Presentation Reflection

Looking back on the presentation on Tuesday, retrospectively I see many ways I could have improved it. As always more time always allows for more resolved outcomes, but seriously, I think it's difficult to encompass this sort of project in the space of 6.40 minutes. There is so much research that goes into the building of the scenario its difficult to bring an outsider like a guest critiquer into the same mind frame as the tutor and myself.
Apart from that I think a little more preparation in the writing and practising of my speech would have resulted in a more understandable and succinct presentation as I did become out of sync with my slides and the nerves had me stumbling a little.
Resolution and readability of some images were rushed and this came down to time and difficulties with my computer program of choice (3Ds Max). A number of times the program 'crashed' and renders failed and it got to the point where it was most important to produce out put images whether they were high quality or not. I just needed something to help me explain and describe the scenario and the solution I had come up with. 

The feed back I received I felt was fair and mostly positive, the negative points were ones I was mostly already aware of. But again touching on those points didn't make the 'cut' in the final presentation due to time constraints. 

The good thing about keeping a blog is that you have a record of your design decisions and its easily accessible so those few points you skip or skim over in the presentation you can see where they came from and why ultimately you produced your final design in this way.

I leave this course feeling optimistic about the outcomes of this final design hoping that I managed to impart my hopes and ideas for the future of Brisbane and the World, to my tutor, the guest critiquer and my fellow students.

     

A1 Summary Poster

Final Presentation

Today, what we are faced with are faceless products, mass produced, all unchanging and the same. But this does not satisfy us. We crave products that suit us, ones that are specifically customised to meet our needs. 

So in the future this is what we demand. Customised products that meet our needs specifically. But, this isn't enough to satisfy us though... we want to know where our products come from. Gone are the days of globalisation.

So Charlie wakes up of a morning, rising to products built for her, locally, with reduced embodied energy meeting her every need. 

She checks her phone for the weather, it fits precisely in the palm of her hand. The phone matches her style, its sleek and thin, fits in her purse without bulging her custom built bag.

Charlie disposes of the phone when it no longer meets her needs. But what then happens to Charlies waste? Landfill? Not in the future, not anymore.

In the future, there is a closed loop system that has been adopted. New parasitical residential towers have invaded the city centre, and for this project more specifically the current Myer centre. These residents produce waste, we all do, even in the future... But at this point that is where the similarities between now and the future end when it comes to waste management. 

Following waste disposal the materials go through a crushing process - a waste disassembly... followed by a sorting process to then be either be stored for future use or immediately be re-used in the manufacturing processes of the future retail enterprises. But how is this achieved?  

Looking at the heart - the wonder of biological systems come into fruition. Our microscopic cells contract and pump our life sustaining blood through our body. It goes through filtration systems within the the body and recycles to keep us alive.

Even more fascinating is the lysosome, it contains enzymes that break down waste materials into their constituent components, which are in turn used to build new proteins.
Moving away from traditional industrial processes and approaches, bio - technology will advance and nano bots will be enlisted to fulfil and replicate biological processes.  

Nano bots are so small they can rip atoms apart just like the lysosome. Breaks down the waste materials into their constituent components. The nano - pit adopts these biological processes to become the new solution to waste management in the future. The nano-pit pumps like a heart, and breaks down materials using nano bots to replicate the lysosome.
Coming down the inlet 'artery' there are protrusions which 'crush' waste to a smaller size, the pumping action sucks the material into the first chamber. Breaking down further through the use of bacteria, the waste then flows into the main chamber for the nano bots to disassemble to then be evacuated into the third chamber to be sorted and then released out of the outlet 'artery' of the nano - pit.  

This newly broken down material needs to be moved and stored for future use in the manufacturing of new products on the retail front. Like in Wall-E I gained inspiration from how the robots ran on tracks in robot 'highways'. Additionally looking at wineries material storage was dealt with similarly, stacking the materials in containers for easy access to be moved to the 3D printers.

Once the robots have the newly broken down materials they move them to where they will be located with other resources of the same material types. They move both in the horizontal and vertical planes moving in the existing voids of the Myer centre up and down between levels.

