Parasitic Urbanism
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Project by: Chijen Wang
Challenge: How can architecture serve as an infrastructure to address energy and waste issues? Project description: Cities guzzle vast quantities of food but leave behind a significant waste challenge. Food waste makes up ⅓ of municipal waste which, once in landfill, generates methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than CO2 and thus a major contributor to climate change. But what if we saw this waste stream as a valuable resource? What if we could harness both the gas and residual nutrients to use as energy and fertiliser? Chijen Wang’s project envisages attaching a parasitic, micro-anaerobic digestion element to the facades of New York City’s buildings, blending new energy producing hubs into the famous Big Apple skyline. This alternative energy system also utilises and reveals the latent credit opportunities of the carbon trading scheme, making visible the potential value of what gets thrown away on the global carbon trading markets and rebuilding a relationship between buildings, people, and nature. The system is not only a network of distributed power stations, but also publicly demonstrates the energy-generating capacity of buildings. |
Project phase: Concept
Location: New York City |
