Drift & Drive proposes a new model of water-based urbanism by readdressing the technological and logistical challenges of offshore oil extraction. Our project is a solution to the desire on the part of Petrobras, the Brazilian petrochemical company, to relocate workers offshore, as rigs are established ever further from the coast, increasing the transportation cost of both workers and oil.
Drift and Drive establishes a system of floating islands strategically located along the natural drift current of the Brazilian coast, to house workers and transport oil and resources to and from shore. Our project tackles the current logistical obstacles by indexing a natural condition of drift and overlaying it with the existing industrial schedule to generate a territory at sea of technological and social exploration.
Design and research occurred at two scales: those of the master plan and the island. The master plan stretches along a territory approximately 600km long off the south east coast of Brazil around a high concentration of oil rigs. The proposed system relies on centralized pipelines as opposed to shuttle tankers to readdress how oil is transferred from rig to land. Several types of stationary and moving islands are proposed to establish a region that is able to serve ongoing oil extraction and sustain an expected population of 50,000. While each island serves a specific purpose, they are each tied together by the master plan so as to create a system that is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Stationary Hub Islands are constructed at the end of each of three proposed pipelines. Essentially floating cities, these Hubs house a population between ten and twenty thousand, comprising of workers and their families, administrators, engineers, and tourists and is the principle connection for the system to the mainland. Industrially, the Hub serves as a collection point for oil and gas where it is piped back to the mainland, reducing transportation costs associated with longer and more frequent rig-to-shore routes. Additionally food and energy that is produced elsewhere in the system is collected on the Hub and redistributed to the inhabitants of the system.
Drift Boats travel along the trajectory of the Brazilian current, moving between Hub Islands as they are propelled by the momentum of the ocean. On their way down current, the boats service a series of Agricultural Islands that are deployed at a one days drift distance apart. As the Drift Boat travels from island to island, its inhabitants service each island, harvesting food crops. A series of energy harvesting islands are then deployed along a path up-current, acting as charge stations for the Drift Boats so they can complete the agrarian loop. The agrarian schedule is arranged to coincide with the existing two week on, two week off rig work cycle, and ensures that a Drift Boat is docked at each island and able to service it each day. This paced network of mobile housing boats proposes a return to an agrarian, semi-nomadic lifestyle, where the produce and energy harvested from the constellation of agrarian islands create a sustainable loop that satiates the demand of the entire network.
In addition to the mobile Drift Boat, the plan proposes an addition vessel, the Mobile Oil Boat, that is also responsible for moving goods, in this case oil and people, from stationary points. The Mobile Oil Boat indexes the daily work schedule, returning to each rig every twelve hours to pick up and drop off workers and aligns with the established work cycle for oil rig workers of two weeks on the rig for working and two weeks off for rest. After returning the workers to the rig at the beginning of their shift each day, the boat collects oil from the platform as well as separated drill cuttings which can be used as fertilizer on the agricultural islands and returns to the Hub where these resources can be redistrubuted back to the mainland or within the system.
Although highly rigorous, the schedule of the master plan creates stability and place in the fluid setting of the ocean. It establishes a notion of consistency without permanence. It accommodates a necessarily dispersed field into a consolidated system. It creates dependencies and relationships that build a case for a new form of offshore industry.
The master plan combines overlapping functions and schedules to eliminate extraneous travel time and energy cost. The system works to justify an even more vital ecological agenda centered on production and exchange. With the introduction of a catalytic element of the current, the master plan is able to respond to its site specific condition and integrate a notion of territorial dependency that brings site to the ocean and a place for a collective at sea.
Project Credits:
Project Team: Joanna Luo, Weijia Song, Alex Yuen
Project Advisor: Neeraj Bhatia
Rice School of Architecture
Further reading:
Project Website
Odebrecht Award for Sustainable Development: 1st Place
43 Comments
x marks the spot
What kind of job do students who do this kind of work excpect to do? I know it's the schools that promote this stuff, it's no different than when I went to school 20 years ago, but it still strikes me as academic malpractice to have students work their tails off, pay tons of money, and create photoshop clip art instead of archtiecture.
