HEPHAESTUS
Manufacturing & Fabrication
There's no room for a landfill in a closed environment like Augury, so it's of great importance to minimize waste and use resources efficiently. The Hephaestus department manages manufacturing and fabrication, turning raw materials and scrap into useful things. Unlike on the surface, Augury tries to stay as far away from planned obsolescence as possible—so Hephaestus builds things to last.
They employ a variety of craftsmen to work with a great variety of materials—metals, wood, plastic, cement, ceramics, glass, acrylics, PCBs—whatever the city needs. Whenever possible, they will recycle garbage into a usable form, such as repurposing plastic litter filtered out of the ocean into building blocks. The bulk of the output of Hephaestus is construction components, which they provide for Hestia and other departments to expand, maintain, and improve the city.
Hephaestus is responsible for acquiring these raw materials, storing them, and producing supplies the city needs regularly, such as building components, textiles, and containers. But they also help the other Executive departments to do their jobs by developing or modifying specialized equipment. With cooperation and creativity, Hephaestus can find a solution to almost any problem.
Hephaestus will also maintain specialized public workshops to empower citizens of Augury to build and repair things for themselves, as well as educate industrious individuals on the tools and processes that go into manufacturing and fabrication. These workshops include workspaces specialized for woodworking, metalworking, glass blowing, electrical work, electronic design and maintenance, textiles and sewing, and more.
An eligible candidate to head Hephaestus would be an inventor, manufacturing engineer, mechanical engineer, materials engineer, metallurgist, chemist, or another individual with relevant proficiency and qualification. The Hephaestus department will employ a team comprised of any combination of inventors, manufacturing engineers, metallurgists, chemists, materials engineers, sanitation workers, waste managers, 3D modelers, fabricators, printed circuit board designers, electronics technicians, prototypers, mechanical engineers, and technicians as necessary.
Step 11; Hephaestus Phase 1: Basic Manufacturing Facilities
At first, Augury will have to import everything it needs, including building materials. The conductive framing for the preliminary structure will have to be manufactured on the mainland, then shipped out to the building site, submerged, and assembled. Importing everything we need will get expensive quickly, which is why it’s important to establish a manufacturing plant as soon as possible, before the interior construction begins.
Interior structures should be designed with longevity and ease of maintenance in mind. Consider building almost everything from prefabricated, modular, interchangeable parts, such as wall panels, which can be stockpiled and easily swapped out—like the construction equivalent of Legos. Imagine a wall panel already wired for electricity with built-in outlets, removable panels for plumbing fixtures or vents, different versions to include windows or doors. If the panel was damaged or you needed to remodel, you could simply unplug it and plug in a new one rather than struggling with running new wire or slow installation times. This may prove to be more a novelty than a practicality, but I believe the concept may have immense potential for efficient construction. Perhaps beyond construction—if we design devices and appliances and whatnot by this same “plug and play” model, parts like motors, power cables, control panels, batteries, or even control boards could be as interchangeable as light bulbs, improving our flexibility in servicing, upgrading, repairing, and inventing machinery. Imagine taking a part out of a kitchen appliance and using it to repair a tool or submarine. The possibilities could be limited only by our creativity.
In general, machines should do the bulk of the work in manufacturing. Humans can do the creative work of designing parts, but whenever possible, repetitive or difficult labor should be programmed by a machine. Programming and artificial intelligence allows us to automate almost anything. Our technology is sufficiently advanced and accessible that no one should have to suffer through any mindless factory jobs. Furthermore, the easier work is and the more we use machines, the more the world of making things (or any kind of work) becomes accessible, even to people who are disabled, elderly, students, and children.
Bear in mind that just as ocean air causes cars in coastal areas to rust faster, inevitable salt in the air in Augury will degrade machinery. Avoid exposed/unprotected steel surfaces as much as possible.
Manufacturing Styles
Many of these styles use computers, which is advantageous—once a design is perfected, machines can automatically manufacture as many iterations as needed from the original file.
3D Printing
Recycled thermoplastics can be repurposed into a number of useful forms, not the least of which is 3D printing filament. Hephaestus should maintain a large collection of 3D printers of varying sizes and applications. Custom objects and parts can be designed and manufactured onsite as needed for their specific purpose with less waste and lower costs, just as astronauts are able to do in the International Space Station. 3D printing isn’t limited to just plastics, either—these days, even entire buildings can be 3D printed with bioresins and concrete. Some high-powered 3D printers are even able to utilize several methods to 3D print with metal. A wide array of printers will allow us to manufacture almost anything we need efficiently and onsite—and with precise 3D computer modeling, we can use specially designed 3-dimensional infill pattern structures which maximize strength and minimize weight.
