9 UAF Summit - Hause - Lewark

Matthew Hause, Principal, SSI Rae Lewark, Ecologist - Sustainable Design Systems, whether natural or engineered, exhibit emergent properties beyond the capabilities of their individual components. Engineered systems, designed for specific purposes, often produce unintended consequences due to linear design disregarding ecological principles. In contrast, natural systems operate circularly, optimizing inputs and outputs without waste. This inherent efficiency has allowed ecological systems to adapt and persist for billions of years. Modern challenges such as freshwater scarcity highlight the flaws in a linear approach. Desalination, though vital for addressing water scarcity, generates high energy demand and environmental degradation, disrupting marine ecosystems with brine waste. Using the Unified Architecture Framework (UAF) his paper explores circularity in design and biomimicry as a transformative approach to redesign desalination systems. By integrating renewable energy sources and solar evaporation methods, and reframing brine as a molten salt battery source, a circular desalination system can address water scarcity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and repurpose waste. The proposed UAF design leverages ecological principles, emphasizing resource efficiency, provides for trade-off analysis and system resilience, and paves the way for future circular and biomimetic innovation in the desalination sector. Presentation PDF File - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F1zuITUni1duRbh4RmSRstexoBpok3NE/view?usp=sharing