Battery Swap Station

    In the near future fossil fuels will no longer be the preferred way to power our automobile lust. Instead clean, renewable energy sources will be tapped to power a vast array of battery operated vehicles. To do this, infrastructure needs to be designed and built to fully compliment specific regions climate, energy production, and aesthetic values.

   In this case I have imagined a simple solution to a complicated problem; how do we travel long distances on batteries with low range? The answer is an elegant mixture of engineering and function, we merge the power grid with our automobiles.

   A battery swap station is a combination of facilities which can utilize existing technology. Somewhat similar to a car wash, the idea is that your car has a swappable battery unit built in, which you rent from a local power utility. These units are of a universal design which will be easily transferred between vehicles at this station. When you are at home or commuting, you simply plug into a serial outlet which will come complementary with the system. But when traveling long distance, it makes no sense to stop and charge a battery, so you pull into this automated station and it does all the work for you in less than five minutes.

    Stations such as this will replace gas stations and have a similar footprint, replacing large underground tanks with automated charging bays. It is also important to note that these buildings can come in a variety of layouts, with different local flavors. What makes these services viable is a large scale adoption of the technology among many Americans and car companies.

  
    In this instance I have designed a building which one may find at the I-90 Columbia River crossing near Vantage. Wind farms string out along ridges to the East and West, and the Grand Coulee Dam generates power to the South. With this technology and plentiful resources nearby the station would be extremely efficient and have a very low impact on the surrounding environment. Sunlight and large windows would play a big part in heating and cooling during the hotter months of the year, while in the colder months the heat generated through charging could be circulated throughout the building.