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CLAY COOLING

Project Category

Student Workshop, EiABC

Date

2018-19

Location

Addis Ababa, ET

Team

Initial Project proposal: Melat Assefa + Julia Mauser with Edouard Cabay + Andrea di Stefano

Clay is a material that has been used to: cool water; carry seeds; protect people from weather; and to preserve food. The proposed module introduces its contemporary approach and design to improve the culture of food preservation in Addis Ababa. During the course of the workshop, collaboration was set between EiABC and a local women’s crafts cooperative dedicated to clay-based products who worked with participants to produce the double layered pots.
Clay cooling is a food preservation + waste reduction research for local markets in Addis Ababa.
The project consist of a study based on a USD 50k research grant (gulit project) and a student workshop (clay cooling) on designing and building sustainable system of food storage, in turn adding value to small scale vendors, while improving the quality and health of their produce.
It was conducted between 2015 - 2017 .The workshop was held in 2016 at the EiABC. It aims to provide an alternative stall constructed out of double-layered pots made out of clay. They will be geometrically placed as to define space at the same time creating a passive cold storage system throughout the gulit.

The double layered clay pot functions as an evaporative cooling system. Inspired from a zeer pot – an evaporative cooling refrigeration device, traditionally used in West Africa and the Middle East- it is made of two layers of clay with a sand and water filled cavity in the middle. The outer layer of the pot, exposed to hot dry air sweats water, which in turn evaporates and provokes a heat exchange, cooling down the inner layer. The inner chamber of the pot can be used as food storage reach lower temperatures than the ambient air.
During the course of the workshop, a 1:1 empirical test produced a drop in 10ºC. The outer temperature being 26 ºC and the one recorded inside the pot 16 ºC, which is ideal for vegetables.

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