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Atmorpholith

Project details

Programme

Year 2

Reimagining Taipei’s Urban Tapestry.

By 2050, urban heat islands and the climate emergency present significant challenges. This project envisions an innovative urban design for Taipei, Taiwan, integrating bio-design solutions and marine-based bio-materials. Research is conducted across three scales: macro, meso, and micro. The design is environmental data-driven, utilising wind and solar data for optimal orientation, and environmental simulations to identify ideal growth areas for micro-plants such as moss and algae; fabricated with an innovative bio-material. The project aims to enhance urban greenery and create biodiversity-rich urban spaces from nature’s perspective.

Students

Andrita Yuniza Orbandi Year 2 Bio-Integrated Design Outstanding Creativity and Contribution Award
Chao Chun Kung Year 2
Choi Wing (Wendy) Tse Year 2

Issues

Taipei's dense, aging infrastructure worsens the urban heat island effect, increasing temperatures and lowering liveability. Sustainable urban planning is essential to improve resilience and living conditions.

Scale

The framework emphasises a multi-scale approach, integrating environmental analysis across macro (urban design), meso (architecture and interior), and micro (material fabrication) levels.

Analysis

Heat Map

The urban heat island effect is a major issue in Taipei, where the city's concrete and asphalt infrastructure further intensifies the hot, humid summer conditions, and surrounding mountains trap heat.

Site

Zhongxiao Bridge, 25°03'03.4"N 121°30'09.2"E.

Solar Analysis

The morning and late afternoon have lower radiation, while midday to early afternoon has the highest solar intensity. To improve thermal comfort, focus was brought on mitigating heat gain, especially on west-facing façades.

Potential for Elevated Green Area

Green dashed circles represent potential elevated green areas, linked by dashed green lines showing proposed green corridors for pedestrian and ecological connections. Blue dashed circles indicate rooftops that could become green spaces.

Architecture and Landscape Design

Perspective View from the Riverside

Process Diagram

The design transforms a site with elevated gardens, sculpted buildings, and green spaces. It begins with site analysis, adds pathways, and shapes buildings with insulated façades, blending natural and built environments for balance.

Landscape Procedural Design Process

The island design is refined by selectively elevating surfaces and practical functionality. The differential growth method applied to the paths creates an intricate organic walkway design that enhances both aesthetics and usability.

Top View

Envelope Distribution

Solar radiation analysis informs the building's façade design. The data was software-processed to guide insulation placement, with high sunlight areas insulated and low exposure areas featuring ventilation openings and plants for shade.

Tower Geometry Development

The basic building form is generated based on the spatial conditions of the site. This is further optimised through wind environment analysis. Heat insulation is then distributed through the envelope responding to solar radiation analysis.

River Side

Façade Texture Exploration

The texture was selected for its curvature design, which promotes optimal conditions for greenery growth. The curvature creates micro-environments that retain moisture and sunlight, providing ideal habitats for micro-plants.

Façade Texture Rendering

This research strand started with a bottom-up fabrication study. This hands-on approach helped the team refine the material's features and aesthetics in digital rendering.

Sky Garden Section

The outcome was integrated into the sky garden, showcasing a section of the design.

Visualisation

Tower East Side

New Urban Context

This concept merges existing bridge infrastructure with new islands and platforms. The design features organic, tree-like structures that support elevated gardens and walking paths, blending urban development with lush natural landscapes.

New Urban Landscape

Existing infrastructure and new platforms were integrated into a lush, green environment. The structures blend with their natural surroundings. People are walking and interacting within this space, which merges urban design with natural landscapes.

Urban Farming

Urban farming involves growing food in cities, utilising community gardens. It enhances food security, promotes sustainability, and strengthens community ties by providing fresh, local produce and educational opportunities on sustainable living.

Sky Garden in the Tower

The sky garden is a two-storey space within the tower, featuring tropical trees and flowers. Blending with the architecture, it creates a serene, elevated oasis where greenery thrives among stone pillars, offering a tranquil connection to nature.

Bio-Receptivity and Manufacturing System

Functionally Graded Material Manufacturing Workflow

Interdisciplinary manufacturing workflow to achieve a programmed intricate geometry based on solar analysis for optimal biofilm growth.

Topology Optimisation

One of the islands was selected for further computer analysis, with the aim of reducing material usage while still maintaining comparable structural strength.

Manufacturing Process

The complexity of the fabrication process spans from the conception of digital fabrication, additive manufacturing process, and suspension material removal.

Fabricated Geometry

Marine-Based Bio-Polymer Iterations

Rigorous bio-polymer formulations and iterations to figure out the best mechanical properties such as tensile, binding strength, shrinkage deformation, and curing time.

Material Porosity

Photo-Bio-Reactor

Scaling up photosynthetic bacteria from small liquid culture to larger volume for a closed system bio-receptivity test on fabricated multi-material geometry.

Cyanobacteria Phototaxis on Solid Media

A test conducted to examine photosynthetic bacteria's response to different light intensity and the absence of light. The results informed computer simulations of growth on geometry at multiple scales.