Injection Mold Manufacturing
3D printing is ideal for prototyping—creating few iterations of a designed object—but isn’t optimized for mass production. When we have a 3-dimensional object we know we will need to manufacture over and over again, we prototype with 3D modeling and use the prototype to create a mold. Molds can be designed for plastic, but also concrete, metal, and glass—any material which can be liquified. This method (along with a few others) will be useful for creating stock prefabricated construction components.
CNC Cutters & Routers
CNC stands for “Computer numerical control,” and refers to machines programmed to maneuver a tool along set paths from computer instructions. CNC cutters refer to a variety of tools: routers, plasma cutters, waterjet cutters, and lasers. These tools can automatically cut flat sheets of anything from paper to wood to stone to metal as specified by a digital design.
Upcycling
In order to reduce, reuse, and recycle waste as much as possible, Hephaestus will maintain a team of workers dedicated to "upcycling." Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value. Workers and eventually citizens in Augury will inevitably bring waste into Augury—machines, appliances, tools, and whatever else which eventually wear down and become unusable for their original purpose. Hephaestus workers can use creative problem-solving and critical thinking skills to find value in unwanted items and repurpose them.
In order to make recycling easier, consider stamping all items manufactured in Hephaestus with (color-coded?) symbols to indicate their composition—kinds of plastics, metals, glass, biomass, or minerals. When the items reach the end of their useful life, the symbol will indicate how workers can go about cutting, grinding, or melting them down and combining them with other materials to be reused or composted. These symbols can also apply to public trash receptacles, so citizens know how to sort their garbage.
Building Materials
The interior of Augury should be designed with maintenance, longevity, and sustainability in mind. Modern interior architecture is designed to save costs—and sacrifices construction quality. Though using better ingredients will cost more up-front, I believe in the value of investment for the future and delayed gratification. Augury’s construction should make use of a wide variety of sustainable materials, including (but not limited to) those listed below.
Recycled Plastic
Plastic is an incredible material, though abused. Why would we use a material that lasts for decades or centuries to make “disposable” packaging, when we could use it to make structures that we want to last? In 2017, Kenyan civil engineer Nzambi Matee discovered a way to convert plastic waste into building materials by heating it, mixing it with sand, then compressing it. These blocks can be formed to any size and are strong enough to be used for wall construction or paving. Plastic is also commonly recycled into a material known as plastic lumber, which is as strong as wood but easier to work with, and immune to water, insects, and rot. Many kinds of plastic can even be recycled into 3D printer filament, allowing a nearly infinite variety of applications.
Collecting and recycling plastic waste from the nearby North Atlantic Garbage Patch would benefit the ocean ecosystem and provide a consistent supply of free building materials.
Bioplastics
Petroleum-based plastics have a number of useful properties, most notable of which is their longevity—they last a very long time, but not forever. Their capacity to be recycled degrades with each use, and as they are petroleum based, they are inherently a finite resource (not to mention the toxic costs of production). Eventually we will need to turn to a more renewable version, in the form of bioplastics. Bioplastics either originate from a renewable resource, are biodegradable, or are both. They can be made from biomass materials like vegetable fats and oils, cellulose, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, and have very similar properties to petroleum plastics.
Recycled Textile Bricks
There’s no question that waste accumulation is becoming a big problem—and with the advent of fast fashion, textiles are a huge contributor. French research and development firm FaBRICK has found a way to use recycled clothing waste as a tensile reinforcer when combined with a binding agent to make bricks. The resulting material “has a very good mechanical resistance almost like a concrete block…has a good insulating quality, acoustic and thermal, and a good resistance to fire. Hence [they] can make panels and tiles that improve the ambiance of a room or a public space. It also has a good water resistance,” at least, enough for interior use.
Concrete Impregnated Fabric & Shotcrete
Concrete Cloth or Concrete Impregnated Fabric (CIF) is a flexible, concrete filled geosynthetic which provides a thin and durable concrete layer when hydrated. Its typical use is as an erosion/pest/weed barrier, but can be used to quickly manufacture structures around a simple frame like a tent. Before hydration, the material is flexible and can easily be cut to any shape necessary, as well as stitched to other pieces to form more complex shapes. CIF pairs well with geodesic domes to form efficient and easily assembled structures.
