Green jewelry - Activating a critical mass

“According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent Toxic Release Inventory, from 2006, metal mining in the worst polluting industry in the United States. While no data set exists for world pollution, it is safe to assume that commensurate data would indicate similar findings. Large ENGOs such as Earthworks and Oxfam have waged an extensive campaign to reform the mining industry, both domestically and internationally.

Conversely, precious metal and gems, once extracted, are never discarded. No one throws away gold. The traditional materials used by jewelers and metalsmiths do not fit into the categories of disposable consumerism or planned obsolescence. Precious metal refineries recycle the metal they take in and always have. The initial production of jewelry is dirty, but the aftermarket is a place where recycling and enduring value is the norm. It is in this dichotomy of conflicting perceptions and practices that jewelry and metalsmithing finds itself immersed”.

Gabriel Craig writes about green metalsmithing on the magazine Metalsmith | vol.29 | n°2. The attention paid to green jewelry is almost inexistent but the impact of metalsmithing is high and doesn’t depend only on the material sources and ethical labor production but also on good business practices, manufacturer’s energy consumption and environmental impact related to packaging, transportation and waste.

Anyway, the most important element of green jewelry is extraction; the initial extraction entails the release of mercury  as well as cyanide into water sources near the mine, and also personal safety hazards are frequent in the gold mining process. Secondary refining consist in reusing scrap gold, coming from a variety of sources recycled jewelry and electronics, bullion and material from primary refining, and refining it by different processes and bringing the material to a purity of 99.9999 percent.

Many studio jewelers are now beginning to adopt ethically sourced precious metals as an essential part of their process, by recasting the clients’ old gold and making them pay just the skilled labour on the realized piece. This way the demand of gold decreases, even if in a small way.

“No matter the reason or level of commitment to green jewelry principles” Gabriel Craig says, “every action makes a difference. If a jeweler made 100 rings using ethically sourced gold, he would eliminate a staggering 4 million pounds of rock waste this year alone. I can only imagine the kind of change that could be achieved by activating a critical mass”.

anja visini

http://www.conceptualmetalsmithing.com/
http://www.gabrielcraigmetalsmith.com/index.php?/writing/seeing-green/

Indra's Cloud - Art reusing plastic debris

Sometimes waste can be used in curios ways to communicate a problem instead of throw away objects we reject.
An object hasn’t just one life.
At the Lumenhouse in Brooklyn is  visitable CONVERGENCE, a group exhibition that brings together seven contemporary artists responding to the current environmental crisis in our oceans.
The exhibitions is organized in affiliation with Project Vortex, a not-for-profit organization committed to reusing plastic debris from our oceans and shorelines. The title references convergence zones - the ocean currents that collect the vast floating islands of non-biodegradable trash, the largest of which are several thousand miles across. Each artist's work, suggests creative possibilities for reuse of plastic and other consumer byproduct materials that often otherwise enter the waste stream.
Between the artists, Anne Percoco exhibits Indra's Cloud, a floating raft comprised of over 1000 plastic bottles constructed to draw attention to the polluted conditions of the Yamuna River in India. The mobile public sculpture brings to life an ancient mythe of Indra and Krishna raising Govardhan hill.
In Indian mythology, Indra is the god of war, storms and rainfalls. Indra’s Cloud is a sculpture representing the destructive environmental forces affecting the natural resources. This floating structure made by plastic bottles cruised the Yamuna river in Vrindavan reminding that water is a delicate element, a part of human heritage.
This poetical operation reveals the hypocrisy in day-by-day behavior. Srivatsa Goswami of Vrindavan Radharam Temple says:” We religious people are hypocrites in our relationship to Yamuna. We say she is pure, but we use Bisleri (a brand of mineral water) in our temples. If Yamuna is pure, let use Yamuna water, or else let admit that there is a problem and get on with fixing it”.
When the ride finished, a local NGO (Friends of Vrindavan) used the bottles from the sculpture to grow saplings, which were planted in and around Vrindavan.

