in Social Media Publicity grows like cancer

"The ideas that we proffer are based on off-the-shelf existing technologies. We just change the solution-bases and do things that aren't necessarily as obvious. We don't have a problem with thinking about science fiction -- in fact we actually embrace it."

Mitchell Joachim

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Mitchell Joachim
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pee shit bricks...

Waste not want not? Well, Ginger Krieg Dosier, an assistant architecture professor at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, is making what some call waste into building materials. What if we could grow and cultivate architectural materials by employing natural minerals and microorganisms?

The built environment that we all know and sometime love consists as is a limited palette of traditional, static materials such as concrete, glass, steel, and wood. These materials embody high concentrations of energy, with most components of concrete and steel mined from non- renewable resources. Not that great for the sustaining the environment or leaving a minimal carbon foot print. (Though LEED and other associations will give you brownie points otherwise....) Did you know 40% of global carbon dioxide is linked to the construction industry, primarily due to material production and disposal? So why not "grow" bricks? Biologically grown materials can be pollution free (note can be- they might just have a lower production of waste until we figure out how to recycle it). These grown materials also have the potential to contain a low embodied energy and could be produced as part of a local ecosystem.

Dosier has been working on a new breed of biologically “grown” bricks that are durable, sustainably manufactured, and easily produced from readily available materials. These “Better Bricks,” can be “grown” from sand, common bacteria, calcium chloride, and urea. (There's the pee again!) Growing bricks instead of being baking them, which consumes a ton of energy, saves and produces a great amount of energy!

Something to think about. I know it has been a while- but I have just been occupied with settling down in my new home/city/etc. Inhabitable Organism is on the rise! And I have a feeling it will be a pissing good time....

pee power again!!?!

I've done a few posts about Urine at this time but here's something new!

Youtricity, a research group of the Engineering & Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University, is developing the world's first Direct Urea Powered Fuel Cells. They are focusing their efforts to water treatment/purification and renewable energy where urea is a contamination problem.

This revolutionary new fuel cell takes in urine and out comes electricity and clean water. Brilliant! This would mean wonders for third world energy and clean water problems.

How does this magic work? The fuel cells convert chemical energy into electricity through a series of reactions between a fuel and an oxidant. Urea is a great (and redily) replacement hydrogen or methanol fuels. The only catch is that the batteries don't store any chemical energy inside them. This means they can only operate when external fuel sources are supplied. So keep drinking that aqua.

This yellow wonder is the brainchild of Doctors Shanwen Tao and Rong Lan. It uses cheaper materials for its membrane and catalysts. It uses a non-toxic, non-combustible fuel: urine. Talk about reducing your carbon foot print. Did you also know that urea is also known as carbamide? Urea is not strait urine and comes from humans and mammals. These batteries work with both.

Dr. Tao explained his inspirations::::

"Growing up in rural eastern China I was aware of the use of urea as an agricultural fertilizer. When I became a chemist and was looking at fuel cell development I thought of using it in the process. We are only at prototype stage at present, but if this renewable material can be used as a commercially viable and environmentally friendly energy source then we will be absolutely delighted, and many people around the world will benefit."

Urea elsewhere- it is being used in trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles to reduce nitrous oxide emissions. Other interesting urea items are Urea-formaldehyde, aka pee plastic! This is a non-transparent thermosetting resin or plastic. These resins are closer to you than you think. They are used in adhesives, finishes, MDF, and molded objects. It also has a high tensile strength and used to glue wood together! Ah, the resources we piss away everyday!

Wave Power!

Why didn't we think of this before??!! Well it's been going on for a while. Wave Power has actually been in use in one form or another from the late 1700's. The first known patent to utilise energy from ocean waves dates back to 1799 and was filed in Paris by Girard and his son. Oh la la! An early application of wave power was a device constructed around 1910 by Bochaux-Praceique to light and power his house at Royan, a town near Bordeaux in France. This was the first Oscillating Water Column type of wave energy device.
In the 1940's the modern scientific pursuit of wave energy was pioneered by Yoshio Masuda. His experiments tested various concepts of wave energy devices at sea, with several hundred units used to power navigation lights. In 1973, a new interest was invigorated due to the oil crisis then.
Some other things being done now --- an Australian company BioPower Systems uses the biomimicry of the floats of swaying sea plants in the presence of ocean waves in its BioWave system. The Oyster wave energy converter (featured in the video) is a hydro-electric wave energy device. The wave energy device captures energy from nearshore waves and converts it into usable electricity.

Wave- cool!

bees breeze.

With all the interest in swarming and termites, what happened to the bees ingenuity from the populous spectrum? In Syria, one of the traditional Middle Eastern construction keeps cool with out electric hungry HVAC systems. These "beehive" homes are located along the Aleppo and Euphrates Rivers. How they work in keeping the inhabitants cool is through their thick mud brick walls that trap in the cool and keep out the sun. Due to the mass they are similar to Trombe Walls for passive solar heating and cooling. They also let little light in but do have some openings for ventilation. The high dome structures move the hot air away from residents sleeping on the bottom.
The walls and exterior skin is used as a translator of energy. (passive) Imagine if the the dirt and bricks were embedded with photovoltaic chips as well or chloroplast-like cells that could not only keep the building cool and warm but transfer the energy to light and power for the inhabitants. This existing "dead" system could have a new life of its own.

Chloroplasts, the organelle that turns light into energy through photosynthesis, have been the long time inspiration for the solar panels as we know them. To this point they are still large and not nearly as integrated as their original inspiration. But let's get a bit smaller. Material scientists at the Nano/Bio Interface Center of the University of Pennsylvania have taken it there. They have demonstrated the transduction of optical radiation to electrical current in a molecular circuit. The system, consisting of an array of nano-sized molecules of gold, respond to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons that induce and project electrical current across molecules, similar to that of photovoltaic solar cells.

