New Power Generation
Long before smoke-spouting power plants were relegated to the remote outskirts of the industrial city, large-scale energy generators were common sights in urban landscapes. Pushback from the public about reintroducing these structures to their cities prompted the husband-and-wife creative team of architect Robert Ferry and artist Elizabeth Monoian to found the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) with a single goal: to integrate clean-energy producers back into the cityscape, interpreting them more as public art installations than merely utilitarian eyesores.
Last year, LAGI launched its first international design competition as a means to put a positive spin on the three-blade wind turbine—and all other green power plants. Interdisciplinary teams of artists, architects, scientists, and engineers were invited to submit entries for a site-specific renewable-energy installation in the United Arab Emirates, where expansive panoramas, bountiful natural resources, and a burgeoning built environment made for the ideal trial location.
Many designs took into account the desert environment, fusing clean-energy technology with existing ecological elements, such as “Sand Dune Clouds." Intended to lessen the man-made impact of an existing roadway, this billowing structure would generate energy from wind as well as pedestrian foot traffic. On the other end of the spectrum were structures designed to stand out from the natural landscape. “Choreographies in the Sky”, a design made up of flying solar devices, interacts with visitors while creating evolving airborne patterns and formations.
In January, the winning design was revealed at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, an annual conference that brings together worldwide leaders in the renewable energy and environment industry. Ferry and Monoian are currently looking for investors to fund the future construction of the winner—along with a portfolio of roughly 75 other saleable models—not only in the UAE but in other urban locales. Their hope is to turn these green power plants into tourist destinations comparable to the Eiffel Tower or Mount Rushmore. “We imagine that they could really broaden the scope of the public’s understanding of renewable energy,” says Monoian.
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Nice ideas. I think localized decentralized power will come into play bigger in the future with more off grid homes and businesses. People will be able to do anything anywhere. The power source would depend on the amount of wind, sun or biomass. If it's biomass then it will be something like a Victorygasworks gasifier. Wind or solar will be your usual as we always see. Portable power equals freedom to be mobile.
I think that this article is relevant to recent discussions regarding 3D previsualizations, mock-ups, extrusions, green energy, and obviously Saudi Arabia. If you don't have a subscription to dwell, then I suggest that you get one. Each issue is full of inspirational approaches to design and architecture. Judd
For those of us who view desert as just wasted barren land, the seacoast as just waves eroding the money-making beach,and the night sky of no consequence, it's easy to generate fanciful designs that shade and thus change the temperature of the sand day and night, both endangering the wildlife that has adapted to live there and changing weather patterns, depending on the project size; and bounce the generated light into night sky or illuminate the seacoast at night, interrupting bird migration and day/night cycles that plants and animals rely on for metabolism and reproduction, and thus a powerful waste of the energy produced by such monstrosities. It's a pity that such a competition was addressed so ignorantly by its contestants who are old enough and are presumably smart enough to know better and possess adequate resources to research the issues. No one showed real vision.
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