In spring 2013, University of Kentucky design students were charged with imagining the future.
If the Center for Applied Energy Research got the funding to install 100 acres of algae
tubes to take coal flue gas and make jet fuel, what would that look like?
Mike Wilson: The imagery that they are able to produce really helps people get their imagination
going about what this could look like, what could a power plant look like in 20 years.
Well hey, they've got a design, they've got a lab, a processing facility, and 100 acres of algae
laid out on this site next to a CO2 source on the Ohio River, so maybe there is an application there.
Mike Wilson: If a group of engineers were designing it, everything would be in straight
lines and, and maybe we miss something. Maybe there's some contour of the land that we missed
in trying to make everything easier to build. They bring value 'cause they can imagine the
future and maybe a more creative future than other people could.
Jack Groppo: It's a great opportunity to work with these students because their creativity
is unlimited. They are enthusiastic, they have great ideas, and they are just not confined
by anything, which is refreshing. We tend to forget that this is actually a really cool thing.
Mike Wilson: I think what I would do, is I would make one. . . leave it on one side,
right, and have it all be on your center axis points.
Student: Okay, that was pretty much my main idea was to leave it like its open and flexible
as I possibly could.
Jack Groppo: You can see the raw enthusiasm when we open up the greenhouse doors, and
when they look at those same tubes, they are just overwhelmed, and the questions just begin flowing.
VO: Two previous classes had partnered with CAER on algae designs, but this was the first
class to create a design for East Bend Station, a site that's more than theoretical.
Mike Wilson: when we moved to East Bend recently, we had a partner in Duke Energy who really
liked the project and was excited about it, and looked actually be to planning long term,
so it seemed a perfect opportunity to take the College of Design up to East Bend and
kind of look at the possibilities.
Mike Wilson: That's a starting scale...it actually works within the landscape up at
East Bend, and it also starts to approach some of the numbers that are being thrown
around by the DOE that they'd like to see. If you could get 100 acres to work, I think
it's got a bright future. And at that scale it begins to make sense to have a facility
there rather than commuting.
Anne Filson: So it really creates the perfect architecture project, where there is a big
landscape of hundreds of acres of algae bioreactor tubes, with ancillary buildings that would
house laboratories for researchers, processing facilities to process the algae into useful
mediums like biofuels and jet fuel, and it also presented a fascinating challenge to
provide accommodations for all the vehicles and people that would be moving on and off
the site.
Maggie Belhorn: My favorite part has been kinda incorporating the practical with the
inventive, and meeting the engineers' needs with what they want and how they function
and how they'll use the space. The engineers kinda act as clients for us, and it's
very similar to how we will function as real architects, we haven't gotten that
in other studios before and so this is really the first time that we're experiencing how
to apply our knowledge with the real world and involve a client.
Robert Pekrul: You're talking to engineers. They are more concerned about whether it is
going to work or not. Taking that functionality and adding an artistic value to it, is what
we are really trying to do here. 'Cause that's what we do, we design.
Anne Filson: My students are looking at it as this really amazing surreal landscape that
must be experienced. All of them are looking at ways to choreograph the movement through
the algae bioreactors, what is it like to approach it, to drive through it, to get out
of your car and walk up to a research lab within it, or to visit and how does this landscape
inspire people to think about energy in a new way.
Brandyn Heyser: You have this thing putting out smoke and you have these nice green tubes,
which are saving the world, it's a very stark contrast to put next to each other. But it
works well.
Robert Pekrul: I would say that for Kentucky our unique experience comes with the local
culture. I doubt any other state, except maybe West Virginia, might integrate coal power
plants into a design project, which I think is a lot more real-world based.
Anne Filson: That power plant is juxtaposed with new innovative technologies that are
trying to move us towards alternative energy sources. So it's been a great education from
a sustainability standpoint. Students aren't just learning about windmills and solar panels
as good and coal as bad, but we're learning and talking every day about how do we transition
from a coal economy and coal energy to alternative fuels, you know, slowly steadily, and how
do we participate in that transition.