LAVA
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DESIGN STATEMENT BY LAVA
Laboratory for Visionary Architecture Asia pacific
Think Brick
The brick is one of the oldest building materials known to man, and has been one of the best, for a number of reasons. It is light, cheap, and strong; it stores heat, mediates humidity and is widely available.
However while technology made quantum leaps in all other fields of life such as communication technologies, medicine, biology, robotics, nanotechnology etc architecture and building technology seems to be barely affected by innovation at all.
While society has changed continuously and many times over...we still build brick by brick, with the same brick we have used for centuries. We believe that the brick has a great FUTURE, but it has to reinvent itself. The way it is made, the way it is shaped, the way it is assembled, the way it performs.
SB MB LB XLB
Originally conceived for the size of the human hand, the brick must embrace the idea of scalability. The brick can be small, on NANO level, a fraction of a millimeter, to change its molecular properties, for example cleaning air and producing energy. And the brick can be HUGE, an entire living unit as one element, with the same intelligence, lightness, performance and the ability to grow into something bigger like a CITYBLOCK or the SUBURB OF THE FUTURE. The intelligence of the overall system depends on the intelligence of its individual components.
The nature of the brick is about to change >>
SUBURB OF THE FUTURE
In the Australian suburb of the future available plots for single-family homes will become less and less available. The need for dense housing schemes is about to transform the face of the Australia. Gaps in the suburban building fabric will be occupied by exciting new and enhanced versions of the great Australian dream. These new buildings will vary in scale from small extensions such as granny flats, to single-family homes, multi-story residential and high-rise residential buildings.
And they are made of ... bricks.
Bricks as their basic ingredient, but also bricks as their basic unit, mass-customized and prefabricated units, that can be stacked and combined in a variety of ways. Each is highly individual, as our fingerprint, but each highly combinable like our DNA. In contrast to the current strategy of sprawling these dwellings horizontally our scheme proposes to stack the suburban home of the future vertically.
The Suburb of the Future is a showcase for future living, with nature, new technologies and man in a new harmony. The design is ultimately inspired by nature: the suburb as a living organism, a microcosm, like a coral reef or a rainforest. An environment where thousands of species thrive and coexist, using solar and wind energy, growing their own food, recycling waste and water and ultimately generating their own energy.
New technologies will allow smart, green bricks with increased thermal capacity and that can purify air, produce energy, diffuse natural sunlight and create light. They therefore become the basic component of these neighborhoods, similar to calcium in coral reefs.
Our future suburb explores frontiers that merge future technologies with the patterns of organization found in nature. This will result in a smarter, friendlier, more socially and environmentally responsible future.
Public space
The proposed buildings will occupy a minimal footprint due to the limited availability of building space. On intermediate and upper floors developments such as the XLB (XL Brick) Tower public, retail and hospitality spaces will serve the wider public.
XLB Tower typical floor plan
The project keeps the typological features of the suburban home such as personal driveways, front yards and spacious gardens. The suburban home in the XLB Tower can be reached via a car lift that allows the occupant to park in his own driveway high above the suburban fabric. Large public and private external gardens vertically intertwine with the building volume.
Brick Technology
In order to be relevant for future generations the brick has to reinvent itself continuously.
The current brick already features a wide range of positive aspects such as high compressive strength, a low carbon footprint and great thermal qualities. There is great potential to improve the brick by incorporating technologies that are already available. To name a few:
-solar gains through incorporated photovoltaic cells;
-artistic lighting through incorporated LED lights;
-the use of translucent bricks to complement and replace the traditional window.
Smart bricks
Currently, the size of the standard brick is based on the size of a bricklayer's hand. But an increased amount of prefabrication will allow for alternative brick shapes and sizes. There is scope to explore alternative brick geometries and brick sizes based on naturally occurring mathematical patterns.
New technologies will allow smart, green bricks that generate energy, store heat, purify air, allow in diffused natural sunlight and generate light.
Energy Generator
Thanks to the development and research on new dimensions of photovoltaic panels it is now possible to include them in a brick.
Led Bricks
From giving light through openings, now the smart brick can produce light itself, letting light in when needed, especially when natural light is impossible.
Translucency
Or liquid stone. The translucent blocks are made by mixing glass fibers into the combination of crushed bricks, cement and water, giving the opportunity to have a wall that lets light in.
Air purifying
Air purification is possible by choosing either allophane clay or adding new materials such as volcanic ash, gold or titanium nanoparticles. The electromagnetic field of the sunlight couples with the oscillations of the electrons in the particles creating a resonance, which breaks the pollutant molecules in the air.
Green Brick
The brick can be used as a fertile ground for plants to grow and thrive.
Heat Storage
To upgrade the ability of bricks to store heat, it is possible to add microcapsules of PCMs to bricks. PCMs are capable of storing and then releasing large amounts of energy when the material changes from a solid to a liquid and vice versa (such as paraffin).
More with less
The proposal combines digital workflow, smart materials and the latest digital fabrication technologies with the aim of achieving MORE WITH LESS: more architecture with less material/energy/time/cost.
The brick of the future must address these issues.