Dawn Bonnell, a professor of materials science and the director of the Nano/Bio Interface Center at Penn, and colleagues fabricated an array of light sensitive, gold nanoparticles, linking them on a glass substrate. By minimizing the space between the nanoparticles to an optimal distance, researchers used optical radiation to excite conductive electrons, the plasmons, to ride the surface of the gold nanoparticles and focus light to the junction where the molecules are connected. This plasmon effect increases the efficiency of electrical current production in the molecule by a factor of 400 to 2000 percent, which can then be transported through the network to the outside world. Pretty amazing. These new cells could be infused into even clothing. Just think about it.

Breathing Builds

Harmonia 57 is Triptyque’s office building located in west Sao Paulo, Brazil. This building works as a living body. It breaths, sweats and modifys itself, transcending its inertia. The walls are simple, thick, and covered externally by a vegetal layer, working as the skin of the structure. This dense wall is made of an organic concrete that has pores, where several plant species grow, giving the facades a unique look.

In this great machine, where the rain and soil waters are drained, treated and reused, a complex ecosystem is formed within the local. This ecosystem is a multifunctional universe made of several interconnected machines. It’s a zone of multiplicity, where meanings and actions float between the unsaid, resulting in dynamic entities.

stomach in the trees

Finding shelter” is: living under an overhang, a rock. “Finding shelter” happens by chance: you’re walking – it’s raining, suddenly – you walk faster, you look around, there’s a rock, it was there all the time – you crawl in under out of the rain. “Finding shelter” is an act of adaptation; you take your hat off to nature, no “self” is asserted in nature’s face. “Making shelter” (as we know it in Western culture) is, by contrast, the act of taking over nature, placing something on top of nature. “Making shelter” is male. -Vito AcconciWouldn't be nice to live and eat in the trees? You can in Auckland, New Zealand at the the Yellow Tree House Restaurant by Pacific Environments Architects. 10m wide,over 12m high and 10m off the ground, this timber trussed structure is basically curved fins of glue-laminated pine. The roof is made of acrylic sheeting.

Living Bridges

“a commitment to the cultivation of life is a practice whose value far transcends the pettiness of individual products; it represents an heroic enlargement of work to an ethics, and a commitment to a human social ecology that far exceeds the usual posture of voluntary submission to the law of markets. No one knows where such an experiment will go, and it is one certainly rife with traps and dead ends. What is most beautiful about it, in fact, might well be its potential to magnify risk.” Sanford Kwinter
In the forests of Meghalaya, India, the War-Khasis people have used the growth during the rainy season to their advantage. They guide the roots of an abundant species of rubber tree in order to create these living organic bridges. These are so sturdy that they can support the weight of up to fifty people . Because they are alive and still growing, the bridges actually gain strength over time – and some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunji may be well over five hundred years old. The root bridges, some of spanning over a hundred feet long, take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional. The time is not that far off from a getting a building built today.

For the logistics behind construction to make a rubber tree’s roots grow in the right direction, the Khasis use betel nut trunks, sliced down the middle and hollowed out, to create root-guidance systems. Technically, the roots could be guided to any direction, say even to become a dwelling.
The thin, tender roots of the rubber tree, prevented from fanning out by the betel nut trunks, grow straight out. When they reach the other side of the river, they’re allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time, a sturdy, living bridge is produced.

This is quite similar to the FAB Tree HAB by Terreform. Instead of using the betel nut trucks, they propose to use prefabricated Computer Numeric Controlled cut reusable scaffolds. Imagine if Levittown was grown instead of built?

a truck grows in brooklyn

Filmmakers Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney have revved up mobile living and food to a whole new level.TRUCK FARM is their brilliant film and food project featuring a 1986 Dodge Truck. By combining green roof technology, organic compost, and heirloom seeds, they have created a living, mobile garden in the streets of Brooklyn. The spacial concept of this is amazing. As every person who has a garden speaks about the "land" and ownership of static space, the truck shifts that notion and reiterates how dynamic the city is but at the same time redefining our innate need and wants to independently grow our own food.

A solar powered timelapes camera is documenting the growth and adventures throughout the summer. Every month they have also been releasing a short as well.



With the new passing of H2749 and CODEX, this might be our only option one day. This sneaky bill which Obama is behind (wtf? when Michelle has a garden at the white house??!Was that all a front?) Her garden is pretty much illegal unless she can dish out $500 dollars. My garden is as well. So would be TRUCK FARM. (more on this bill in its own blog)



Possible we will revert to what I saw when I went to visit my family in Maierato, Italy. Trucks would come around selling goods. There was a mattress truck, egg truck, you name it truck. There was also a boy going around with a cart and a goat selling FRESH FROM THE GOAT goats milk and cheese. Next we will have the village green back.

blamable sustainable

Liftfrance09: John Thackara from Lift Conference on Vimeo.

I love the part about the photoshopping green/grass to make it "sustainable."
John Thackara is the director of Doors of Perception. This is the talk that he gave at LiftFrance09. This talk points in on the the role of design in finding solutions to the ecological crisis. Are you in the Future business? Or the business of now? He invites the audience to avoid terms such as "future" or "sustainable" as they maintain a certain distance to the problem we face. The important point is that the resources to be put in place already exist and that they might not necessitates complex technological developments. Though I would disagree to a degree about the technological developments not being necessary I do believe everything we need is already at our finger tips. The waste in the system is not just noise but energy. But the point is how you TWEAK the waste/noise to be back into the system, be it living walls or energy retrieval devices.