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Air
Ship Air City: Self-sufficient dwellings in the sky.
Flock
House, Collaged concept image
Concept Layout, A.S.A.C.
Air
Ship Air City (Living Systems Lab on the roof). The MEx Building
interior would augment the facilities for a temporary exterior Rooftop
Space for the use of all. Included in its uses are: event space, edible
gardens, and elevated housing for a rotational one-person 6-month research
residency on the roof inside of “Flock House.”
Air Ship Air City is an example of a housing add-on for the growing
population of New York City. Once airborne (late Spring 2010), Air
Ship Air City will glean the bounties of the Earth’s atmosphere
above the smog line, amongst flight patterns and vagaries of wind currents,
the jet stream, El Nino, and the inexorable revolution of the seasons.
Area 1 (A.S.A.C. roof top layer):
- Collection and storage of rainwater via large collection areas,
with reused piping and 1550 rainwater catchment from the Waterpod, funnels,
and a basic irrigation system for food grown in edible gardens.
- Flock House. Like a bird's nest, Flock House
is a temporary structure. Using the Waterpod “Greenhouse”
structure consisting of a 2x4 frame and 16’ diameter dome, a 2x4
and 2x2” exoskeleton “human tube” would be built to
wrap around the dome/frame like a nest. Then, Waterpod “Cabin”
walls (roughly 8x8’ with a 2x4 frame and plywood covering) are rehabbed
into angular cloud “studio” workroom. Are designer climates
in our future? Can we simulate storms indoors through projections
and sound? Flock House would like to explore Air Space
and Air Rights inside of its laboratory, while webcasting a daily weather
report. In Flock House there is a sleep space, a workspace,
a test space (for water, algae, and other things), and seed bank.
Area 2 (A.S.A.C. roof mid layer):
- Preexisting rooftop structures like the stairway entrance would be covered
with trellising material, mirrored reflective material, and green-wall
felted material plus irrigation.
- Al’s six hens produce six fresh eggs a day and sustain on the
rich grains and feed grown in their multi-tiered Air Coop.
Area 3 (A.S.A.C. roof ground layer):
- Edible gardens for the MEx building residents and the A.S.A.C. resident.
These gardens include a “keyhole” medicinal garden, a “keyhole”
layered edible garden, a nuts and berries “forest” foraging
garden, and the upkeep of the preexisting mobile gardens, sub irrigation
planters, tomato plants, and bed gardens. Built gardens will be nest-like
and honeycomb shaped.
- The A.S.A.C. should incorporate a real-time sound sculpture that translates
landing and takeoff data from the LaGuardia and JFK Airports into sound
at the space, and can be activated by visitors. The landing and takeoff
data is often interpolated into visual graphs and map models but it also
has an important element of time, that can be heard and make the listener
aware of different times of day as they relate to air-traffic patterns.
- A stairway up to the A.S.A.C. Flock House.
- Compass and sundial
- Human nest outdoor couches
- Aquaculture buckets
Area 4 (inside MEx):
- A.S.A.C. will harvest kitchen compost from each of the 7 floors where
compost goes unused and store this for rotational use.
- A.S.A.C. will begin by drawing power from the grid of the MEx, but will
eventually supply its own power harnessed from the sun and wind.
- A.S.A.C. will begin by drawing from the toilet facilities inside of
the MEx, but will later use a system that turns waste into energy.
This project is a
work in progress that describes mobility, autonomy, and relational freedom
while respecting water, nature and natural systems. Air Ship Air
City is created out the remnants of the Waterpod, out of available
resources adapted from the treasures existing inside of the MEx Building,
and most importantly, an object and a space that continues to be negotiated
through democratic participation and implementation.
In preparation for our coming world with an increase in population, a
decrease in usable land, and a greater flux in environmental conditions,
people will need to rely closely on immediate communities and look for
alternative living models; Air Ship Air City is about
cooperation, collaboration, augmentation, and metamorphosis. It intends
to prepare, inform, and provide an alternative to current and future living
spaces.
In
2025, the Global Urban Observatory predicts that city dwellers will reach
5 billion.
We can: move to the water, inhabit Governor’s Island, crowd Long
Island, and/or take to the sky.
Air Ship Air City
is a proposal for a Living System lab where the sky’s the limit.
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A short background:
Mach 2 (link),
a project at Art Omi. Mach 2 is a sculpture of a personal flying machine
using jet packs. Mach 2 would fit a single person, and also could collect
dew from clouds to give the flyer fresh drinking water.
The Waterpod Build-out at the GMD Shipyard in the Brooklyn Navy
Yard, and being surrounded by the shipyard’s cranes. Already
elevated and mobile, the cranes in the shipyard could take to the streets
if need be. A city of elevated housing means more public space is available
below and green space available for growing food above the inhabitable
areas. The underneath is available space for hanging gardens.
 
The World’s
Fair Marina in Queens. This was the Waterpod’s final docking
location. Waking up at 6:30 to the sound of the first flights leaving
LaGuardia, the flights being approximately 7 minutes apart at the height
of the day, and dwindling to every half hour after 10pm made me crave
being in the air. The patterns of automated flight are precision-timed
by the airport and space-mapped by artists working with computer models.
The airspace grid became a fascinating place to explore.
Two million flights pass through the New York area airspace
each year.
Illustration: Aaron Koblin
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