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Nature Calls : Nutrient Cycling at the UBC Botanical Garden Polovina, Lorena

Abstract

How can we see waste as a valuable resource? Similar to how fungi break down waste to return nutrients to the ground, composting toilets break down human waste to create valuable soil. Often these spaces are unpleasant and utilitarian in their design approach. The thesis designs an enclosure for MycoToilet, a 6-week pilot demonstration at the UBC Botanical Garden in Summer 2024. It combines existing technologies with new materials to convert human waste to valuable soil products that can be used at the UBC Botanical Garden. Architecture plays the role of enhancing the user experience through a carefully detailed enclosure that closes the loop on waste through the material selection, composting process, and enclosure design. The idiosyncratic form of the composting toilet combines biogenic materials like wood framing and canvas fabric to reflect the temporal nature of the project and create an experience that is familiar yet different, for an architecture that is truly regenerative and engages with broader ecological cycles at various scales.

Item Metadata

Title
Nature Calls : Nutrient Cycling at the UBC Botanical Garden
Creator
Polovina, Lorena
Contributor
University of British Columbia. Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
Date Issued
2024-05-01
Description
How can we see waste as a valuable resource? Similar to how fungi break down waste to return nutrients to the ground, composting toilets break down human waste to create valuable soil. Often these spaces are unpleasant and utilitarian in their design approach. The thesis designs an enclosure for MycoToilet, a 6-week pilot demonstration at the UBC Botanical Garden in Summer 2024. It combines existing technologies with new materials to convert human waste to valuable soil products that can be used at the UBC Botanical Garden. Architecture plays the role of enhancing the user experience through a carefully detailed enclosure that closes the loop on waste through the material selection, composting process, and enclosure design. The idiosyncratic form of the composting toilet combines biogenic materials like wood framing and canvas fabric to reflect the temporal nature of the project and create an experience that is familiar yet different, for an architecture that is truly regenerative and engages with broader ecological cycles at various scales.
Subject
UBC Botanical Garden; composting; nutrient cycling; composting toilets; regenerative; mycelium; mycelium biocomposites
Geographic Location
University of British Columbia. Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
Genre
Graduating Project
Type
Text
Language
eng
Series
University of British Columbia. ARCH 549
Date Available
2024-05-03
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0442284
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88183
Affiliation
Applied Science, Faculty of; Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of
Campus
UBCV
Peer Review Status
Unreviewed
Scholarly Level
Graduate
Copyright Holder
Lorena Polovina
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International