7 posts tagged “design”
Link: The Suntory Mermaid II Wave-Powered Boat
Designed with the help of Professor Yutaka Terao (Tokai University), this 9.5 meter long, three-ton twin-hulled boat is propelled by wave action at speeds of up to 5 knots. The boat will leave Hawaii mid-May for a 6,000km journey to Japan that is expected to take from two to three months.
The boat has two fins that capture wave energy and also transform that energy into forward motion using "dolphin-like kicks" Although the article places these fins at the rear of the boat, the picture shows them at the front. The pictures and diagram suggest a relatively simple mechanism. Although a 'drive shaft' is shown, it appears to control the motion of the fins, such that vertical motion becomes horizontal thrust. Waves cause boats to 'pitch' - by absorbing some of this energy, the fins also reduce pitching and improve stability.
It is not clear how well this system would scale nor how complementary it is with sail-power. Although the slow speed is a challenge, the system might reduce the energy consumption of ships, similar to German ship fights climate change with high-tech kite.
Thanks for EcoGeek for the pointer!
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Link: A New Model for Green Design
Valerie Casey's "Designers Accord" is
In spite of taking small steps, the program has the potential for being as influential as LEED by signing up thousands of designers from leading studios across the industry and gaining support from the AIGA and IDSA. It encourages designers to introduce sustainability into every conversation, early in the conversation, "to look beyond the artifact and consider the larger system.""both a small nudge and a radical step. It's a nudge because many designers and studios already practice many of the principles outlined in the accord: Undertake a program to educate your teams about designing sustainably, initiate a dialogue about environmental impact and sustainable alternatives with each and every client, measure the carbon/greenhouse gas footprint of your firm and pledge to significantly reduce that footprint annually."
Signers of the Accord also agree to pool what they have learned about sustainable design, from information to best practices. Although not likely to be as far-reaching as the open source movement, it will build "an archive of sustainability case studies covering everything from materials sourcing and effective life-cycle analysis methods to issues such as how the firm started the sustainability conversation with its client and what learnings it was able to transfer to other projects."
Thanks to Eileen Stephens for the pointer!
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Link: Don't Bother with the "Green" Consumer
A post on HBR Green by Steve Bishop (global lead of Design for Sustainability at IDEO) suggests that marking to the 'green consumer' can be counter-productive. The 'green' market segment is relatively small (although growing) - most consumers are more focused on their immediate needs than environmental issues. On the other hand, touting the 'green' attributes of a traditional product can be seen as greenwashing, unless the product is truly environmentally better than the competition.
Bishop recommends focusing on 'green behavior', not through morale persuasion but by encouraging new, positive behaviors that are accessible to everyone and that people want to engage in . The article highlights work with Shimano on the "Coasting" bike, intended for the large numbers of people who do not ride today. By simplifying the bike, Shimano connected to childhood experiences of biking. It directly meets a human need, and indirectly targets the environmental issues caused by our reliance on cars as a primary means of transportation.
the TreeHugger article Bags of Change: Carrot Better Than Stick follows a similar line - rather than trying to shame people into giving up plastic bags or charging for bags, 'Bags of Change' worked with a wide range of shops to provide discounts to shoppers who bring in one of their distinctive bags. Discounts appear to be in the 5-10% range, a significant incentive to 'remember to bring your bag'. From the shop's perspective, it is a way to attract new customers.
Bishop's closing message: "Companies should ... start creating something real - products that tell their environmental story for them."
Thanks to Jean-Francois Barsoum for the pointer!
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Link: Matteriashop: Good Design + Smart Materials – a New Online Shop
TreeHugger reviewed the opening of the Matteriashop online store, a joint effort by Monica Potvin (Barcelona) and Anu Suominen (Finland) to combine good design with sustainable choice. The website demonstrates that it is possible to provide product lifecycle information in a way that helps the consumer make an informed decision, without overwhelming them. Product selection criteria include:
- charming functional design
- low or no toxicity
- imaginative reuse of reclaimed materials
- materials from renewable sources
- recycled / recyclable
- organic
- biodegradable
- sustainably grown
- energy efficient
- ethically produced
The main page groups products by category, taste, material and designer. Individual product pages each have several sections describing the product ('shop'), materials, designer, manufacturer and disposal. There is also a 'user' section that has been empty in all the products that I looked at. Pictures show more detail on the product design or provide usage examples.
The site does not try to quantify sustainability, but uses descriptive language which helps inform the consumer about broader issues. Taken from the 'materials' section of the Cork underlay large:
"Cork is a completely natural product, harvested without damaging or chopping down trees. It comes from the bark of the cork oak, and is harvested only once every nine or ten years.