The nano - pits occupy the existing voids of the myer centre hanging from the ceiling people occupying the building, as a shop owner or a customer, share a strong visual connection with the nano - pit. 

Not only is it a functional aspect of the building in the future, it is a symbolic representation of how society has moved forward in its philosophies and how they wish to function as a society.

So today we act out the cradle to grave design paradigm. Taking what we want from the limited resources that are available, using them and then disposing of them. Next to no recycling occurs and if it is, it's not true recycling with most waste being left for decomposition taking hundreds if not thousands of years to be integrated into natural systems.  

The future however, will rely on enacting the cradle to cradle design paradigm of the closed loop system - combing the biosphere and the techno-sphere's product life cycles to reach equilibrium in how we as a society manage waste.

So Charlie goes to the shop owner, an industrial designer, tells them just what she wants, a new product to match her every need. The designer then 3D prints the product for Charlie on the spot ready for use.
Charlie is in love with her new custom built product.

When this product no longer meets her needs she disposes of it.

The Future of waste management is the Nano - Pit, it is a functional solution as well as a symbolic representation of the societal changes in attitudes towards waste.

Renders that didn't make the final presentation

  

Presentation plan

 

The presentation will be broken into three sections, context, content and control. The context will show the life of Charlie (first 5 slides), the modern citizen of Brisbane going about their everyday life stopping on the disposal of a product. 

In the content section (10 slides) I will switch to a diagram of how the waste management system will work illustrating the closed loop system. a section of the nano pit will then be shown followed by a diagram of how hearts pump blood opening and closing valves. I then move on to speak about bio mimicry in the use of breaking down materials as opposed to traditional methods, switching to a diagram of the nano pit moving material. After the material is broken down i explain how it is collected and stored, switching to an image explaining people and robot circulation and there cross over interactions folowed by a render illustrating the interaction. I then depict the first person experience and presence of the design. 

Finally i close with control (5 slides), i look at the difference between open and closed loop systems and switch to 'back to the begining' shoping the purchase of a 3D printed product and the eventual disposal. 

First person experience

When addressing the criteria for scenes (presence & identity and the first person experience) i approached this the the notion of cradle to cradle in mind. The people who use the space will be directly interacting with the design. The nano pits hang in the voids of the exiting building, capturing and processing waste, this allows for a vivid association between the consumer nature of the society and the processes their waste undergoes to complete the cradle to cradle life cycle. 

This relates to the future scenario directly in that people live more locally, are more conscious of product life-cycles and where their waste ends up. The advancement of technologies, nano technologies and bio mimicry technologies, has allowed for the shift from open systems (cradle to grave) to closed loop systems (cradle to cradle). People want to know how there products are made, where, when, with what and, in the new Myer centre, the future people will get to answer all these questions with a glance at the nano pits. Voyeristically people get to experience this system and be reassured that they are no longer leading a destructive lifestyle.

     

Additional the spaces have been reconfigured to allow for this shift in societal norms. As a response to not needing space for the storage and display of products, shop spaces have been reduced, floor space has been opened up to become circulation and storage space. 

The new shop arrangement is more market style with shop owners (industrial design professionals) being commissioned to design customised products on the spot to be 3D printed. 

The materials for these products come from the nano pit and collected by the robots and taken to either storage or shops to be utilised for 3D printing. The robots run on designated tracks which shares circulation space with users, again building the connection between purchase and disposal of products. 

Nano - Pit Detail

This section of the nano - pit shows the details of the inner workings. There are two 'arteries' one inlet for the broken down waste materials and one out let for reclaimed constituent materials of the original waste. In addition within these 'arteries' are a organic teeth like protrusions which act as the organic (natural) equivalent of the crushing component of the closed loop system. 

