Air Quality Pavilion: Rethinking Shared Spaces

Description

Since the pandemic, social distancing along with the need for additional space and appropriate ventilation has become hugely important. Because of this, I wanted to also explore the concept of a POP-UP Pavilion - A pavilion that could be installed in different locations to provide space & healthy indoor air quality solutions where needed, by monitoring and then reacting to air quality.
There are a range of settings that could benefit from this, including classrooms, maker spaces & eating areas in the hospitality sector, to name just a few.

I developed a scaled-down working model of this pavilion concept and will ultimately create a workshop based on it that will enable me to deliver hands-on sessions to other young people - giving them the opportunity to explore how spaces can monitor & react to internal air quality in order to improve the experience of the community of users.

Details

Air quality is something that is usually invisible to us so it is easy to ignore but it does have an impact on us from day to day, “carrying respiratory diseases which affect the probability of you getting infections".

The CO2 level in a closed space is “a good indicator of air quality and can highlight the need for ventilation”. Well-ventilated rooms are crucial for reducing the spread of airborne viruses. Lower CO2 levels are also “linked to improved learning outcomes and better cognitive performance”. In today’s world, this suggests that the way we design, equip & operate our shared spaces is more important than ever.

My project is about exploring the concept of a POP-UP Pavilion - A pavilion that could be installed in different locations to provide space & healthy indoor air quality solutions where needed

I produced a scaled-down pavilion that uses an internal sensor to monitor & then trigger various reactions to the CO2 levels from inside. The reactions include opening & closing motorized shutter walls, an automatic sliding skylight, a ventilation fan & color-coded CO2 level warning lights.

I have used stepper motors & servos to generate the movement and an Adafruit ESP 32-S2 as the brain stacked with a TFT screen to display the air quality data from the wall of the pavilion. The data is also visualized via IoT on Adafruit IO.

I coded the project using Circuit Python to control the stepper motors, the servos, the Neopixels, the fan, the CO2 sensor, and the TFT screen. I also used CircuitPython to code the visualization of the data on Adafruit IO.

Click on the link below for all details of my Pop-Up Pavilion :

https://github.com/Avmaker/Pavilion

Files

pavilion_iot.py

x-python-script - 4.75 kB - 09/02/2022 at 13:27

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code.py

x-python-script - 4.38 kB - 09/02/2022 at 13:27

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Acrylic stepmount1 stepmount2 (1).dtd

Document Type Definition - 267.95 kB - 09/02/2022 at 13:10

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Base Rim jigpieces comb (1).dtd

Document Type Definition - 293.42 kB - 09/02/2022 at 13:10

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Roof hatch mechanism (1).dtd

Document Type Definition - 249.97 kB - 09/02/2022 at 13:10

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Components

1 × Adafruit ESP32-S2 Feather with BME280 Sensor

1 × Adafruit Stepper Motor Featherwing

1 × Adafruit TFT FeatherWing - 2.4" 320x240. Touchscreen For All Feathers

1 × Adafruit SCD 40 - True CO2, Temperature and Humidity Sensor

2 × Mini Stepper Motor - 200 Steps - 20x30mm NEMA-8 Size (2 off)

Project Logs

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The Air Quality Pavilion - From Concept to Fully Working Prototype
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 19:39 • 0 comments

The Air Quality Pavilion - From concept to fully working prototype
Wiring
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 14:10 • 0 comments

Here is a diagram of the wiring of the Pavilion
Attaching The Skylight Panel to The Roof
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 13:48 • 0 comments

Attaching the skylight panel to the roof
Testing Servo for Skylight
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 13:38 • 0 comments

Testing the servo for the opening of the Skylight
Adding Layers To The Pavilion Wall
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 13:33 • 0 comments

Adding layers to the Pavilion wall
Testing Large Shutter Wall
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 13:31 • 0 comments

Testing the large shutter wall
Testing of my Stepper Motors
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 13:27 • 0 comments

Tests to see if my stepper motors could handle the load.
Flat Wall & Small Shutters
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 13:24 • 0 comments

The flat wall was a lot simpler to create as it wasn’t built up in layers and therefore needed less material. The louvres were smaller & lighter so that a much smaller stepper motor could be used to open and close them. Plus it gave me an opportunity to explore a different way of attaching the louvres to the wall.
Securing & Concealing The Big Stepper Motor
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 13:22 • 0 comments

I chose to operate the shutter walls with stepper motors, and eventually worked out a way to attach them directly to one of the louvres within the linkage of each of the vertical shutter walls. However, this left me with the problem of how to keep the stepper motor still and secure, without spoiling the aesthetic of the pavilion.

To solve this I created a wooden enclosure for the motor to sit in, which would be attached to the roof of the pavilion. The enclosure was based on a scaled-down version of the pavilion itself. The gaps left between the layers of the enclosure allow air to reach and cool the motor.
Curved Wall & Window Components
Avye • 10/14/2022 at 13:20 • 0 comments

The walls of the pavilion were designed to be built up in several layers of plywood, in fact, 30 layers, each 4mm in thickness. I realised that I could only print two complete layers on a single sheet of plywood, which meant I would need too many sheets and would be left with an awful lot of waste material.
To solve this problem, I broke the layer design down into smaller sections that could be cut out separately and put together like a jigsaw. These smaller pieces could now be fitted more efficiently onto a single sheet of plywood, reducing cost and waste. Being able to print each layer in smaller sections also means I or you could use scrap pieces of laser ply to make up the required amount of layers.