THE OIL SILO HOME
The Oil Silo Home, designed by pinkcloud.dk in Berlin, recycles oil silos by transforming them into affordable houses!
An oil silo is a storage container for compressed liquefied petroleum gas. There are approximately 49,000 oil silos in over 660 oil refineries worldwide! As the human population increases at an exponential rate, oil discovery decreases at an exponential rate. Soon all existing oil silos will be abandoned as fuel storage containers.
The Oil Silo Home is a 100% self-supporting housing solution for the post-oil world. It’s highly structurally stable, waterproof, efficient to assemble and disassemble, and has the capacity for prefabrication and mass production. Waste and embodied energy are dramatically reduced by the Oil Silo Home. The silo’s spherical shape optimizes surface area for collecting solar energy. As a carbon-positive design, the Oil Silo Home can actually contribute energy back into the grid.
Location: Detriot + Global
LEON LAI, SARAH ROBERTS, NICO SCHLAPPS, ERIC TAN 2011
PINKCLOUD.DK
THIS WORK IS LICENCED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCE
BASED ON WORK AT www.pinkcloud.dk
CONTACT info@pinkcloud.dk
PEAK OIL IS NEAR…
An oil silo, or LPG Vessel, is a storage container for compressed liquefied petroleum gas. Oil silos are fully pressurized, waterproof, and built to meet industrial standards. There are approximately 49,000 oil silos in over 660 oil refineries worldwide!
As the human population increases at an exponential rate, oil discovery is decreasing at an exponential rate. Natural gas is becoming scarce and oil silos are now becoming abandoned as storage containers. As Earth rapidly approaches Peak Oil, non-renewable fossil fuel resources are diminishing fast. Soon humans can no longer depend on natural gas as an energy source. At this point, humans cannot use the existing 49,000 oil silos as fuel storage containers. Oil Silos will all be emptied and abandoned.
OIL SILO HOME
Ecological Sustainability + Economical Sustainability = Revitalization!
The Oil Silo Home recycles existing empty oil silos by transforming them into affordable housing for families worldwide. It’s a 100% self-supporting housing solution for the post-oil world. As an adaptive-reuse design, the Oil Silo Home incurs extraordinarily low costs. It’s highly structurally stable, efficient to assemble and disassemble, and has the capacity for pre-fabrication and mass production. Waste and embodied energy are dramatically reduced by the Oil Silo Home. By recycling existing abandoned silos for housing, we can revitalize former oil refineries and industrial zones into healthy, thriving communities. As a carbon-positive design, the Oil Silo Home can actually contribute energy back into the grid.
SPHERICAL ADVANTAGE
The spherical geometry of oil silos provides optimal orientation for harvesting sunlight year-round. Simultaneously, surface exposure is maximized for the installation of solar devices. Sunlight is collected by photovoltaic panels and solar hot water heaters installed along the silo periphery. The oil silo’s spherical shape resists the negative effects of global warming with strong structural rigidity, flexible suspension, waterproof shell, and aerodynamic geometry which effectively decreases uplift due to pressure from airflows. Energy efficiency is a priority; the spherical silo provides efficient circular passive ventilation and even heat distribution.
(RE)CONSTRUCTION
Contaminated oil silos are first detoxified with In Situ oil bioremediation. In this process, soil microbes which eat harmful pollutants clean up toxic chemicals, leaving only harmless byproducts such as CO2 gas. Existing oil silos are then retrofitted on-site. Large-scale components for the Oil Silo Home are pre-fabricated offsite. Modular assembly reduces construction cost and manufacturing time, thereby enabling consistent quality and efficient mass production of silo home components.
BEYOND CARBON NEUTRAL
The Oil Silo Home is designed to generate energy while simultaneously reducing energy use. Our design comprises an integrated set of passive sustainable installations augmented by the silo’s inherent spherical shape. The Oil Silo Home exceeds a carbon-neutral classification and ultimately strives to achieve a carbon-positive rating, thereby benefitting the environment by producing more energy than it consumes. The 700 existing oil refineries have great potential for redevelopment. Refineries can actually be converted into thriving green communities which generate clean energy. Oil Silo Home communities have the capacity to effectively transform existing refineries into mega solar plants which produce clean energy.
