JACQUES ROUGERIE - GRAND PRIX
Innovation In Space Architecture
2018
At the centre of these urban characters sits the Space
Elevator. The bringer of life and key to the very
survival of Platinum City and its residents.
The city’s tower of Babel forms a physical connection
to outer space with a fragile tether of super
lightweight flexible carbon nano-tubes that pierce the
artificial atmosphere into infinity.
The refined Platinum ore is exported to the Solar
powered Platinum Galleon port docked in high lunar
orbit clear of asteroid debris Via a load carrying
carriage that travels up and down the tendril like
tensioned threads using ground based lasers beamed on
to solar energy generating panels that are attached to
the carriage.
The platinum haul is then loaded onto the fleet of
platinum galleons that are to set sail through space
with their treasures destined for planet earth.
Not all of Platinum cities buildings are formed like
this however, and some have a more maternal role to
play.
Melted into the colossal ice wall stands the city Bath
House, a refuge for the post-human worker force and
visitors alike from the harsh and sterile conditions of
the vacuum-sealed city.
A thick coat of polar fur and wiry, greasy hairs
cascade from the towers asteroid regolith facade,
creating a warm and cosy internal environment for
the buildings occupants to enjoy the passively heated
asteroid springs in their bathing machines.
A culture of Electric Bathing has emerged amongst
the Platinum city population, a unique bathing process
that embraces the exquisitely fresh water springs
discovered during the mining processes.
The armoured hide of the city’s platinum silo towers
is also a mutated version of a super heavy weight biomaterial
designed to protect the cities platinum haul
at all costs whereas the Platinum Refinery structure
is designed with permeability in mind in order to aid the
process based platinum refining method employed.
Idol teramite drones themselves also become part of
the city fabric, contributing their physicality to a
kinetic and responsive skin, docking on armatures
arranged on the facades of buildings primarily fixed to
portal openings and windows.
These animated façade pixels are reconfigured
remotely through utilisation of swarm technologies
in order to achieve controlled solar shielding and
environmental shading and dictate internal privacy
levels. The pixelated architectural skins of platinum
cities tower typologies are therefore predominantly
composed of the rugged photovoltaic hides of the
teramite drone’s bulbous blimp like forms which are
capable of collecting solar energy, converting the
ultraviolet rays into a harnessed chemical energy
through the façade docking stations which are
capable of recharging the platinum fuel cell
life - blood of the city.
Hydrogen fuel cell power supplies are replenished
as and when they are required at these network
nodes, allowing the drones to function continuously
throughout their functional lifetime.
In the absence of the sun however, at the base of these
hollow forms lies the ‘charged landscape’, a watery
suburb housing electric eels, whose energy is
harnessed by a vast swamp habitat infrastructure of
baited eel charge traps which acts as a secondary
backup to charge the crucial fuel cell stock.
In this case, the teramite swarms become urban
surgeons, splicing and implanting upgrades or replacing
worn out plug in componentry utilising the same laser
cutting technologies used during the asteroid mining
process.
Urban scars are stitched back together by applying
the catalytic cocktail of mineral enzymes and binding
salts to freshly printed bio-material armatures.
Individual buildings require building logs closer to
medical records, and their health is monitored closely
at all times by analysing building performance charts
gained from studying data produced by the building
itself.
Electro chemical sensors integrated into the bioforms
communicate via synapses like exchanges
reminiscent of neurons in the human brain, connecting
to a network from which information is downloaded
and analysed before interventions are calculated and
executed.
Natural phenomena such as bio-luminance provides a
spiritual glow to the city in the depths of winter, with
switches activated by the luminous teramite drone
crafts that nurture and prune the landscape of
bio-machines.
A further cocktail of mineral enzymes and binding
salts are applied to the printed armature structure in
order for it to harden, as well as lacing the structure
with the catalytic nutrients required by the
bio-material to grow upon it.
Control over the drone swarm allows for the
programming of bespoke surface treatments across the
material surface, allowing for varying
characteristics in the urban fabric tailored to specific
needs and desires.
This also allows for the reprogramming of the
structure throughout the buildings lifetime, allowing
it to evolve and develop as requirements change and
upgrades become necessary.
The city’s drone swarm teramite army is commanded
remotely, capable of transforming processed asteroid
regolith; a waste product of the platinum refining
process into rugged yet intricate 3d printed geometries
reminiscent of the hollow closed cell structure of
bird bone.
These intricate and complex armature structures are
rich in key mineral enzymes, that catalyze explosive
growth in the bio-material – a material capable of
providing a strong and dense structural plinth
foundation, or engulfing a building in a soft and
woolly thermally insulating coat depending on the
bio- mechanical genetic intervention made by the
teramite drone.
A harmony between the artificial biological forms
of the landscape and the advanced technology of
the building is achieved. The hollow closed cell
structures constructed of asteroid rock particulate
combined with the more flexible and elastic cellulose
based bio-material provides a combination of strength
and weight to a structure not unlike steel reinforced
concrete, perfectly suited to anchoring a structure
on sinuous stilts to the asteroid with deep and strong
probing route structures.
