[ HARVEST ] The insect : an experimental biotic platform for species interaction, research and production

Abstract

The study contemplates the idea that, as modern man lives and thrives on Earth, we cannot look with anticipation into the future alone, but we have to integrate our every action with the past. Maintaining a delicate balance between past and future is the major struggle and responsibility for mankind. This is also the case for architecture, for it is one of the elemental ties to our past and to our future, because the buildings are the result of history. It is these connections between past and future, building and user, building and site, user and the natural site, which shape the spaces we dwell in. The intention of the study is to create architecture which promotes harmony within these connections between human habitation (future) and the natural world (past), through design approaches so sympathetic and well integrated with its site that buildings, furnishings, and the natural surroundings become part of a unified, interrelated composition. The selected project is a production facility with a fly factory and integrated urban insectary, endangered insect containment research facility, harvesting a natural ecosystem on the old Rosema & Klaver Waterkloof Quarry site in Monument Park, South Africa.