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ALGAE KITCHEN MODEL closeup.jpg

ALGAE KITCHEN
photosynthetic microlab

The Kitchen provides the campus in Shenzhen with an organically triggered economy, by means of algae. Focusing on bioplastics and alternative nutrients. Algae serves as an excellent raw material to supply or fuel the industrial process for plastic production. As it has many advantages such as a fast, high yield and the ability to grow in a range of inhospitable environments. Bioplastics provide the advantages of conserving fossil resources and reducing CO2 emissions, which make them an important innovation of sustainable developments and they can play a vital role as an environmentally friendly, biodegradable alternative compared to conventional plastics.

Algae-based biofuels are often quoted as the only plausible biofuel solution to the world’s oil crisis. But the economic viability of algae fuels is still in doubt. Exploring the production of nonfuel products such as bioplastics could play a major role in shaping the economics and viability of algal biofuel solutions.

The design was developed as a functioning system, harnessing the machinery if the algal behaviour to perform as nature does. By extracting and concentrating oil into plastics, converting energy, and producing oxygen in life-sustaining ways. The

The kitchen utilizes the algae to run its operating system using the biofuel produced on-site and take in the distilled water as well as filtered nutrients provided by the water domes on site. The structure distributes the algae from the top where it photosynthesises before reaching the ponds in the landscape. The algae have a growing circle it goes through on-site before being harvested and refined through different methods of drying or oil extraction.

Algae Kitchen was developed during Self-Sufficient Buildings research studio at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) at the Master in Advanced Architecture program in 2016.

Project by: Thora H Arnardottir

Tutors: Enric Ruiz-Geli & Mireia Luzarraga Alvarez

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