Brussels 2003
Belgium
PROGRAM : Experimental Urban Farm
LOCATION : Highly polluted landscapes
SURFACE AREA : 6 600 M²
CLIENT : A.P.C.I. / E.D.F. _ Watt’s in the Air ?
COST : 13,2 Millions € H
Ecocoon is a mixing between wind power supply and urban housing. The purpose is to reduce the energy cycle from production to consumption. It is a huge battery where fauna and flora can cohabit and where a part of the stocked wind energy is used to recycle the waste products of our consumer society and to regenerate the various natural elements like air, water and earth thanks to recycled products. This paradigms of this are clearly defined : 1. materials : waste, 2. aims : ecological, 3. method : natural recycling, 4. sites : polluted areas.
Situated in landscapes disfigured by sea, farming, industrial or urban pollution, Ecocoon is above all an interactive laboratory that wants to be considered as a didactic interface between the landscapes’ mutations and the citizens in order to protect and to respect environment for the next generations. In Belgium pollution problems are the most considerable. Rivers like the Meuse that is a main drinking water source are polluted by manure, farming waste and waste from steel production. The air pollution by industry and by the road traffic is partly responsible for the greenhouse effect and for acid rains in the nearby countries whereas the new farming methods are polluting lands suitable for cultivation.
Citizens want “green” electricity. In Belgium collieries have been closed. It was the only resource being of fossil origin. If we examine the inevitable exhaustion of gas- and oilfields, it is obvious that sweet energies will be necessary for the government. Indeed the political will asserts itself by aiming round 2010 at 12% electric energy produced by renewable energies : 1,6 % for hydroelectricity, 3,1 % for wind energy, 3,3 % for biomass and 4% for cogeneration.
Ecocoon is looks like a hairy cocoon anchored in the ground. Its “hairs” are actually carbon catalysers that generate water by collecting water vapour and produce light and heat by transforming air vibrations in electric energy or electrostatic energy by friction. Under its double skin blown up by flexible polycarbonate pipes, strata of bacterial beds biodegrade waste and pollutants whilst bio-reactive batteries connected to the wind park convert direct current into alternating current. They stock it and supply it throughout the electricity network.
Copyright : Vincent Callebaut Architectures
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