The drone swarm acts as a mobile array of 3d printing
nozzles, dexterously applying a scaffolding material
composed of a binding solution rich in mineral enzymes
mixed with ground asteroid particulate - a waste
product of the asteroid platinum refining process.
Just imagine a plateau of seventeen or eighteen square
miles, the ice and soil glinting and strewn with
treasures, and altogether as arid and desolate as the
permafrost Arctic Circle plains.
But, man has brought a wonderful amount of energy
and vigour to bear upon it; An extremophile,
bio-mechanical landscape creeps across the plain, its
dense, probing cellulose root structure utilised as
a phytoremediation mining machine, an organic model
capable of leaching treasures from the ground.
Bio-mechanical trees act as hyper accumulators, tall,
fast growing and easy to harvest the Platinum
treasure that is displayed as urban jewellery on its
surface.
Drone swarms act as environmental guardians,
simultaneously stimulating and cutting back growth
of the bio forms, before harvesting the cuttings in
order to extract the raw materials in the
refineries. Optimised also as a terraforming machine,
this cellulose-based biomaterial has both structural
and thermally insulating qualities when concentrated
at different densities.
Measurable and quantifiable characteristics in its
biological makeup allow for a system of intervention
by the city architect to dictate designed strategic
material characteristics and growth patterns through
a series of 3d printed armature structures on which
the bio-mechanical landscape grows upon.
The City Membrane acts as both a protective canopy to
both the city below and fragile space elevator tether
above as well as a climate regulator, enveloping the
entire city with a kinetic and mobile structure.
‘The City Membrane’ is comprised of membrane pixels
with each pixel equating to a single ‘teramite’; which
are programmable aerial drones that form the teramite
swarm.
These animated pixels are commanded remotely
through utilisation of swarm technologies in order to
carry out a number of roles crucial to the success of
platinum city.
In the drone mines of platinum city, Platinum ore is
extracted by these robotic workers piece by piece in
half a meter by half a meter ‘bores’ from the surface of
the bio-mechanical landscape.
At the northern point, where the mountain spurs slope
into the plain, between two ranges of bleak hills lies
what until 2040 was called the ‘Platinum plain’, with
its topsoil impregnated with a treasure trove of
platinum group metals, but what is now called the
platinum farm.
Platinum city is an industrial platinum mining outpost in outer
space on the surface of the Ore grade A Rosetta asteroid in
high lunar orbit around our moon.
As the world embraces the electric car and hand held smart
devices - Platinum City addresses the increased need of the
world’s large corporations to support the growth of their
invested interests and industries on earth by obtaining ever
larger quantities of platinum group metals for use in their
Hydrogen fuel cell products that rely on a platinum catalyst
to enable them to generate electrical power quietly and
efficiently, without pollution.
Ore grade A asteroids contain high yields of precious platinum
group metals – with one typical ore grade A asteroid
containing more platinum at its core than has ever been mined
on earth. By pulling one of these platinum rich asteroids from
the main asteroid belt 329,000, 000 km from the earth into
high lunar orbit of the moon it can be mined with technologies
known to humans even today.
The worlds first self-sufficient post-human space colony is a
city fathomed as an organic computer, with its grandiose, drone
crafted asteroid regolith architectures engorged on wet
technologies grown over time and anchored to the platinum
rich Rosetta Asteroid by a vast network of bio-mechanical
tendril like roots.
The city’s hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure relies on a duel
system of charging its city cells by both harnessing the power
of the sun when graced by the touch of it’s rays and in it’s
absence harvesting the magic of the electromagnetic field
contained within the genetically modified electric eels that
lurk in the murky depths of its swampy charged landscapes.
Let me tell you about Platinum City.
​
Can the traveller imagine a post scarcity world
economy, where the resources of the universe have
been unlocked by breathtaking feats of engineering
enabled by earth shaking breakthroughs in material
technologies?
​
Born at the advent of the worlds first post-human
industry of asteroid mining,
sat proudly upon the surface of the Rosetta Asteroid
located in the depths of a magnificent asteroid crater
at the foot of the 1,700-meter high Putoran Mountains
lies Platinum City!
​
A pop up industrial city that embodies bio-mechanical
characters within its urban fabric, Platinum City
exists somewhere between a pristinely manicured
garden and a well-oiled machine.
​
Inspired by the narrative text of Jules Verne’s pop up
‘Columbiad cannon’ manufacturing city in his novel
“From the Earth to the Moon” and the recent “Space
Act of 2015” that enables the legal exploitation of
space resources, the design thesis extrapolates near
future technologies and urban ideas in the context of
Peter Baufu’s ‘Eight Great Future [post-human]
Transformations Of Architecture’ into programmatic,
tectonic and environmental agendas for Platinum
City; the worlds first post-human city.
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"
Innovation In Space Architecture 2018 Platinum City "The Worlds First Post - Human City"