2008 UK Award Part 2
Siberian Photo (Re) Synthesis

Pneumatic actuated large span structure to harvest methane and encourage agriculture along the thawing Siberian tundra. It is an undulating structure which accelerates the transformation from tundra to fertile land through increased heat, nutrition and co2 levels. 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 as global warming into an opportunity for a new hyper productive agricultural landscape to emerge. Super vast 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’m 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.