Fantasy Island sits on the Amazonian Trapezium, where Brazil, Colombia, and Peru converge. A product of an anabranching river, this alluvial island, like many rapidly formed riverine terrains, is experiencing unprecedented flooding transformations.
Composites made of plant residues from agricultural and forestry productions offer unique environmental, health, and socioeconomic benefits as construction materials. However, controlling the porosity and surface conditions of building enclosures crucial to preventing moisture and deterioration pervasiveness during and post-flooding remains a challenge.
Housing enclosures play a crucial role in potentially preventing mosquitoes from getting indoors. In Africa, around 80% of malaria bites occur indoors. In other regions of the world, Insect penetration leading to vector-borne transmissions such as dengue is also critical and occurs indoors more often than assumed.
P² – Parakeet’s Perch project is a house commissioned by 11 parakeets in the Sacramento Valley. This recent design work explores a context of severe drought/extreme heat/flood-prone in the Sacramento valley subject to decay acceleration and microbial growth.
Flexible membranes have served as construction materials throughout architectural history. Whether in the form of tensile fabrics or air inflated skins, architecture has used elastic property as a primary means to explore the regulations of structures, temporality, and climate.
Team: PI: M P Gutierrez; co-PI L.P. Lee
Indoor air toxicity is a pressing environmental and health challenge for urban dwellers, who typically spend around 85-90% of their time indoors. Current indoor air detoxification technologies include cumbersome mechanical systems and biological systems in the form of biowalls. Mechanical systems require energy and often disbalance the health of indoor spaces.