anja visini




CONVERGENCE
October 16-December 12, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, Oct 16, 7-9PM



http://lumenhouse.com/exhibits.html
http://www.annepercoco.com/indrascloud.html

Annie Leonard#02 - The Story of Electronics

Embracing new technologies brings up a huge question: What do you do with the old stuff?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans generated about 3 million tons of electronic waste in 2007. Out of all that waste, only 13.6 percent of it was recycled — the rest wound up in landfills or was shipped to developing nations. The country’s growing mounds of e-waste are cause for concern both from a health and environmental perspective, so it’s important for consumers to properly dispose of unwanted electronics.
Electronics contain a variety of toxic components like lead, mercury, arsenic, beryllium and brominated flame retardants, some of which cause cancer and other adverse health effects
Because electronics contain so many toxins, it’s important not to throw them away with the regular trash.
Bringing discarded electronics to recycling or take-back centers is a noble action, but it’s important for consumers to only choose reliable programs.
Annie Leonard released a new video called The Story of Electronics, in which she explains why "design for the dump"is toxic for people and the planet.

http://inhabitat.com/2010/04/27/electronics-recycling-101-the-problem-with-e-waste/
http://storyofstuff.org/electronics/
http://www.storyofstuff.com/

smart works # Abitare di passaggio/design experiment on the "emergenza dimora" programme

This graduation thesis started thanks to a collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano for a project called “Emergenza dimora”, which aims to launch and realize micro-structures for temporary hospitality as an alternative to common night shelters, distributing them on the metropolitan area of Milan and Bergamo (Italy) and improving the comfort and community for the inhabitants; the purpose of the project is to promote the rehabilitation process and the social reintegration of the person to be charged with, widening the coordination nets between the organizations as to do so will develop new sustainable management forms.

[click on the image to enlarge]

The temporary care homes should be a step towards self-sufficiency and privacy usually offered by a private house, whilst avoiding private spaces that can create conditions of exclusion and isolation.
The proposed model is a “public residence” with domestic spaces, as domesticity is the fundamental answer to the real need of comfort for the users.


Daytime is divided into different moments, specified by a typical space structure; the night is reserved to hospitality whereas during the day the same spaces are dedicated to secondary activities – call center, counseling center, library, laundry, recycling point, lost and found etc. - which can be integrated with the hospitality.


The structure must be able to change its configuration during the day and to evolve, according from time to time to the rising necessities.
The main consequence of this way of operating is the relevance of flexibility and adaptability of the internal space. It is necessary to give a wide range of possible transformations, attempting to make the first step towards experimentation of new spaces and aggregation units.


The use of poor and recycled materials minimizes the costs of the new interventions and leaves other resources available for the difficult management of the entire structure.

Politecnico di milano
facoltà architettura e società
corso di laurea specialistica in architettura
anno accademico 2006/2007

ABITARE DI PASSAGGIO
sperimentazioni progettuali sul programma “emergenza dimora”

relatore prof. giovanni la varra
correlatore arch. roberto murgia

lorenzo dalla benetta | l.dallabenetta@gmail.com
alessandro grassi | info.rnb@gmail.com

kader attia: kasbah installation

Serving as a reflection of the conditions in which the majority of the world's population lives, 'kasbah' by french-algerian artist kader attia is an installation featuring a series of shanty town roofs collected by himself and installed at different angles to make a 350 square meter patchwork of corrugated iron, satellite dishes and other scrap materials.
Visitors are invited to walk across them, but the difficulty of taking each cautious step over this uneven, variegated surface provokes a consideration of the successes and failures of the globalised economy and of the human ability to wrest a livable existence from nothing.
thus, walking tentatively over the work, one not only becomes part of it but also implicitly part of the economic and power matrix that creates these shanty towns.
Kader attia's upbringing in a north african immigrant community, studies in Paris and Barcelona, and three years spent in Congo-Brazzaville and Kinshasa have informed a practice that explores geography, history, gender, politics and philosophy.
'Kasbah' is being showcased as part of the 17th Biennale of Sydney at Cockatoo Island which is the event's main venue.


http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/10286/kader-attia-kasbah-installation.html

Canstruction! Amazing garbage!

