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Following our previous look at an opening for a Public Interest Design (PID) Fellowship at the University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit Collaborative Design Center, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an opportunity on Archinect Jobs for a Project Manager at the... View full entry
Seattle-based firm The Miller Hull Partnership has designed an important new laboratory building for the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) that will have a light impact on the lush natural landscape that surrounds it. Developed to offset the anticipated growth of UCSC’s research... View full entry
Investment in cloud infrastructure has surged since 2015, and the market for data-center equipment is expected to grow at an average annualized rate of roughly 16% this year and next, according to Citigroup Inc.
Cloud servers, though, typically have a lifespan of only about three years, according to experts, meaning that some of the earliest equipment already has passed its use-by date.
— The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the anticipated market for scrap metal and other components used to make cloud computing infrastructure. As the cloud computing era gets underway globally, efforts to recycle the short-lived data servers that power the cloud have been complicated by... View full entry
Researchers say India could alleviate its growing shortage of sand, which is needed for concrete, by partially replacing it with waste plastic.
Research carried out by the University of Bath in the UK, and India’s Goa Engineering College, has found that concrete made with an admixture of ground-up plastic bottles is almost as strong as traditional concrete mixtures.
— globalconstructionreview.com
With India's rapid urbanization, concrete construction has dramatically increased causing a shortage in the country's sand used to make the building material. Mixing in plastic bottles focuses on solving both the issue of a sand shortage and the accumulation plastic waste on the streets. While... View full entry
A company in Colombia is tackling plastic waste issues and affordable housing with a single ingenious solution: interlocking LEGO-like bricks that can be used to build houses for a few thousand dollars per structure. Walls are formed using a slim slotted brick then framed using a thicker module used for beams and columns, locking the smaller units into place and providing rigid vertical and lateral support. — weburbanist.com
What to do with the heaps and mounds of plastic piling up all over our planet? Build LEGO's. Conceptos Plásticos' technological innovations make their plastic block homes cost only $5,000. The company is also using this new method to build emergency shelters, community and educational... View full entry
DATA Architects, a young French firm, has designed a waste sorting space in an unexpected corner of Paris—the space beneath the city’s ring-road. The ring-road demarcates the edge of the Paris you imagine when you think of the City of Lights, and the beginning of what used to be the heart of... View full entry
Each day, New York’s public garbage trucks collect nearly 7,000 tonnes of residential mixed solid waste. After finishing their routes, most of these trucks will deposit the garbage in one of New York’s waste transfer stations located throughout the city. From there, the garbage will eventually be loaded on to a barge or train and carried as far as 600 miles to its final stop. For most of New York’s mixed solid waste (about 80% of it by tonnage), this last stop will be a landfill. — the Guardian
"The remaining 20% will end up at a waste-to-energy plant, where it will be incinerated and converted into energy."For more on the infrastructure of waste, follow these links:Shitting Architecture: the dirty practice of waste removalGeotectura's ZeroHome turns waste into... View full entry
Malaysia has too much sewage sludge and not enough concrete, a problem which naturally prompted an "aha!" moment among researchers. By burning and drying wet sewage sludge cake and then grinding and sieving the dry cake to produce Domestic Waste Sludge Powder (DWSP), the Malaysian researchers are... View full entry
[A former sanitation policy director for New York City, Ben] Miller is working with his partners at the planning firm Closed Loops, with funding from state grants, to bring pneumatic tubes to New York’s High Line.
Rather than rotting in landfills, carrot peels and apple cores from nearby restaurants could travel under the feet of unsuspecting tourists through pneumatic tubes hung below the elevated park. A small facility could turn them into compost right there in the neighborhood.
— fusion.net
More on garbage disruption and the very pressing problem of waste management worldwide:The Uber of waste management is coming for your trashTracing how your litter ends up in the oceanTransforming a garbage heap into a public parkPlan to build UK's first building entirely out of wasteFrom Trash to... View full entry
Unlike Waste Management and other garbage giants, Rubicon doesn’t operate its own trucks or own any landfills. Instead, it runs a tech platform that connects small, local haulers with major companies that want to cut down on their garbage costs and increase their recycling efforts. — wired.com
Rubicon Global, which previously helped Fortune 500 companies save money with their own garbage management, is now bringing their services to the regular folks. The app for on-demand waste pick-up was largely devised by Uber's founding CTO, Oscar Salazar, who is now working as Rubicon's CTO... View full entry
Even on a dry day, tens of millions of gallons of dirty water dumps into the ocean through the region’s vast storm drain system. The 3,500-mile network was designed and built to empty streets of rainwater, but tons of litter also flow into the ocean through the intricate system of curbside drainages, underground channels, pumps and creeks. Stormwater pollution puts beach swimmers at risk, particularly after it rains. Marine animals and plants can also get sick or die — LA Times
This is a really fascinating piece that attempts to trace how a cigarette butt flicked into a gutter in Bel Air could make its way across LA and end up in the ocean via Marina del Rey. Visualizations like this feel important because, while we may notice signs on the sides of the sidewalk saying... View full entry
