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VENTER

Urban pavilion
Tallin Architecture Biennale

“During night time IT glows they say, I’ve heard that they feed him to keep IT alive… They call IT “VENTER”…

“VENTER”, is an “urban chandelier” under the shape of a pavilion. The goal behind it is to build interaction between the people and the Pavillon itself. It’s an Architecture that “lives” and “dies” like an organic entity: under certain conditions, it reacts unveiling its own well-being and in less favorable circumstances,
simply doesn’t behave.

Look at “VENTER” as an urban creature, a being that lives thanks to the citizens and visitors. It must be fed in order to gain power and glow. Its balance is characterized mainly by three components: a wooden construction, an anaerobic digester, and a whole colony of bioluminescent bacteria.

The structure is the result of a generative design methodology that takes account primarily of the location of its placement been under the influence of trajectories such as the bay and Ahtri’s street. Its growth begins from a core triangular shape that step by step deforms itself through the combination of an endogenous and exogenous logic that draws each piece horizontally and vertically as a consequence of one to the other building a series of loops. 

The core of this pavillon is the biogas system characterized by having a digester unit with the capacity of 0.5m3, that uses daily 2 kg of organic waste in order to generate enough biogas to feed the bioluminescent bacteria. Its reaction time is fast, just a couple of days and It produces just a couple of litres of watery effluent
that is easy to dispose of. The methane obtained is delivered to the lighting elements through thin silicon tubes hidden in between the wooden loops. A simple software monitors the production, storage and delivery of the biogas to be used during specific parts of the day and night.

In between some of the wooden loops are located the lighting elements, bio-plastic bags containing water and bioluminescent bacterias.
The bioluminescent bacteria are activated through methane obtained by composted material.The phenomenon of bioluminescence is created by a chemical reaction where an enzyme called luciferase interacts with a light-emitting molecule called luciferin. It is a light source that can be driven indefinitely as long as key nutrients are supplied. Although this system doesn’t provide a functional illumination, it function as ambience and indication light for visitors and as a bright landmark for citizens.

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The structure is the result of a generative design methodology which takes account primarily of the location of its placement been under the influence of  trajectories such as the bay and Ahtri’s street.

Its growth begins from a core triangular shape that step by step deforms itself though the combination of an endogenous and exogenous logic that draws each piece horizontally and vertically as a consequence of one to the other building a series of loops.

The loops are defined by twelve 40cm high and 2.8cm thick wood blades. Each of this loops has the same curvature in its vertices and is build by three glued 8mm thick layers of plywood to perform easily each curvature, obtained through bending by boiling technique.

The loops are divided into specific pieces, assembled together through tenon joints and fixed one to the other mechanically simply with screws.

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