COASTAL RESERVOIR

Coastal reservoir, consists of 15 linked island units with nearly 5 acres of fog-fed, spontaneous forest - a platform for preserving and expanding the genetic stock of the larger territory.

For the Santa Monica site, we propose a collection of 15 island units. The structure is simple, each island measures 40sqm in plan. The units are tethered side-to-side, into a zig-zag formation and the total assembly fill an imaginary box roughly 460m by 120m.

Each of the forest blocks is central to the water harvesting and energy generation cycle on the device, acting as a filter to clean particulates and salts that have accumulated on the collection mesh. During and just after a fog event, water rains from the mesh directly over the plants and into the soil below.

Thick vegetation, root-fixed soils, sand and artificial bedrock will filter excess water before it is finally transferred for storage to the ballast tanks at the base of each island unit.

The landscape component of Coastal Reservoir is an educational and engagement tool. The unmanaged ecology is a tool for understanding biodiversity, restoration practices, and associated concepts of island bio-geography.

Coastal Reservoir stands as a new paradigm for creating power and water at the coast: the atmosphere of southern California is bound together with its landscapes in a resource-harvesting cycle--an integrated energy ecology. Great pillars of steel and mesh once again punctuate the horizon--recalling the rigs and derricks of an oil-hungry past--but now as symbols of a clean, sustainable energy and water generation. Though driven by wind and waves, this is not a kinetic sculpture. Though modular and floating, the assembled structure is stable and durable. Coastal Reservoir leverages the subtle but continuous shifts in the environment. From the undulating water levels, the shifting daily and seasonal weather patterns, the invisible migrations of seeds.

Sculpture: Solid & Void The total dynamism of an environment is carried in its atmosphere – its temperature, its pressure, its humidity, its chemistry. In Coastal Reservoir, we imagine carving into this volume of air to reveal these properties. With a geometric slices, we cleave the volume into a solid, contained in the red A-shaped steel pillars; and a void, framed and filled by the V-shaped mesh funnels.

Coastal Reservoir sits beyond the breakwater, parallel to the beach. It is a structure that dominates its section of the horizon, but its appearance is constantly changing. Heavy steel, ghostly mesh, and framed void are in continuous play. In summer mornings, it appears as a slender radiant band; in winter months, the morning sun breaks the form into three distinct volumes. At mid-day, the mesh enclosures glow green from the interior vegetation. As the sun sets, the back-lit pillars emerge and the meshes dissolve in shadow. When fog rolls in, the entire structure is obscured, this fuzzy concerns merging with the atmosphere. At night, lacy shadows of the up-lighted interior vegetation play across and through the mesh scrims.

Status

Shortlisted Competition, Published

TYPE

Ecology, Infrastructure

SIZE

5.5 ha

LOCATION

Santa Monica, California, USA

YEAR

2016