Hana is a final year architecture masters student at the Royal College of Art. This year, alongside her masters work, Hana was selected as a finalist in the Terra Carta Design Lab sponsored by HRH Prince of Wales and Sir Jony Ive, as well as the Mayor of London's Entrepreneur Award for her project Digit. Digit is a digital twin for decarbonising operational energy us in buildings and industry. This year, Hana was also nominated by the school for the Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship in which she aims to document the global infrastructure of Direct Air Capture technology such as Climeworks, and the transboundary environmental, socio-economic and political impacts of this technology and future intergenerational climate risk within the built environment. Her work is situated within the intersection of architecture, data and decarbonisation with a specific focus on CDR Technology Policy, Digital Twin Governance & Environmental Risks in Buildings, Energy and Industry.
Hana Sapherson
Hana's architecture masters thesis is titled Zero. Zero proposes a Carbon Research Centre at Drax assembled from reused and local materials, using an entirely renewable energy and local carbon economy aiming for Absolute Zero. The power station typology has prehistoric roots and is fundamental to our collective survival. Zero would be the UK’s first carbon removal hub using direct air capture technology to provide energy, material and technology solutions in the transition of the largest emitting industrial site in the UK, Drax Power Station. The direct air capture technology proposed in the existing cooling towers acts to store carbon in building materials such as carbon stone, tile and fibre to promotes a circular material economy. The project also catalyses the transition to renewable energy through proposing a retrofit agenda in the turbine innovation hall, recycling turbines for direct air capture and wind power technology to be used at Hornsea Wind Farm, as well as a community battery microgrid system within the existing power station that the public can access through a range of viewing platforms to reinforce the significance of public knowledge and education in our collective endeavour to zero.
