Yifei Yuan

1. Core I: Times Square Billboard Garden
2. Core II: W • A • L • L - More Highschool
3. Core III: Courtyard House
4. Advance IV: A City Run By The Youth
5. Advance V: New York Industrial Dairy Farm Tower
6. Advance VI: Olkaria Geothermal Steam Pipe Hacking Train
7. 2GB: University of Curiosity
   
8. 1GB: The Diptych kindergarden
   
9. The Room As ...
10. Vertical Transportation & Structure
11. Desert Oasis
12. /æ/
    

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New York Industrial Dairy Farm Tower Course: ADVANCE V STUDIO Year: FALL 2022 Instructor: NAHYUN HWANG
This project describes the future of industrial mega-dairy farm by bringing it to dense urban context - Manhattan. It transforms an existing typical office tower into a vertical dairy production site as a liveshow to evidence the air pollution through dairy production and cattle raising (Image 1: Architecture Taking Over Cow Grassland). The Life of A Dairy Cow (Image 2) describes the major sectors of a dairy cow from her birth to death. In research of the industrial dairy process and its relation to air pollution with a focus on site context and facility space, major industrial machines are pinpointed in the drawing including Collective Cattle Housing, Rotary Parlor, Milk Tank,Cow Fence, Open Air Grazing Yard, and On-site Transportation. The air pollution produced by dairy cows is underestimated, it produces 2/3 of the ammonia in the US and no less CO₂ compared to air pollution by car. This drawing shows how the air is produced in daily life in industrial dairy farms. It starts on the top left corner of the drawing. The cattle is born and then moved to a mega size barn with hundreds of other cows. The ammonia in cow’s waste is directly expelled into open air. The milking parlor enables 50-100 cows to be milked all together. There is a huge amount of cows waiting outside the milking parlor producing a lot of waste which emits ammonia and CO2. In the middle, it shows cows as a product of colonization by Europeans and it changed the mode of agriculture in the US. From small village and farm land to larger planetary and to industrialized dairy farms.


Dairy Architecture (Image 3) shows an example of a mega-size industrial dairy farm located close to Phoenix, Arizona. It houses 80,000 cows. It illustrates the major fertility in industrialized dairy farms and how air pollution is generated when cows interact with the machines and architecture. The 8 boxes on the edge show the most air polluted fertility such as the waste pool, the barn where cartels eat, and the milking refrigerating fertility. The process of producing cow feed is also producing air pollution, actually 96% of the corn production is going into the dairy industry. In the middle, it is the site drawing of the mega-size industrial dairy farm. It not only produces air pollution gas such as CO₂, methane, and ammonia, but also creates ground water shortage and lowering the bedrock for other crop use. It also illustrates major dairy products such as milk, cheese, and butter. The production and transportation of dairy products creates even more air pollution than the raising of dairy cows. Essentially, dairy farms and dairy product factories are located far away from the city - where the consumer and business takes place. The process of milking is separated from human daily life and therefore the air pollution through these processes is not evidenced and unseen in people’s daily life.

Mega Size Dairy Farm and The City (Image 4) describes four scenarios where dairy farms parallel the city. (1) Waste Water, Cattle Feed, Transportation & Air Pollution: Dairy farms consist of separate facilities and machines which form a closed loop system: a production line. The system can be categorised in four major steps: Cattle Living, Milking Production, Waste Control, and Transportation. Air pollution in dairy farms is mostly connected with cattle waste such as wastewater lagoon, on-site transportation, and milking process. (2) Collective Cattle Barn & Jail Cells: This drawing shows the metaphor of diary fertility with architecture for humans, such as the barn where cows live is similar to the cells in the jails. There is an architectural parallel between the living condition of cows to the fenced space of jail cells. The fence becomes the wall and the barn to a grid square castle. (3) Cow Invading Office Plan & Tower of Milking Parlor: This drawing tries to imagine a world where cows take over a human living space most common to Manhattan - the office grid plan. It then enlarges the scene from one divided office grid to a highrise tower made of a milking parlor. It is trying to bring forward the daily dairy product consumption hidden behind people’s daily life. (4) Cow Outdoor Grazing as Courtyard & Building Block Fence the Dairy Farm: This drawing shows the metaphor of diary fertility co-exists with architecture for humans, such as the apartment blocks surrounding the dairy farm. The enclosed central courtyard for people to enjoy the sun becomes the outdoor grazing field for cows. It tries to bring urban blocks into the sub-urban field and also emerges the human living condition with the dairy cow.

