blowhouse Australia : Architecture Information

blowhouse: life support unit 2008 Paul Morgan Architects Images : Courtesy of Paul Morgan Architects 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 speculative design for the 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 Australia’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, forming a kind of lung – a structure that breathes. blowhouse photos / information from Paul Morgan Architects 190209 Australian Architecture Studio : Practice Contact Details blowhouse : life support unit Project: blowhouse: life support unit Architect: Paul Morgan Architects Status: Speculative design, completed in 2008 Location: Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia Project team: Paul Morgan, Peter Felicetti, Pietro Gellona and Melissa Thong with Andrej Vodstrcil, Duncan Taylor, Yau Ka Man and Jo Scicluna Engineer: Peter Felicetti Images and Text: Courtesy of Paul Morgan Architects