I refuse to believe that academies must promote only the technical activities. Universities are not vocational schools, so these are places of research and experimentation, although some students may end up making metric calculations!
There aren't two extremes in architecture, either purely technical or purely conceptual. That's a false dichotomy commonly promoted when anyone dares criticize academia's imersion in the conceptual. There's an artistic view of dealing with programatic issues that has nothing to do with "technical activities". It's an issue of balance, to actually be able to bring more of the sublime and conceptual to a world which seems only to value the "bottom line".
If you scratch beyond the superficial beauty of Italy's greatest architectural monuments, you'll find compromises with politics, budget, and geography that usually had a hand in creating the beauty we now admire. This is the lesson academies shy away from as unfortunate aspects of a pure art. This is a false reading of our profession that owes the public a far greater engagement with the realities of life, if only to prepare them to fight for the beauty and sublime this world desperatly needs. It's not either/or, it's about balance.
I think both thayer and gianluca are right. I agree that universities are not vocational schools. Experimentation is more valuable than simply learning "how to." However, schools often promote architectual dillusions of grandure. Overly optimistic students often feel that architecture alone has the power, ignoring the state of politics, economics, and the general culture of capitalist society. Schools often encourage students to adapt projects to their context, however they forget that context is more than just the physical terrain. Students should always design with at least a general idea of who's paying, how profit is made, and who needs/wants it. If these 3 questions can be answered projects are more powerful , because if it ain't possible it threatens nothing. If it is possible, profitable, and revolutionary, it is a real threat to the establishment being challenged. All radical ideas are radical because they defy, expose, or seek to reform some established system or ideal. Take Jonh Lennon for example. Why did the cia consider him a threat? Because of his ideas alone? No, because he figured out how to infiltrate the system of capitalism with his ideas and sell them to the masses. He worked within the constraints of the system of the media, record sales.....Ideas alone are not enough. Schools need to encourage empowerment. Schools promote ideas but often fail to encourage students to think about how to empower those ideas.
I agree with most of the comments here and I think they point out a deeper problem in this project. I am a truly believer of experimental work. Actually, schools exist only for experimentation, so that students learn how to defy systems and project a better world. It is not a question of experimental or vocational, and usually project criticisms get stuck into these oppositions and the project itself never gets the right criticism. For me, the real problem with this project is its weakness in experimentation, substance, and form. What is radical here really? Radical defies, as jla-x says. It defies established norms, within systems outside and systems inside of architecture.. This project would look interesting in 1998 but now it is actually mainstream. Couple of diagrams and photoshop tricks do not suffice anymore.
I'm all for re-thinking established norms and always striving to improve. My question with amphibious's belief that schools should only exist for experimentation is, when does a student learn the established forms? In other words, if you're straight out of high school with an interest, maybe passion for archtiecture, it's hard to believe that you are stuck in established forms. I took drafting classes through out highschool, and when I look back at my work, there's outlandish forms, traditional forms, and everything inbetween. Reason being there my teacher handed us drafting tools and taught us to draw straight lines and then to think in plan and section, etc. There was no talk about concepts, art history, or anything else remotly academic, and that's from a student with "experience". When I got to school, I was still essentially a blank slate archtecturally, beyond admiring certain buildings I'd seen.
Photoshop, pencils, revit aside, when does one learn the basics of architecture before breaking the mold? LeCorbusier, Mies and a lot of the early modernists where immersed in traditional archtiecture before they broke the mold. Why do we assume if we teach a baseline of archtiectural logic, structure, and design, that we'll turn out mainstream architects? I've always felt that geniouses tend to take care of themselves, but may students are parroting forms and language with out any true understanding of what they are doing, beyond drafting for a frustrated professor. Again, this isn't meant to diminish the importance of re-evaluating norms, but it's about delivering sincerity and honesty whatever way we decide to practice in the future.
yeah but you're not qualified to say to assess anything here. I would go to the hospital first and check out that thick skull. Or like has been suggested, consider a serious cerebral upgrade.
its funny that all the people on archinect who try to parade themselves as anti-establishment are really the lamest. That goes for all of you that read magazines, run that lip, then turn around and draw wood decks
Current,
You're bullying won't change reality, however hard you charge at people. You say I'm not qualified to say anything here, becasue you would like to see the archtiecture world the way society used to adhere to classes. Lower class, upper class, etc, a view point that makes a lie of all your pretensions to being progressive.
