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Nature of spatial practices Conference Presentation [Penn State]

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#2 Hello, my name is EleniKatrini, I am an architect and a recent graduate from the MS program of Sustainable Design at Carnegie Mellon. I am originally from Athens and the last two years I have been living in Pittsburgh US. I am currently collaborating with Carnegie Mellon and a local architecture and consulting firm there, EvolveEA. I am working with local communities in Pittsburgh and investigating on how we can advance our built environment.Today I am going to present you the research I realized for my Masters thesis related to food, water, waste and energy decentralized systems.
#4 We spend 10.25 quadrilllionBtus just for the production and distribution of our food…
#5 14% of which is consumed in transportation.
#7 And after all that, there are still more than 23 million people who live in low-income neighborhoods that are more than a mile away from a supermarket with fresh produce, the so called food deserts.
#8 The disconnection between the food production and the actual demand leads to increased production of food waste.
#13 That leads to large flood events, which keep increasing. Only in 2004 there were more than 80 flood events in the US. The aftermath of those floods is the overflow of the sewer systems, which in the case of more than 700 cities in the US which have combined sewer systems can lead to the contamination of thewatershed.
#14 Finally, something that is generallywell known is that we are energy inefficient.
#16 …and we finally throw away heat and use only a third of the initial energy.
#17 After looking at all these, I couldn’t help it but wonder if addressing food, water, waste and energy locally with decentralized systems could create urban regenerative environments? How can we think globally and act locally. Moreover, as a designer I had no knowledge of such systems, and when I tried to look for more in depth information…it was really challenging! So how can we be more aware and what is an easy way to actually get informed about decentralized systems?
#18 The process of my work was to gather the information through literature and investigate several mostly ongoing case studies for systems of food production, stormwater management, wastewater treatment and energy from waste All of the case studies and systems were found in anurban context.Afterwards, I filed the case studies in order to create the Toolkit for Urban Regenerative Environments. The toolkit is meant to be used by designers during the preliminary phase of a projects to help them understand the above systems.In order to test its use, I did a design exercise in Philadelphia as a proof of concept.
#19 I gathered about 20 case studies…
#20 Which include some of the above systems, like hydroponics, greenhouses, swales, living machines, bioreactors and anaerobic digesters.
#21 Here you can see the case study matrix which lays out the case studies organized by size
#22 The way I classified them was by system location and scale. On all case studies cards of the toolkit there are the above key-icons, showing the type of system, if it is on the ground, rooftop, façade and so on. And also on what kind of system scale are we talking about; does it serve a building, a neighborhood or a district?
#23 So the way the case studies were documented was a critical part of the work. I tried to distill all the complicated information in easy-to-use cards. See it as a “Green Infrastructure for Dummies” tool. Each case study was documented as shown: with background information, system information, images, diagrams and a scaled plan and section. The most important information of each case study is the direct connection of 2 variables: the spatial demand of the system, dimensions, area etc and its efficiency/capacity. For example this is a rooftop farm of 0.85 acres with an annual produce of 7 tons. Consequently the designer can estimate the space needed and can calculate its capacity for a project.Acquiring and normalizing the data among all case studies was the most challenging and important part of this process.
#24 So, The aggregation of all the case studies, along with some other supporting cards and a cd with the drawings of the systems created the toolkit. As a proof of concept of its functionality as well as of the potentials of the systems, a design exercise was developed in Philadelphia.
#25 The selected neighborhood is located in the general area of Northern Liberties and even though it is close to downtown it is considered a food desert.
#26 It has 2171 residents out of which 100% have low access to a grocery store or a supermarket. Here you can see the neighborhoods annual needs in fresh produce, the amount of waste they produce and the energy demands After I investigated the neighborhood, I used the toolkit in order to propose several systems and design actions appropriate to the site.
#27 From the available case studies of the toolkit…
#28 the ones that matched the sizing of the area and the available spaces of action were selected.
#29 Among them is a community garden, a rooftop farm and a greenhouse with hydroponics, stormwater planters, a Membrane and an anaerobic digester.
#30 For food production, vacant lots as well as commercial and industrial rooftops of the area were identified to be used for food production.Here you can see the rooftops, where I used 62% of the area for food production. That adds up to an area of 8.5 acres.
#31 I used a greenhouse system with hydroponics where possible and for the rest, green roofs with growing beds. The above design actions, lead to an annual fresh produce of 300 tons.
#32 Afterwards the vacant lots of the area were identified, and I used 80% of their area for food production.
#33 The system applied here is a typical farm with growing beds. Based on this design action 62.5 tons can be added to the annual fresh produce. In the neighborhood there is a great undeveloped area which was a great opportunity to be used for a park with food production.
#34 And that is how it could look like
#35 As far as wastewater is concerned a Membrane Bioreactor is selected, as it can meet the capacity of the neighborhood. A pond with crayfish can be added for further purification and algae removal.
#36 The neighborhood will accommodate also an anaerobic digester. The anaerobic digester is a system where organic waste is decomposing, while the methane emitted by the process is captured and can be turned to biogas, a renewable source of natural gas. Also the residue can be used as fertilizer. The specific digester used for the neighborhood cantreat 5,000 tons of food waste per year.
#37 That adds up to the food waste of up to 12 neighborhoods of the same size. The digester is placed in a park and includes an informational center about how waste is digested and produces methane gas.
#38 This is a street view of before and after of the biogas tank
#39 The above design actions could of course be totally different. The toolkit helps you understand and implement them. And afterwards calculate the benefits.So, based on the above design actions that I just showed you, food can be produced on site to satisfy 50% of the neighborhood’s needs. 100% of the wastewater is treated on site. The reclaimed water is used for green roof and landscape irrigation as well as toilet flushing.The neighborhood will host the anaerobic digester which will treat the food waste from up to 12 neighborhoods of the same size.The biogas produced can satisfy 7% of the neighborhood’s residential gas demand.
#40 Apart from the quantitative benefits, the design actions create educational and professional opportunities in the neighborhood and community is brought together through urban agriculture activities. The miles travelled for food supply and waste treatment are being reducedFinally the waste is diverted from the landfills and more than 70 million square feet of methane is captured instead of being emitted into the air
#41 Finally, I would like to leave you with a more general thought and look at the bigger picture. As mentioned above, several problems related to food access, water management and energy supply arise due to the attempt of satisfying the cities’ needs only through centralized infrastructures. Such massive global systems, which follow economical and political trends, face fluctuations on their efficiency. That means that often enough they might fail to satisfy everybody’s needs. The great advantage of decentralized systems, such as the one presented through the toolkit, is that they can become back-up mechanisms minimizing the failure risk of the centralized systems. Moreover, if we imagine the community as an organism or a system, the decentralized infrastructure act as the system’s balancing feedback loops. In particular, every community has inputs and outputs. It imports food, energy and water by using the centralized networks; it has energy losses and exports waste and wastewater. The decentralized systems use the outputs of a community in order to generate food, energy and water supply. Consequently, the demand for external input is reduced while reducing waste and losses. Creating opportunities for decentralized systems of food, water, waste and energy in communities in combination to the greater networks can increase urban resiliency and efficiency and eventually create urban regenerative environments.

Nature of spatial practices Conference Presentation [Penn State]

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