NREL Submission - Product

Product

Function and Benefit: A complete virtual model of an eco-city campus, called a GaiaShip, allows for rapid site design and customization, exact resource and cost estimates, and hyper accurate construction schedules. The integration of municipal services like waste recycling and renewable power generation provide highly desirable selling points for both the municipalities and the end-users. Buildings that provide net positive power to the local grid and only barely rely on existing municipal waste and water treatment systems will be quickly approved by cash strapped municipal governments. Environmentally friendly housing with walkable retail, office and transportation systems integrated in them are highly attractive to an aging suburban populace, young high tech students and workers, families and New-Urban enthusiasts. Building a GaiaShip is dramatically cheaper due to the elimination of waste from the construction process and the dramatic compression of time from ground breaking to ribbon-cutting. Selling a GaiaShip to a management company is also correspondingly easier than normal. It has built in revenue streams from surplus power generation and a highly marketable product for end-users and home-owners. Development Stage: Stage 1: Engineering and model development (Current); Stage 2: manufacturing system design. Stage 3: marketing and sales Future Needs: Prototype campus with a forward thinking Land Developer and Builder

I crammed a ton of information into the above blurb; let's dissect it a bit.

The model is the key. And we're not talking here about a simple three dimensional 1/20th scale thing that you display in the lobby to wow your visitors. We're talking about a fully detailed virtual building. Running water, power generation, wires & pipes all integrated into the structure.

What's the benefit of that!? Well, the most common complaint a construction company has is the architectural plans are pretty - but not possible because of x,y and don't forget Z!! With a full function building with all it's pipes laid out, it's wires run, it's duct work in place there is *never* a need for a change order. No more need to say 'Oh shit - lets move this wall over a bit', or 'how are we possibly going to get a pipe over there!?' Change orders are the bane of a construction time-line and one of the major cost-sinks. Some of this is addressed by simply having extremely detailed plans, 3d drawings and a really good set of engineers engaged early in the design phase of the project. This gets us through the first 3D's.

The last 2 D's time and cost fall into the bucket of the module construction. With a BIM model you can fairly easily define blocks, panels and other components to be constructed in a factory or multiple factories. With a manufacturing line to back those modules up; you can now *much* more accurately forecast the time it's going to take to build pieces. You have no weather delays and are able to set working hours reliably. You can also begin to take advantage of supply chain management and other advantages of a factory... like multiple trailers at the job-site, machines and robots that cannot be deployed at a construction site, air conditioning for your workers and security for your supplies.

So the product we're putting together here isn't just the structure: how you put the blocks together, wire the walls and pipe the floors; we're integrating manufacturing specifications. Most module manufacturers will be outsourced partnerships to help control the supply line and allow for redundancy, site location flexibility and liability distribution. Manufacturers could sign up to be mass-producers for the wall panels; or custom artisan shops for art-deco interiors. Both would configure to our structural specifications so that their modules would snap in (and out - deconstruction rather than demolition). I anticipate artisan shops being created in clusters, even on-site of these mixed use communities and provide long term localization and customization for folks looking to re-do and upgrade their interiors.

So the question becomes - why not just build models of the blocks - why focus on the Gaia-Ship as the model - it's HUGE!?.

We have to have *something* we can show people on how it all can fit together. Everyone and everything in the pool so to speak. We need to be able to show a facility that can play host to ten thousand people, be a net positive energy producer; sip a the local water supply only when necessary; provide it's own food, jobs, retail, walking parks, etc. We have to show what you can DO with the blocks for people to begin to see the value of the blocks themselves. By it's very nature and scale, it will garner significant media and public attention. It's a marketing ploy and excellent exercise even if we never actually build a single, complete GaiaShip community.

And then, once we've proven the virtual model works (wind tunnels & number crunching galore) we tweak it; miniaturize it and bring it down in scale to broaden the market reach. Since we're doing this with pre-made blocks and manufacturing it's a matter of simple assembly. This is the aspect I plan to 'open-source'. We provide the blocks & standards and we encourage, allow and promote the social development of new structures; building shapes and configurations. The popular ones get chosen by a construction firm. We develop the complete BIM 5D model and charge our 20%. Foundations start getting poured and module factories all kick into gear. The construction company finishes their button-up and sells it to the highest bidder. The bank gets paid and the public gets another 'Deep-Green' option when they look for their next home.

Let's talk a brief bit about this new buzzword - "Deep Green" Green has become pretty ubiquitous; so much so that it's impact is being blunted. When you are aiming to allow 10 thousand people to live sustainably then you can start looking at 'Deep Green' as a classification. This level of sustainability is usually reserved for amazonian tribes that don't wear clothes and haven't learned to burn the forest around them to graze their cattle. People who have been doing the same things for generations without count, able to live in harmony with the earth and their surroundings. Now, I'm not claiming that we can totally turn around the culture that spawned movies like Super-Size me and An Inconvenient Truth; but I am saying that when you have people able to take advantage of high-tech green living features like on-site food production; waste management; space age water recycling; and walking to the store in a built environment that doesn't inconvenience them ...

if you build it - they will come.