The brief for my Part I final year project was to create a masterplan for the city of Newport, South Wales, and then choose a site with the intention of designing a civic building which produces something.
I designed a waste-to-energy plant for the city, which uses the process of anaerobic digestion to create heat and electricity from discarded food. The purpose of my programme is to represent a closed-loop system, in terms of food waste from residents being processed to create a renewable energy source, as well as a natural soil conditioner (digestate), which in turn is used on the allotments to grow produce.
I aimed to tackle a number of Newport’s issues in an environmentally, socially viable way, whilst creating a hub of economic activity in an area of Newport which appears to be segregated from the heart of the city. Furthermore, I aim to tackle wider problems of climate change and high fossil fuel consumption by introducing a relatively new and undervalued system of generating energy.
I proposed to build a waste-to-energy plant (w2e), which would convert post-consumer food waste into heat and electricity through a process called anaerobic digestion. This energy centre would have the capacity to recycle roughly 18,000 tonnes of waste per year from 68,000 households across Newport.
The facility would provide heat to the new Sennybridge development, as well as feed electricity back into the National Grid. Post consumer food waste will be collected by trucks from around Newport, and delivered into the building. Here, it is mixed and macerated, and then sent to the anaerobic digestion tanks, which will be integrated among the allotments on the site.
Biogas is produced and then sent back to the plant, where combined heat and power (CHP) engines convert it into energy. A byproduct of the anaerobic digestion process is digestate, a natural soil conditioner, which will be both taken off site for use on farmland, as well as being used on the allotments by residents.
Produce grown on the allotments can then be sold in the farm shop to visitors or residents, creating a closed-loop system of waste-in/food-out.
Initially, I looked to create a transition between the housing development to the East, and the industrial park to the West of the Old Town Dock site, by sinking the plant into the ground. However, upon further consideration I felt this would detract from the overall vision of educating the public about the benefits of the waste-to-energy process, and therefore decided to design my building as a ‘sustainable beacon’.
Polycarbonate cladding panels are used to allow natural light into the facility whilst retaining a huge amount of heat, adding to the efficiency of the building. I integrated a steel truss system into the relatively formulaic steel structure in order to support my saw-tooth roof. These 1.5 metre tall trusses will have an exterior clad of polycarbonate in order to allow Northern light into my facility, which will also allow for mechanical ventilation. The steel frame itself is exposed to the public, in an attempt to maintain an aspect of the industrial past of the site, whilst trying not to deter people from visiting my building.
One of our assignments for this project was to produce a 1:1 hand-drawn section detail. After completion, my drawing was chosen by students to be presented in the UWE final year show.