Author(s): Nina Wilson, Yutaka Sho & Hannibal Newsom
The outsized impacts of carbon emissions and landfill waste from the architecture and construction industry underscore the need for innovation in supply chain models and life cycle design of building materials, and require a response to the disproportionate environmental effects experienced by low-income stakeholders. At the same time, New York State aims to decarbonize its existing building stock by 2050, and growing numbers of retrofit projects are set to integrate millions of tons of polystyrene foams and other fossil fuel-based materials to improve buildings’ thermal efficiency. The BioRetrofits project aims to address the need for professional preparation of new designers to face the new demands of this changing industry context by developing a replicable pedagogical model that integrates carbon-negative mycelium biocomposites in a novel design-grow-build capstone studio course. The course will enable students to engage local New American refugee residents in the co-design and development of agriculturally-based building components. Through this capstone, the alliance of agricultural entities, industry partners, and academic research laboratories will demonstrate a reconfiguration of conventional linear supply chain structures and present an ecosystem-based model, and will leverage existing research and local knowledge in the design and deployment of a full-scale building energy retrofit using a unit in a prewar masonry building in downtown Syracuse. The BioRetrofits project aims to prove the concept that innovative construction materials and technology can emerge from and foster existing local knowledge and cultural meanings.
Volume Editors
ISBN
978-1-944214-49-4