Canstruction held its 14th Annual International Competition in Las Vegas this year as part of the Society for Design Administration's annual convention. Canstruction is the Society for Design Administration's community service project that promotes the design community and raises food for hunger relief efforts. This year the SDA remembered Cheri Melillo, who founded Canstruction in 1993. Cheri Melillo passed away in December of 2009 after losing her battle with brain cancer. Cheri conceived Canstruction and worked tirelessly over the past 17 years to spread the vision and the mission of Canstruction to over 140 cities across the US, Canada, Australia and now the world.

http://www.canstructiontoronto.org/
http://www.archdaily.com/64225/canstruction-toronto-competition/

Combining technologies # Les Greniers du Sahel

ITERRae is a project developing conservation strategies in inter-tropical regions.
The evident lack of infrastructures pushed Pascal and Yasmina Fayet to elaborate an efficient solution to store the harvest in the small village of Niomré, in the Louga region, Senegal.
In West Africa almost half of the harvest is lost every year and, paradoxically, the more they produce the more they lose.
Mustapha Kadri, the secretary-general of the Agence Nationale de la Filière Oignon, states that the annual loss in the onion production, a traditional product of shaelian Africa, starts after only two months since the harvest and the quantity rapidly rise from the 30 to the 60% of the product between the second and the third month of storage.
Combining the capacity of the traditional materials to absorb heat and the use of the radiative cooling, it’s possible to obtain structures maintaining the interior at an adequate temperature to preserve the harvests, thanks to the desert climate: its transparent and dry atmosphere lets the solar radiation to penetrate until the lower strata of the atmosphere and the ground. On the contrary, the earth radiation during the night makes temperature go down, rising the 0°C and generating a strong thermal range. The technology combines a structure composed by changing phase materials absorbing the heat (double banco wall with a woolly insulating strata) and a coffer composed by: an aluminium box full of changing phase material; a polyethylene film; an opaque removable cover, that will be closed during the day and removed during the night.
In non-electrified regions a radiant refrigeration is an opportunity: the system doesn't need any energetical supply; the equipment is completely sustainable and non-polluting; traditional techniques are used to build the big barns. Building these structures permits to create new social and economical conditions and work opportunities to improve people's alimentation and consequently their sanitary conditions.
Finally, the landscape also changes thanks to a new and typically African new typology of building: the fields of Africa have the possibility to become greener with a more intensive farming.

"Le Greniers du Sahel" is a program supported by Pascal and Yasmina Fayet with common aims: environmental protection; support to food safety; creation of new remuneration activities and economical development.

anja visini


http://www.iterrae.org/
http://dailymotion.virgilio.it/video/x7vkhy_ecoact-projet-les-greniers-du-sahel_webcam
http://www.babnet.net/cadredetail-10631.asp
http://s280572833.onlinehome.fr/iterrae/ne3/media/images/dPresseParis1%20ITERRae.pdf

Recycled polymer architectural brick: EcoARK

The creative minds at miniWIZ recently debuted the POLLI-Brick, a recycled polymer bottle that can be interlocked to build an incredible array of structures. Made from recycled PET bottles, the lightweight bricks offer excellent acoustic and thermal insulation and can build anything from fences and roofs to pots for plants, skylights and beautiful walls of light.
POLLI-Bricks possess incredible thermal and sound insulating characteristics in addition to an awesome strength to weight ratio, which should make them a hit with architects and builders alike. While you can’t yet get these at your local building supply mega-store, the economy, versatility and structural potential of the POLLI-Brick may just be what a struggling building market needs.
Now a Taiwan company has built a three-level exhibition hall -- EcoARK -- using about 1.5 million plastic bottles. According to Reuters, the building was commissioned by Far Eastern Group and will be donated to city government in Taipei. But what's really interesting is the fact that the objects used for the facade are more than simple plastic waste bottles. The product being used here is called Polli-Brick from Hymini.
Polli-Brick is made with recycled PET bottles -- kind of like with the 111 Navy Chair -- to create an interlocking shape that's light weight and structural at the same time. When connected, Polli-Brick almost looks like a honeycomb.
The architectural blocks are translucent and allow natural light to filter through the material. As used in the new EcoARK, the curtain wall is said to be able to withstand typhoons and earthquakes, according to The China Post.
The China Post also said EcoARK is "the world's lightest, movable, breathable environmental miracle ... it can be taken apart and reassembled at another site after the exposition." Sounds interesting ...

