3 posts tagged “innovation”

Starting with SETI@home in 1999, numerous distributed computing applications using spare cycles of PCs and other computing devices have been able to inexpensively tap massive computing resources.  According to Wikipedia, SETI@home can tap 424 TeraFLOPS (Trillion FLoating point Operations Per Second), compared to a sustained rate of 478 TeraFLOPS for IBM's Blue Gene, one of the world's fastest supercomputer.  Folding@home hit 1000 TeraFLOPS in 2007 by tapping into the power of PlayStation 3 clients and Graphics Processing Units of video cards.

Technology Review's Biologists Enlist Online Gamers discusses the Rosetta@home project that attempts to predict the three-dimensional structure of proteins.  Although genome analysis has helped identify the molecular sequence of proteins, how the amino acid sequences in proteins are folded significantly affects protein function.  Even simply proteins have many possible structures - finding "best one is regarded as one of the hardest problems in biology today". 

Rosetta@home displays the 3D protein structure on a screensaver - some users reported that they could see opportunities to improve on the 'fit' of the structure.  This led David Baker to work with Zoran Popović (a game designer at the University of Washington) to develop Foldit, which "attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans' puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins."  It combines the ability of computers to sift through many alternative structures and visually represent form and function with the human ability to recognizing patterns.

As a game, the design is challenging since neither the goal nor the path is well understood, and in fact is developed by the users as they use Foldit.   Analysis of player interaction with Foldit may reveal strategies that can then be incorporated into Rosetta@home, an interesting form of co-operative competition between silicon and biology.

Link: Green Tower in Moscow by Foster + Partners

Treehugger reviewed the design of a 2,000 foot Russia Tower that combines a triangular plan (efficiency, stability, natural lighting) with a hot water "energy cycle" to reduce energy consumption.  The tower houses offices and residential space.  Offices typically generate excess heat year-round, which can be used to heat the residential areas during the winter.  During the summer, the lower temperature of the ground is used for cooling.  No information is provided on the expected savings or the capital cost for the "energy cycle" equipment (the emphasis in the linked websites appears to be more on the form).

The design shows how a problem (excess heat generated within office space) can be turned into a benefit (residential areas need heat during the winter) if the designer has the flexibility to create a diverse environment.  During a Setpember 2006 presentation on sustainable design, Peter Busby showed a chart of the various systems (including water, sewage and energy) in the Dockside Green project.  Although each individual system provided benefits to the overall design, the linkages between the systems were even more interesting.  Again, a mixed commercial, industrial and residential space provided significant opportunities for design innovation.

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Link: A New Model for Green Design

Valerie Casey's "Designers Accord" is

"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." 

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."

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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