Currently, the process of milk production is separated from human daily life and therefore the air pollution through these processes is not evidenced and unseen in people’s daily life. It is necessary to bring dairy farms into urban fabrics. Dairy Farm & Urban Blocks Juxtaposition (Image 5)  shows the attempt to bring the dairy farm and cow into dense urban context and image each city block as a walled room. Each walled room presents a type of diary facility. The barn block is next to an urban block, which is adjacent to an outdoor grazing room. It sees the urban context as an exhibition space for diary programs to re-distribute and co-exist with the city structures and urban fabrics. Because an industrial dairy farm requires a large amount of land, it is also necessary to develop from horizontal to vertical massing - vertical urban farms. Urban Farms and Vertical Diary Structure (Image 6) shows another dairy farm scenario, Cow Waste Fertiliser Plant Growing Center. It is a plant growing space layered and stacked as highrise typology , forming a floor of plat plot and grazing space for cows and other domestic animals such as pigs and chickens. This drawing tries to show a design attempt to verticalize the diary facility into a tower and re-distribute diary programs into each floor. It aims to decrease air pollution produced by cow waste by recycling and reuse of the cow waste as fertilizer for urban farm and vegetable growing.

If we bring the dairy farm from Phoenix, Arizona to New York, its size is similar to Central Park (Image 9). In order to feed people in New York with a typical amount of daily milk consumption - 3 glasses of 8 ounce, 34 industrial dairy farms with equal size to the Arizona mega size dairy farms are needed. To sustain all the cows in those 34 industrial dairy farms, land with the size equal to 12.5 Central Park is needed to produce enough cow feed. Therefore to supply New York’s populations with enough milk, cheese, and dairy products, around 13 Central park's land are needed for agricultural and pastoral production. To acknowledge New York people with this animal husbandry ecosystem, Manhattan can be a context for 34 industrial dairy farms as Dairy Flagship / Boutique (Image 10). The project tries to bring the existence of cow and cow’s air into the city and be evident through the daily life of ordinary people in Manhattan. To make the dairy farm and urban context coexist, it is necessary to stack/layer the existing diary facility and programs into a vertical structure. The attempt is to occupy 34 different locations and sites in New York/Manhattan to fit all the dairy farms required to sustain New Yorkers appetizers for dairy products. 

These 34 dairy sites will serve as boutique or flagship stores to form a complex system of cow raising, waste recycling, milking production, and air pollution reduction treatment. At the same time, it can be seen as an education center for air pollution in the dairy industry and tourist attraction. Image 11 and 12 are different possible massing proposals to occupy 34 unique sites in Manhattan. Such locations could be civil such as the library at Bryant Park (Image 12), or commercial such as a typical Manhattan office tower (Image 12), or infrastructural such as framed Domino structure linking Hudson river to the apartments in the inner city (Image 11). Dairy Farm As High-rise (Image 12) proposes a tower typology with a linear plan. It can be situated in Manhattan where a linear tower existed such as the UN headquarter. Its mechanical structure is exposed to the exterior to emphasize the air pollution and ventilation. Dairy Farm As Civic Park (Image 12) proposes a civic typology with a square plan at Bryant Park. It is elevated above ground to maintain the existing public park. It is a civic park in which methane produced by cows are reused to power the park features. Dairy Farm As Civic Block (Image 12) proposes a civic typology with a circular plan. It is located in Bryant Park besides the Central Library. Roof Garden is used to graze cows and ammonia is reused through hot balloons.

