Wind Research

Building off of the Solar Tree project, I began work in wind research in the summer of 2025 as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Architecture, on Governors Island. The focus of the project was to advance my research into designing and implementing public architectural interventions that integrate renewable energy sources that provide community-based access to electricity. The aim of these design interventions was to increase the visibility and public acceptance of renewable energy sources by providing firsthand experiences that enhance the potential of public gathering spaces. Through design, I want to encourage shared use of public space, enrich user experiences, and foster positive interactions with renewable energy technologies.

This project is an exploration of wind energy through research, technical learning and embodiment. By setting out to design and build a wind turbine, I committed myself to studying  them as machines, as architecture, and as complex socially charged sustainable energy infrastructure. 

It is through this research that the technical and public intersect and provide fertile space for exploration of form and intention. The fellowship on Governors Island provided a unique opportunity to design, build and explore placement of small portable test turbines within a variety of landscapes as a tool to envision relationships between wind driven forms and local architectural vernacular. The Island is a strange contradiction of new and old, developed and abandoned, with lush greenspaces filled with visitors, all surrounded by a busy waterway of constant traffic, and wind. There was always a new corner to explore, a slope to observe and measure. By making small light prototypes, I was able to test not only forms and technical performance, but also ask-what about here?

The residency at IPA on Governors Island provided an ideal research base to plan trips around the city and surrounding communities to investigate and observe the use of public spaces in neighborhoods . Specifically mapping out pocket parks and surveying the use and interaction in these spaces, conducting informal information interviews and site based visualization or prototyping of small scale temporary interventions. 

The open landscape on Governors island provided space for creative methods of sun tracking and wind measurement. Being a harbor island in the upper bay, Governors island has wind and sun with little architectural interruption to test prototypes and acquire baseline performance measurements to compare with external site measurements that may feature architectural interference.

The path to developing the larger projects begins with small studies, creative mapping, drawing and thoughtful play with materials in the landscape. These small non intrusive interventions could act as temporary site specific acts that engage with island architecture, environment.