the Itaipu Dam, revisited

image courtesy www.wikipedia.org

What are the basic points of importance in a dam? There is the creation of a floodplain, a new basin of land fit for inhabitance and farming - a new source of resources. There is the creation of a reservoir, in this case, the re-routing of the Paranà River between Brazil and Paraguay. There is the creation (generation) of power, the basic entity which allows modern society to function and develop.

Dimensionally, the dam is the largest in the world, spanning the same distance as the width of Manhattan Island. It generates the most power of any dam in the entire world, 90 billion kWh (kilowatt hours) per year. As shown in the following images, that is about 98 percent of the power that Manhattan Island consumes per year. The most powerful hydroelectric plant in the United States (Grand Coulee Dam) has the capacity to power only about three quarters of Manhattan Island.

This amazing amount of power is produced with very minimal carbon dioxide emissions - it gives modern society its fuel and causes very little damage to the environment. Hydroelectric power is still a relatively underdeveloped technology.

(above) Grand Coulee's capacity in relation to Manhattan Island
(below) Itaipu's capacity in relation to Manhattan Island

In the business of re-routing rivers, the Itaipu dam has created the seventh-largest man-made body of water in the world. The re-routing of the river is a mega-adjustment, a reconstruction of what Mother Nature had built on her own. I feel that this is the most interesting aspect of the concept of the dam - the re-routing of the course of nature. For the sake of power production and population growth, some of the world's major rivers may be re-routed. Perhaps entire cities will be built, displaced from where nature intended they be. The dam is a symbol of mankind's increasing power over its world but is a refreshingly safe way to control it.


unattributed images are original illustrations, photos courtesy Google Earth

SOURCES:
www.wikipedia.org
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/itaipu.html
http://www.itaipu.gov.br/

the Plug-In City

Roughly forty-five years ago, Peter Cook of Archigram began work on the Plug-In City, and members of Archigram continued to develop the project in greater detail until 1966.

A megastructure of infrastructure connects towering silos of moveable units - later dubbed "capsules" - so that shops can relocate with changes in business and a family can move on a whim, all connected to a grid providing each capsule with its necessary functions - power, water, and means of communication. Each silo has its own purpose, from schools to commerce to dwellings.

The mobility of these capsules is provided by giant cranes which lift and move them; the mobility of the essential functions is proposed to be provided by hovercraft moving in between the silos.

drawing by Peter Cook

original illustration

On a human scale, the plug-in city represents possibilities and a return of civilized culture to a nomadic population, with the abilities and desires to move in short periods of time. It will turn into a mobile and well-connected culture, a population accustomed to following jobs and other resources as they move. The obstacles of relocation will be significantly reduced, and jobs, houses, and lives will become semi-permanent and more worldly.

This society built upon temporary elements would ironically become more permanent. The adaptability of the small details to a gradually changing civilization would keep society alive, revisable, and workable, reducing the need for mass reconstruction. The ever-moving and ever-changing elements of the design would create a large-scale level of solidity and stability that the world has not yet experienced.drawings courtesy of Archigram
original illustration

These semi-nomadic people, with their travelling shops and homes, would be part of a megastructure of resources, just as earlier civilizations built around their resources. This is just an expansion upward and outward of the resources. This level of connectivity via resources is a permanent house for impermanent objects.

This megastructure is meant to infiltrate the city as already built, using paths made by roads for cranes and expanding on infrastructure that already exists. Archigram even went on to propose that this megastructure could penetrate city boundaries and connect entire countries. Might we see entire countries covered in a mega-grid of power, water, and transportation (both the transportation of capsules and of people)?

drawing courtesy of Archigram
original illustration

The Plug-In City would serve as a physical representation of mobility and adabtability while also promoting a unity and connection that modern society has yet to see. We are exchanging information faster and further than ever before, and the Plug-In City would help to turn this virtual exchange into something tangible - the efficient and easy exchange of physical objects and space, and the direct sharing of physical resources over the vastest expanses.


sources:
ARCHIGRAM.
Cook, Peter
Chalk, Warren

Archigram: Architecture without Architecture.
Sadler, Simon

contact

I believe that part of the point of studying architecture is to learn to establish a new means to the same end; in this studio, that means to find a new way to communicate the elements of a project. The reason (however intimidating it seems) I chose to remain in this studio section is to learn some new technologies and to exercise problem-solving skills in order to better be prepared for what the future of architecture and architectural study is.

I really look forward to sharpening my computer skills and learning some basics of web presentation, also attempting to sharpen my problem-solving skills by learning how to combine architecture with web design. I also hope to learn to become more self-taught in that the professor is not present and I will have to rely more heavily on my own skills in order to get things done well and correctly.