Project: Oil Silo Home
Designed by PinkCloud.DK
Location: Detriot + Global
Website: pinkcloud.dk
Danish practice PinkCloud develops a new concept in green architecture with their design for Oil Silo Home, see more of the design as well as architects description after the jump:
From the Architects:
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
