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Disruptions

@disrup.tions

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It doesn’t take much to overturn seemingly immobile values: A good amount of observation and a bit of wit.

Teaching program of @maciverekchevroulet

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Studio Latency, EPFL

The democratisation of renewable energy shifts the central question from production to storage. Whilst lithium dominates this new gold rush, the studio begins from the premise that everything can store energy. A suspended volume of water, a mound of salt or even a potato can become a battery.

The limitation of low-tech energy storage is scale: to hold a meaningful amount of energy, it must be big. Architecture already possesses the mass, volume and structure these systems require. The studio Latency explores the symbiotic relationship that emerges when energy storage becomes a generator of typology.

Our first review took the form of an apéro riche. Each group constructed a 1:1 battery based on a low-tech storage principle, capable of storing enough energy to prepare and serve a dish. A day long energetico-culinary experience

Photo 1, Starch, Oscar Lebet, Tom Liechti
Photo 2, Deadweight, Olaf Nowak, Linus Hagedorn
Photo 3, Ice, Amaury Desprez, Pablo Girard
Photo 4, Flywheel, Max von Eschenbach, Werner Thäsler
Photo 5, Salt, Najwa Horo, Noa Moreillon
Photo 6-7, Mineral, Oona Martel, Sophia Hampel
Photo 8, Flowing Water, Line Bouziri, Luke Ferry
Photo 9, Spring, Matteo Poli, Alex Moser

Guests:
Stephanie Bru @bruther_architecture
Susanne Eliasson @grau_office
Bastian Marzoli @d.e.t.r.i.t.u.s

Photos: @claudit.ravioly & MacIver-Ek Chevroulet by @disrup.tions

disruptions.earth is online!
An online archive of semesters, summer schools and other experiments
www.disruptions.earth by @disrup.tions

Authors: Stefan Gross @gross_raum_buero, Florian Meissner meissner.architektur, Bastian Sippl @b.s.______

Title: Daedalus - Housing with Alternative Energy Storages

Description: “Through changes in demand and production of renewable electricity the wax battery breathes with the never ending cycle of the seasons. It melts and hardens, while storing energy and releasing heat. The residents are able to experience the degree of loading of the core through feeling its warmth and its changing consistency. The warm core is able to influence the climate of the building through radiating heat in winter and being used as heat chimney in summer to induce air flow and cool the building. Its not only a utility but almost a living instance that controls and adapts the building through its expansion according to the seasons. The expansion is used to shift walls inside of the apartments to facilitate air flow in summer and orient the center of life towards the facade. In winter additional buffer zones are created and the flats are oriented towards the warm core.

Professors: Anna MacIver-Ek @disrup.tions and Axel Chevroulet @maciverekchevroulet

Teaching Assistants: Lena Kirsch, Florian Jaritz

School: Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Engineering and Design @architecture.tum by @disrup.tions

Salt
Emma, Paul, Maria

Prototype
We remember dearly during ski holidays, the little packs of molten salt that once activated would warm our gloves. Once confined to the intimacy of fingertips, molten salt now sustains an endless stream of melted chocolate.

Project
Scaling the system up, a new layer is added to the Flaucher Hochhaus. Curtain rails carry bags of molten salt, weaving through apartments like vascular tubing. Running through the apartments, each element can be activated, thus producing heat for eight hours: a soft and translucent moving wall of warmth. In summer, the elements migrate to the sunlit façade, passively recharging for the next season. An architecture oscillating between storage and release, utility and indulgence. by @disrup.tions

Deadweight
Vincent, Jakob, Patrick

Prototype
A hanging 50kg stone is released from the ceiling. Through a system of bicycle gears, the fall is slowed down, converting vertical energy into rotation: a mechanism of delayed catastrophe: gravity domesticated. The swinging blades slice and mix the eggplant, tahini and garlic into a succulent baba ganoush

Project
A storage center for re-use materials, providing not only a much needed program to the city, but also pure weight. When renewable production exceeds demand, the platform ascends, lifting the city’s surplus into suspension. When power is scarce, gravity takes over, translating descent into electricity. On the peripheral framework, residents improvise their private architectures from the refuse of others by @disrup.tions