I don't buy into modernist ideology, therefore I'm not qualified. I don't, as a modern man, I don't need the priest hood to tell me about heven and hell. I can think for myself, despite your exhortations to the contrary. Mr. and Mrs. Smith would like a pitched roof in North America, but they're not qualified to tell the hero archtiect anything, even when they understand they're climate better than you ever will. You've been taught to disdain people who don't agree with you, much like the early modernists who cared not a bit for the people they said would love to live in the project buildings like sardines stacked on top of eachother in in-humane grids of concrete, surrounded with highways.
We are having a serious discussion, one that dosen't attack anyones personal aesthetics, yet you barge in to insult and put down like a middle schooler. To make sure anyone who might look to understand another perspective will be turned off becasue of the shallowness and childishness you bring to a discussion. If you don't agree with someone, fine, say as much, but to tell someone to go to the hospital to check out their thik skull is sad. Society is full of shit kickers like you, and everyone will have to learn to negotiate them. So I guess you do provide somthing positive.
how do we know that these students haven't learned the basics? to my knowledge architecture history and foundation studio still occur at most undergrad programs. these are work by a 402 class at rice. is fourth year too early for a student to have established a direction - a chosen way of working?
school is the place to find one's potential. the negotiation with larger economical and political context will happen when these students graduate, but there is limited opportunity for that in school. (some schools are pursuing it, but it certainly limits how much ground can be covered in a 10-12 week semester.) i've always thought that school was for exploration of possibility - potential. it's a time when students can figure out what they might WANT to do given the right conditions.
for my part, as a small-business principal, i know as well as anyone that the pressures of economic and political structures can take over any project if the architect isn't on top of things. the architect needs to establish his/her own values and goals in order to know how they will mesh with those of the client, the community, the construction market, etc. if students come out *only* thinking that they're subject to others' expectations, they'll never have the strength to be effective leaders of a successful design effort.
i don't care what stylistic bent we're talking about. if thayer-d has a different design approach than me, we're giving potential clients a choice. but if either of us were willing to just 100% do what our 'context' expected, we'd never do anything of any note whatsoever.
these are nice projects, to me, because they show that these students have looked beyond the normal form/space/order and into a field of inquiry about the things architecture can do - how it can engage beyond architecture into something more operational. while this kind of project is rare in practice, i know from my undergrad that the things one can learn from this kind of exercise will inform a student's point-of-view throughout his/her career.
If you're equating beginers history courses and foundation studio with learning established forms, then we might be talking about different things. I'm not even sure we'd agree on what established forms even means. FInding ones potential isn't defined by unconstricted studio programs, in fact, one's potential is usually reached much latter in one's career, if other architect's lives serve as an example. Even assuming that doing 100% of what our "context" demands isn't a completely subjective proposition, it would be inevitable to express one's nature in how one decided to respond to these "contextual" forces, so how are some elements more constricting than others? By all means, learn, experiment, take the road less traveled, just don't assume that when you work in a bread and butter joint, that you should hang up the creative hat at the door. It's up to you to make the most of any experience your life will present you, but sometimes learning the basics gives you the security to achieve greater heights as you progress. The cracked piece of marble Michelangelo sculpted into his David could have been seen as a faulty stone, but through his imagination and understanding of the material, it became a masterpiece. One of history's many lessons left unused in our relentless persuit to forge new paths. Ironic.
like i said, 'lame'
You continue to pout over modernism even after being bludgeoned with the obvious. So obviously something is not getting through.
You don't get to parade around making SAME TIRED ignorant claims and then expect 'niceness' in return.
read a book as has been suggested.
And by the way f**k the basics. That's an excuse for being lame.
Hey Current? I got it. You've made your point. Don't let me bore you with my lameness and just let me speak with the other people here who aren't afraid to disagree. You can be the cool rebel and I'll be the lame dude drafting decks. I'm just not in the mood to deal with your hate anymore.
saying the same dumb things from pattern language doesn't count as a tangible disagreement. you know absolutely nothing about the content you discuss.
