Thoughts on Energy Hacking
photo: @gorminator On the day we were preparing for Utopia Works Energy Hack at Derby Silk Mill, with partners from across a number of factories along the Derwent and Don Valleys I found myself reflecting upon the notion of hacking, and what it means to me, particularly in relation to my work on Future Works and […]
Future Works Changes Everything
We are Sheffield School of Architecture, MArch Studio Future Works 2015-2016, looking at energy, industry and manufacturing. Over the next six months we will be designing, both collectively and individually for the future of this region. This initial stage of our project has taken our team to several existing factory precedents and allowed us to observe a variety of industrial processes. The studio’s main driver is to explore the typology of ‘Future Factories’ with a particular focus on energy.
The pie charts on the right indicate the current energy situation in the UK.
The majority of energy is currently provided by non-renewable sources. 30% is sourced from coal and 30% from gas. A further 19% is produced from nuclear energy power plants with a further 4 additional plants planned for completion in the near future. At present 19% is supplied by renewable sources.
By 2050 we would love to see…
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Energyscapes: a seventeenth-century city
The energy provided by wind and water was essential to all members of local communities in the past. Everyone had an interest and a shared responsibility to ensure that watermills and windmills were maintained. This image is an early prospect of the City of Exeter, published in 1617 in the sixth volume of Civitates orbis terrarum by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg. It depicts the network of watermills located beyond the city walls, in celebration perhaps of the technical control of nature achieved by altering the flow of the water through the landscape. In other words it represents an early ‘energyscape’ bringing power and sustenance to the early modern city. Images like this are important for inviting us to ponder today the long history of renewable energy sources in the landscape, and to consider how concerns about energy security faced communities in the past just as they do today.
The…
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