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B-Pro Show 2021
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Waterbound

Project details

Programme

Waterbound is a water remediating intervention designed to be replicated across vacant basements of Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighbourhood, creating a network of bioremediating landscapes. Live algae and bacteria cells in a functionally graded clay/hydrogel material allow this structure to remediate urban stormwater and prevent frequent floods, all while integrating itself into the urban fabric as a thought-provoking green space. Using a combination of robotic extrusion and community-fabricated woven hydrogels, this intervention is meant to be personal and temporal, transforming into a makerspace during the drier months, and coming back every year for Pittsburgh’s rainy season out of the efforts of the neighbourhood it serves.

Students

01

Design Concept and Initial Explorations

Design Concept

Design Workflow

Design Workflow

The design workflow features a series of optimisations. The first analyses defined initial panel placement. The second optimised panel heights, and the third defined structure and material placement.

Fluid Fluent Analysis

To optimise the panel placement and increase the bioremediation efficiency of the basement area, Ansys Fluid Fluent is used to simulate the direction and velocity of water flow when the basement is flooded.

Lattice Explorations

Lattice Explorations

Modes of interface between the hydrogel and structural lattice were explored. Vellum was applied to lattice density gradients to simulate contraction and expansion following the dehydration and rehydration of hydrogel.

Initial Visualisation

02

Individual Research

Gradient Discretisation and Material Assignment

Assigning materials based on structural criticality for a cantilever beam.

Functionally Graded Clay-Sodium Alginate Composite

Bioremediation Studies

Bioremediation Studies

Live algal-bacterial consortia were immobilised within hydrogel components to increase bioremediation capacity. The bioremediation efficiency and algal cell viability across repeated hydrations of hydrogels was studied.

Community Integration

Community Integration

Part of our intervention included a participatory art component. Through a series of simple rules, the community was invited to weave hydrogel strands into various patterns, which will be added to the intervention.

Contamination Studies

We made smaller versions of our hydroweaves using strands of blank hydrogel, hydrogel with algae, and hydrogel with our algal-bacterial co-culture and hung them outside for five days. The rate of hydration was studied.

03

Fabrication and Integrated Design

Line Tests

Preliminary extrusion tests explored the optimal speed and pressure for extruding the clay-hydrogel material.

Complex Geometries

Further tests explored layering the material and extruding it into more complex geometries.

Bioremediation Landscape

Bioremediation landscape was adopted rather than lattice panels. Clay-hydrogel material embedded with algal-bacterial consortia extrudes into the basement. Community-woven hydroweaves are attached onto hydrogel scaffolds.

Material Distribution

Final Visualisations

Final Visualisations

Waterbound - decentralised urban floodwater bioremediation.

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The Bartlett
B-Pro Show 2021
30 October – November 13
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