For my final-year project, I have decided to design a zero-waste farm in which an output of one process can be used as an input of another. This repurpose will decrease waste produced on the farm. When it comes to the rest of the leftovers, they will be reused and transformed into energy thanks to an anaerobic digester situated on the site.
I applied the idea of repurposing into the project as well by reusing excess heat in my design. The heat is transmitted from the office space (cooling dominated) into the farm (air temperature above 22 °C). There is yet another reason for these two environments (the office space and the farm) to co-exist: the greenery planted on a farm improves productivity which is beneficial to the office employees (the outlook on the farm). Furthermore, the offices take advantage of the northern facade, whereas the plants absorb the direct sunlight from the south. All of these factors were the main reason behind placing these two totally different programmes within one building. However, because of different thermal requirements, the two spaces need to be separated with walls and windows. When it comes to materials used in the project, I reused the existing concrete structure as a base, as I did not want to contribute to the climate crisis any further (no cement used). All the additional parts of the structure were made out of timber and CLT which are both renewable and natural.
The project described above clearly represents my interests and priorities as a future designer. As for residential projects, I am interested in designing sustainable passive houses (not every passive house is made out of sustainable materials), whereas when it comes to more commercial projects, I am interested in implementing passive techniques on a bigger scale.
