Program

In line with the goals of a Yielding Architecture, the program has been separated into rooted and evolving program types.

rooted_ known entities, or foundational programatic elements that the rest of the institution/program requires prior to their own evolution. These program elements have been grouped according to use type in order to maximize their potential yield [performance].

evolving_ the program types that are adaptable. The spaces in between the "rooted" program will be allowed to yield [evolve/adapt/change] according to the needs of the institution/public.

Tabulated Program

Analysis

The program groups were studied individually in order to maximize each units performance. Similarly, the relationships between each group type is studied to organize the program volumes.

   

    

Infrastructure

the underlying foundation or basic framework (as of a system or organization)

[from Merriam-Webster Dictionary]

Infrastructure is a publicly maintained support system that creates/allows/incites certain potentials actions/structures/forms/spaces for both individuals and groups . The success of any environment or institution is directly related to the strength and relevance of its infrastructure. Infrastructures also determine the amount of independence afforded an individual. Rigid, inflexible infrastructures dictate how one is to operate and limits the body politic from enacting structural change.

The Future Farm is fundamentally an infrastructure [support system] that allows individuals to be self-sufficient by creating a flexible physical structure that has the capability to adapt to changing economic, social, and environmental conditions. Additionally, The Future Farm's educational mission is an infrastructural resource that places individuals in control over the production of their own primary survival resources [see post below].

Democratization

Premise:
The single, fundamental drive of an individual is survival. As such, our lives are ordered by the dual needs for food (immediate survival of the individual) and sex (long-term survival of the species). In contemporary culture, the three primary resources for survival are food, water, and energy.

According to Karl Marx, political power is dependent upon control over the means and methods of production. For example, a capitalist system places control in the hands of the individual, while a communist system in the hands of a ruling elite. Thus, an individual that is unable to control the production of his own primary survival resources is effectively rendered powerless.

    Proposal:
In our current political/economic system, people do not have the leverage or space to maneuver for political, economic, or social change because they depend upon that system for their primary means of survival - food, energy, and water. Our dependance upon the grid [food, water, and energy production and distribution] to which we are attached forces us to accept it, regardless of its inefficiencies, inequalities, and environmental effects.

But what if we were able to detach ourselves from the grid and from the systems of production, distribution, and control that curtails the grassroots foundations of a democratic state? What if individuals were given the infrastructure in which to produce their own food, water, and energy and, consequently, the space and leverage to rally against the controlling bureaucracies?

The Future Farm will be the vehicle through which individuals reclaim their independence from the corporate-controlled systems that dictate their very means of survival. Control over what, when, and how will shift from the elite few to the empowered many. As such The Future Farm will be a catalyst for political action, as the newly empowered populace, removed from the yoke of controlling bureaucracies, will have the leverage to demand social and economic change.

program

site analysis diagrams

trash interceptor

While on a site visit, I was coincidentally watching them clean this thing out this morning. What a great idea. Here's hoping it continues working so well.

argument/parti01**

**UPDATE**

Since this scheme is based entirely on technological solutions, my next goal will be to develop a strategy that relies on low-tech solutions. The final design will, I'm sure, incorporate elements of both.

Also, the use on shipping containers in the above scheme received some negative criticism from my peers. While I still think there is still rich potential in the idea, it is equally important for me to discover the modular solution (based on performance capabilities) and not impose an a priori solution based on "the whim of the architect."

As I am using the two-fold definition of yield as a framework for understanding architecture, it seems to make sense to split the problems associated with agriculture in two as well. Thus, the active understanding of yielding architecture, which is concerned with performative capabilities, will use the problems of food supply as a test case. Currently, mass hunger and malnutrition results from an amazingly complex web of factors including (but certainly not limited to) government subsidies (Farm Bill), limited amounts of arable land and water, rapidly increasing demands for bio-fuel, and production efficiency ceilings. Additional considerations must also include the enormous environmental impacts of agriculture, the runoff from which is the primary culprit in the many chemicals polluting the world's water systems.

Alternatively,  yield can also suggest the need for an emergent, evolutionary architecture. Here, the cultural and social problems associated with agriculture provide an interesting opportunity for applying yield as an architectural methodology. It is no coincidence that organized governmental rule surfaced simultaneously with agriculture. An economy that produces surplus must have a means of controlling the distribution of that surplus. It is also not coincidental that it was the ability to produce surpluses that allowed for a non-working, ruling class to emerge. Thus, inherent in any agricultural society is a top-down, bureaucratic system that serves not the interests of the ruled many, but of the ruling few.

Detailed in the above diagram, this first architectural proposal consists of establishing a literal and conceptual framework, within which multiple configurations may exist. Shipping containers are used to create growing and living pods, each of which can be individually owned and operated, allowing for the demands of the inhabitants (vegetal and human) to determine the organization of the building. Neighborhoods and districts would evolve over time as like people moved their pods near each others. Similarly, people who enjoy certain types of food will see to it that the are located near pods growing their favorite crops. The containers themselves can be self-edited and combined and are allowed to be relocated through use of a permanent crane structure attached to the roof of the structure. The end result of this "vague design" is a place whose character and authority is generated from bottom-up, grassroots efforts, not authoritative master planning imposed from by a self-serving bureaucracy.

The pods would be serviced through a vertical core of pipes supplying water (nutrient-enriched in each pod for optimal plant growth) and electricity as well as for returning human waste and non-edible biomass for energy generation. The lower level consists of a collection and redistribution center, which takes on both performative and cultural roles. While gathering, filtering, and redistributing water and energy throughout the building, the lower levels also contain museum spaces, grocery stores, farmer's markets and restaurants, which collect/gather people while simultaneously distributing both food and knowledge.

Some of the technologies required for these cyclical and sustainable systems have been discovered by Dr. Dickson Despommier, who's research on vertical farms has produced wonderfully rich potentials for not only the construction/operation of vertical farms, but also their economic and political viability. The below image catalogues the technologies employed in one of his proposed vertical farm designs.