Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa's project is a pneumatic actuated large-span structure to harvest methane and encourage agriculture along the thawing Siberian tundra. It is an undulating structure that accelerates the transformation from tundra to fertile land through increased heat, nutrition, and CO2 levels.
Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa
Architectural Association
School of Architecture
Breathing algae fields. © Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa.
Jury
Kevin Carmody
Kent Jackson
Roger Kallman
Ken Mackay
If agriculture in the rain forest leaves a trace of ash in fertile land, the proposal leaves a trace of vegetation and inhabitation in undeveloped land. Structurally and formally, it challenges the use of double curvature and local form optimization within pneumatic structures. This is a symbiotic system where the pneumatic is used to actuate and support the main language enabling far larger scales.
This is a radical proposal for turning the inevitable global warming into an opportunity for a new hyperproductive agricultural landscape to emerge. Supervast does not suffice to describe the scale, if the whole melting Siberian frontier was to be methane harvested, farmed, and settled. The structural behavior and the resulting spatial quality intrigue me. Although I am not a structural engineer, I think the composite condition between the behavior of the massive acrylic tubes and the regulating, triangulating, and actuating high-pressure pneumatic bear witness of sophistication and innovative thinking. This is architecture at its best, routing for a brave new future.
Algae photosynthesis and methane absorption. In order to clear the ground for agriculture the bio fence containing the algae for methane absorption becomes an integral part of the primary structure. © Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa.
Double curvature strut expanded model. Large-scale physical models to test structural behavior and capacities. © Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa.
Large scale pneumatic actuated model. Analyzing the impact of pneumatics to actuate and support the buckled strip behavior. © Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa.
Cushion cut to fit form of buckled strip. To support primary structure behavior with minimal interference. © Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa.
Hot, humid, pulsating, toxic—and yet light and optimistic! A gaseous fluctuating space, initially better suited for apple blossoms than human occupation but continually leaving a trace of human enterprise and inhabitation in previously infertile land. © Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa.
Erlend Bakke-Eidsaa
Architectural Association
School of Architecture
is an architect at Lundhagem, an award-winning architecture and urban design practice based in Oslo. Founded in 1990, the practice remains committed to creating architecture that continues to explore the relationship between nature and humanity.
