Eco Factor: Sustainable tower harness energy and proposes low-impact solution.
Deriving inspiration from the Welwitschia plant, architects Hunter Ruthrauff, Hayley Stewart, and Garrett Van Leeuwen have designed a biomimetic research lab where studies regaeding indigenous plant and animal species will be undertake. Dubbed the “Namib Biomimesis Research Tower”, the research lab behaves as both, an eco-tourism tower and a research center.
Located in the Namib Naukluft National Park NABR comprises of a research center, eco-tourism hub, and a utility tower proposing a low-impact solution within the Namib Desert. Similar to other deserts this one too receives less rainfall, but has a frequent fog roll in during the early mornings. Therefore, the architects designed the tower mimicking the same strategy that the fog basking beetle employs. It gets energy from a nearby solar field and two seventy-five foot diameter turbine blades that harness energy from winds.
The hydrophilic cells will be kept cool by letting water drip from the fog be circulated deep into the earth where temperatures are cool then transferred up through the cells and back down again. The lowest tube of the dunes allows travelers and sand boarders coming down from the top to enter the north and south sides, while the tubes higher on dune allow light to penetrate deep into the atrium space and also circulates hot air outward keeping the interior cool even at temperatures exceeding one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit.
Via: Evolo
