My mid-term review was helpful, with much emphasis placed on refining my overall concept. My reviewer felt that the narrative of my project is unclear, with several competing concepts cluttering the design. I agreed, and moving forward I am looking to refine the general concept. I need to narrow my focus down and decide which particular disaster scenario I am designing for:
-Earthquake Preparedness
-Drought and/or extreme weather events due to climate change
My initial re-direction is a framework of a tower that 1/3 filled with permanent residents, 1/3 filled with vertical urban parks, and 1/3 open grid. Flat-packed living pods are stored in the remaining 1/3 of the tower. In disaster scenarios, the flat-packed living pods are brought out and attached to the outside of the framework tower. This allows the tower to triple in capacity, in the event of a population influx. There would be five types of pods that would serve different functions: Residential, Water Treatment, Waste Management, Solar Energy Production, and Food Production. The modular basis of the tower would allow infinite configurations of pods to adapt to different disaster scenarios, be it drought, flooding, resource depletion or absorbing an influx of climate change refuges from neighboring states.
The heart of the design then resides in the design of the individual pods, which would allow me to investigate micro-living residential situations, water treatment strategies, and waste management strategies.
