Other Natures designing through technology and nature | Terezia Greskova

Other natures are exploring other understanding, or another view on use of nature in the city.                                                  Project is exploring possible future solutions for decreasing air quality and improving climatic situation in Ahmedabad in  India. Dealing with single tasks by actions and reactions between single mechanisms that lower high carbon dioxide  pollution, solve lack of water problem, humidify dry air and produce electricity in one self-sufficient system.
Architect: Terezia Greskova
Country: Slovakia  

Public ground is inspired by traditional stepwells that provided basic water needs, colder shaded spaces used for public life and resting. These wells were also venues for colorful festivals and sacred rituals.

Mission: With every attempt to cultivate our environment we form and shape nature which is limiting its impact on environment. But we might be able to find a system- mechanism through which would nature got more productive than usually. Plants do photosynthesize and have an ability to direct the quality of our atmosphere. Therefore with increasing the production of nature in our cities we might be able to equal increase of carbon dioxide and decrease of oxygen from burning fossil fuels.
The city of Ahmedabad started to have a serious carbon dioxide pollution problems 10 years ago. And therefore they developed a project for regulating the river banks of Sabarmati river to control the flooding of the city and to gain extra land for further development consisting mainly of green areas that are supposed to clean the air and to function as lungs of the city.

System: The project explores a possible merging of technology and nature together into one system, one organism regulating environment that would behave half natural half mechanical.
The technical elements and plants are dependent on each other. The plants are dependent on the machine in order to function more efficiently while the machine produces electricity to create an independent system of actions and reactions.

Elements: Project contains two main elements that improve climate in different ways.
A carbon sink is helping plants, ferns to produce least 300% amount of oxygen as they would in a normal state. It is an enclosed environment that sucks polluted air from outside. It filters the air and creates a carbon dioxide enriched environment where ferns get maximum productive.

A humidifier is increasing humidity level on the most sunny areas of the site. The element is monitoring level of humidity and increases it a little by spreading small water particles through nozzles. A raster with function of an open roof caries an air plants that get all the nutrients they need from air and provides a shading on public ground.
Water necessary for whole system to function gets stored during two months of monsoon season, usually july and august and the water storages provide water to the system during the rest of the year. In case of very dry season a system of connections between separate storages and between the whole system and river guarantees a minimum emergency level of water necessary for the mechanism to function.