AETER Architects shared with us their competition entry, titled Eco-Land, for the International Design Ideas Competition for Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai Boundary Control Point Passenger Terminal Building. Between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the PTB (Passenger Terminal Building) is a transitional area interrupting the waterfront of the adjacent cities. The proposed PTB abandons its rights of the waterfront and becomes ‘in between’. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The new island is a high tech sponge that absorbs 2,000,000 m3 of pollutants every hour and transforms it to oxygen and just like a living organism, it has 2 sides. The outer side of the ‘sponge’ is designed to redevelop parts of the surrounding context, the original flora, currently extinct due to centuries of human disturbance. The existing vegetation is the secondary forest developed in the latter half of the twentieth century after the Second World War. The proposal focuses on the recreation of four zones of vegetation, based on the eco-physiognomy and the composition of species from the original plant communities of Hong Kong.
The underside is a high tech laboratory which produces energy and absorbs pollutants. Using the latest sustainable technologies of energy production, like the piezoelectric energy, it uses its function of hosting 30,000 cars per day to produce up to 1.5 MW. Using the river’s refrigeration energy, it reduces the PTB’s needs on acclimatization by 350 KW per day. It collects its used water to feed its nature and to produce Biogas. It cleans itself from the vehicle’s fluids remains which are absorbed by a series of natural biofilters which are placed in different areas along the roadsides. Lastly, it uses the rich in this area solar energy to primarily drive eighty ’3 step’ turbines that are necessary to absorb the vast volume of pollutants produced by the vehicles. The rest of this energy production, along with the piezoelectric energy production, will be used for the entire energy needs of the island.
The vehicular pollution, instead of being released into the atmosphere, feeds the Eco lab. By implementing a exhaust gas injection and infiltration circuit, the pollutants, which are mixed with oxygen, are injected into the soil which contains various types of bacterial or plant species, thus each consuming specific pollutants. Due to photosynthesis or digestion, the pollutants are transformed into oxygen – asphyxia and becomes life.
The Ecolab can be visited by the adequate scientists and only be observed by the visitors in the wild life areas. Some areas can be visited by the public like the botanical garden in Proximity of the PTB. A secondary observation path, open to the people of each city, is developed to give access to this piece of wild nature for those who don’t need to pass the border. The island ‘digests’ the heavy pollution of the contemporary city and becomes a new ‘oxygen lung’. It protects and recreates the wild nature as a national reserve and provides a field of experimentation to science. Architects: AETER Architects Location: Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai Boundary, China – Hong Kong Project Team: AETER Architects – Harry Bougadellis, Antonis Zabelis, Christos Choudeloudis, George Batzios Competition: International Design Ideas Competition for Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai Boundary Control Point Passenger Terminal Building 2011 Photographs: Courtesy of AETER Architects