International Space University

Title: “Majoring in Stem: Designing a Self Sustaining Educational Institution in the Heart of India”

Due to increasing solar radiation, communities are being inflicted by melting sea ice, forest fires, drought, flooding, and existing inclement weather. During solar cycle 25, the magnetic fields surrounding the earth will be decreased, stirring issues and causing a collapse of our natural systems. As designers, the goal is to mitigate these issues and research solutions in order to prevent and reverse the effects of catastrophes such as these. Our solution draws a community in India into the fight for resource generation in the coming expansion of life and seeks to educate future generations on the necessity of resources and the fight for the successful expansion of the species. The core elements that will be produced by and sustain human systems under the duress of these events are food, energy, water and waste (FEW2). Under these four elements, there are multi-level strategies that have been developed from case studies and condensed into a four-by-four grid of input and output production efforts. The base of our project is Auroville, India, which is a community asking for assistance with closed-loop systems that can survive under extreme weather events, the most extreme being zero gravity. The research for the systems that would begin the process of designing a compound in Auroville that would ultimately cumulate in extra-earth modules was distilled from a series of case studies spanning the globe, having to do with successful individuals and full working closed-loop systems.

From this research, sixteen research strategies were developed based on working systems. The four strategies that require agricultural input to create FEW2 are Vertical Farming, Worm Farming, COmposting, and Aquaponics. The four strategies that require energy input but that will produce FEW2 are Evapotranspiration, Microbial Fuel Cells, Closed-Loop System Strategy, and Hydraulics. The four strategies that require waste input but will produce FEW2 are Endocrine Research, Plasma Remediation, Vacuum Compression, and Separation Toilets. The four strategies that require water to thrive but will produce FEW2 are Agriculture, Exothermic Hydrogen, Phytoremediation, and Grey Water Filtration. Once again based on a singular element of FEW2, each of these strategies will work together to produce a key aspect of the closed-loop system.

Our plan to implement closed-loop systems in Auroville is derived from the proposed master plan that the city is currently constructing its community around. The site is composed of four different zones, ultimately cumulating in a scientific, sensory, and spiritual experience for the citizens. Our strategy is to rework the cultural zone into the International Space University, defining a space to utilize the current systems and rework them in order to produce a higher percentage of efficient systems. Within this cultural zone, the project proposes centering the cultural zone’s proposed stadium as the core of the university. Implementing the systems will occur in the Laboratories with private gardens, the prototype closed loops, and the connection to the public park known as the Matrimandir Garden.

The self-sufficient life-support system will be mainly located in the Living Laboratory Courtyards. These multidimensional designed private gardens will incorporate multiple research strategies into an aesthetic and functional courtyard inspired by the spiritual garden already existing at the center of the Auroville community. The main event of the space, however, is its life-sustaining research producing FEW2 through a closed-loop system, utilizing multiple research strategies in the creation of this unique garden experience. The closed-loop system has all the components of an irrigated grey water waste system, with backup for blackwater treatment and disposal. The loop begins within the laboratory dorms, where greywater is collected through laundry, showers, bathtubs, and sinks, and blackwater is collected via separation toilets, kitchen water, and other treated testing materials. The greywater is filtered through sand filters and then fed through a pipe traveling under an aquaponic farm, into a surge tank to be filtered by irrigation into a planting system. Microbial fuel cells treat the water, producing energy to activate the system. Non-potable water is recycled through a fountain system connected to the self-cleaning hydraulophone. Most of the system is stored underground. The hydraulophone, while part of the system by recycled water, connects to the cultural system of the laboratories rather than for strict research purposes. It is a highly expressive musical instrument that self-cleans and is played on a water keyboard to produce organ-like tomes and activating fountains. The fountains are laid out around the garden, mirroring the spiritual public park in more ways than one, including the helix pattern of the non-edible plantings, which represents the spirit, as the public park intends to do in its many intricacies. Researchers and visitors will enjoy the space within the courtyards, as it is suited for both scientific purposes and community building.