Cork is a renewable resource and cork oak forests are one of the most sustainable natural systems, providing the habitat of several endangered species and supporting one of the highest levels of biodiversity among European forests."
Cameron Sinclair is the co-founder and Executive Director of Architecture for Humanity. He is working on projects ranging from health centers in Sub-Saharan Africa to post-Tsunami reconstruction in South East Asia.
Sinclair is also co-founder of the Open Architecture Network, an online, open source community dedicated to improving living standards around the world. He is the co-editor of Design Like You Give A Damn and a contributing writer for Worldchanging. He was the 2005 Target Emerging Designer of the Year and recipient of the 2006 TED Prize, which honors visionaries from any field who have shown they can “positively impact life on this planet”.
6:30pm, Wednesday January 9, 2008
Auditorium, 100 McCaul St.
Note: this is a public post.TVO is running a second set of design episodes of the PBS e2 series: the economies of being environmentally conscious. For information on purchasing DVDs (all three series) or downloading the first season of design:e2, see my comment to design:e2.
At the moment, TVO has not posted the details of the December episoides.
- The Druk White Lotus School - Ladakh Ladakh, India, is one of the most remote regions on earth. The Druk
White Lotus School intends to equip Ladakhi children for living in the
modern world while simultaneously embracing Buddhist traditions.
Designed by Jonathan Rose, the school features sustainable technologies
that suit the altitude, and landscape and cultural climate.
- Greening the Federal Government Government
buildings are not historically associated with sustainability or
exquisite design. But Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne's San
Francisco Federal Building aims to be the prototype for tomorrow's
workplace.
- Bogotá: Building a Sustainable City One of the world's most chaotic cities has been transformed into a
model of civic-minded and sustainable urban planning with public
transportation, greenways, mega libraries and the longest stretch of
bike-only lanes in the world, but only with tremendous opposition from
the people it was designed to help.
- Affordable Green Housing New York City's public housing developments often ignore the social and
cultural characteristics of the communities who live in them.
Third-generation developer Jonathan Rose is putting sustainability
within reach of public housing residents in Irvington, Harlem and the
Bronx.
- Adaptive Reuse in the Netherlands Dutch planners tap into their innate design sensibility and the
industrial landscape to create a sustainable development in Amsterdam's
abandoned dockyards. An alternative to urban sprawl, the development
maximizes space while maintaining privacy, and uses the vast waterways
as core landscape design elements.
- Architecture 2030 Buildings are responsible for almost half of all greenhouse gas
emissions in the United States. Architect-turned-activist Ed Mazria
aims to avert a climate change crisis through policy change and
education. His Architecture 2030 organization is galvanizing commitment
to a carbon-neutral building sector by the year 2030.
TVOntario is running six 30-minute programs on green design Thursdays at 07:00pm and 07:30pm.
October 18th:
- The Green Apple 1 of 6 Combatting the myth of the bustling city as "concrete jungle", some of Manhattan's most prominent and technologically advanced structures illustrate how the ubiquitous skyscraper can, surprisingly, be a model of environmental responsibility.
- Green for All 2 of 6 Architect and activist Sergio Palleroni's mission is to provide architectural and design solutions to global crisis regions. In East Austin, Texas, and Sonora, Mexico, he and his student team teach rural communities to build their own homes and reduce the cost by being resourceful.
- The Green Machine 3 of 6 Mayor Richard M. Daley aims to make Chicago "the greenest city in America." He built the city's most prominent "green roof" atop City Hall and created an entire municipal office charged with overseeing the city's many environmental initiatives. The city is adopting green technologies in both residential and corporate sectors.
- Grey to Green 4 of 6 The value in recycling on a grand level: Paul Pedini, a civil engineer on Boston's "Big Dig," had the idea to build his own home from some of the massive amount of waste created by the $15 billion project. This has sparked plans to create an office complex in Massachusetts from the same recycled material.
November 1st:
- China: From Red to Green? 5 of 6 Steven Holl's "Linked Hybrid" project in Beijing will be the largest residential geothermal heating/cooling and greywater recycling system in the world. Award-winning architect William McDonough talks about his plans to make China entirely sustainable and to demonstrate the ways architecture can be both profitable and environmentally intelligent.
- Deeper Shades of Green 6 of 6 A look to the future with three remarkable thinkers and designers of our time: Kenneth Yeang, Werner Sobek and William McDonough. Each is radically changing the face of not only architecture but also environmentalism in the attempt to construct human habitat in harmony with nature and ultimately change the world we live in.
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