2030. Climate change has effected Australia’s environment so dramatically that the interior desert now meets the south east Australian coastline. Average temperatures have increased, the sea level has risen and rainfall has dropped. Many animal and plant species are by now extinct. The island continent is in terminal drought.
In this context the challenge is how to survive the environment. Our proposed blowhouse is a ‘life support unit’ (LCI).As with other future dwellings our approach is one of ‘terraforming’, or the creation of a survivable micro-ecology, an example being the structures built to create a life supporting atmosphere in the 1986 film Aliens.
The site for the blowhouse is adjacent to The Blowhole, a small promontory to the west of Flinders on the Mornington Peninsula’s southern coastline. The design principle of the bioengineered blowhouse is to create an energy neutral life support unit that utilises the environment’s kinetic potential.
The blowhouse is a kind of lung. Strong prevailing winds blow across the curved skin, raising and lowering it. In effect, the blowhouse is breathing. Solenoids attached on the underside of the roof transform the energy produced by the roof’s movement into static electricity. The streamlining also supplies air to linear wind turbines. Photovoltaic cells on the rear louvres generate energy from solar radiation
The object is modular and can be repeated around coastal locations. The profile simulates the aerodynamic and phototropic growth patterns of indigenous scrub which nestles into crevices along the coast. The window ‘water bags’ thermally insulate the blowhouse and are inspired by succulent plants like Pig face that survive in these conditions.
Water is harvested from flutes on the shell which act as gutters to collect rainwater. It is then directed into an internal glass water tank located in the kitchen ‘bridge’. The water temperature remains at around 21 degrees, and ambiently assists in maintaining the internal air temperature at this level. A heating element sourced from the photovoltaic panels keeps the water temperature warm during the cooler months.