Vibrations
Anna, Anne, Johanna

Prototype
On a fine steel plate, sound waves set the ingredients of a muesli into motion; oats pulse, raisins drift, dried raspberries draw patterns of geometry and chance before settling gracefully in their bowl

Project
Suspended above the railway lines on the Hackerbrücke, the long cantilevering building gathers the vibrations of its environment to generate energy. Acting as a giant seismograph, this piece of architecture embraces movement and elasticity, redefining structural standards. From the stable base of the building, through to the gentle swinging of the bedrooms, the vibrations intensify along the structure. by @disrup.tions

OVERLOAD / Bio waste
Lennart Knoop, Jonas Wald and Arne Hackmann

Prototype
For three weeks, the group siphoned organic remains from the school’s menza into their fermentation tank. The produced gas is stored into translucent cushions. To activate the oven, a steel plate is lowered onto the cushions, pressing the gaz out into a linear flame grill.

Project
Within the rail field, a tower rises like a vertical stomach. Trains dock and unload organic waste. Floor by floor, fermentation tanks are stacked like organs in sequence, orchestrating the slow decomposition of the city’s refuse. Gas fills membranes inserted between each floors, slowly lifting apartments as the tower fills up. Infrastructure becomes choreography.

Each resident can plug into the system: the kitchen hisses with raw, local energy. Meanwhile, the excess energy - 94% of the production - is exported across the city, a gift of rot. Heat, an inherent byproduct, is used passively in the common laundromats and drying rooms. by @disrup.tions

OVERLOAD / Acid
Carla Mack, Silvester Fornasari, Maja Weidner

Prototype
A cocktail bar of copper plates soaked in acid powers a shaker whilst vegetables gently pickle in the acidic mixture.

Project
The building pumps and filters acidic water from the Sendlinger Loch. The acid is stored in a central tank and directed into copper-lined walls, generating electricity through an electrochemical reaction. When mixed with water in the floor panels, the mixture releases heat. The housing typologies and functions are organised around these battery walls. Clean water—the by-product—returns to the Sendlinger Loch, incrementally improving the site’s ecosystem. by @disrup.tions

OVERLOAD / Compressed Air
Luis Müller, Laurent Fugère, Vincent Ritter

Prototype
Compressed air is loaded into an empty fire extinguisher. Its release propulses a piston, neatly slicing a watermelon.

Project
A row of air tanks are placed along the Auerbrunnen parking lot. Each tank drives a piston that extends or retracts in response to the building’s energy level. The living volume follows the energy flows, the architecture self-regulates its volume and thermal demand based on available energy. by @disrup.tions

OVERLOAD / Flowing Water
Maria Pascal, Anna Levedag, Konrad Rinke

Brunch: A bathtub perched on top of a scaffolding stores water until a valve releases it; the falling stream spins a paddle-wheel that activates a hammer shaft, crushing fresh coffee beans. The water continues its stream, is heated up and sucked through capillarity into the coffee pot.

Project: Atop the Flaucherhochhaus, a new rooftop basin crowns the tower and fills whenever surplus power is available. When demand rises, the water is released, activating turbines placed along the building. An exoskeleton supports the added weight of the basin and adds a new layer of bathrooms, therefore offering a special quality to a room usually hidden in the depth of the plan. Occasional overflow flows down, giving every bathroom a vigorous rinse. by @disrup.tions

OVERLOAD / Wax
Stefan Gross, Bastian Sippl, Florian Meissner

Brunch
A bretzel oven is built based on both physical qualities of wax; its excellent thermal capacity and volumetric expansion through temperature changes. The bretzels are slowly heated up, when the right temperature is reached, green houses wax pistons open the lid to deliver the Bavarian delicacy.

Project
Scaling up these two properties, a large wax core is placed at the heart of the building. As it charges and melts from solid to liquid, wax pistons extend, rotating apartment walls and generating natural airflow. In colder months, the wax solidifies, the pistons retract, and the building encloses itself to profit from the heat stored in the core. by @disrup.tions

Possible futures. Housing conversion of the Belpstrasse office building. Image production is used as a catalyst for the project, before any drawings are made. Workshop at the Bernerfachhoschule @bfh_architektur by @disrup.tions