Creating public discourse on the role of infrastructure in the age of climate change

Research in Practice Grant recipients publish research on creating renewable energy infrastructure in Patagonia, Argentina

Territorial Figure in Argentina

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    Ocean Energy Landscapes

    The landscape can be appreciated at different levels, sometimes near the low tide or high tide, which is the most interesting local resource. In this specific case, visitors can appreciate two different but linked activities: Eolic energy and Aquaculture.

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    Ocean Energy Landscapes

    The contemplation room is a proposal to look inward. We offer a place to work and sharpen the senses. The wind, the sea, the sounds, the echoes, the salinity, the temperature, the humidity, the pressure, are the natural variables that can be used to connect with the natural environment from a different place, much more one’s own.

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    Ocean Energy Landscapes

    The Cup of the Sun is an energetic component, which changes its content according to sea levels, allowing collective meetings, meditation, contemplation, friendships circles or it is a fixed element from which the vastness of the sky and the sea is reflected.

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    Ocean Energy Landscapes

    Due to the geomorphological conditions of the bay of San Julian, it presents very good conditions for harnessing the energy of tidal currents. A 1.8 km breakwater parallel to the town’s coast conforms the energy infrastructure, which is strategically localized in such a way that seeks to increase tidal currents speed in a particular area of the bay.

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    Ocean Energy Landscapes

    At the conclusion of the research, the findings and proposals were presented in an exhibition held in Rio Gallegos, the largest city in southern Patagonia’s Santa Cruz province.

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    Ocean Energy Landscapes

    The exhibition was an opportunity to share the research outcomes with the local community – including neighbors, university experts and decision-makers from local government authorities in the region.

Any effort to markedly reduce greenhouse gasses in the 21st century must include design as part of its collective strategy. In 2020, over 40% of the global greenhouse gas emissions came from the power sector, electricity, and heat generation [1], a fact that reflects the urgent need for design disciplines to provide workable proposals and solutions. At the same time, the subject of infrastructure has gained visibility; infrastructure projects have emerged as support systems that can generate dialogue between architecture and the landscape.

Last updated: July 12, 2023 Punta Loyola, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina

To support emerging professionals to conduct leading edge, practice-related research in the field of sustainable construction, the Holcim Foundation provided a Research in Practice Grant (RPG) of USD 75,000 to three young architects who had initially developed their research together at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina.

Over two years, grant recipients Stefano Romagnoli, Tomás Pont Apóstolo, and Juan Cruz Serafini were able to investigate the questions raised by their original proposal that won a Holcim Awards Next Generation 1st prize in 2017 for Latin America, followed by a Holcim Awards Ideas prize in 2018, under the title Territorial Figure: Tidal Energy Landscape in Patagonia, Argentina.

Ocean Energy Landscapes

The contemplation room is a proposal to look inward. We offer a place to work and sharpen the senses. The wind, the sea, the sounds, the echoes, the salinity, the temperature, the humidity, the pressure, are the natural variables that can be used to connect with the natural environment from a different place, much more one’s own.

Testing the concepts with experts and stakeholder dialog

The RPG funding and mentoring allowed the team to expose their so far intuitively developed ideas to the scrutiny of a broad range of experts in the fields of tidal energy production, marine biology, and environmental politics. The research examined the social, political, and spatial implications of the next mode of energy, and how design practices can help shape a more just urbanization. Discussions with stakeholders in local communities, moreover, offered them the opportunity to assess their schemes on account of the socio-spatial specificities of a particular place.

Ocean Energy Landscapes

The exhibition was an opportunity to share the research outcomes with the local community – including neighbors, university experts and decision-makers from local government authorities in the region.

At the conclusion of the research, the findings and proposals were presented in an exhibition held in Rio Gallegos, the largest city in southern Patagonia’s Santa Cruz province. The exhibition proposed different scales of action including the design discipline’s agency on global issues, national/regional spatial inequalities, local sovereignty, landscape as infrastructure, and small-scale design considerations. The exhibition was also the perfect opportunity to launch the publication Ocean Energy Landscapes, which articulates a geographic future of energy through the designer’s tools and strategies.

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Ocean Energy Landscapes

A report of the research of Stefano Romagnoli, Tomás Pont Apóstolo, and Juan Cruz Serafini “Ocean Energy Landscapes: Energy infrastructures towards greater local sovereignty in Patagonia, Argentina” is available via the Holcim Foundation website. The research examines the social, political, and spatial implications of the next mode of energy, and how design practices can help to shape a more just urbanization.

Lessons learned for future work on landscape energy infrastructures

Stefano Romagnoli, Tomás Pont Apóstolo, and Juan Cruz Serafini gathered, expanded, and diversified their research during the course of the project. Their key findings include:

  • the discipline of landscape architecture must have agency in the development of large-scale infrastructure projects to impact the present and future of climate change
  • the design of ocean energy infrastructure must incorporate interdisciplinarity throughout the design process
  • it is entirely possible to build energy infrastructures that have an adequate and sustainable dialogue with the landscape
  • it is possible to achieve a synergistic dialogue between productive, tourist, recreational, and energy generation activities in one infrastructure project
  • the development of these infrastructures in small communities in Patagonia is an opportunity to generate socio-economic development in direct and indirect sectors
  • landscape energy infrastructures can help to improve responses to urban and planning problems
  • projects like this require the political will to study and learn more about the Argentinean Sea, its resources and opportunities

Ocean Energy Landscapes

Due to the geomorphological conditions of the bay of San Julian, it presents very good conditions for harnessing the energy of tidal currents. A 1.8 km breakwater parallel to the town’s coast conforms the energy infrastructure, which is strategically localized in such a way that seeks to increase tidal currents speed in a particular area of the bay.

Reporting on outcomes and proposing case studies

Ocean Energy Landscapes: Energy infrastructures towards greater local sovereignty in Patagonia, Argentina analyzes the intersection of renewable ocean energy infrastructures and landscape architecture in the unique Patagonian milieu through the lens of design. By incorporating both theoretical and pragmatic literature related to the topics of infrastructure, landscape architecture, ecology, and renewable energy, it proposes four case studies based on different energy technologies, scales of intervention and coastal sites. Although energy generation serves as an important driver of the study, the opportunities that these infrastructures represent for the community is of particular interest and foregrounds the question of design.

Bridging the alleged gap between theory and practice, the findings of their research, generate a type of knowledge transfer intent upon initiating public discourse on the role of infrastructure in the age of climate change, while asking what else infrastructure could do. Marc Angélil Professor emeritus of Architecture & Design, ETH Zurich, and former member of the Board of the Holcim Foundation.

The multiscale approach of this research focuses on the question of Local Sovereignty, which requires an understanding of the historical, environmental, political, economic, and social context of each site selected, and how this problem can be addressed through design by the relationship between infrastructures and landscape architecture. At the same time, the study raises awareness about the importance of energy infrastructures in achieving the decarbonization goals of this era, and in the necessity to rethink their relationship with the environment.

The research concludes that a paradigm shift is needed to embed considerations beyond efficiency and economy in the development of infrastructure and energy generation. These marine energy infrastructures, in addition to generating energy, present an added value from the incorporation and combination of educational, cultural, recreational, productive, and conservation programs, avoiding standardization and mono-functionality.

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