a Case Study on How Art Can Visualize Global Macrosystems.
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Giovanni Innella, Simone Muscolino
In 2018-2019, faculty members of the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technologies (AIIT) in Tokyo and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCUarts Qatar) in Doha collaborated on two exhibitions exploring the relationship between these two apparently faraway countries. It emerged that Qatar and Japan share strong commercial ties. After the Fukushima disaster (2011), Japan shut down most nuclear plants and sought for alternative sources of energy. Japan became the largest buyer of Liquid Natural Gas from Qatar. Although agreements appear to be mostly economic, the trade between the two countries impacts their lifestyles, economies, and political powers. This collaboration produced art installations visually exploring this seemingly invisible relationship between Japan and Qatar. The goal of the installations was not informative, but rather to raise awareness on the topic while exposing the audience to ambiguous, inspiring, and yet meaningful, images. The installations finally took the form of performative and reiterative printing processes, with 40 printers suspended in the exhibition space. The printers would operate in a choreographed manner, naturally shaking and swinging while printing images scraped from the web. Ultimately, the installations produced collages illustrating LNG as a complex connecting element between the two countries. This paper chronicles on the process leading to the exhibitions. The authors reflect on the role of art in visualizing and exposing the general public to geopolitical matters. Economic and political macrosystems are normally distanced from people’s life, but instead they affect it and manifest themselves into only apparently mundane aspects of a country daily life and its identity.
Detection and Monitoring of Pyrotechnic Event Consequences on Non-blast Resist Buildings : Use of Building Information Re-Modeling and Scientific Realm of Pyrotechnic Formulas View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Wessam Hamdy Abbas, Hassan Abdelsalam
Architecture and science are alleged to be two different worlds, whereas some great common ground realms are generated with their combination, likewise, some marvelous creations, and scientifically based architectural models too. These creations are subjected to many different areas (i.e., structural, electrical, mechanical) to meet congenitally the users’ empathy and withstand their occupancy experience. However, in terms of incident and abnormal events, pyrotechnic event study isn't often considered from an architectural point of view. It may be researched through either theoretical or experimental-applied methods. Moreover, study models and numerical simulations have been introduced for the pyrotechnic event consequences and behavior - especially for blast-resist products, particular bodies formation and fragmentation if any, those are for a specific purpose only. So, Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology can guide the practitioners to synchronizearchitectural model or via cloud service with various simulation-based software, that could give them high precise results and manifestation of their model. This paper introduces a new process of graphical formula-driven model and re-model using Building Information Re-Modeling (BIMr) technology. Remodeling here points to the real-time calculated data that control the whole model instantly, and many questions can be considered, such as: How can this model be scripted or programmed for calculating this data? How can it architecturally diagnose the consequences induced by an incident pyrotechnic event on non-blast resist buildings?
Could America’s Isolationist Foreign and Economic Policy Have an Unintentionally Beneficial Impact on Resource Utilization?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Valentina Rognoli, Stefano Parisi, Richard Lombard
As the United States continues to lead a trend that sees countries ripping up established treaties and alliances, the once-entrenched "global market" is beginning to fracture. While this balkanization has - so far - only led to increased tariffs and paperwork, it is not unthinkable that flows of materials and products could be seriously impacted. This paper treats these developments as potentially positive for sustainable resource utilization, and explores some of the potential benefits of these isolationist policies. Among the concepts covered in the paper are the use of waste materials as feedstocks, the rise of DIY (“do it yourself”) materials, and circular strategies on varying scales that would all serve to benefit the environment. None of these are new concepts but, in potential future scenarios, they will need renewed attention. Focus is placed on recent advances and deployed strategies that provide measurable data for practical application.
