Snohetta lecture

Snohetta  lecture

I saw the Snohetta lecture last Friday, and thought it was one of the best lectures that has be presented to us to date. Craig Dykers who is a senior partner in the firm, presented some of their work and talked about some of the competitions that they entered, and how they never thought that they would have won. The first project he talked about was the Alexandria Library in Egypt, he talked about how they want people looking at this building to look through it and passed it, they didn’t want a building that stood straight up. Some of the features of the building that he showed us in the slides were the Façade and all of the hand carved writings, he said it took them 6 years to research, and carve all of the writing into the granite.  Another feature he talked about was the natural lighting, and how they used stained glass to introduce some green and blue lighting into the interior. One of the slides he showed us was of people who made a human barrier around the building to protect it from the government rallies that the country were having, it showed people from  both sides holding hands to form that chain right there is showed us how architecture can bring people together.
            The next project he showed us was the Swedish consulate that was located in Germany. He told us about the main structural member that held up the roof, it was a solid piece of granite that was three feet thick, 15 feet wide, 45 feet tall, and weighted 300 tons. The first  obstacle that they had was finding a piece of granite that was going to be big enough, he said when they found it the next part they had to figure out was how they were going to get it from the quarry to the site which was in Germany. They were told that the slab would have to be transported in pieces, he said after some calculations and other factor they were able to transport it as a single piece. When he showed us the picture I couldn’t believe it, I think that supporting wall made the project that much more successful.
            The last couple of project that he showed us were the New Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. This was my favorite project that he showed us because of all of the details that they put into this building, from the granite exterior floor, the one piece monolithic wood for the balcony’s in the main room to the hand blown glass chandelier that weighted three tons. This building I think is used to its full potential and much more, he talked about how this site was contaminated before the construction and how they clean up the site.  The other project was Karmoy Fishing Museum this project was located in a very beautiful place, and the views it gave the visitors to the North Sea and how they could see the old light house, which I thought was very special. The last project was an Installation that was called Knogsberg Jazz Festival Tubaloon which served as the main stage for the Scandinavia’s Knogsberg Jazz Festival. They made this shape for the acoustic properties for people in the inside of and also for the people who weren’t able to get inside. If funneled the music to the outside of the structure, it was also a self supporting structure also which was really interesting.  
            I saw how architecture can help unite people when conflict is happening and how people from both sides join forces to help protect a common interest. I hope UNM SA+P will continue to bring lectures like this one to the students.

Environmental Control and Protection Critique

                                 Environmental Control and Protection Critique

            In the last 12 years the federal government has been under watch with the transport and

storage of Transuranic Waste (Tru-Waste) from the Los Alamos national Laboratory (LANL) to

a plant called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in the salt mines of Carlsbad, New Mexico,

which  in eastern Eddy County.  The residents of Carlsbad and the residents of the surrounding

county are especially concerned for the quality of their ground water.  The department of energy

has been preparing for this facility since the mid 70’s, and after more than 20 years of scientific

study, public input, and regulatory struggles, WIPP began operations on March 26, 1999.

According to WIPP’s website disposal operations are expected to continue until 2070 with active

monitoring for a few hundred years. By 2010, the facility had already processed 9,000 shipments

of waste.

            In the early years of production of weapons the waste produced from the manufacturing

process and the equipment that got contaminated were stored in barrels  then buried on site.

During this time that they were burying these barrels with the contaminated equipment they

managed to stock pile more then 40,000 55-gallon drums. At this time the LANL started looking

at places to move this waste from the site which is 3 miles south of the town of Los Alamos and
30 miles west from the state capital. When the EPA did ground water testing they found high

level of certain materials associated these the stuff that was inside of the drums. When the EPA

sent in the results to the state they told the Lab that that they a 8 month time period to clean up or

they would have to pay an initial fine then if they didn’t meet the deadline they would be fined

every month that they were behind. When they started to uncover the drum they mover them to a

several tent storage shelters. And in March of 1999 they sent the first truck down to WIPP.

Throughout the years they’ve had environmental groups protesting about storing these

containers of low level waste 2,100 feet underground  in the salt mine. They have been worried

about the possibility of the containers leaking into the water table and contaminating the

groundwater around the area. During the first years of operation the state of New Mexico and

four environmental groups tried to suspend shipment to the plant calling it unsafe. At the time

former Bill Richardson was the Energy Secretary  for the state said “he considers the Waste 

 Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad as safe and ready to accept so-called "transuranic" radioactive 

 wastes.” 

