LEGO + FARM
Reclaim urban identity and food production
Introduction
The central feature of this project is the development of a modular structure that exhibits characteristics of cellular organizations, with the potential of arranging a large quantity of shipping containers into a complex system in a manner similar to the Lego game. We named it as Lego Farm, a mixed-use complex, as well as an urban farm, which include many sustainable elements such as roof garden, solar panel, wind turban, rainwater harvesting and compost chamber, can produce a healthy urban agricultural farm. This green complex can also deform its facade in the individual unit level, compatible with the dynamic changing cultures. The net result of these individual containers (each have several kinetic panels installed in the front window) is a reflection of the logic of swarm behavior, which is both the sum of the individual responses, but also, greater than it.
This project is inspired by Olaf Breuining’s installation art “can someone tell us why we are here?” In his installation, a group of people dressed in boxes and each box represent a unique English character. When large quantities of boxes/people are assembled as a group, the social consciousness emerged in as a linguistic pattern. We believe it is an interesting metaphor for this project and investigated the following two questions. How can we maintain the individual identity with the identical containers from mass production? Can we represent a social image by modifying each container as a pixel of a large bill-board facade?
Kinetic window system
Each container has a lattice of frame structure installed in the front window, like "the bottles in a wine rack". Within this 8 by 8 grid system, 64 plug-in and infill panels are assembled. Each panel has identical dimension, while assembled together, they have a unique expression as a whole by the way of clustering, which can be “extruded” or “compressed” within the lattice grid along the normal axis and form infinite typological features.
The characteristic of the Lego Farm heavily relies on the spatial relations of each container as well as their front window panels. Each window can be modified by the social, economic and culture requirements of the residence. With this user customized system, the window can react to external stimuli and be transformed with a short time responding to the light, wind or temperature change.
Urban Identity
By changing relationships of individual window panels, the Lego farm can perform various scenarios in the recognition level and affect an emotional response--similar to the pop art and post modern installations, although on a much larger scale and slower speed. For instance, various historic symbols and patterns can be simulated by moving a large quantity of units along a normal axis. These complex possibilities all come from the accumulation of simple binary choices of each panel over time. They provide unlimited potential in the system that grows in complexity, evolve and form mutual associations between site stimuli and event.
Multiple scenarios can morph and transform to one another and produce aesthetic effects. For instance, an abstract pattern can be generated to respond to the turbulence of cloud, the water flow, and contingency of effects according to ecological specificity in the Newark. By these ambiguous contents and expressions, a new culture sensibility can be achieved during the deformation of the homogenous field in real time. |
