heliocentriccity__ryan s moody

lunch : trespass 86
The Sun will consume the world.
It is a star. It is a type G star expanding at a predictable
rate with predictable ultimate consequence. It is a star
among many which collectively have threaded cultures
with strings of information and speculation; a stairway
to stories and a focus of fight. Around this star we sail
and how easily we confuse our centers. Tired, we seek
less resistance and lie down to limit gravity. Pulled to
the center of the world we must remember that there
are layers of center. The center of the world is attracted
to the center of the Sun. Though tired, we must not
forget. Ours is a heliocentric model calibrated to the
release of energy from the closest star collected by our
ground and sky seven minutes later. Waves and particles,
forever uncertain, construct plants and animals. We
consume them as food and fuel; as processed and polluted
sandwiches and gasoline, contributing to more processes
and more pollution. Too tired and too disconnected we
forget the center and forget the source of energy. And so
we sit by day under fluorescence neglecting the nuance
of sunshine and scheme to dig toward other centers into
past plants. We devise sophisticated plans for extracting
their soul and moving it ten thousand miles. Drunk and
demanding more we execute nefarious strategies forgetful
of our prior spills and stains.
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heliocentriccity__ryan s moody
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We awake.
Sober now we remember the relentless records of Tycho
Brahe building towards the Copernican revolution. We
imagine the pyramids of ancient Egypt decorated in gold,
the glow from the Pharos lighthouse reaching into the
Mediterranean indigo, the energy games of Bucky Fuller,
the potentials of photovoltaic fabric, and the sublime
vertical reach of the Solar Tower. I imagine these places
and ideas watching sunlight slip between waves and I think.
the Sun can save the world.
1. panscape expands the term
landscape to include the ground,
sky, and water
Scientific consensus informs us that the world is warming.
The Sun contributes to and has the potential to challenge
this condition. The warming of the Earth at rates faster
than we as a species have previously experienced results
in dynamic and indeterminate pressure on systems unable
to adapt at a mirrored speed. Ecological, economic and
social systems designed for static physical environments
sit set for failure. When these systems fail, unable to react
accordingly, people and places as we know them die.
The warming of the panscape is a result of human action.
By influencing the chemical composition of the skyscape
and the porosity of the groundscape we inhibit the ability
of reflected and refracted solar radiation to pass through
the Earth’s atmosphere and ground. The temperature of the
Earth increases and we invite response from interwoven
systems and species to such a change. Accelerated
alterations in the ground, sky, and sea temperatures, as
well as less temperature fluctuation between night and
day, represent instability and rhythmic uncertainty. Such
instability has the potential to both help and harm species
but generally accelerates the collapse of human exercises
of control and settlement.
a Shining star
The sun creates energy when hydrogen atoms fuse under
intense gravitational pressure to create Helium-4 atoms
releasing heat and light. Our closest star deposits 120,000
Terrawatts of energy on the surface of the Earth. According
to the Department of Energy Global Resources Report,
2. Department of Energy Basic
Research Needs for Solar Energy
Utilization report (released April
2005) http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/
reports/files/SEU_rpt.pdf
However, decreasing the use of fuel derived from sources
other than the sun is not exclusively dependent upon new
technologies or techniques. Intelligent decisions about
engaging the Sun’s physical and psychological potential
through design material, orientation, built and natural
adjacencies and social connection require heliocentric design
strategies, implementation and monitoring. The diagram is
bigger than the house, the tree and the sun angle. It is a
complex map of human psychology, cultural connection,
scientific inquiry, economic relief, poetic inspiration and
ethical concern.
89 heliocentricity Ryan Moody
lunch : trespass 88
the Warming panscape1
“Covering 0.16% of the land on Earth with 10% efficient
solar conversion systems would provide 20 Terrawatts of
power, nearly twice the world’s consumption rate of fossil
energy and the equivalent of 20,000 1-Giggawatt nuclear
fission plants”. 2 If engaged, such an amount of energy
could fundamentally change the way the world organizes
its power concerns. Passive solar design does not exist.
These are active concerns with active solutions.
re-Orienting research
Simple and sophisticated design decisions based upon
existing knowledge can greatly decrease the unnecessary
dependency on burning coal and oil resulting in an
unbalanced recipe of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen
oxide. Beyond current accomplishments, the reward for
better collecting, containing and distributing solar energy
approaches something of a panacea. Forget drilling off the
coast of the sunshine state. We need to look 91 million
miles away and act locally, grafting new systems onto old
grids while promoting better webs for the next great energy
and electricity consumers. Buckminster Fuller knew it in
1969 with the development of the World Game3, wrote
about it in 1981 in Critical Path, and now new research
in solar potential pulls his goal of serving more with
less closer. The strategy must be flexible in its political
movement from door to door, bottom to top and top down.
It must move with conviction from poetry to precision
and back again. As designers we must educate ourselves
and embrace the responsibility of influencing policy and
engaging science with intelligent and inspired architecture.
Developments such as photovoltaic fabrics, solar towers,
solar concentrators and artificial photosynthetic functions
3. “We then asked him (Francois
de Chadenedes) to figure how
much it would cost nature per
each gallon of petroleum for that
much pressure and heat for that
much time, were it calculated
at the retail rate for that much
energy for that length of time as
charged us by the public utilities.
The cost came to well over a million dollars per gallon.”
Excerpt from the World Game
introduction in Critical Path
published by Buckminster Fuller
in February of 1981
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engage the challenge of converting solar energy into
the three primary end products of solar electricity, solar
fuel and solar thermal conversion. Although the cost of
photovoltaics and solar panels is currently prohibitive for
many projects, as networks are established, awareness
increases, and advances are made, the demands for solar
energy will increase and the costs will fall.
the forgotten importance of
the Sun. I feel surrounded by a
return to a geocentric lifestyle.
a geocentric process of thought.
GPS. the importance of South
in the Northern hemisphere
forgotten. the Sun owns our
souls as much as it owns Venice.
forgetful and confused we
replace it with fluorescence and
advertise our intelligence as flat
and green martians in bathroom
mirrors. Venice defies this.
calles define South and canals
remember sunbeams. reflected
back to us. indirect. let them go.
the calles turn red and green.
directional lines on sea charts
modeled on maps uncovered
at the Correr Museum. precise
directions always in relation to
the compass roses. let them go.
let them go around Ptolemy’s
latitudes and return back home
tomorrow navigating by light,
filtered and reflected by the sky
and moon.
The supply is incomprehensible in its potential.
Beyond the consumption of energy the Sun represents a
transcendent center. As an object it has attracted inquiry
and debate, defined religions, oriented cultures and
navigated our ancestors. Its power extends beyond its
energy capacity. Its magnetism attracts our soul, narrates
our history and paves our future. On golden paths we must
return to centers of development and ask how we can renew
what we have already constructed, reuse what doesn’t need
to be discarded, embed advanced systems and low-tech
solutions and deconstruct political boundaries counter to
the logic of embracing the significance of the Sun. As
landscape architects and architects, selection from our
palette of materials must consider solar potential. Concepts
of light, color, energy, and heat must connect, overlap and
enrich each other in beautiful and thoughtful ways as we
pursue responsible and ethical design decisions.
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Guilding ancient centers
Venice journal entry 2006
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