SEEDS VAULT – and BIO-DINERSITY RESEARCH and EDUCATIONAL CENTER
Following the public open discussion and concern for the environment and the principal question of how the human beings mostly living in the geographical areas of massive and heavy industrialization, Europe and North America in particular, are going to achive a new equilibrium between the natural and the man-made environment, accepting and following the zero carbon dioxide emissions, the zero consumption or loss of energy for the heating and cooling of buildings and the re-thinking and re-arrangement of the relationship between the model of life and civilisation into the everytime specific and close range geography we are introducing a new subject-project responding accurately to the above mention local/global thinking.
The educational and cognitive task for this summer semester is the design and the conceptual appropriation of a hybrid building containing research and educational units/spaces/properties. Students should investigate and negotiate with the hypothesis of a unique building/space or a cluster of buildings/spaces of no more than 2000 sqm containing units for research, education and applied or experimental methodologies for a territorial bio-diversity and sustainability holistic intervention and environmental protection. A unit/container for the variety of local seeds and a unit/laboratory for the quality control of the green production of the area (vegetables, fruits, crops) and a unit of multi-functional digital library open to public together with the logistics, the administration and multi-purpose open air area are the spatial elements of the program. The aim is to design a building attractor capable to mobilize not only the scientific but the ‘’everybody’’ interest.
The building should be designed to operate under the surface of the earth at a choosen site having a minimum slope of 15o. This additional property is of great importance not only for the core functionality of the special or the usual typologies of the multiple programmatic spaces but for energy saving and the aesthetic of correlating with the close environmental typology.
Students are obliged to present a digital file and a hand-made model (scale 1:100) at the end of the semester together with the concept models and sketches plus the full photographic and sketches reconnaissance of the chosen area. All material should be presented on a series of A0 digitally lay out posters.