Developing associative models to guide typological strategies for better integrating Waste to Energy plants in an urban context

Abstract

Despite many advantages may be oered including architectural expertise in the design and delivery of industrial buildings and power plants, in recent times it has generally been excluded from this process, probably because of the lack of cleoles for architecture to play in the formulation of these, typically complex and technical, buildings. As population densi-ties increase, growing numbers of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) plants may be needed to cope with mounting volumes of waste, particularly in urban areas. The two-year investigation on WtE by the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design: “Architecture and Waste: A(Re)Planned Obsolescence” (2017ers guidelines and tools allowing designers, the public and other ma-jor stakeholders to reconsider the role of architecture in the design of industrial facilities and demonstrate that architects’ contributions can be crucial to integrating WtE plants within their context and counteracting negative public perceptions of such facilities. This paper provides a detailed account of the development and application of these design tools to waste to energy architectural projects.