Additionally, Shotcrete is a method of applying concrete projected at high velocity onto almost any surface, even vertical or overhead; the impact created by the application helps the concrete to set up. This method allows concrete construction in even very tight spaces and “free form” applications. Shotcrete also has higher compressive strengths than cast-in-place concrete and lower construction costs. Shotcrete would be an excellent option for patching breaches while the exterior wall remineralizes.
Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC)
Concrete alone is not a particularly good thermal insulator—but mixing liquid concrete with a foaming or expansion agent (like a detergent) fills it with air bubbles. The resulting material is called Autoclaved Aerated Concrete, which is about 80% air by volume. Compared to typical concrete, it is lighter, more insulative (both for heat and sound), easier to work with (drilling holes and cutting), resistant to water, decay, and insects, fire resistant, less dense, and has a higher thermal mass. AAC can be formed into both blocks and panels for versatile applications. As the mix is made in liquid concrete mix, AAC can also be used for shotcrete and 3D concrete printing to produce entire buildings in only a few days.
Cob & Adobe
Cob and adobe, put simply, are dirt. Dirt is one of the oldest and long-lasting building materials, with some examples over a thousand years old. After mixing a blend of clay, sand, straw, and water, cob can be molded into a monolithic structure—but after it dries, it’s as strong as concrete. It also has an excellent thermal mass, is breathable, fire-resistant, and is an excellent insulator. It’s also easy to work with and repair, though its weight could make the cost of transportation not worth the effort.
Glass
Glass is an excellent material—infinitely recyclable, immensely versatile, and nearly chemically inert. Wherever possible, glass should replace plastic in Augury as a packaging material. But glass's potential doesn't stop there. Glass or fiberglass can be used to make containers, insulation, gravel, tile, composites, and construction materials—including, of course, interior windows. When more glass is needed, Hephaestus can manufacture it from high-silica ocean sand.
Renewable Materials
Many quick-growing plants can be used as building materials. Bamboo grows quickly and abundantly all over the world, considered a weed in the southeastern United States. As it is in the grass family, it grows flexibly and can be formed into useful shapes like arches and cross-sections. With proper treatment, bamboo can be used to build strong framing, supports, walls, ceilings, and more—especially when combined with other materials. With higher tensile strength than steel, good fire resistance, elasticity, low weight, and low cost, bamboo is versatile enough to compose an entire building; in fact, the Green Village in Bali is made almost entirely of bamboo. It’s not without its drawbacks, of course—bamboo requires preservation (and lots of water, depending on variety), has a tendency to shrink, and can be weak to insect and fungal damage.
Straw grows quickly and easily—it takes more effort to stop it from growing than it does to let it take over a field. Despite the fairy tale, when compressed into bales, straw is a strong building material and an excellent insulator. When combined with lime and a binder, hemp forms a promising material known as hempcrete–the woody hemp absorbs and stores a significant amount of carbon, and provides tensile strength and greater insulative properties as a building material. Hemp can also be used in the manufacture of plasters, insulation wool, and subflooring mats. Seaweed, seagrass, and algae provide natural resources, and can be grown locally. Cactus can be used to make a leather alternative. Mushrooms can also be used to produce a leather alternative, along with building blocks. Some of these materials would require too much space to be grown locally and would have to be imported.
Self-Healing Materials
Some special materials will regenerate flaws over time, reducing maintenance costs and increasing the longevity of the structure. Concrete has a few self-healing versions—some chemical, some mineral, and some bacterial. Self-healing qualities are especially useful for concrete, to compensate for its brittleness. Self-healing doesn’t stop at concrete, however—MIT has been working on a gel that grows, strengthens, and repairs itself using carbon dioxide.
Untreated Materials
Note that the rules for construction on some parts of Augury’s interior will be different than on the surface—structures and materials are not exposed to extreme temperature fluctuations, precipitation, or direct sunlight, which opens the door in some cases to use of less durable materials like untreated wood, plastics, fabric, and so on. Lower exposure to moisture will significantly reduce the risk of rot (except in atriums where the ground and air are kept moist for plant health). Absorbent materials will still soak up moisture from inevitable spills and splashes and should be used sparingly or protected with a thin layer of wax or oil, but will not need to be treated with toxic chemicals, such as those used to pressure-treat wood.
