design guidelines

The following is a list of design guidelines, compiled from the collection of case studies brought in the previous posting. These are similarly divided into three categories: Water, Energy and Controlled Environments.

WATER-

1. Use existing topography and gravity forces.

2. Provide basins to capture runoff water from expansive catchment areas

3. Provide auxiliary reservoirs for water needs (both domestic and agricultural) for minimum 2 rain seasons.

4. Allow interconnectivity between reservoirs to optimize water availability (communicating vessels).

5. Take advantage of air born moisture (dew), rain collected from rooftops and reclaimed wastewater.

6. Invest in long term aquifer recharge- enhance water table by releasing cleansed water back to the wadi.

ENERGY-

1. Plan a system compatible with existing electrical grid, ready for incremental deployment

2. Select energy production technology according to site context, orientation, topography, community size, solar radiation available, climate data etc.

3. Allow for two way transmission- the inverted grid

4. Plan adequate storage for down times

5. Enable system modularity for future upgrades

6. Integrate smart grid capabilities: web communication, networking, monitoring and responsive feedback loops

CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTS-

1. Study the physical and cultural context, in multiple scales

2. Acknowledge the limitations of the closed system- plan imports and exports to be in healthy equilibrium

3. Work with the site conditions and natural processes of the system

4. Encourage self organization and emergence patterns

5. Synthesize effective water, energy and agricultural systems with urban place making.

Pharan floods- site II

Pharan floods- site I

First try at mapping wadi Pharan seasonal variations and flooding patterns. This is the first site out of 3 which I am planning to map. Each site has a different condition in terms of the workings of the wadi. At this site, site I the wadi intersects with the Jordanian border, the Jordan rift valley (Arava in Hebrew) and road 90. This is also the only place along the wadi which is currently populated. As seen in the maps, the small settlement placed to the south of the wadi is Moshav Pharan named after the wadi. The moshav, consisting about 100 families, was founded in 1971 as a Kibbutz and then converted into a moshav structure. Meaning there is still collaboration on agricultural activities, yet other aspects of life are managed individually. The moshav relies on agriculture export for its source of income, mostly flowers and peppers, which are grown in the extensive greenhouses seen above. Some families run dairy farms, and recently solar fields are promoted as an upcoming source of income.

Site specific

Choosing a site in this vast emptiness, or appearance of, is not obvious. It is tempting to look for an existing urban form to intervene with. However, the thesis is concerned with how infrastructural systems can be stretched to provide an added economic value (energy export) while creating a renewed sense of community. It appears that the best strategy to achieve this would be to start with a 'tabula rasa'. The determining variables will then be the existing large scale infrastructure, natural or man-made. The site considered is the intersection of wadi Pharan and Road 40. Pharan is an ancient watershed, the largest in the Negev, which is today dry most days of the year. During rare rainfalls it overflows, draining the entire Negev Plateau. Road 40 is bisects the desert connecting its northern node Beer-Sheva, with the southern one Eilat. This road functions as a life line for all the Negev's communities, connecting them to the electrical grid and the national water carrier. They both meet in the very center of the Negev, a distance of approximately an hour away from any other populated settlement. Following is a closer examination of the four potential sites and their relationship to the Wadi and the road: