Dust to eat, dust to drink, dust to breathe
Royal College of Art
2024 - 2025
This project is set in a near future scenario of frequent dust storms in the
region of Murcia in Spain. It proposes a physical and active framework
composed of specifically shaped tiles which induce turbulence within the
particulate clouds, protecting homes and livelihoods in order to live with
the dust. This evolving ‘buffer’ space surrounding the homes become a
communal garden during dust storms and divides into private gardens on
clear days. Utilising the town of Balsapintada in Murcia, as a precedent
for further adaptions, these frameworks enable inhabitants to capture and
collect their airborne soils as they arrive in great dust clouds brought by
eastern winds. This captured dust is embraced through soil revival and
atmospheric water harvesting, offering new methods of living with the dust
and the changing nature of our troposphere.
Considering each homes preference, a series of extensions internally and
externally are proposed, each offering methods of protection from dust,
collection of dust and uses of dust. Externally, a shell-like structure will cover
the housing block, inspired by the extensions of Lacaton and Vassal, offering
a type of ‘buffer’ space around the building. Specifically designed tiles will
encase the structure to both deflect the strong winds, disturb the dust cloud
and collect dust through exact cut outs in the tiles which induce a turbulence
effect. This effect encourages the dust particles to condense and fall into
a trough behind the barrier. Other incorporated clay tiles extract salt from
the dust as the origin fields are irrigated with brackish water. This salt is then
used to harvest atmospheric water in humid conditions to water plants in
the proposed buffer space which equally acts as a alternative garden.
Reconfigurations of the internal spaces of the original housing will encourage
inhabitants to adapt their spaces to live with more or less dust. In addition
to this, the ‘buffer space’ between inside and outside acts as a communal
garden or an alternative to the streetscape during dust storms when people
have to remain inside. During the times when there is no storm, this buffer
space becomes segregated into private gardens while the external shell
opens up to the outside.