Cloud Aviary

Wetlands serve as natural water filters to bigger bodies of water, but quarrying has had a drastic impact on them. The chosen site for this project is The Marblehead Quarry, the largest quarry in Ohio. Typically, quarries are abandoned after extracting all the material and they never return to their original state. The goal for this project was to create a building that would mainly serve the surrounding environment. To better understand Ohio’s biohabitats, the Great Egret Marsh Preserve and the Lakeside Daisy State Nature Preserve served as precedents. The site plan contains a combination of both types of environments to create wider range of biodiversity. A radial configuration of canals goes through the whole site to serve as natural water filters. There is also a grid of board walks which respond to the environment to properly display its distinctive landscape and biodiversity, such as birds, ponds, and rocky terrains. The building contains a geothermal system that would benefit the nature preserve and surrounding neighborhoods. It produces both electricity and clean water for the nearby homes, while also emitting fog to dampen the surrounding land. As for the shape, a tension ring structure with cable netting was chosen with the intention of incorporating the geothermal system into it, so that the netting itself emits the fog. This tensile structure would also function as the enclosure for an aviary, as both precedent nature preserves house many bird species. Although this project’s main purpose is to explore architecture as a means of restoration, it still provides extensive circulation and a viewing space for those interested in the display of the restored landscape. The impact of architecture on the natural environment is a big discourse topic, but it is projects like these that begin to reincorporate human efforts towards the environment through innovative tools.