As a lifelong resident of New Mexico, and a employee at (LANL) who seen first

hand how they handle the waste to WIPP I see what kinds of precautions are taken into account

in handling and transporting this stuff.   Just like in the reading Cradle to Cradle written by

McDonough and Braungart they talk about “unmarketable” products that are hazardous and how

we have to find ways to store them until technological way come about in “cleaning” them. Until

then we need a place to store these bi-products that come from weapon making, medical isotopes

ect. 

          As new building are going up another problem the state is having with the Lab is where

it‘s going to put all of the building rubble since most of it is also contaminated they don’t know

where it would go. And since WIPP is only expected to be operational until 2035, they are also

afraid with the new building going up and are going to be producing 900% increase of low-level

waste production at the Lab they are going to run out of room. Environmentalist have been trying

to stall the development of these new facilities, but have been somewhat unsuccessful.

            Although this operation in New Mexico causes millions of dollars in environmental

damage it could never shut down because they employ 20,000 people it’s one of the major

sources that northern New Mexico exists. They have cleaned up their act in the last couple of

year and start to reclaim some of the land that at one time was “dirt” they still have a long way

but with major technological advances  there could be a possibility of using the current build

rubble to construct the new facilities that are going up.

Bibliography

McDonough & Braungart. Cradle to Cradle

Amy Williams  “Nuclear Facility Proposed”

 Southwest Research and Information Center August 2003

http://www.nuclearactive.org/docs/SRICwaste.html

Native News DOE watch
http://www.mail-archive.com/nativenews@mlists.net/msg01428.html

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
http://www.wipp.energy.gov/

Koyaanisqatsi Response

              The movie Koyaanisqatsi, is a film produced and directed by Godfrey Reggio.  The film shows  how we are draining the Earth’s resources by taking and not worrying about the future and how our action in the past can affect us in the future. The word Koyaanisqatsi means “Life out of balance” which comes out of the Hopi language. From the producers website he said “that it didn’t have a specific meaning or value.” Throughout the movies he shows the audience how we as human beings are destroying the natural world around us, with the ever growing use of technology in our daily lives. And how we just see one layer that is on top of many other’s that we just don’t pay any attention to anything else.
            After watching the film a second time I noticed how it shows how mankind has evolved and how technology has made us forget about the natural environment and how much we depend on it without knowing it. I like what he said in an excerpt about the movie on how “We do not live with nature any longer; we live above it, off of it as it were. Nature has become the resource to keep this artificial or new nature alive.” For example how we depend on oil to fuel everything, and not thinking about this precious resource or about the negative affect t can have on nature and future generations.
           Mr. Reggio shows the audience how we don’t noticed things in our everyday world; my favorite part was when the people were sun bathing on the beach and showing how oblivious they are being so close to a power plant. To me this show how we don’t care what our action do to our environment and how it can affect us negatively in the short term as well as the long term. All we care about is how we can improve our technology and keep evolving and moving forward. Its funny how we think that the more technology we come up with the “easier” it’ll make our life. It shows that when a building is no longer needed we demolish, instead of  how we can look to the natural world to design buildings that could be self sustainable, we designs buildings that are used for a short time then when they are no longer needed we destroy them.
            During a part of the film it shows people in New York City and how their life is rotating around their environment. It showed how we move through our steel and concrete jungle working in inefficient buildings, driving on our massive transportation highway systems, destroying landscapes with earth-altering construction machinery to get out much needed recourses to fuel our constant need to grow. I saw how we put nature on the back burner and how it gets in our way and not wanting to deal with.  It showed me how mankind wants to move through this fast pace life faster then what I think we were intended to.  
            The one thing I wished Reggio would have showed in the film is how technology can actually help us resolve some of these problems through architecture and the use of politics to influence culture change. Through the use of architecture and technology these day’s we are able to design building that are capable to be used as more than one use. I think politics can influence the developer and other organizations to start thinking about places were we could use wind to produce electricity instead of damming up river and destroying ecosystems. Giving back to the land instead of just taking out of it, we need to start to find a balance between how technology can helps us in the future and also how it can destroy us. 
         We have to have some faith that mankind will find some kind of balance connecting the natural resource that we still have and the urban world that is growing, and as we keep moving forward and evolving our technology we have a chance of giving our future generation a balanced world to live in to enjoy nature the way we were able to and I think Koyaanisqatsi is a film that can open our eyes to help prevent some of our future mistakes.