The Tagapo Eye: a Mountaintop Habitat for All
by ibuildtoomuch in Workshop > 3D Design
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The Tagapo Eye: a Mountaintop Habitat for All
Hi! I'm Isaac, an 18-year old, a recent graduate of Seaquam Secondary, and a soon-to-be first year Applied Science student at the University of British Columbia. This is my entry for the Make it Resilient Student Design Challenge.
It took me quite a long time to select the issues I wanted to address in my design. There are so many extreme environments worldwide, and it truly was incredibly challenging to choose just one place! My initial round of research took me on a trip around the world, from subzero wastelands and wooded forests to blistering deserts and Alpine peaks. Online, there are so many wonderful examples of human habitats constructed to embrace their harsh locations, and in the end I felt inspired to situate my habitat in the coastal climate of the Philippine Islands. My family is from the Philippines, and while visiting my relatives there I've discovered a special connection to this place. There's a special sense of community here, and everyone you talk to makes you feel like a family member.
This area, like many other coastal countries, is annually barraged by a plethora of disasters such as coastal flooding, typhoons, and earthquakes, and I wanted to both protect its residents and challenge myself to create something that was especially versatile and resilient.
This project was designed primarily with Autodesk Fusion (formerly Fusion 360).
Supplies
Autodesk Fusion 360
Architecture and This Project
Habitat Location
After surveying the Philippines via Google Earth, I settled upon Mount Tagapo, a Rizal Province peak near the country's capital of Manila. This mountain is surrounded by water, and I resonated with it because it was distanced from urban development and elevated, making it a construction site naturally immune to coastal flooding. There's an area between peaks that a habitat can be nestled into that I got really excited about.
Naming the habitat
I wanted to emphasize community and create a habitat rich with public spaces, so I selected a name that I found the most inviting. Upon completion of this project I named my building the Tagapo Eye as I believe it's very similar to the eye of a storm: it's circular, it's a focal point of order amidst a chaotic environment, it's quite isolated but still very possible to access, and above all it provides a tranquil environment to all who discover it.
Engineering Applications
Throughout this project I used the Engineering Design Process, a set of guidelines followed by engineers to generate solutions for a given problem. At its core, this process consists of seven steps:
ASK In this step, a challenge is defined in as high detail as possible. Time and material constraints are determined and goals towards solving the challenge are set.
RESEARCH Once the challenge has been identified, research on what has been done before to address this challenge is conducted. Sources are cited throughout.
IMAGINE This step is when brainstorming occurs, and where the most innovation happens as well. When I participated in competitive robotics, it was always recommended to generate three or more ideas for each design iteration.
PLAN The main portion of every Instructable, the plan takes a carefully selected idea from the
IMAGINE phase and fully develops it. The plan can include CAD, sketches and written descriptions. For me, planning usually involves reducing a detailed step-by-step plan which that allows anybody to replicate what I create.
CREATE The plan is actually executed at this point.
TEST The finished prototype is tested to see if it meets the goals defined in the ASK phase. If all goes well (which almost never happens), the challenge has been solved!
IMPROVE More often than not, testing a prototype reveals at least one weakness. This phase exists to polish off the prototype and present a final solution.
Location Information
Population
Mount Tagapo is currently uninhabited, but cities like Manila are highly populated. In fact, as of 2022 the Philippines' population was nearly 3 times as large as that of Canada while being 33 times smaller. I designed this habitat with the idea that it can also be a refuge from the crowds. However, it's also a building where a community can thrive, and I'll discuss later why this could be a source of sustainable energy.
Climate
High temperature, high humidity and abundant rainfall.
Natural Disasters
The Philippines experiences a variety of natural disasters year-round. These include earthquakes, tsunamis, tropical cyclones, coastal floods, river floods, epidemics and droughts.
Weather Patterns
There are two major seasons: the rainy season from June to November and the dry season from December to May.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/921036/philippines-risk-index-for-natural-disasters/
https://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/information/climate-philippines
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66197937
https://typeset.io/questions/what-are-the-main-natural-hazards-that-metro-manila-is-qeln93ixjw
The issues of coastal flooding the Phillipines experience is particularly relevant to me as I live on the West Coast. If we ever encounter issues with coastal flooding here, it may be a good idea to invest in resilient architecture to protect our communities. As seen with this carolina home, coastal flooding can easily sweep away a small town and architecture to combat this could save homes and lives.
Information on In-situ Building Materials and Traditional Building Materials
Cement
Cement is a readily available construction material, so the majority of the Ring is made of cement. Cement is durable, low-maintenance, and fire-resistant, and it's versatile as it can be either pre-cast or transported to the site and cast in place. There was no question that I wanted to use this as much as possible in my design.
