Recovering the Superfluous

Learning about Treherbert, its identity, and the community initially stems from its history. Treherbert, a former coal mining town, has a steady decline in revenue and viable income, needing more resources due to the deterioration of the town's growth. Conversing with community members clarified a required innovative approach to boosting their economy, revamping and making them feel valued and heard. We may see it as a coal mine, but it symbolizes the community's hardship, loss, and poverty. The collective food system, the 'growing' group, has designed agGrow Territories consisting of three components: production, consumption, and waste.

My proposal will primarily focus on food waste management, turning waste into biogas, compost and fertilizer. The facility will also solve issues such as carbon emissions and landfill overflow. The Wastescape: Recovering the Surpluflous addresses food waste recycling from an educational and general public perspective. After a comprehensive analysis of the food waste composition in Wales and analysis based on the waste management technologies (thermal and non-thermal conversion), Anaerobic Digestion will be the primary technology for treating food waste into biogas, compost and fertilizer, aiming to provide energy for the food hub and Herbtopia cosmetic lab.

Despite its apparent advantages, the Anaerobic Digester Plant's CO2 emissions throughout the energy and composting processes make this technology less than ideal. Here, the development of algae is significant. In this case, microalgae produce oxygen 400x faster than trees by absorbing the carbon emissions released from the Anaerobic Digester. The main idea of developing architecture is to refer to the significant history of Treherbert while still becoming a new landmark that represents a green future. The facility has three masses; a recycling facility, an educational visitor's centre, and an energy production facility. Visitors will enter the Visitor's Center as a starting point of their journey. Once they enter, they will be accompanied to an exposed atrium informing the public of what will occur throughout the learning bridge. Upstairs in the atrium is an exhibit to learn about environmental issues. The exhibition then guides through the recycling centre on an observation deck overlooking the beginning stage of the recycling process.

The outdoor areas include circular movement around an algae tower exposed pipeline on ground level showing the waste transferring to the pre-treatment tanks in the energy production centre. While following the channel, the bridge guides guests to observe the algae tower and its growing process. This tower collects rainwater that is pumped into the bioreactor tubes, starting the process of algae growth. Based on Naturbag Carbon equivalency, it calculates that if 90% of food waste has been recycled and diverted to compost and biogas, 312,122 net pounds of CO2 will be saved annually.