http://inhabitat.com/2009/01/15/polli-bricks-by-miniwiz/
http://www.notcot.com/archives/2009/01/solarbulb.php
http://www.jetsongreen.com/2010/04/interlocking-polli-brick-used-for-ecoark.html
http://inhabitat.com/2010/04/14/ecoark-pavilion-made-from-1-5-million-plastic-bottles/
http://www.miniwiz.com/

more and more pallets #architecture

Pallets are cheap and ubiquitous, with over two billion in circulation around the world, which explains the remarkable resurrection of “ Palletecture projects” lately. The unexpected modular reuse of everyday materials is nothing new in architecture—seemingly every term in architecture school brings with it experiments in the tiling of things like cable ties, styrofoam cups, plastic water bottles, and so on—but the spatially dramatic effects of this particular experiment in large-scale, off-kilter pallet-stacking are worth seeing. In fact, a kind of micro-village of equally fluid forms built entirely from pallets would be fascinating to see…
Architects and designers have been having their way with them, building theaters, refugee housing , art and architecture...

'Pallet house' was designed by Schnetzer Andreas Claus and Pils Gregor, students from the university of vienna. made out of reused pallets it is modular, energy efficient and affordable making it good for low income housing.
Back in 2008 they won the Gaudi European Student Competition, for their design, which was seeking designs for minimal houses of leisure for the XXI century on sustainable architecture. Since then they have exhibited in numerous cities in europe including Venice, Vienna, Linz and Grenoble.

http://www.palettenhaus.com/#
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/9690/pallet-house.html


Denis Francois Oudendijk collaborates with Jan Korbes, a self proclamed purveyor of Garbage Architecture, and usually uses reclaimed materials for small or medium size architectural and design projects.
Its variety of work leads up with urban context and day-by-day life, giving a weird vision, well integrated in an actual context where needs are approached with creativity and quickness.
He choosed pallets to design this 150 people theater in Amsterdam.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/theater-made-from-recycled-pallets.php
http://wrongdistance.com/?p=2050
http://www.vlnr.info/html/n-projecten.html


[Image: photographed/copyright by Mila Hacke, Berlin].

The Palettenpavillon by Matthias Loebermann is a structure made entirely from shipping pallets, ground anchors, and tie rods. Designed to be easily assembled and dismantled, and then entirely recycled at a later date, the resulting building is intended as a temporary meeting place pavilion for the World Ski Championships in 2005.
As the architect writes, the 1300 shipping pallets are "characterized by a complex geometry of open and closed surface portions," with the effect that a staggered stacking of each unit produces "interesting netlike structures." They add that the deceptively curvilinear form becomes a "cave."

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/pallet-house.html
http://www.aml-partner.de/palettenpavillon-bilder.htm

more and more pallets #furniture

Revale is a project by Brazilian studio Design Simples, aimed to improve the work and life of the Unindo Forças woodwork cooperative in Vale do Sol (Barueri, Sao Paulo).With the idea to provide the conditions for the cooperative to compete with higher quality goods, the studio designed these stunning pieces of furniture with the material the group uses for its work: recycled pallets.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/04/sleek-recycled-pallets-furniture-to-improve-work-of-cooperative-in-brazil.php


Nina Tolstrup of Studio Mama is a London designer who created the Pallet Chair. Based on budget constrictions and found materials, her design fashions a used pallet into a lovely and more modern version of the comfy adirondack chair.
Pallets are the new new and for good reason: they are sustainable, recycled, and make use of discarded packaging. The interesting part of these very basic but serviceable chairs is that they can be ordered online for a mere £10 ( $US 15) and the instructions downloaded. In addition, unemployed workers in a slum of Buenos Aires are making them in a furniture co-operative.

http://www.studiomama.com/


Homeless Chateau, 2008, is a prefab one person living module, measuring approximately 4 x 8 x 4 feet and made from FSC certified and recycled materials. It is designed to be used inside another building, such as a warehouse, and is fully self-contained, including a bed and cooking and toilet facilities. There are hooks for clothing and towels, and a built-in shelf unit, made from a pallet, for storage of food, books and other items. A rubber flap over the entrance provides privacy, and one end of the structure is made from translucent polyurethane to let in natural light.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/homeless-chateau.php