In the nano - pit there are three chambers which the materials pass through, the one on the left is the first chamber that the waste enters (occurring through the contraction motion, opening and closing the valves of the inlet 'artery'). In the first chamber further breaking down of the material occurs at a cellular level through the use of microbes. Once sufficiently broken down, through the contraction motion, the material moves into second and largest chamber where the nano bots reside, this is the final chamber where disassembly occurs. The nano bots rip every bit of material into their constituent components (such a iron, copper gold ect.) and once this occurs the chamber contracts and moves the raw materials into the third and final chamber. In this chamber the materials are sorted and discharged through the outlet 'artery' to be collected by the robots and distributed to either storage or the the 3D printers for retail use. 

The analogy

When squeezing a water bottle, water comes spewing out into your face, it breathes in air sucking it in place of the the water expelled. The Nano - Pit not dissimilarly when 'squeezed' the 'spews' out material into the outlet 'artery' and breathes in the 'air'  (the waste material).

The heart pumps the blood flows and so too does the Nano - Pit, inhaling and exhaling the materials closing the loop of the waste management system of the future. 

3D computer model progression

W10 : FORM

W11: PROPORTION

W12: VISUAL CONNECTIONS

W14: FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION

Why Organic?

Looking at the form of my design I think its important to discuss the reasons behind my decision to go organic. When we look at natural and 'industrial' systems we can see a distinct response to a problems they are faced with. 

Industrial systems are ones that usually respond to one situation, one form of a problem. They are rigid in their solutions to problems and have a complete inability to respond to change or changed or new problems that may arise in an industrial process. The industrial approach is designed for specific 'loads' (eg. amount of waste that can be processed) and have a complete inability into respond to changes in increased loads or demands. Additionally traditional industrial processes are inefficient, they have allot of waste bypasses in the processes that they undertake. Not only do the waste bypasses occur in the actual processes but also in the use of energy expended in carrying out the processes.

Looking at natural processes we see the complete opposite. Plants and animals create their own self organising systems that create a cycle that brings the waste output to zero. Each component (plant, animal, bacteria) of the cycle gets something out of the processes they carry out, any energy expended reaps a reward of that component. Natural systems have the ability to grow and change over time, they can respond to additional loads in the cycle. More components can be added to natural systems and that system will respond to the changes accordingly. Animals, plants and bacteria may die off or the population might shrink or grow and and life still goes on, responses to the changes are enacted in a timely fashion that is mutually beneficial to each component.

So in my design, looking at these two processes and analysing them carefully it's easy to see that, for my scenario, the most appropriate solution is one inspired by the natural processes that go on around us, constantly changing and growing over time. 

My Nano - Pit is an integral component in the life cycle of the future systems of humans, Brisbane city and the World. The saying is form follows function and I believe this holds true in the case of my design, I've looked at the human heart as well as other creatures hearts, the processes of cells and bacteria and each revealed a process that could be adopted in my design. The need for my design to respond to the issue of waste management required a biological approach and even now research into bio mimicry has proven the successes and lengths these technologies can go to.
The Nano - Pit NEEDS to be organic, responsive and adaptable to the future requirements. It NEEDS to be able to grow and change over time to support the new retail front of the future. And being organic facilitates this ability to respond, adapt, grow and change. It may be a bio engineered material or a synthetic equivalent but the ability to adapt and change will be inherent in the make up of the Nano - Pit.  

Bio-mimicry

 

Above: Sketch visualisation of nano - pit 

Approaching the design in a more organic way i have looked into the processes hearts (as seen in previous posts) pump blood through the body. Bellow is a sketch of a valve of a heart, there are sinuous cells attached to the valve, this facilitates the opening and closing of the valve through contractions of the cells.
 

Abstracting out the principles of the heart, bio - mimicry in the design of the nano - pit took the form of the sketch below. Waste material comes down the larger tube passes through the valve and into the first chamber to be further broken down, the middle chamber contacts creating a suction action moving the material into that chamber. the first valve opens with the contraction and closes upon the same motion moving the material into the final chamber for the constituent components to be sorted and then evacuated to the outlet for collection by robots.

Mechanisms

To better understand how my nano pit might work in terms of today i looked at the processes materials undergo today.