Step 11; Hephaestus Phase 2: Full Manufacturing & Fabrication Facilities
I mention several times that everything in Augury should be designed with maintenance and longevity in mind. This is of the utmost importance. We live in an age of planned obsolescence—a repulsive business practice in which products are intentionally made at lower quality so that the consumer will buy a replacement sooner. Augury must be designed in the reverse. Everything that we make should be designed of the highest quality we are capable of—to last, to be repaired, to be used. We should embrace the Japanese principle of Kintsugi, which is “the general concept of highlighting or emphasizing imperfections, visualizing mends and seams as an additive or an area to celebrate or focus on, rather than absence or missing pieces…as a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.”
Products and materials should be durable; built to last as long as possible. We must still keep expenses in mind—we don’t want to overuse exotic materials which will make whatever we produce too expensive to use. Machines should be elegant, mechanically simple, easy to use, easy to make, easy to repair, and long-lasting. All of these considerations are elements of good design. Good design is what we must pursue, over profit, or we will sacrifice good design, and make someone else’s life harder, in order to profit.
Technology is our power. Everything from fire to a sheet of paper to a smartphone to the electron microscope has the power to make our lives easier through modifying parts of our environment. Every age of humanity has been defined by the technology available to us—and the drunken hedonism of the industrial revolution has taken its toll on us, because we only gave thought to runaway explosive expansion, only our potential, with no consideration to the consequences. Because of this, we work hard—harder than we’ve ever needed to. Research indicates that the modern workers labor longer hours than medieval peasants, and for what? To make big corporations bigger? To wallow in unimaginable luxury and convenience? Because we don’t have any other option for our own survival than to enable CEO’s and board members’ and stockholders’ insatiable megalomania? How many decades did it take to convince factory owners to allow workers a few days of rest, or to make child labor illegal? With the technology available to us, we can enjoy our comfort and conveniences without working all day. With the power of our technology comes responsibility—a burden we must respect. Technology should be used to make all of our lives easier, to reduce the amount of work any of us have to do, rather than to bring wealth to a small handful of powerful individuals. With modern technology and a little cleverness, we can design an entire city which provides all of our basic needs with little need for work on our parts. We should use the technology we have—but we must always take care that our goal, our motivation in the usage of what little power we have is to help others before elevating ourselves.
Necessities should be prioritized above luxuries. It’s imperative that we be capable of producing everything we need to survive, should Augury ever need to be sealed off from the outside world. That includes, above all, spare parts to keep the Executive department branches running.
Advanced Manufacturing
As Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” While this is true, and we should generally strive to keep our technology as simplified as possible, it’s important to balance simplicity and complexity, and use the technology we have to its full potential for maximum benefit rather than hiding the best stuff away where only a few people can use them.
Conductive Ink Printing
While not suitable for any electrical wiring intended to carry significant amperage, electrically conductive ink/paint can be used for lighting or sensors, for low-voltage electronics, as EMI shielding, and be applied to almost any surface.
PCB Printing
In a technology-heavy environment like Augury, circuit boards will be in high demand—but e-waste is a growing problem. Of course, all electronics will be designed to last as long as possible, with replaceable components, but recyclability will also be important. To make this easier, Hephaestus will maintain in-house circuit board printers, so new microchips can be easily designed and manufactured.
Prefabricated Modular Building Components
Interior structures should be designed with longevity and ease of maintenance in mind. Consider building almost everything from “plug-and-play” style prefabricated, modular, interchangeable parts, which can be mass-produced, stockpiled and easily swapped out—like the construction equivalent of Legos. Imagine a wall panel already wired for electricity with built-in outlets, removable panels for plumbing fixtures or vents, different versions to include windows or doors. If the panel was damaged or you needed to remodel, you could simply “unplug” it and “plug-in” a new one rather than struggling with running new wire or slow installation times.
Some contracting companies are already starting to produce sets of standardized and prefabricated wall/floor/roof systems which are predictable in performance, cost, and delivery. The “Lego-like components” work together to create an envelope that is ready to be finished with interior and exterior materials, allowing for aesthetic and regionally appropriate treatments and customization. If these panels as well as utility fixtures are composed of predictably divisible units (use metric system) as Legos are, they will fit together easily.
Public Workshop
Hephaestus should maintain public workshops to empower citizens of Augury to build and repair things for themselves, as well as educate industrious individuals on the tools and processes that go into manufacturing and fabrication. These workshops include workspaces specialized for woodworking, metalworking, glass blowing, electrical work, electronic design and maintenance, textiles and sewing, and more, and will host regular classes on the operation of tools and machines as well as the production process of common items.