Highrises and offices in Manhattan can be seen as a site to transform a typical office tower into a vertical dairy farm and to emphasize the consumption by humans and the source of dairy products (Image 13: Section). The site is 1166 avenue of America - a typical office tower with a square plan close to Bryant park, at the northeast corner of the intersection of 5th Avenue and West 45 Street. Dairy production and the air cow produced through industrialized dairy farms becomes a stage for human activities. There is tension between these two different and interdependent living environments - Tension Between Human Living Environment and Dairy Cow’s Field (Image 13). People need fresh air to maintain daily activities, but dairy cows produce tons of ammonia, methane, and carbon dioxide which invade clean and fresh air areas. To further emphasize and address the critical air pollution problem, air pipes, ventilation duct, and mechanical tubes will be installed and exposed outside of the building facade to allow people walking on the street to see the process (Image 14: Exploded AXON). Level 1-16 is Barn Grazing Courtyard + Office + Milking Parlor + Gas Tank + Air Pipe + Recycled Air Pipe in Private-Owned-Public-Park (Image 14, 15). The lobby is surrounded by Air pipes extruded from the basement mechanical room which exhaust polluted air to the street. Old air pipes are recycled and placed in the backyard private owned public park. Level 2 is a grazing courtyard, Level 3 is an office in the poché area, and level 4-5 is a barn with open to below holes. Level 6 is normal offices with 3 milking parlors stacking above. Level 10-12 is half office and half cow’s yard. Level 13-18 are gas tanks and air treatment centres. Level 13-37 is Barn Office + Gas Tank + Milking Parlor + Air Pipe (Image 14, 15). Dairy cows live in a barn to collect air through air pipes and transport into the gas center located in the existing mechanical floor. Barn is inserted into the normal office floor. Office floors above the existing mechanical floor (Lv. 13) are opened up to place a huge gas tank. Milking parlors stark above the office floor to allow witnesses of polluted air emission. Level 19-41 is Barn Grazing Courtyard + Milk Tank/Milk Bar + Office + Atrium (Image 14, 15). Offices and barn with an open central atrium are at level 19-24 (Image 24). The milk tank and milk bar are located in level 33-38, and grazing courtyard with poché offices and barn at level 39-44. Level 25-44 is Barn Office + Grazing Courtyard + Balloon + Air Pipe (Image 14, 15). At the top portion of the tower, floor 42-44 is opened up to create a roof garden. Level 39 is the grazing courtyard, level 40 is the office in the poché area, and level 41 is the barn. Balloons filled with recycled methane are floating in the roof garden for education tours. Barns occupy the perimeter of office floors below the roof garden. Air pipes allow air to be transported from the lower floor to the top.

Floor 13-18 is air collecting and treatment center where level 13 is the existing mechanical plan (Image 16). It will be transformed into the central air treatment center which collects all air produced by cow’s by air pipe. Half of the floor plate above it (FL 14-18) will be removed to allow installation of huge gas tanks and air filtration machines (Image 17). The waste and polluted air can be seen as they move through the pipe into the central air treatment center (Image 23). Floor 2-4 / 39-41 is a 4 level stack of cow’s grazing field at bottom, office in poché area ay middle, and double story height barn with open to below holes at the top (Image 16). The plan in the lower left shows the plan of the grazing field. Thick walled poché will divide the square plan into 16 courtyards. It will be filled with grass hills, stone fields, and a huge spiral ramp for cows to move up to barn level (Image 18). Small pockets will be cut into the poché wall for meeting rooms and offices. Poché walls are also cut open to allow cows to move between grazing courtyards.
Floor 6 to 9 is the vertical stack of rotary milking parlors and Floor 10-12 shows 3 levels of cow’s grazing field invading the office grid (Image 19). The vertical circulation of the existing building is split between the human use and the dairy farm, and a 3rd vertical circulation is added for education tours and access to the milk bar. Existing floor plates are cut open to allow the dairy farm to merge into the building. Floor 6 is the existing typical office plan and floor 7-9 are stacking rotary milking parlor levels. Cow’s waste and milk will drop down to the office below, making the environment dirty and smelly. Catwalks connect 4 parlours together with the elevation for cow and dairy workers (Image 20). Floors above a regular office plan are removed to allow installation of rotary milking parlors. Each Milking floor consists of 4 Milking parlours connected by catwalk to the elevator. Three floors of each assembly stack above the office. Cows walk around the milking parlor on the catwalk and produce cow poops along the path. Polluted air will merge into the office and ventilation will work to cycle fresh air back. Dairy workers constantly move around the catwalk to participate in the milking process. Floor 10 is a double story labyrinth of walls for the office (Image 21). It has huge open to below cuts to allow people to see the milking process. Short walls allow cows to pass by, while longer walls only allow people to walk through. Level 12 is a smaller plan for people to observe below by looking down to the perimeter. Cow will invade into the space for people and grass slowly occupies the office area.

These 2 plans show the vertical stack of the milk tank from level 33 to 38 (Image 22). Milk tanks are inserted into the floor with a height of 1.2m above floor to be used as a table for restaurant and milk bar seating. It is enclosed by milk tanks and linked to the circulation path at the perimeter of the plan by catwalks. One staircase is added to allow vertical circulation for education tours and observation of the milk tanks. Huge open to below space allows people to see the entire assembly of milk tank stacking. Floor 34, 36, 38 are milk tanks with an office. Small dividing walls separate the space into cubics for small office space. Milk tanks stand beside the office table and offer milk tasting through the tank head cap. Floor 33, 35, 37 are milk tanks with restaurants. The milk tanks used as tables are alternating each floor. In the drawing, circles with black highlights are milk tanks installed through the floor height. Some milk tank’s flat surfaces are used as restaurant tables and the milk tank above can provide fresh milk to the table.

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