Swiss designer Sibylle Stoeckl has come up with a new way to repurpose old and discarded wood pallets. In a series called Le Cageot, Stoeckl takes standard crates and turns them into modular pieces which can be combined and stacked into a variety of shapes and sizes. The unfinished wood also makes an ideal canvas for a little bit of color and creativity, and the raw yet refined look will provide the perfect compliment to any room.

http://www.sibyllestoeckli.com/s/
http://inhabitat.com/2010/02/24/wood-pallets-repurposed-into-modular-furniture/



http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/04/pallets-for-people.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/recycling-pallets-into-art-and-architecture.php

Watertower in Sudan by H3AR architects

The conflict over water and land in Sudan has created political unrest for decades. However, in 2007, scientists from Boston university discovered and underground lake in the region of Darfur, Sudan. This lake is tenth biggest lake in the world (31, 000 m2) and would have great potential in resolving the conflict if managed correctly.
Addressing this water issue, polish firm H3AR architect and design recently proposed a building that allows access to underground waters through the application of water pumps.This building is meant to provoke economical development but also stimulate cultural exchange and the coexistence of the three different religions and languages in Sudan.
The building walls are constructed using compressed dry stacked clay bricks, made on site using a rough mixture of earth, cement and water. The bricks would be baked in the hot sun, thus, requiring no extra energy and limiting the environmental impact of the materials.
The choice of using this technology represents the desire to introduce alternative and sustainable technologies within a context that is tied to stardardized though not always optimal building practice.




For a similar theme, this time dedicated to western countries, Ryszard Rychlicki and Agnieszka Nowak of H3AR received a special mention for their proposal for eVolo Skyscraper competition 2010.
The façade of the tower consists in a systems of gutters, focused at shaping and modeling the surface of the roof to capture as much rainfall as possible flowing down the building to meet the daily needs of its inhabitants. Average daily consumption of water per person is 150 liters, out of which 85 liters may be replaced by rain water. Within the last thirty years water consumption has significantly increased in the developed countries.
Under a roof’s surface, there are water reservoirs in the form of a large funnel and reed fields, which serve as a hydro botanic water treatment unit. The unit processes water into usable water that is further transmitted to apartments.
After seeing the two projects I ask myself if it’s possible to adjust this idea to Africa or countries in need in a correct mix of utility and possibility. Can small devices be projected with the aim of collecting water in an efficient way? Can them be realized with cheap material by the population and work? We’ll try later…


http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/9406/hugon-kowalski-watertower-skyscraper.html
http://www.h3ar.pl/

http://www.existingvisual.com/2010/03/12/rain-collector-skyscraper-evolo-skyscraper-competition-2010-ryszard-rychlicki-agnieszka-nowak-of-h3ar/

Rammed earth stoves in Rwanda

The Mud Stove originated at GAKO in Rwanda. It provides a means of cooking with 2 pots on one fire, much more efficient and safer than the normal ‘3 stones’ that so many people use because the fire is contained and controlled. It is also healthier as the smoke can exit through a hole in the wall. However, as it is made from wet mud, it is slow and laborious to construct, taking up to one week to finish.At EAT, we took GAKO’s basic concept and adapted it to Rammed Earth (RE) construction. With our sturdy wooden mould, 2 people can make a stove in under 2 hours. Being compacted, the earth is unlikely to crack and, being moulded, consistent stoves can be made every time. The RE stove was Improved and then Further Improved giving rise to the name F.I.R.E.S. : Further Improved Rammed Earth Stoves.Making the moulds provides work for local carpenters; making stoves can be a trade for someone otherwise without work, and the finished stoves are very popular, making the kitchen virtually smoke-free and so much safer.

download the earth stove plan

download the solar cooker plan

http://www.eastafricatrust.org.uk/page3.html

http://rammedearth.blogspot.com/2010/03/rammed-earth-stoves-in-malawi.html

http://www.eartharchitecture.org/index.php?/archives/1072-Rammed-Earth-Stove.html