Read more and maybe your statements could be taken more seriously. If that day never comes your comments will continue reading as recursive jokes from the 70's.
"The cracked piece of marble Michelangelo sculpted into his David could have been seen as a faulty stone, but through his imagination and understanding of the material, it became a masterpiece. One of history's many lessons left unused in our relentless persuit to forge new paths. Ironic."
what the what does this even mean?? Is this Alanis ironic? You're saying the piece of marble was cracked previous to his starting sculpting?
"learning established forms"
where should one learn these established forms? Vitruvius? I just want to know where I need to go to learn about good forms for making architecture for our time. Do you even know what established forms you're talking about?
It's ironic becasue if we studied history with more depth, we might see that study of the past dosen't inhibit progress, but can actually help it along. The stone Michelangelo sculpted David from was flawed, but the story goes that David's pose was in response to avoiding the flaw, thus sublty contributing to the new vitality that Rennaisance art wrought. Architectural history is full of these stories where practical or otherwise "bothersome" difficulties become the catylist of something new, assuming creating something new is seen as the be all in one's work. Back to my point, schools should't shy away from everyday problems their students will face, not to beat them into conformist submission, but to train their creativity to handle programs and issues that might not at first seem to fit neatly into their preconcieved concept.
I would certainly not promote studying the three (or whatever) orders as Vitruvious might have suggested, unless it where to understand historical work and how it's evolved.
The established forms I'm talking about are more like the methods with which to analyze and practice one's craft. Ideas like rythem, ciaro schorro, pattern, axis, fuzzy geometry, and so forth. Other established ideas would be how the sun and pervailing winds affect a building or how the history and context act upon a site. So I suppose one could use Vitruviouses dictum of Firmness Commodity and delight as a general rule (without the classical garb). Firmness is simply understanding structure, commodity is understanding how to satisfy a program. Delight is the most important and least strict rule in my mind. We can all (hopefully) understand practical issues with enough study, but the art of our profession is the least tangible and yet the one that leaves the greatest impression. I'll let each person define what delight's them.
Thayer-D,
If you would have done some investigation through the links posted at the end of the article, you would know that this project is part of a collaborative research initiative. Which, in plain terms, can represent a variety of goals, including but not limited to: speculative, far-reaching, conceptual, or otherwise. This is not, from my understanding, a capstone project that summarizes what one was learned, or even the 'technical integration studio' that students are required to take in order to graduate from an accredited school. I imagine, given its research foundation and that the students submitted to a big competition, that the project was most likely conceived and produced outside of 'academic studio' hours. So from the very beginning of your postings, I see a mis-guided rant from someone who must not understand what is going on both in and around the project.
That said, why would the academy be a proponent of such a project? First and foremost, Brazil has the potential to become a world leader in oil supply when others run out or run amuck. That is because there are vast deposits off of the shore of Brazil, and as such, offshore drilling and the infrastructure that is required to support them introduce very interesting architectural questions. The project - even without having read it thoroughly - is an attempt at proposing a solution to this question. In my mind, that is purely an exercise of architecture figuring in the geographical and political, like you claimed was so important before. I wouldn't expect any of the 'architectural' forms that you would propose students work on will even exist in 100 years. Perhaps I am too radical.
Regardless, you are far too blind and cynical to say that the work is 'photoshop clip-art' because I see a very interesting plan, section, and perspectives. What about that neon-orange model? I wish my school had a laser cutter so I could produce an architectonic model like that! You can't export laser-ready vectors using photoshop clip-art. It is clearly a study in architectonics - modern tectonics, at that - not even parametric or blobby. You even called yourself a modern man!
I feel like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams when he is talking to his furious brother-in-law when I ask you, Thayer-D, do you not see rythem (sic), pattern, axis, fuzzy geometry, and so forth? The plan shows tremendous consideration of rhythm, pattern, and axis at a planning level. In fact, to a classicist such as yourself, how do you not appreciate its near symmetry?
x marks the spot, but what is that spot?
