Stories of Serendipity – Daily Dose of Tubeworms

‘Daily Dose of Tubeworms‘ is one of 28 ‘Stories of Serendipity’ gathered from interviews with researchers for ‘SerenA – Chance Encounters in the Space of Ideas’. The stories aim to contribute to an understanding of Serendipity in research and across disciplines.

Mel Woods

‘An Architecture student was designing a joint research facility building for sustainability and architecture. The aim of the building design was to ‘try to bring together’ people from the two related disciplines. She mentioned being particularly interested in symbiotic relationships and wanted to design the movement within the building to provide many different paths between rooms so that ‘you had to walk past a series of exhibitions and possible inspirations on your way to your office every single day.’ Related to her interest in sustainability, the Architecture student also asked herself whether there was a way to ‘harvest the energy that people produce’ naturally, just through their existence. Whilst working on the design of the building in her studio, the Architecture student was watching the US comedy programme ‘The Daily Show.’  She explained that she frequently watched this particular television show – where the host ‘tears apart everyone whether you’re Conservative or Liberal’ and often talks to a guest. One particular guest was a geologist who had found the wreckage of the Titanic. When asked about his most significant (rather than best known) finding, the geologist described finding large ecosystems at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where giant tubeworms had a symbiotic relationship with creatures that would capture sulphur that had escaped from the earth’s crust and live inside the tubeworms. The Architecture student found this particularly inspiring as ‘this all had to do with energy’ and sustainability as well as symbiotic relationships. She translated the concept of the tubeworms’ symbiotic relationship with the creatures into a design metaphor to guide her building design. She used this metaphor to design the building based on a symbiotic, sustainable concept where spaces within the building ‘live off each other’ – where ‘if you had taken something and cut it off, you were cutting off some of the life source.’

Interviews adapted and Narrated by Stephann Makri

Illustrated by Johanna Basford

Edit by  Schedule D Productions

Music by Gregor Fletcher

Devised and Directed by Mel Woods