APOLLO

At its core, the home is a vessel for our memories, especially for those things that no longer have a physical presence.  Often with the complexities of life we find ourselves moving away from the one place that has served as a vestige for those memories.  With the changes in global climate and communication we are increasingly becoming more nomadic if not necessarily by choice.  The idea of being financially bound by the 3 “L’s” of real estate is also changing.

We propose an idea of a home that has the physical capabilities to move with the owner as the owner finds it necessary to move.  In this scenario we imagine that an owner would own their home but not necessarily the land.  Brownfield sites around the country could be converted to docking stations for the mobile unit with the intent of also restoring the ecology of the land. That urban density enables docking stations to serve as sustainable “trees” on the landscape generating water and air through its “living” metal organic framework skin.  The living and upwardly growing structures require less impact on the land and yet also provide a constantly changing mobile architecture that is about the relationship of form and time.  

The APOLLO Living Unit is approximately 25 square meters in floor area and provides a small living area, kitchen and bar, hydroponic garden terrarium, bathroom, closet and sleeping loft.

Built into the facade of the APOLLO Living Unit will be The ASHA Panel. Asha; derived from Sanskrit origin meaning “hope, desire, life”. The ASHA Panel produces clean water from only natural sunlight using MOF-801-P. MOF-801-P is a zirconium microcrystalline metal organic framework in powder form developed by Evelyn Wang (MIT) & Omar Yaghi (UC Berkeley). 

A brownfield is a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. It is estimated that there are more than 450,000 brownfields in the U.S. Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties increases local tax bases, facilitates job growth, utilizes existing infrastructure, takes development pressures off of undeveloped, open land, and both improves and protects the environment.

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