June 28, 2016 by CallisonRTKL

Brainstorming: rainmaking buildings could alleviate California drought

Michael Militello and Amar Shah discuss cloud seeding and the skylines of the future.

Originally published on eVolo as a part of the 2016 eVolo Skyscrapers Competition, in which this project received an honorable mention.

Droughts are a recurring feature of California’s climate, and the current four-year period starting from the fall of 2011 has been the driest in history since recordkeeping began in 1895. California is also the world’s fifth-largest supplier of food, and most of the region’s farming depends on irrigation, usually accounting for about 80 percent of the state’s human water use. In 2014, California growers lost about 6.6 million acre-feet of surface water and 2.2 billion dollars because of the drought.

California, like much of the rest of the planet, is in dire need of immediate rain and snowfall, long-term water conservation and storage strategies, and responsible architectural designs that incorporate innovative technologies to help preserve the earth’s environment— before it’s too late.

The solution may come from the sky.

Cloud seeding has been around for many decades. China used cloud seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in order to clear the air of pollution. Farmers in the Midwestern United States shoot flares of silver iodide out of planes to help spur rainfall in that region. It is becoming a more and more popular weather modification tool to help combat drought, famine, pollution, solar radiation and more.

The process, despite its enormously important results, is relatively straightforward. Clouds contain super-cooled liquid water vapor. A rainstorm happens after moisture collects around naturally occurring particles in the air, causing the air to reach a level of saturation at which point it can no longer hold in that moisture. The process of cloud seeding essentially provides additional “nuclei” around which water vapor molecules condense in the cloud. These nuclei can be salts, dry ice or silver iodide— all of which are effective because their crystalline structural forms are similar to that of ice. The water vapor molecules combine with the added crystals to induce freezing nucleation, resulting in larger, heavier water droplets and, eventually, precipitation.

But how could cloud seeding be implemented on a larger, more urban scale?

Our innovative architectural concept imagines a future earth where cloud seeding has become the standard process to modify and manipulate the weather; one where, after years of practice, scientists have been able to pinpoint the exact amount and timing of the release of chemical mixtures in order to alter the path of a cloud after seeding and predict where the rainfall will occur. Thus, rainfall is dispersed or “doled out” to cities and towns further inland that are suffering from drought.

Towers, called cloud pylons, would be erected near the coast so that, as the lower marine layer clouds pass overhead, they can be seeded at different times and intervals, causing precipitation to occur in as little as 10 minutes.

The towers themselves take on the aesthetics of a tree. Great limbs stretch to the sky; cloud farms grow like fungi off these architectural limbs. The upper levels of the tower act as a self-sustaining community– cloud seeders jettison the salt + iodide mixture into the air forcing the clouds to precipitate. Cable netting attached to the towers then catches the rainfall and siphons it down to irrigate the farms that line the sides of the building, and the farms in turn provide food for the community. Residential flats line the cloud pylons, housing the farmers and workers of the tower.

Cloud seeding can result in many positive environmental outcomes including temperature control, flooding prevention, decreasing pollution, dispersing fog, and deflecting solar radiation. But looking to the future, cloud seeding could do so much more. Though our towers might be a reflection of a skyline in the very distant future, the ideas behind them represent a push toward creating building that not only leave minimal impact of the environment but that actually make the surrounding environment better.

Our heads might be in the clouds, but they’re brainstorming.

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CallisonRTKL

For more than five decades, Callison and RTKL have created some of the world’s most memorable and successful environments for developers, retailers, investors, institutions and public entities. In 2015, our two practices came together under the Arcadis umbrella, expanding our sphere of influence and the depth and breadth of our resources. Our team is comprised of nearly 2,000 creative, innovative professionals throughout the world who are committed to advancing our client’s businesses and enhancing quality of life.