There is no greater enemy when it comes to carbon emissions than the construction and construction sectors, which contribute at least one-third of the global greenhouse gases.
A new project hints at a novel solution, although it is still theoretical: lava.
Over the past few months, the volcanic team at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, led by Professor Einat Lev of Lamont Research, has had the opportunity to work with a team of architects selected to be exhibited in the Venice Biennale. (Lamont is part of Columbia University’s climate school.) The project conceived by S.Ap Architects imagines the future of lava flow, like those who often occur on the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland, which can leverage and shape sustainable building materials throughout the city.
While the concept seems futuristic, its possibilities are fundamental: a rough estimate suggests that if only 10% of the lava erupted in Iceland’s 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruptions are molded into structural elements, it could be used to build over 10,000 three-story buildings – an extraordinary proof of untriggered buildings in Lava.
As part of this collaboration, Lamont’s Victor team, the creator of volcanic structures for a cloud-based network infrastructure, worked closely with Lavaforming technician Jack Armitage. The team used a set of tools to simulate how lava flows through and interacts with the architectural form of the hypothetical lava facility. The simulation presents unique challenges, especially due to the steep boundaries and narrow grooves envisioned in the design. However, the team overcomes these obstacles and helps create animations of scientific knowledge to imagine the entire city being built from shaped lava.
The Victor project provides a platform for the volcanic academic community to perform simulations and other computing related to magma and volcanic processes, all in an environment that promotes open source software and collaborative. In addition to modeling lava flows, the platform enables users to simulate various volcanic phenomena (such as the dispersion of gas and ash) or the chemical evolution of magma in volcanoes – and provides access to online datasets for online datasets, satellite images, satellite images and other geographic information.
Currently, Lavaforming is being unfolded on the Icelandic pavilion at the Biennale.
