Discovery: a story about rooftops, airships, robots and inflatables_ is an installation exploring themes of worldmaking, ecology and artificial intelligence.
Born out of observations of an emerging rooftop culture of urban gardening and alternative lifestyles in downtown LA during the pandemic, the story of Discovery follows The Airborne Collective, a radical environmental hacker group seeking to make a flourishing roofscape ecosystem and unleash hope and optimism in the face of looming ecological threat.
Operating between the languages of design, fashion and video games, the project extends [Lifeforms.io](http://Lifeforms.io) work on systems and aesthetics of simulated worlds into the space of a physical installation.
In the project, designs operate as the characters in a video game. Even if they can exist individually, the final meaning of designs results from their grouping together to create a particular ensemble. Every piece references and contains a broader whole, a [[World]]
The term "world" here is metaphorical. Its meaning is similar to the one Nelson Goodman uses in Ways of Worldmaking: a world is a formal structure governed by an internally consistent logic.
**Programs and** **Technologies:**
solar photovoltaics
thin film photovoltaics, dichroic film
3d printing from recycled plastic
concentrated solar power using dual axis tracking spherical fresnel reflectors
solar photovoltaic fabric (inflatables)/rubber
microturbines
hydrogen fuel cells
water harvesting fabric
growing lights for farming
solar powered autonomous rewilding robots (SPARRs)
photobioreactors with bioluminescent algae
energy storage units
phytoremediation through local vegetation
water harvesting
passive cooling
carbon scrubbers
composting
greenhouses
aquaponics
biodigesters
greywater recycling
fruit trees
fruit walls
vertical outdoor gardening
water bioflitration
binary low-temperature geothermal units
luminescent solar concentrator (ClearVue)
Vortex Tacoma bladeless wind turbines
microgrid (storage, connections, powerpacks)
walipini style greenhouses
gravity-fed water filtration with botanical cells
bio ceramic domes (Geoship)
seed bank
cistern and drip irigation