The Ogallala is the great American aquifer whose circular farms fill the area from
Kansas to Colorado and from Texas to Nebraska. The land between the great circles is
interstitial waste land. If it can be leased for the creation of Knowledge Farms
that exist with aquaculture and hydroponic complexes, it could create cash crops that
compliment, but do not compete with the boundaries of agribusiness. This would allow
the land grant colleges to become what they were meant to be, a source of students that
return to the land as an agricorps for organic agronomy.
Architecture must evolve that has no other use than that which it is designed for. It must
be built on water, of water and air. It must harvest the wind the sun and the rain. The
sound of the wind machines must be silenced by the roof pond that protects the plastic
from ultra violet degradation and allows night sky radiation to cool large quantities of
water, to fill aquaculture tanks in a constant and controlled infusion. Of equal importance,
the liquid filled environmental envelope fire proofs the structure from circular burns on
the Ogallala.
The computer images on this website are Knowledge Farms. They are created by evacuating air from plastic
envelopes placed over carbon fiber frames.
This allows atmospheric pressure to fill the voids with water to create transparent building masses that are fireproof.
International architecture has discarded the attic and cellar, it has rejected the sun, the rain and the
winds and ignored our classical heritage.
American Organicism accepts classicism, the steps of the crepidoma are acqua-culture pools that surround the fish
tank of the lower basement. The stylobate of clear glass allows light to reach the fish below.
The liquid columns are Doric conduits that connect the architrave of the wind machines and solar devices, to their
hydro-cellular batteries below. They are nutrient containers that periodically fill and drain the hydroponic garden
that embellishes their base.
Ornamental forms have become experimental functions. We see energy being created and stored, food being grown and
processed and the fabric of knowledge slowly woven throughout. This means that chemistry, molecular biology and physics
can be lived with and learned from and not just studied and forgotten. These are knowledge havens, simple biospheres
that are impervious to air born allergens and chemical contaminants. Shelter that has become shield does not adversely
impact upon the land - pull the plug and they are gone.