Textiles
In our modern economy, fast fashion accounts for an enormous portion of landfills and sweatshops. Clothes are made faster, of lower quality, often out of plastic, and intended to be disposable—in my opinion, an insult to one of the oldest human technologies. Our perspective in Augury should be more sustainable. Hephaestus can maintain facilities for local manufacture of clothing, for both individuals and companies. This can include machines to spin natural fibers into string and yarn, weave fabric, and cut and sew fabrics into usable items. Some fibers like cotton and coir would have to be imported, but fibers like hemp, wool, linen, spider’s silk, and chinegora (dog wool) could be produced locally. Artificial textiles like acrylic, nylon, and spandex that are made from plastics must be avoided, as they will release plastic fibers into the water with every wash that will never fully degrade and may be ingested. Some dyes and pigments can also be made locally, though toxic pigments must be avoided as they may contaminate the water supply.
Clothing
Though most people immigrating to Augury will bring their wardrobe with them, eventually people will want to buy clothes locally. To facilitate this, consider something similar to the following system. A prospective tailor applies to work in Augury, and is accepted if they can demonstrate proficiency (and if there is not a preexisting surplus). If accepted, they operate under the Hephaestus umbrella. They have the option to work from home or in Hephaestus facilities where they will have access to commercial-grade sewing machines, looms, spinning wheels and so on. The price of the garments they produce would be determined by the hours of labor and cost of materials and then sold at the public market. Larger sizes of clothing would be more expensive, but only ever enough to cover the cost of the additional material used. Hephaestus tailors could also offer services to modify and repair clothing; some may specialize. Having clothing manufacturing localized instead of outsourced and mass produced will encourage a culture of longevity and sustainability with clothing, in contrast to the norm of replacing cheaply made, impractical clothing every season. Quality should be prioritized over quantity. This system needs further development, but I believe it shows promise.
Simpler Machines
As Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” It’s important not to abuse or overuse power and technology. We should avoid using complex machinery when simpler machines will do. Developing a full reliance on electricity and computerization could become an exploitable weakness, and can also weaken us physically if we completely remove all need for manual labor. This is not to say we give up on automation—our goal should still be to “work smarter, not harder.” For example, clockwork mechanisms can automate mechanical devices without the need for electricity or electronics. Manually-powered machines can utilize pulleys and levers to make operation easier. Consider also the many forms of passive design, which harness forces of nature like gravity or convection to run. Proper design of a machine on the front end will reduce its needs in practice. Like with modern homesteading, fusion of modern and primitive machinery will achieve a better balance. The simpler a machine is, the easier it can be serviced and repaired, the longer it may last, and the easier it will be to build. Similarly, avoid expensive, complex raw materials where unnecessary—Aluminum oxynitride may be the best material for exterior windows, but requires laboratory settings to work with. Glass is easier to manufacture and requires only heat to work, and should be used for interior windows.
As mentioned previously in this section, consider the efficiency of the Lego system. Not only are building blocks interchangeable, but also a complex system of gears, wheels, axels, pulleys, motors, power sources, pneumatic pistons, pins, beams, remote controls, and more—all of which are of standard sizes and compatible with each other. A similar system in Augury’s machinery and parts manufacturing (with corresponding serial numbers for organization) would make repairs, upgrades, and maintenance far easier. Custom parts for each project increases expenses and makes finding spare parts more difficult.
Modular Open-Source Smart Devices
Whether we like it or not, modern culture has come to rely on smartphones. Rather than give them up entirely, I propose we improve on the concept with customization. Partnering with Minerva, Hephaestus can manufacture stock parts which can be assembled by the consumer (assembly could also be provided as a service) to make a custom smartphone. Just like with computers, the battery, touchscreen, memory, storage, and SoC (System on a Chip) could all be individually replaced or upgraded with different capacities rather than replacing the entire device. Features like cameras, ports, buttons, flashlight, microphones, antennas, input devices, modules, and sensors could be added, replaced, or removed depending on the consumer’s preferences. One person may want a deluxe device loaded with all the latest gadgets, while another may prefer a simpler device which is outfitted with nothing more than a microphone, speaker, antenna, and number pad. Parents will be able to control exactly what their childrens’ devices are capable of doing. Devices could be specially outfitted with things like thermal sensors or special programs to help people do their jobs. Some people will have slim, minimalistic devices while others’ will be thick and powerful. This approach will greatly reduce costs and e-waste, and improve the individual’s experience by giving them total control over their personal device. The operating system should be similarly modular, and perhaps even open-source. Minerva could release a standard software package, and individuals with coding skills could modify as they like. The devices should also easily interface with computers, to streamline customization.