Combining technologies

The Jahili Fort located in the modern-day centre of the city is the largest of Al Ain’s forts. Built in the 19th century by Sheikh Zayed the First, it can be seen from the Al Ain oasis to the west of the city. With its distinct three-tiered profile, the fort is now a national monument, pictured on the 50 Dirham note and often used as a logo or model for new architecture. The old fort was erected at the end of the 19th century.
The fort was recently restored by Roswag & Jankowski Architekten, Berlin.The interior surfaces remain true to the historical appearance. The ceiling consists of palm rafters and palm leaves. A local clay plaster has been used for the interior wall surfaces. In the exhibition areas a grey coloured fine clay finishing plaster made by Claytec was used to create a neutral background for the exhibition spaces. The floors likewise follow historical precedence and are made of rammed earth stabilised with a wax to cope with greater wear and tear.
All new insertions such as doors and furniture, made of corian or wood composite, are coloured white differentiating them from the surrounding building. The external render of the existing walls was examined and repaired where necessary. Previous renovation works had employed a non-traditional plaster with added gypsum for the crenelations. This plaster is too rigid and already exhibited defects; it was replaced with a clay plaster. The building was then given an overall finishing coat of clay plaster. The earth plaster is maintained at regular intervals as is traditional with this historical material. When used as an external render, clay plaster should be regarded as a weathering surface that needs ongoing maintenance, typically every two years, sometimes after sustained periods of heavy rain. Sandstorms are also a cause of erosion.The 90 cm thick external earth walls offer excellent thermal insulation. The additional insulation on the roof improves still further the indoor room temperature and together with the solar protection windows on the façade provide effective protection against the extreme heat outdoors. The building is kept at a constant 24°C using a water-based cooling system integrated into the plaster layer of the walls. This minimizes the need for additional air cooling so that only fresh air is required. The cool indoor temperature of the walls and the reduced need for cold air makes the indoor climate more comfortable and reduces the energy consumption. An actual room temperature of 24°C equates to a felt room temperature of 22°C. The plant and technical installations for the entire fort are located below ground in the buffer zone.
The construction is made of traditionally available building materials including earth, palm products and to a lesser degree also timber. The quartered palm trunks can span a room of about 2.70 m and dictate the strongly partitioned structure of the historic buildings. The walls consist of air-dried earth blocks which can be built directly on the sandy ground without the need for foundations. A matting made of palm fronds covered with earth is laid on rafters made of split and quartered palm trunks arranged at an incline. The small amount of timber available was used for the door and window frames

http://www.zrs-berlin.de/daten/inhalt/menue_02/02_p_architektur/p_architektur_01.html
http://www.eartharchitecture.org/index.php?/archives/1013-Jahili-Fort-in-Al-Ain-Abu-Dhabi.html
http://www.architekturclips.de/webseiten/filme/a_neun/aljahili/al_jahili_kurz.html

Annie Leonard#01 - The Story of Stuff International

Since The Story of Stuff was launched online on December 4, 2007, the site has been visited by millions of people in over 224 countries and territories around the world, and we have received literally thousands of requests for the film to be translated. We are pleased to launch this international site, which includes translated versions of the films with subtitles, as well as the contact information for the organizations around the world that did the translations.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/international/
http://www.storyofstuff.com/international/pdfs/script_english_annotated.pdf

Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple - Thailand

The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple was built with more than a million glass bottles, in Thailand's Sisaket province, about 600 km (370 miles) northeast of Bangkok.

The Thai Buddhist temple has found an environmentally friendly way to utilize discarded bottles to reach nirvana -- using them to build everything in its premises, from a crematorium to shelters and toilets.

Bob Cain and his wife Dora used around 5000 glass bottles to build theit our small church. It's been over 20 years now since the whole adventure began and they have already built more tha 20 buildings made by glass bottles.