Wood
The construction of furniture can be done by local craftsmen. The Philippines is the 6th largest exporter of bamboo in the world, so the furniture will be made from bamboo. It's a lightweight material with high tensile strength, making it easy to transport and long-lasting.
I found in my material research that oak and mahogany are both readily available, so they are the two woods that will be used in the construction of the Ring.
Steel
For windowframes and railings, I decided to use steel as it's noncombustible and about as disaster-resistant as concrete. It's recyclable as well!
https://www.cemexholdingsphilippines.com/products-and-services/cement/production-process
https://idewood.com/wood-species/#:~:text=Philippine%20Wood%20Species%20%7C%20Rosewood%2C%20Mahogany,Beech%2C%20Yakal%2C%20Teak%2C%20Oak
https://ispweb.pcaarrd.dost.gov.ph/bamboo/#:~:text=The%20Philippines%20is%206th%20among,rarely%20in%20pure%20commercial%20stands.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214785323044309#:~:text=The%20main%20properties%20of%20bamboo,reduce%20the%20amount%20of%20lignin.
https://metalexponents.com/blog/common-construction-materials-philippines/
https://www.buildusingsteel.org/why-choose-steel/#:~:text=Steel%20Is%20Durable%2C%20Strong%20And%20Adaptable.&text=Steel%20is%20sustainable%20and%20is,hurricanes%20and%20other%20extreme%20events.
Material Transportation
A very important question I encountered early on was "how will materials be transported to the construction site?" After doing a little bit of research, I discovered material ropeways/baskets.
These baskets can transport my primary construction materials (wood, steel, and concrete) to the site in an efficient manner. In addition, post-construction they could possibly be converted into a cable car system to provide easy access to the Eye.
Transporting construction vehicles is also possible through material ropeways. There are heavy-duty ropeways which can carry machines like drilling rigs to the top of Mount Tagapo, which will be needed for the foundation when piles are set.
Sustainability and Resilient Architecture
I discovered in my research that round buildings are hurricane resistant because they prevent the air pressure from piling up on any one side of the building. However, the issue with round homes is they are incompatible with most types of furniture designed for square/rectangular homes. Therefore, I had to discover a solution that had a round exterior, but still had flat edges inside where traditional furniture could be placed against.
https://makechange.aspiration.com/building-a-hurricane-proof-future-for-housing/
https://www.delish.com/food/a55366/hurricane-resistant-houses-deltec-homes/
https://www.delish.com/food/a55366/hurricane-resistant-houses-deltec-homes/
https://makechange.aspiration.com/building-a-hurricane-proof-future-for-housing/
https://www.bigrentz.com/blog/hurricane-proof-buildings
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/house-built-withstand-force-tsunami-180949455/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070619155735.htm
Public Spaces (And a Little Bit of Leonardo Da Vinci)
As I established, I wanted my habitat to match the definition of the word "habitat": a place that supports the survival of a species. This meant that the Eye's purpose was to support not just an individual resident or a small family, but to sustain a community with a variety of people, from hikers and travellers to the homeless and refugees. This meant that I also wanted the Eye to act as a refuge in case disaster struck a small town. In short, this is a home for everybody.
There's many great examples of large buildings that provide space for a variety of visitors. Here's a few I selected for research:
These are multi-family structures constructed by immigrants from northern China from the 17th century onwards that were meant to be easily defendable. They were round in shape and divided into different rooms. These buildings could cover over 40,000 sq meters of space.
This building actually looks rather similar to my design, and I discovered it after I sketched my initial vision for the Eye. Located in Cupertino, California, Apple Park houses thousands of employees over 175 acres of land. It reuses over 40% of the water on site, is powered with 17 MW of solar power, and is earthquake resistant.
Located in the Netherlands, "The Markthal is a sustainable combination of food, leisure, living, and parking, a building in which all functions are fully integrated to celebrate and enhance their synergetic possibilities. A secure, covered square is nestled beneath a large arch, conceived as an entirely new take on a typical market square and its surrounding buildings."
This is a public space shielded from the elements with glass and a massive arch. The arch conceals a vast amount of living space overlooking the bustling crowd below.
A fitness centre near my house that I've had the pleasure of visiting a couple times, this building hosted the speed skating event in the 2010 Olympic games. I was particularly interested in its roof, constructed with arched lengths of wood. I'd go on to use this later on in the design, which I'll discuss.
Architect Vincent Callebaut designed the Rainbow tree, a modular mass timber skyscraper that places an emphasis on minimum carbon footprint. The interior is an open, beautiful space.
The Mazzocchio:
During my research phase I had the pleasure of visiting the California Science Centre in Los Angeles and viewing their Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit. I particularly resonated with their recreation of Da Vinci's Mazzocchio, a circular model that served as a study of perspective and also as Italian headgear in the 15th century. I decided to model a habitat in a similar form, with a greenspace in the middle and hollow living areas throughought the ring.
