Power Stack

Date
2023-04-21
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Abstract

This is an urban project that seeks to redesign the value of energy infrastructure. The obsolescence of oil and gas in Pasadena, Texas provides an opportunity to critically examine how energy infrastructure might be used as a net-positive urban agitator. How might we use infrastructure as a medium for progress? By considering not only what the infrastructure does as a precise utility, but what it means in urban space. The thesis integrates sustenance, with utility.

In the future of energy production, consider not having one that supplies many, but nodes of power storage and supply that serve the local context. The thesis proposes a distributable architecture with an encoded ethical ideology within an urban scheme. A store of value for energy, but contrary to current industrial zones, also serving as a value to its proximity. Gravity-based energy storage, Power Stacks, store surplus energy, which is made available in times of supply fluctuations. The energy infrastructure is bolstered by floodable landscapes that also mitigate toxicity, remediating the ground upon which the energy infrastructure stands.

Description
Degree
Master of Architecture
Type
Thesis
Keywords
Energy Storage, Infrastructure, Power Grid, Pasadena Texas, Electrical Grid, Gravity Storage, Architecture, Landscape, Coastal Prairie, Renewable Energy, Floodplain, Toxicity, Power Storage
Citation

Schneider, Michelle. "Power Stack." (2023) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/114927.

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