April 2024
Professors Julie Larsen + Britt Eversole
Boron, used by the Ancient Egyptians to preserve mummified bodies, vital to metalworkers for centuries, and dumped on the Chernobyl power plant to halt a nuclear disaster- is a substance which sustains life. This project expands upon existing research, studying the architectural potentials of borates as they are used in preservation, construction, and mitigation of pollutants. An imminent question is posed: how does architecture become molecular in a polluted landscape?
Material Economy of Borates throughout their history, extraction, and processing.
This exploration embraces the material economy of Boron, tracing the prevalence of Boron and its compounds through time as building blocks of matter. In this study, materials with intriguing textures and forms result from chemical reactions. The project introduces a narrative surrounding boron’s capacity for carbon dioxide absorption, proposing a structure that embodies and contains carbon as a threshold condition.
Catalyzed cyanoacrylate using a borax solution.
Boron acts as a photothermal catalyst in the presence of light and water. When heated by direct sunlight, boric oxide reacts with Carbon in the atmosphere, trapping C02 and reducing carbon density. The reaction produces hydrogen with high potential energy that can be harnessed as fuel.
Objects crystallized using a borax solution.
Texture and form studies using Midjourney.
The proposed installation is a post-and-web system capitalizing on the structural integrity of crystallized Boron, a hardened white substance that forms a bond between the substrates. The piece is experienced at the human scale and weaves throughout the city. The system is temporal in its capacity to be lengthened or shortened according to where pollutants occur in the built environment. The porous nature of the borated “web” builds upon the innovation of material scientists at Rice University, who created Boron Nitride nanosheets with the ability to absorb over three times their own weight in carbon dioxide.
Temporal street installation absorbs carbon dioxide.
Full-scale physical model of crystallization net, MDF and string.