The Vision
After conducting my research, I came to a conclusion of what kind of building I wanted to create for those around Mount Tagapo.
My design was to be curved and aerodynamic so the wind would flow around it instead of buffet it head-on. Also, instead of being a solid cylinder, this building would have a gap in the middle for an outdoor space, resembling a ring. I wanted to add as many windows to my building to maximize the natural light flowing in and minimize the energy costs.
Foundation
To make my building earthquake-resistant, my solution was to use seismic base isolators. Skyscrapers like the Burj Khalifa and Taipei 101 use base isolators, but so do low-down buildings such as Apple Park (first image). My building uses 80 base isolators, with a pair holding up each precast concrete slab, and five of these slabs on each side of the octagonal foundation.
How to CAD:
[Making these base isolators was rather straightforward. I used the sketch and extrude tools to create a box, and then bevelled the four top edges of the box. I then extruded a metal plate, and at a corner of this plate sketched a hexagon with the polygon tool. I used the rectangular pattern tool to create 4 bolts attaching the plate to the concrete box. I extruded a cylinder and colored it with the hard rubber material, then added a bolted plate to the top of this cylinder. After using the rectangular pattern tool to make a pair of base isolators, I could then sketch and extrude a precast concrete slab on top, which I could once again use the rectangular and circular pattern tools to distribute throughout the octagonal foundation.]
After making the base isolators, it was time to add the piles to the foundation. In construction, piles are used to "root" the foundation to the ground and protect it from damage. I decided that the piles should be constructed with a cast-in place technique to ensure little to no damage was done to the mountain. These piles are created by first drillling holes into the earth and then sliding a mold into place. The concrete is poured and the mold is removed, providing a solid concrete pile without driving a pole into the ground.
How to CAD:
[To CAD the piles, simply extrude a cylinder from the bottom of the foundation as a new body, and use the rectangular pattern tools to distribute a group of piles on one side of the octagon. Then, use the circular pattern tool to change this one group of piles into 8, one for each side of the octagon. Now, the foundation is complete.]
https://www.ffgb.be/en/techniques/piles/driven-piling/driven-pile
https://youtube.com/shorts/UOzjHExF7wk?si=nYU6Rrz51Zde66cx
https://youtube.com/shorts/zCnyoo0a0WY?si=TG4KFvY2zx91Aqp1
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismic_base_isolation
https://www.exploratorium.edu/explore/seismic-science/engineering
https://civildigital.com/base-isolation-system-outline-on-principles-types-advantages-applications/
Base Frame Part 1
Now that the foundation was complete and the precast concrete slabs were positioned, it was time to add a first floor atop the seismic base isolators.
Real World Application
These slabs of concrete will not be pre-cast and instead will be cast in place at the site, with the materials to cast them transported through the material ropeways. The molds will be made out of wood, and rebar will be placed inside them to further support the ground floor. Once the concrete has set around the rebar, the mold can be stripped away, allowing the steel sheets reinforcing the concrete to be bolted in place. Rebar will be used regularly throughout the construction process due to the amount of concrete used in this project.
Once I used the sketch tool and patterned a hexadecagon atop the precast concrete slabs, I extruded it and added metal support plating to the underneath of it. It was time to add joists to the design.
For my floor joists I used i-beams, which consist of two narrow strips of wood sandwiching a tall strip of wood, resembling a very tall hamburger. I patterned the i-beam and cut it to fit the hexadecagon. As I drew out, I covered a quarter of the floor with these joists and then used the circular pattern to make 4 groups of them, covering the entire first floor.
Around the perimeter of the ground floor I sketched and extruded precast concrete parts to protect the edges of the joists from weathering. I used the rectangular pattern tool to cover a side, and then circular patterned the concrete around the ground floor.
https://brennancorp.com/blog/what-is-a-pane-of-glass/ glass
https://qstuts.com/curtain-wall-systems-types-benefits-design-and-trends/?amp=1
https://studio-tm.com/constructionblog/?cat=224
https://www.apawood.org/i-joist
https://www.timbertech.com/resources/deck-building/deck-joist-spacing/#:~:text=Deck%20joist%20spacing%20should%20never,in%20plane%20across%20the%20tops.
https://www.apawood.org/i-joist
Base Frame Part 2
After all the joists were in position and I had joined the precast concrete parts with the loft tool, I distributed studs around the outside and inside of the ring. Online I found that stud spacing should be around 400mm, so I followed this spacing when I used the rectangular pattern and circular pattern tools (once again, I mirrored the studs first and then used the circular pattern to create 8 copies around the ring).
The floor consists of a lower layer of plywood and an upper layer of concrete tiling to protect the plywood.