The public park is the current existing feature of Auroville and is on a much larger scale than the multiple, duplicated private gardens shall be. At the center of the park is the Matrimandir, a meditation chamber and community gathering structure that attracts devotees and tourists alike to join in harmony with each other. The features surrounding the park are unfinished but according to the community’s desires represent the many aspects of prosperity within the soul, as a closed-loop system depends on human activity, health, and a stable constitution. The hydraulophone will be a key feature of this park as well, with the great scale of the park exceeding the wonders of imagination. The park will not be redesigned but reupholstered with more meditative and intricate designs intended to guide the user through the spirit and into meditation. The mind and spirit were the focus of these features, as the existing – rather preternatural – design draws one into the senses, so the proposed elements would not take away from the central figure of the Matrimandir.

Due to increasing solar radiation, communities are being inflicted by melting sea ice, forest fires, drought, flooding, and existing inclement weather. Our solution draws a community in India into the fight for resource generation in the coming expansion of life and seeks to educate future generations on the necessity of resources and the fight for the successful expansion of the species. The core elements that will be produced by and sustain human systems under the duress of these events are food, energy, water and waste (FEW2). We propose a residential research campus to be built in the community of Auroville, India. A self-sufficient life-support system, run by student researchers, will be mainly located in the Living Laboratory Courtyards. These multidimensional designed private gardens will incorporate multiple research strategies into an aesthetic and functional courtyard inspired by the spiritual garden already existing at the center of the Auroville community. The redesign of the existing public park will incorporate culture into the closed-loop system, as humans are a necessary part of sustaining life. Our plan to implement closed-loop systems in Auroville is derived from the proposed master plan that the city is currently constructing its community around. The campus will ultimately cumulate into a scientific, sensory, and spiritual experience for the citizens.

Weakening magnetic fields have resulted in increased solar radiation, flooding, wildfires, drought, and sea-level rise from melting ice. There is a need to expand our capacity to sustain life under these conditions, which have incapacitated centralized infrastructure.

Case studies on aspects of existing closed-loop systems and programming elements resulted in the design of the prototype that alters Auroville in a way that creates educational and research-driven significance to the themes of extreme climate and Earth’s vulnerability.

Food, Energy, Waste, and Water systems (FEW2) will enable closed-loop cycling of resources through a series of decentralized strategies placed throughout the university. Each system develops a specific need of the community through regenerative design.

Resource generation is the solution to sustaining life. Within the resource plan, the complex systems of Food, Energy, Waste, and Water ( FEW2 ) work both individually and as a unit, each supporting the next to proliferate the community.

The site of the proposed university is Auroville, India, an existing community that targets self-sufficiency using its surrounding resources. Its current systems, such as small dams, solar power, and agricultural self-produciton, are not sufficiently producing FEW2.

The proposed residential campus for FEW2 education within the Cultural Zone will educate people on sustaining life through closed-loop systems while also providing an opportunity for prototypes for space expansion.

FEW2 will be recycled/produced from waste and wastewater within the living laboratory courtyards. Each system provides self-sufficiency to the surrounding buildings in the event of extreme weather that interrupts centralized infrastructure systems.

The Living Laboratory Dorms produce vital research for closed-loop systems. Fed by wastewater, the system generates water for aesthetic and agricultural purposes, producing clean energy, food, and other necessary tools for life expansion, even under duress.

While the research conducted within the campus is vital, humans are also a vital part of the closed-loop system. Through a hydraulophone and representational planting, garden spaces will be engaging, calming, and enriching to promote productivity and self-efficacy.

The living laboratory courtyard at eye level creates a visual experience that submerges a person in the garden and surrounds researchers with intriguing and innovative plant growth which has both purpose and significance.

Within the reconfigured Matrimandir Garden, clean energy and resources are produced for visitors and the community of Auroville. Portraying innovative designs of net-zero and artistic architecture, the renewed garden provides a new perspective while providing new resources to the civilization.

The public park garden is a closed-loop system including all four systems working together in the center of Auroville, creating a peaceful and representative area that citizens can utilize in all different ways and helps sustain the community.

The public park at the Matrimandir Garden creates a space that can be utilized for food, water & energy.

The public park and laboratory courtyards mirror each other, supported by the programming for each space but serving deeper, individual uses at its core. The systems in both spaces demonstrate how the undesirable can be desirable and create new life.