Being that we had our last class meeting today for studio, it was important that we took some time to evaluate our progress in this project. Next week is our final critique, and we’ve been preparing pretty rigorously for the big day.
We broke this project up into three distinct phases.
PHASE 1 consisted of research-intensive class meetings, during which the entire class crammed as much information on urban agriculture as we could handle into our heads. This was probably the most important phase of the project. Since we didn’t break into groups at this point yet, we were researching all aspects of urban farming, and it wasn’t until phase two that we knew we’d be honing in on our wastewater management research.
PHASE 2 broke the class up into specialized teams that would focus on different topics (see the navigation bar above). The main point of phase 2 was to establish a client for each team, so that we would be able to work with someone within the Philadelphia community and get some real feedback on our projects. Jared, Paul, Christiaan, and I became the wastewater management team, which we quickly changed to Aquatherapy. We met with Mill Creek Urban Farm and they cited a need on their farm. The water from their sink, which washes hands and vegetables, was installed to be diverted into a huge, dark cistern buried underground. To them, the cistern was a mystery. It was decided through conversation with the managers of the farm that the cistern was either bigger than expected and not full yet, or (more likely); that it has been overflowing and leaching into the ground.
The need was established, and the design process was underway to adapt what we had learned and tested to their site. Mill Creek’s aesthetic really led us to use repurposed containers for this site-specific version of our natural filtration system concept. This phase is still live and can be followed on this blog. We are currently still digging up the hill in order to make room for our gravity-fed natural filtration system. We plan on finishing installation over the summer, out of class time.
PHASE 3 of our project addresses the other deliverable for the class project. We were to make a manufacturable, and easily replicated version of our concept that could be sold to people who were interested in these topics we looked at within urban agriculture. This phase, for us, was difficult because we had been so focused on installation at Mill Creek. We had been talking about this and sketching out some thoughts, but all the serious design happened more recently. We went with a modern pond aesthetic that people could buy for their back yards or decks. Within city regulations, the system is scaled up and can handle an average household’s grey water from their showers, sinks, washer, and dishwasher.
Tags: Aquatherapy, farm philly, FarmPhilly, grey water, urban farming, wastewater management
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Depending on the situation, our system can be scaled to suit a variety of needs
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During our work sessions over at Mill Creek, we’ve been informing volunteers and community members in the area about typical wastewater management and the benefits of recycling grey water. During these sessions, we handed out literature about our project, showed boards to illustrate the information easily, and presented our scale model of the system we’re installing there.
These fifteen minute presentations were often followed with a volley of questions from volunteers, which we happily answered. It is awesome to see how excited some of the people were about our project - the positive feedback from community members and farm volunteers was inspiring. After questions, we divided up shovels and dug up the hillside where our system will be installed.
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Wednesday 04.29.09
by Paul Gillespie
Early digging photo from first week on site.
Tags: digging, FarmPhilly, ides322, living machine
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Preparing Mill Creek for installation of our grey water system has become a little bit more complicated than we had initially expected. The first day of digging the hill to place our system brought our hopes up, as things seemed to have gone pretty smoothly. After a few hours of marking out where we needed to dig, figuring out the final dimensions for adjusting our system to fit into the hillside, and clearing out the top layer of earth; we felt that we had made substantial progress on the project. The next couple of dig sessions turned out to uncover lots of hard clay-like dirt that isn’t easily removed conventionally with shovels. A bee attack on Paul and Jared (along with Jade and Johanna) led us to hold off on digging. With the installation taking longer than expected, I figured it’d be best to go ahead with speccing out the system in a 3D scale model so that we know exactly where is system is going and how it fits together.
Here’s an orthographic technical drawing - it is still in progress, but the roughed out version is as follows:
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In our models for the Mill Creek installment we’ve shown that we are going to be re-purposing two 50 gallon drums for anaerobic sediment tanks and one cut in half for the anoxic reaction tank. We will use a lined, earth-dug trench for the water to run through the root biomass and filter through porous rock medium. The small stream will snake around and drop off into a set of old bathtubs. From the bathtubs there will be a store-bought pump to cycle the water both to the user and back through to keep a steady flow of water within the system. The pump will be powered by sunlight through two solar-powered panels. The system will only be running during the daytime and rest at night. The clean water that overflows from the system will be dropped into a reservoir that is another recycled 50 gallon drum. Aside from a few PVC pipes that are already installed there and will be used to avoid purchasing more materials and tossing the PVC, the system is 100% sustainable and earth friendly. Each portion will be held in place with earth and a skin of landscaping will create a beautiful water feature as well as a micro ecosystem for a variety of critters. The system will form a partnership with the colonies of honey bees that already live next to the site, as it will grow flowers and other pollinating plants. The general aesthetics of the system will form a partnership with the farm both in the fields and in the architecture. This model, we feel, is best suited for this site, and could also serve as a gateway to forming an acceptance of this technology in the mass of people who already support water features on their property.
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