 

Left: centrifugal pump Right: Diaphragm pump

To better understand how my nano pit might work in terms of today i looked at the processes materials undergo currently:

   

On the left is one visualization of how my nano pit could work, there are three components. Crushing, dis-assembly (in the centrifugal pump) and sorting. After crushing the centrifugal pump spins and facilitate the suction action pulling the broken down materials into the chamber to be further processed by the nano bots, the pump again created enough pressure to push the material out of the chamber and into the sorting chambers.

On the right, replacing the centrifugal pump component of the design is the diaphragm pump. This pump works with a push and pull motion, when you push the membrane in one valve opens sucking in raw material and as the membrane is pulled outwards the first valve closes opening the second and moving the broken down materials into the next chamber for sorting. 

   

The broken down material in both cases is then moved upward, by the pumping action, into the exit tubes. In the tubes the materials flow through the valves as depicted above, this stops the material from flowing back into the sorting camber and contaminating the materials being processed at the time.

closed loop system

This diagram depicts how i envisage my systems operation, facilitating a closed loop system I look at the life cycles of retail products in the context of the future scenario proposed.
In the scenario parasitic residential towers have become a part of the future Myer centre, the waste from the towers would go through a crushing process  before entering the nano pit chambers where the nano bots would break the materials into their constituent components to then be sorted and distributed to produce new 3D printed products.

Circulation

Looking at the circulation of the design and the issues that arise in the movement of the materials output by the nano pits i have devised a system to move and store the materials.

 

As seen in the sketch above i am proposing a set of tracks running throughout the floor plates and between levels. Robots will run along these tracks moving the different materials output from the nano pit to their storage location and then ultimately to the 3D printers to produce the customised products for the community.

Above is a sketch floor plan proposing the extent of the tracks and within that extent the location of the storage facility for the raw materials awaiting use by the 3D printers. There is a distinct interaction created between the users and the function of the space through the incorporation of the robots, storage and nano pits making the overall experience more voyeuristic.
The interaction between the users will be carefully narrated and coordinated to allow the best use of the space and maximum ease of useability and circulation.

model developement

Clay model

Investigation the design through models i created this clay model to obtain a grasp as to how it might come together as a physical entity. It became evident however that this was a purely aesthetic approach and that i needed to explore the mechanisms of the design further. 

Balloon heart

In investigating how i might get the mechanisms of my design to work i looked at the pumping actions and how this could be translated into the design. The balloon being squeezed depicts the contraction of the material facilitating the opening of the valve and the movement of material from one chamber to the next. 

Cardboard mechanism

This model further investigates the mechanisms of the design approaching it in a 2D manner. The cogs of the model simulate the pumping of materials through the various chambers of the nano-pit.

Design developement

Looking at the nano - pit, I have started to consider more carefully how the organic form of my design can be modelled in 3Ds Max and how materials could enter and exit the pit and be stored. The lines represent the 'segments' of a sphere which could be deformed using various modifiers to extrude them and create the form of the nano pit. 

NANO PIT 2.0

Previously i thought that the waste might flow into the pit where the nano bots would disassemble the material and would release the sorted material from the bottom as a type of dust, but now i have been looking into the heart and how it acts as the muscle in the body which acts as the vessel of distribution and control of old and new re-oxygenated blood. 

Not dissimilarly, i now see the nano pits as an organ in the 'body' of my building pulsating and processing the waste of the residential component. So the waste will go down one tube of the nano pit utilising gravity, entering the disassembling chamber; once processed, the pit will contract like a muscle in the body increasing the pressure and forcing the disassembled material into the sorting chamber to be sent up the release valves through the same 'organ like contractions'. These release valves will be the new system that transports the sorted material to its storage location within the Myer center.

Looking at how to recapture the concept of a heart in a futuristic and industrialised way this image below was quite striking for me. I would like to capture a similar sort of feel in my final design but perhaps in a slightly more abstract way. I do find it interesting though looking at the heart as an industrial machine and i would like this to be construed within the design as i feel it would reflect my whole scenario well.  

On another note, as an industrial machine, my nano pits will require maintenance. As such, i have decided to incorporate maintenance access to the nano pits, these access paths will wrap around the pits and access the different levels which will house the storage of the different materials.