Pod Off-Grid, A Seminar with Jason Pomeroy
- ivanarosalita
- May 7, 2016
- 3 min read
On the 3rd of May 2016, Professor Jason Pomeroy came to our school, Raffles Design Institute, and shared with us about a workshop that he did last year in Venice. The workshop was held in the University of Venice and was attended by some students from Raffles' interior design Department as well as James Cook University psychology students. The 2 weeks event has produced a lot of creative sustainable designs that could be the solutions to our future.
He began the talk by telling us the Greek mythology of Pandora's box that has all the 'hell' inside, which he analogized as today's climate change. Jason continued his topic by saying that there are two types of designer, one who just designs and finish it on budget and time, and the other one who will think too far to the future that his design might not be ever built. We, as a human, need to think ahead of the future. We must build buildings with low carbon footprint and with sustainable features just as what humans had in the cave era. It should not harm our environment, with technologies we should create a hope of a better future.
According to his presentation, what should be sustainable should not just be in environmental, social and economic point of view, it should preserve culture, space and technology as well. All of these aspects holds the same weight, so they are all very important. By using technology for example, we can use other form of energy than oil to generate electricity and fueling up our vehicles. This can sustain what is there in the nature for a longer time.
Research says that 75 percent of the world's population will move to the city center in the next few years while there is not enough land for them to live in it. Jason shown us few examples of solutions for this problem which are the floating structures. In Netherlands, they built houses with floating concrete and in London, they have dock environment. Then, there is also a project that he did in Kuala Lumpur, called as the Lexis Hibiscus, which is also a floating city with place to live and gather with people. He says there are three main things that a floating structure should have, a hub where people can meet and communicate with others, spine that connects it to the mainland and other structures, and lastly the pog where the people can live. These problems and aspects were bought to his workshop in Venice last year and has created some other innovative solutions that can be applied to Venice.
In Venice, there are not so many crops that can be grown and every year the island will be flooded due to high tides. These issue becomes the basis for those who joined the workshop to design new floating structures such as pods that can be used as silos to grow crops to be eaten, a research center that has an expandable structure which uses solar energy for its electricity, and green mask which is a live and work environment with plants that can grow continuously. Inspired by the Venetian culture, they created a design where there will be pods with different functions that can be interconnected one to another. He also brought this idea and tries to apply it to Singapore where water is also very abundant here.
Jason closed his speech with the Pandora box analogy. When Pandora opens the box and all hell raises, there is one thing that remains inside, hope. He says in this changing climate, there is also one thing that we all should always have, which is hope for a better and sustainable future.
In this event, he also had his new book which will be published by the end of May which we all can pre-order. There is an exhibition about the Pod off-Grid as well in our school lobby with the 3D models until the next few weeks.
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