In 1963 Heineken put on the market beer bottle with square section that can be used as brick. They were called WOBO (WOrld BOttle). The design was improved by the Dutch John Habraken in Noordwijk but later abandoned. It is a good exemple of creative recicling and "from cradle to cradle" design, i.e. objects adopting functions in relation with different phases of their vital cycle. The only wall built with this special bricks is in the Heineken museum in Amsterdam...

http://www.habraken.com/

http://casadebotellasdepet.blogspot.com/

http://www.treherne.ca/pages/glassbottlehouse.html

Fliegende Bauten - flying building

In a manner as demonstrative as the one with which they store and categorize other people's garbage, Köbberling and Kaltwasser build structures that are more or less sustaintable. One of the first of these is called "Fliegende Bauten" (flying building), a German legal term that is normally used to designate stalls, caravans, or other easily-movable structures.Cabins and gaily-handmade makeshift shelters have found a temporary place in a vast parking lot on the outskirts of the city of Munich, among highrise apartment buildings, prisons, stadiums, and urban highways.

California Eco Homes Double by Khalili

Nader Khalili's affordable and eco-friendly ceramic, domed homes could one day house the first settlers on the Moon.

The Iranian-born, California-based architect's designs build upon elemental materials—earth, water, and fire—and their remarkably simple construction rely only on basic architectural forms, such as arches and domes. Once the structure is secured, the interior of the dome is kiln-fired, which seals the inside with a thick terracotta crust.

"To me it's obvious to use earth as a building block," Khalili tells AFP. "I don't consider that I have invented anything at all. "All the Mediterranean civilizations used earth or natural materials in their architecture."

Besides having his work recognized by the United Nations, Khalil is also regularly invited to give presentations to NASA about the possibilities of using his designs, which cost US$3,200 each to build, for lunar colonies. Because transporting thousands of tonnes of heavy materials from the Earth to the Moon isn't feasible, says Khalil, raising buildings from lunar soil presents an attractive alternative.

Some of Khalil's designs can even withstand earthquakes—primarily, he says, because all his houses rely on the arch. " The traditional shape of a square house with vertical walls is almost designed to fall over one day. With an arch nothing collapses," Khalil says.

In fact, local authorities in earthquake-prone California recently approved Khalil's larger, more-elaborate homes, known as "superadobes" after the first terracotta homes built by Spanish settlers to the state. The structures, which are naturally air-conditioned because of strategically placed openings in the walls, can be completed by three people within a week for around US$90,000.

On a humbler scale, mini-domes based on Khalili's designs were constructed to house people made homeless by the earthquakes in Iran in 2003 and Pakistan in 2005. "Imagine a world where every refugee has a roof over their head—that hardly costs anything," Khalili says.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/california_eco.php

Una casa per tutti

MVRDV, clotheshouse.

Beamdesign, pallet house.

Peruan Red Cross+IFRC, shelter.

Gio Ponti in late 1942 chose "Casa per tutti" ("a house for everybody") as title in a "Stile" issue first page. It was also the slogan and guide line for the VIII Triennale di Milano.
Today this is still a problem, a state of emergency increasing day by day not only in disaster sites, but in our cities with fragmented suburbs, slums, insufficient popular housing, first reception centres for migrants, Rom camps etc...
The exposition "Una casa per tutti" at Triennale di Milano (23th May - 7th September) shows a wide range of experimantal emergency housing, divided in four sections - Fast Houses, Utopias and New Materials, Micro/Macro, Emergencies -.

Between the analysed solutions can be found the existenz minimum of Le Corbusier, Gropius, Aalto, Prouvé, Fuller's geodetic structures, the Living Pod (1966) of Archigram, and so on until today, with Carolina Pino's cardboard shelters and Madhouser's Huts in recycled materials, MVRDV, Cliostraat, David Adjave, Shigeru Ban, Morphosis, the Chilean architect Aravena, Kengo Kuma, the Red Cross shelter and IFRC in Peru etc...

At the same time, "La vita nuda" ("the naked life", coordinated by Aldo Bonomi) presents the harsh reality of abusive settlements in Rome and maps 82 situation of risk in Milan municipality with a rich visual support of photos, clipping and installations.

http://www.triennale.it/index.php?lang=_eng&id=1&tbl=0&idq=726 http://milano.repubblica.it/dettaglio/In-Triennale-la-casa-per-tutti/1462936

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture: energy-efficient and sustainable architecture on an international scale

"We believe that architecture has a unique power to influence our world".
This is the beginning sentence of AS+GG's philosophy.
Two exemples of design " that aid society, advance modern technology, sustain the environment and inspire those around us to improve our world".