I think your right that this project looks like a competition done out of studio, but my criticism was more directed at academia's tendency to this kind of fantastical and heroic approach to architecture problems rather than the slightly more realistic issues we'll have to confront when it's time to pay back the student loans, especially in our era of global warming.
Even if it made sense to continue our reliance on gasoline, our environment couldn't handle a project of this scale and vunrability, never mind the energy to build and maintain it. Are people really chilling on the lido deck of the Drift Boat? Will we have the recourses to build a Hub Island in a hundred years? The styalized quality of these renderings, while elegant, don't even read like architecture, and maybe that's ok now and then, I just think schools put too much emphasis on this kind of fantastical art work disguised as realistic proposals with pie charts.
It's interesting you'd call me a classicist simply for questioning academic orthodoxy. Is a classicist someone who win's AIA awards for modernist design? Being modern is a state of mind, not whether I use a laser cutter or not.
Dude, you say you "don't buy into the modernist ideology" and then you say you're a "modern man" and that "modern is a state of mind" and then you're modern because you've won AIA awards. Then you go on to confuse one of my statements about laser cutters, and then justify you being modern as a direct consequence of it. What gives?
You're overseeing the scale if you think we don't have the energy to build and maintain it. The aforementioned facts about Brazil make this very real and plausible in the next 25 years. Look at the human figures in the perspective, this is smaller than the average shopping mall. While certainly a fantastic pursuit, it is far less heroic than any super-green hybrid-commune projects espoused by gloom-and-doom folks. This one spits in their face by not addressing the oil dependency issue at all.
How could I forget - pie charts? They are clocks. I take it you didn't even look at the project.
Dude, You need to chill out. It's not a stretch that some people nowadays might find something disturbing with a massive off shore drilling megastructure so large as to be visible from space. As for the incessant conflation of the word Modernist with modern, Modernist Ideology has more to do with 19th century Romanticism than 21st century modern reality. Also, I didn't say I was modern becasue I've won an AIA award, I said how could you call me a classicist if I've done well recieved work in modernist styles. Modern to me means plural and agnostic etc., not tribal and ideological. The only ism I'd be comfertable with is "Humanist" as described in this interesting Metropolis article.
http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20121212/a-new-humanism-part-2
You're right about the pie charts, they are clocks. Sorry, I didn't read the military time. I guess the idea of parceling out everyones time into "Recreation and Socialization", "Dining and Socialization", "Entertainment and Activities", and "Sleep and Rest" seemed as Orwellian as this whole project. I was trying to be polite by not taking apart individual aspects of the project, becasue I can see it was a sincere effort, if a bit meglomaniacal.
No matter what our differences of opinion though, thanks for keeping this conversation from devolving into the childish insults that some confuse with actual debate.
uhh, tiorted, this is way bigger than the average shopping mall. it's a whole CITY. look more closely at the perspective... see those black pixels? those are people.
Yeah, exactly. My judgement still stands. Look at the plan. See the soccer fields?
recreation and exercise
dining and socializing
entertainment and activities
sleep and rest
. . .and that's the day . . .
maybe I like this bjarke-esque floating logo soup . . .?
I think these kids must have some serious expectations.
academia has no orthodoxy thayer. That is the dumb sweeping gerneralization the faux-old oligarchs cling to in order to legitimize being lame. It sure must hurt to be constantly corrected dear child.
Try the house and garden forum bro.
this is your new faux-old orthodoxy that oligarchs like to generalize with dumb sweeping in order to legitimize the dear children of academia...blablabla...
I can't even make out your insults any more.
Merry Christmas!
I fear that in this endless controversy there is a level of superficiality background, rather unforgivable. Also sorry to note that for some, the university experiences are a source of frustration rather than learning experiences. I've never found a trace of someone who claims the dichotomy between the theoretical and the technical disciplines in our industry, let alone myself. As previously mentioned, universities, differently from vocational schools, are not responsible for the training of prepared workforce, but to prepare culturally individuals in a specific area. Is also impossible to simulate the dynamics, institutional or otherwise, behind the architectural and urban interventions, this is all part of the professional experience that starts from internships and work experience, in fact the complete formation of an architect came to fifty. Not least the projects based on research and tools scenarios are established practices of many offices, I think of AMO or Why Factory as important think-tank to support the design. I will not go further with this controversy, I just hope that before dismissing the work produced in a university setting with flimsy comments like "photoshop clip art", we try to assess the importance of education for the training of future architects.