Window Frames/other Floors
Now to add the frames for the windows, one of the most important parts of the Eye: because I wanted to have mainly natural lighting illuminate the building, I had to maximize the windows around the building. These mounts were to be made of steel.
I made these window frames by sketching and extruding triangles angled downwards, and then patterning them along the studs so they aligned with every second stud. I then used the circular pattern tool to add them all around the building (with the exception of the entrance).
I repeated what I did with the first floor with the second and third floors. The second floor, instead of downward angled window mounts, just uses frames perpendicular to the ground, and the third floor had the window mounts angled upwards, creating a curved exterior that would allow the wind to flow past the building freely in the case of a cyclone.
Roof
One of the most detailed parts of the Eye is the arched roof, inspired by that used by the Olympic Oval. On their website they have an annotated 3D model of their roof and a video testing one of the arches they designed. As can be seen in the attached image, it collapsed under the weight of many cinder blocks, so I decided that the roof would only be supporting the weight of solar panels. To make the roof, I first modelled metal brackets atop the third floor's studs. I then extruded an oak panel at an angle to this bracket, and swept the profile of wood beams above the third floor.
Finally, I used the sweep tool to add mahogany panels atop the arch supports.
Benefits of this roof
The hollow interior of the roof can house the pipes and wires of the Eye, concealing them from view while simultaneously giving easy access to repairmen. Also, the curved form of the roof prevents water from gathering in torrential rainfall, redirecting it off the building and down Mount Tagapo.
Skylights and Wall Panels
My journey to maximize the natural lighting flowing into the building continued as I lofted the sides of the mahogany roof panels to each other to create new bodies (steel, as they were to house windows). I sketched a profile off a plane offset far above the origin, and then used the Emboss tool to add windows to the steel frames I had made.
I then added the alternating walls and windows around the Eye. I sketched rectangles onto one side of the hexadecagon and proceeded to pattern them around the building like all the other features.
Furniture
I made seperate files for each piece of furniture before designing the floorplan as shown. I used the sketch, extrude, loft, sweep and fillet tools.
Interior Modelling
After completing the furniture, I first hid the roof, solar panels and skylights, then used the sketch and extrude tools to model the flooring on the interior. I then added railings to the necessary areas that I had uncovered, using the sketch and sweep tools to sweep the profiles along the paths of the gaps and prevent visitors from falling.
Floorplan: First Floor
Lounge: The lounge features seating and tables, perfect for socializing with other residents of the building.
Theatre: This room can be used for weekly movie nights, but it also serves as an area to educate visitors on coastal flooding and provide information on how to help prevent it.
Bathroom: The first floor has public bathrooms for the general public.
Pool: There's a 25m pool located in the center of the Eye for exercise and wellness.
Stairs: The stairs are parallel to a seating area for socialization and reflection.
Floorplan: Second Floor
Dining Area: This area has folding tables so space can be provided in case of an evacuation due to natural disasters.
Gym: This exercise area overlooks the edge of Mount Tagapo, a breathtaking view.
Fountain Area / Art Gallery Bridge: Local artists can display their works here for visitors to view.
Library: also accessible on the bottom floor, the library is a good place to study.
Floorplan: Third Floor
Living area:
The third floor contains the housing units, which have cooking areas, desks, lamps, and washrooms each. A unit can house 2 to 4 people.
Balconies
The balconies on the third floor allow those living in the upper levels of the building to view the core of the Eye from above. I first sketched and extruded a concrete platform and supported it from below with steel forms. I then swept a glass fence and railing around the platform and finally covered it with a mahogany awning, shielding the balcony from the harsh sunlight. I used the circular pattern tool to make sure every room had a balcony attached to it.
Solar Panels
In the Philippines, it's almost always sunny, making it the perfect place to gather solar power. I decided for the Eye it would be best to use the standard commercial solar panel, which has 72 cells.
I designed the solar panel separately from the building and inserted it later. To make it, I sketched and extruded a base panel and onto that panel sketched and distributed a filleted square with the rectangular pattern tool so there were 72 photovoltaic cells. I then added a glass panel to protect the cells on top with the extrude tool.
I inserted this solar panel component into the main file and added it onto the roof, using the rectangular pattern and circular pattern tools to cover the whole roof with solar panels and provide power to the whole building.
Hydroponics
Hydroponics is the practice of growing plants in a nutrient-rich solution instead of soil. In my design, I wanted to have hydroponic gardens wrapping around each support pillar in the building, providing food to the inhabitants of the Eye. I made a simple extruded cylinder PVC shell and distributed black plastic planters around it, proceeding to align these hydroponic gardens with the pillars and use the circular pattern tool to distribute them through the building.
Conclusion
That concludes my design for the Make It Resilient design challenge. Thank you for reading this Instructable!
Isaac