MASDAR HEADQUARTERS (MASDAR CITY, ABU DHABI, UAE) is the first building in the zero waste, zero carbon emission Masdar City outside of Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates. The Masdar Headquarters will be the first mixed-use positive energy building in the world. AS+GG worked with MEP engineers Environmental Systems Design and structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti on the design.

Clean Technology Tower Building (Chicago) on principles of biomimicry, Clean Technology Tower utilizes advanced technologies and climate-appropriate building systems to foster a symbiotic relationship with its local environment. The tower is sited and formed to harness the power of natural forces at its site- but it refines the conventional methods of capturing those natural forces to significantly increase efficiency. Wind turbines are located at the building’s corners to capture wind at its highest velocity as it accelerates around the tower. The turbines become increasingly dense as the tower ascends and wind speeds increase. At the apex, where wind speeds are at a maximum, a domed double roof cavity captures air, allowing for a large wind farm and the use of negative pressures to ventilate the interior spaces. The dome itself is shaded by photovoltaic cells that capture the southern sun. These systems provide both comfort and energy to the space.

http://www.smithgill.com/

La Maison Tropicale landed by the Thames...?!?!

La Maison Tropicale, Paris 1949. Interior surface 180 square feet, terrace 500 square feet.
Jean Prouvés Tropical House as photographed by Bernard Renoux in Brazzaville in 1996. (Copyright Bernard Renoux: http://www.renoux-photo.com )

La Maison Tropicale by Jean Prouvé, beside Queensboro Bridge, NYC 2007.

The Maison Tropicale is a beautiful modernist artefact designed in 1951 by visionary French architect Jean Prouvé.
The Masion Tropicale really was a flat-pack house, and it was way ahead of its time - not for nothing has Prouvé been labelled "the godfather of high tech" (he was also on the judging panel for the Pompidou Centre). It was designed to be flown out to remote parts of Africa in cargo planes, to house French colonials so it is made entirely of flat, lightweight aluminium and steel pieces, standing on concrete stilts. Built for tropical temperatures, it features an ingenious natural ventilation system - using heat on the double roof of the house to draw in fresh air through openings in the walls and up into the ceiling. There are also adjustable sunshades around the veranda, double-skinned insulated walls and sliding doors while little circular portholes of blue glass protect from UV ray.
Only three of these houses were made in Niger and Congo, since the 50s until 2000 when Eric Touchaleaume found them, shipped them back and got them restored.
The one of the three 1951 prototypes, originally installed in Brazzaville, was bought by the New Yorker hotelier André Balazs for $ 4,968,000 ($ 5,028 per square foot) and has been lent for public view until April the 13th in front of the Tate Modern museum in London, waiting to end up as the centerpiece of some sort of environmentally sound resort in Central America.

The Maison Tropicale was also taken as theme of investigation by Angela Ferreira, chosen to represent Portugal at the 52th Venice Biennale.
The artist presented her work "Maison Tropicale", consisting of a large-scale installation, which includes sculptural and documentary elements alluding to colonial history and to contemporary colonial phenomena.
Angela Ferreira continues her investigations into the ways in which European modernism adapted or failed to adapt to the realities of the African continent, situated conceptually between the failure of modernism in the so-called centres, and the conflicting impact of colonizers attempting to implement modernism across Africa.
The critical proposition is shared by Manthia Diawara, which follows Ferreira's visits to the sites where the prototypes of the houses were installed in Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo and Niamey in Niger, as well as the subsequent reclamation (see the titles in the press official page:"saved from the jungle") of the prototypes by the Western art world. In a 58-minute film he shows the story of Mirelle Ngasté, the last owner of the Brazzaville Prouvé's house. The premier of the film took place on March th 10th in Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, with the opening of "Hard rain show" by Angela Ferreira and the Berardo Collection Museum.


maison tropicale in london http://www.lamaisontropicale.com/www/ http://www.designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2008/prouvehouse

maison tropical by angela ferreira and manthia diawara http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/4202 http://www.michaelstevenson.com/contemporary/exhibitions/ferreira/ferreira_diawara.htm http://www.artafrica.info/html/eventos/evento_i.php?id=2049