Environment

Giant mushrooms to greenify downtown LA using sewage

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The mushroom-shaped solar evaporators of the winning Project Umbrella entry
The Project Umbrella submission
The Project Umbrella submission
The mushroom-shaped solar evaporators of the winning Project Umbrella entry
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Mushroom-shaped solar evaporators have taken out first place in a competition asking architects, landscape architects, designers, engineers, urban planners, students and environmental professionals to create an innovative urban vision for a several-mile-long development zone on the eastern edge of downtown LA. The Project Umbrella submission features a series of umbrella-like structures designed to clarify black water from city sewage which would then be used to encourage the growth of surrounding trees and plants.

The Los Angeles Cleantech Corridor and Green District Competition was sponsored by The Architect’s Newspaper and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). It was presented with the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles, which established the Clean Tech Corridor, a planned 2,000‐acre mixed-use development zone near downtown LA.

The Umbrella entry by Constantin Boincean, Ralph Bertram, Aleksandra Danielak from Oslo, Norway, took out first place US$5,000 prize for the Professional Category of the competition which attracted 70 entries. The structures would take black water from city sewage that would be cleaned in the dome through a process of solar evaporation. The clarified water would then be distributed and released into the streets through a process of evaporation and condensation to transform the surrounding areas into greener public spaces.

The competition was designed to provide an open ideas forum for “provocative, even revolutionary, new visions of LA’s urban fabric and infrastructure,” so even though Project Umbrella took out first place, there’s no guarantee LA residents will see giant mushroom-shaped structures popping up in the Clean Tech Corridor anytime soon.

Via Bustler

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6 comments
Facebook User
hahahahahah giant shroom.
Matt Rings
Giant mushrooms full of sewage... what happens when they break open when hit by one of those cop car chases? Plenty of shade for the homeless, too. This is a win-win for the city!
agulesin
well, I wouldn\'t fancy walking around under tons of (to put it kindly!) \"black water\"...
after the water has evaporated, what happens to the waste which we understand would contain human pathogens? [Any disease-producing agent (especially a virus, bacterium or other microorganism)]
Will, the tink
agulesin, are you forgetting about the sterilization properties of UV sunlight? Still, there might be the odor problem. And just what is \"black water\"? I know what grey water but this sounds even worse. As with any new technology, there needs to be studies to back up the idea or they will have to be done before the investment peoples will be happy with it.
Katelin Medlen
what will the \"giant mushrooms\" take place of?
Michael Price
corpse eating mushrooms, now waste storage mushrooms. soon well deposit trash in mushrooms. mushroom mushroom