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Full-Text Articles in Architecture

On Space, Joseph S. Mcvicker Iii Jan 2023

On Space, Joseph S. Mcvicker Iii

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Our architecture is becoming more and more abstract; financial speculation, square-footage, zoning, taken-for-granted shapes, and the repetition of trivially differentiated prefabricated components represent an increasingly (supposedly) adequate description of our architecture - a description largely divorced from the lived reality of its social inhabitation or, in other words, what it means to us and how we use it. Meanwhile, the extraction of more new materials and the production of more, new, and different buildings has always been unsustainable. A practice is needed that reverses and resists this force of abstraction and that does not involve new construction but instead involves …


Sustainable Energy Imaginaries: Utilizing Mie Optics To Reengineer Photobioreactors And Reimagine The Socio-Spatial Conditions Of Autonomous Energy Production, Spencer Morgan Checkoway Jan 2022

Sustainable Energy Imaginaries: Utilizing Mie Optics To Reengineer Photobioreactors And Reimagine The Socio-Spatial Conditions Of Autonomous Energy Production, Spencer Morgan Checkoway

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In order to build a more sustainable future, society must transition toward carbon negative energy production and infrastructure. Algae photobioreactors have proven to be an efficient producer of lipid rich oil which can be synthesized into carbon neutral biodiesel. However, the neutrality of such a technology rests in its ability to yield adequate algal biomass through photosynthesis. In order to reach maximum quantum efficiency of algal cells, solar flux must be transformed so that photon absorption can occur without oversaturating the constituent matter. This project looks at the scattering effects of iridocyte-like structures and their potential to create cost effective …