I wish you all happy xmas.
Gianluca,
My criticism was mostly directed at schools. Not that they shouldn't experiment, but that it seemed they where neglecting the professional world their charges would be entering. If you think that's a slam on experimentation, mi dispiache. "Is also impossible to simulate the dynamics, institutional or otherwise, behind the architectural and urban interventions" Really?
If you think my comment "photoshop clip art" was harsh, I wish I had gone to your school. At Pratt Institute, they'd rip you a new one if you weren't politically correct. Maybe that's changed, but the importance of education for the tranining of future architects was what my whole opinion was about, just not one you happen to agree with. And you call my opinion flimsy?
All of your concerns are addressed in the above project and in the majority of institutions.
You still don't know what you're ciritcising, at all. Think about what's insulted when lack of insight is evident. More half-baked opinions perhaps.
Hey Current,
I think I figured out why your so confused.
"If Patrick wasn't so confident/assertive maybe there wouldn't be such a reaction against what he is trying to do, in academia at least. I'm somewhat bothered by some of the reactions against him on archinect, because they seem to stem from ignorance,laziness, or desire to remain moderate.
I think, that aside from his totalitarianism, Patrick's other problem is that he is not using his tools in unique ways. nevertheless people are gravitating towards him."
A desire to remain moderate offends you more than totalitarianism. ok
Yes I think some of his ideas come off as totalitarian, even with their 'flexibility.' At least he stands for some things... which haven't really reached their full potential yet. That is more respectable than being lame.
As for this bit- Patrick's other problem is that he is not using his tools in unique ways.
That has changed.
Keep reading, not everything I write though.
"At least he stands for something" "aside from his totalitarianism"
Sounds like you're the one who needs to keep reading if you don't see where these kind of statements have led us before in our history.
BTW, as for Patrick's problems, his biggest one is he's not very bright, although you wouldn't know that by the way he's captivated many a young'un who confuse his brand of archispeak for wisdom. I figured someone with your tough and cinical bent could see this kind of charlitan a mile away. Go figure!
Well according to you, you won an award because others took initiative and started modernism. The faux-old still cry over modernism and then impose their conservative faux-old philosophy on architecture. Worse yet, some modernist apologists respond with very lame buildings.
As for Schumacher, much like your response to this this thread, your assumptions on contemporary topics are similar to RIck Santorum's small-minded backwards rhetoric. For one, Schumacher doesn't have a very large following.
It is dumb to continuously sweep the non-faux-old under some 'modernist' rug. Such ignorance is not imparting you with free will, it's enabling your lazy denials.
"others took the initiative and started modernism." Really? "You won an award and still cry over modernism." What? "Then impose their conservative philosophy on archtiecture" ok!
What's similar in all your above statements? Hint, you said it in your last sentence.
I actually know the faux-old very well. They are a clowny conservative bunch, with misplaced sociopathic morals (a malignant strain of 'humanism'). They cling to their ignorance because they are lazy and want to remain in the stone age. Whenever they speak and pretend to know anything about 'schools', experimentation, or the present day, I laugh every time. It really is like watching Rick Santorum, or some offended cave man trying to understand the wheel.
If only they would come out of the caves and read and think more.
It's called projection.
There is no way to hide you don't know wtf you're talking about.
Lack DRD4 expression could be part of the problem, hence the your nonsensical admiration for expired old habits.
admiring something dosen't require any sense. Show's you how detached you are from your own nature.
Note that faux-old aesthetician thayer-D has just projected a religious statement above. Faux-oldism tends to resort to religious phenomena when faced with their biological limitations. in this case possible lack of DRD4 expression
Still no insight into the subjects they discuss. Just pre-programmed limited judgement based on the"sense of nature"
maybe you two should just call it quits...
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