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Modernist houses from Asheville to Wilmington received top honors last week in the third annual George Matsumoto Prize for Modernist residential design across the state, sponsored by the award-winning non-profit organization North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH).The houses submitted had to be... View full entry
For a kid, a lifesize light-up spinning top that you can play in right in your neighborhood sounds like a dream come true -- and such is the case in Dordrecht, The Netherlands.The Energy Carousel by Madrid-based firm Ecosistema Urbano is a play structure that is both engaging and educational. As... View full entry
Rather than using cranes to take the building apart from the outside, they start from the inside, taking the structure apart floor by floor from the top down. A crane inside the building lowers materials harvested from each floor to ground level, generating electricity to power other equipment in the process. So with Tecorep, higher buildings are actually an advantage, since the crane can generate more electricity lowering materials over longer distances. — popsci.com
Oyster Creek, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Atlantic City, generates 630 megawatts (MW), or enough electricity to power 600,000 households. Situated about a mile inland from the brackish inlet of the Atlantic Ocean known as Barnegat Bay, it shares the same design as Japan's tsunami-crippled coastal nuclear plant, Fukushima Daiichi. — news.nationalgeographic.com
... a cache of biological samples appeared through the criminal networks of Mumbai, in the vain hope that it might provide new marketable narcotic opportunities. The collective drive and expertise of the refugees managed to turn theses genetically-engineered fungal samples into a new type of infrastructure - providing heat, light and building material for the refugees. Dharavi rapidly evolved it's own micro-economy based around the mushrooms. — tobiasrevell.com
Urban planning has focused on identifying many important questions about the formation and functioning of our cities. However, there is a lack of understanding about the spatial patterns related to material and energy use in cities. This work attempts to address this knowledge gap. — urbmet.org
urbmet.org is a web-map that illustrates data on material and energy use in cities. The goal is to provide an intuitive way of understanding this complex problem using an interactive interface. We have analyzed 42 cities and estimated material and energy intensities. To make this work as useful... View full entry
If you designed or built a home that met energy code just a few years ago, that same home will probably not be legal to build just a few years from now. Some might say it’s about time, while others may think it’s not a good idea to increase code requirements during a depressed housing economy. — blog.rmi.org
OriginOil, a start-up based in Los Angeles, CA., has begun a pilot of its urban algae farm concept at the La Défense complex near Paris. Wastewater from buildings nourishes algae growth; algae is processed to make heat. The company is attempting to prove that integrating algae production into large building complexes will help bring them closer to net zero. — smartplanet.com
It is no design flaw: encapsulated within the walls and ceiling panels is a gel that solidifies at night and melts with the warmth of the day. Known as a phase change material (PCM), the gel will help reduce the amount of energy needed to cool office space in the building - scheduled to house the molecular engineering department when completed this month - by a whopping 98 per cent. — newscientist.com
On Wednesday Lord Foster announced a plan so big that even Burnham would have been impressed. The Thames Hub, a £50bn project devised by architects Foster and Partners, planners and builders Halcrow and Volterra, a consultancy group of British economists, aims to revolutionise Britain's often creaking and largely inadequate national transport and energy infrastructure. — guardian.co.uk
"In the same way that we have backup batteries for our cameras and computers, the Japanese government has recently unveiled plans to develop a whole new city that will act as a backup for Tokyo in the event of another crippling earthquake." — Inhabitat.com
Google, the investor in this case, will technically own the solar panels, while the maintenance and upkeep responsibility of the solar panels stays with the installer and Clean Power Finance. The homeowners, who are essentially giving roof space in exchange for a chance to buy solar-generated electricity, will pay a monthly fee. Google's return on investment comes via the electricity that is generated by the solar panels and sold to customers. — news.cnet.com
Swiss design firm RAFAA has shared with us their entry to the invited competition for Ivanpah, a 392-megawatt solar thermal power facility currently being built by BrightSource Energy Inc in the Californian Mojave Desert. The project - which counts NRG Solar, Google and BrightSource as equity investors - is currently the largest solar plant under construction in the world. — bustler.net
When I first came to Japan a quarter decade ago, toilets were in unheated spaces, and it was sometimes a shock to sit. About 20 years ago, leaders in the industry came up with a nifty solution: a small heater in the seat. Over time, more and more features were added: massaging and bidet features are common, newer ones have a little air fan for deodorizing,... play music, and light the inside of the bowl. Somewhere along the line, the original reason for the heater itself became less important — The Berkeley Blog