1 SILO HOME / 3 UNITS / 12 RESIDENTS
The Oil Silo Home is divided into three separate units accessible by a central pneumatic elevator and exterior walkway leading to the roof garden. Living and sleeping spaces circumnavigate the circular plan to provide copious natural lighting. The multi-generational home encompasses one full floor plate while the smaller two and four-person family homes are divided into two levels. All units feature large openings equipped with prefabricated balcony units for generous open-air ventilation. Interaction between neighbors is facilitated by situating the main entrance of each unit along the exterior walkway, thereby maintaining communal connection while providing private terrace space for each family.
UNIT 1: 2-Person Young Family Area: approx. 90 m2
UNIT 2: 4-Person Nuclear Family Area: approx. 180 m2
UNIT 3: 6-Person Multi-Generational Family Area: approx. 225 m2
SHARED RESOURCES
The Silo Home Community is interconnected with a shared resource infrastructure. While resources are produced by individual mechanisms throughout the community, all resources are pooled and shared to maintain sufficient levels of energy, water, and clean air. This unified system of resource allocation meets the needs of all citizens of the community while conserving resources and minimizing waste. For example, windmill-derived energy and surplus energy generated by solar PV cells in silo homes are transferred to electric charging stations and community buildings throughout the local district.
COST?
The pre-existence of almost 50,000 oil silos worldwide eliminates the standard costs of new construction, relying solely on the costs of converting existing silos for human habitation. Oil silos are built to extremely high industrial standards, ensuring a high degree of structural integrity without extra costs. Modular retrofitting allows for easy maintenance and decreases costs incurred by damages. Each Oil Silo Home has a zero net-energy cost with a potential government payback by transferring extra energy back into the city grid. Renewable energy is the primary power source for the Oil Silo Home, virtually eliminating all energy costs and creating an affordable housing solution for many middle-class American families.
[...] Via | ConsoGlobe Foto | Pinkcloud [...]
[...] Via | ConsoGlobe Foto | Pinkcloud [...]
Amazing Vision!
Terrific post! PINKCLOUD.DK » THE OIL SILO HOME really makes my day a little bit nicer :D Keep going with the magnificent articles! Regards, Just
[...] anyway, why not nest in an abandoned oil silo? Architecture collective Pink Cloud has designed a sustainable home for a post-petroleum world, repurposing the 49,000 refinery oil silos that will, one day in the [...]
[...] Esta sostenible idea ha salido de PingkCloud.DK, un colectivo fundado en Copenhague por cinco diseñadores de diferentes países que utilizan la arquitectura como catalizador para el desarrollo social, para involucrar a la gente, bajo un pensamiento alejado de utopías. En su sitio web hay muchos más detalles de este interesante proyecto de Casas en Silos. [...]
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[...] The Oil Silo Home was conceived by Sarah Roberts, Eric Tan, Leon Lai and Nico Schlapps of always-audacious Copenhagen-based design collective PinkCloud.dk as an entrant in the 2011 Dow Solar’s 2011 Design to Zero housing competition. Essentially, it’s a solar-powered spherical abode specifically designed for the post-oil world — this is, when the planet reaches peak oil (bound to happen sometime, folks) and the roughly 49,000 oil silos at more than 660 refineries worldwide begin to be emptied and abandoned. A somewhat disconcerting scenario to contemplate, but the Oil Silo Home makes the best of it by recycling obsolete structures of a bygone era into low-cost, low-maintenance domiciles. The decommissioned refineries themselves, filled with clusters of these uber-green multi-unit homes, could potentially be transformed into entire self-sustaining, clean-energy generating communities. [...]
[...] The Oil Silo Home,designed by PinkCloud.DK in Berlin, recycles oil silos by transforming them into affordable houses! [...]
Great idea!
[...] PinkCloud.DK’s recycled oil silos have everything we expect from a 21st century home, but first they have to be cleaned out. Detoxing the silos involves using in situ bioremediation – soil microbes that eat up harmful toxins. Once it is suitably cleaned, one or more families can move in. These 100% self-sustaining buildings have a green roof and green wall that absorb carbon dioxide and improve air quality, high-quality insulation, photovoltaic panels, a rainwater harvesting system and even a basement-level water storage area. [...]
[...] on TumblrEmail PinkCloud.DK has come up with a design that could transform 400 oil refineries around the world into giant [...]
[...] on TumblrEmail PinkCloud.DK has come up with a design that could transform 400 oil refineries around the world into giant [...]
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