Green Diary

Brad Pitt surely deserves to be there in the green celebs’ list. Well, you may or may not agree to it. Still his foundation, Make It Right, makes him proud in offering 14 sustainable duplex home-designs. He has a full team of 14 world-best architects including Atelier Hitoshi, Bild Design, Billes, buildingstudio, BNIM, Constructs, Elemental, Gehry Partners, GRAFT, Kappe Architects, MVRDV, Pugh + Scarpa, Waggonner & Ball Architects and William McDonough + Partners.

Moreover, it’s just a beginning since the foundation aims to build 150 houses in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Where Hurricane Katrina played havoc four-year back, the site was completely devastated. In a way, it’s a move to restore the normalcy and bring life back on track.

Cheap Chic Weddings.com, is a wedding website that helps you plan a beautiful and elegant wedding without spending your life savings on your big day. The contest called the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress held by the website got an outstanding response, with stunning and innovative creations. The contest is based on the classic wedding shower game where contestants create a gown made of toilet paper, tape and glue to make the blushing bride look gorgeous. This year the prizes were bigger and better than ever. The Grand Prize was a $1000 American Express Gift Card. Second Place got a $500 Gift Card. Third Place received a $250 Gift Card and Runners-Up were given a $100 Gift Card. It could not get bigger than this.

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Here at Greendiary, we highly value those artworks that include reclaiming of the discarded. We’ve already covered the superb art of Ahmad Nadalian and Ulrike Arnold. Though none of them work on recyclables, their art still is an expression of their concern toward nature.

Now this time, it is Mark Langan with his unique artistry. The Cleveland-based artist concentrates upon some unusual fabrics and lends a different meaning to them.

The Slovenian hydro pumped storage power plant has given all the bicyclists a reason to smile. Built with an innovative approach, it provides riders with an open plain to practice all the possible tricks and stunts they always wanted to with their bikes. What gives the user a blissful pleasure while riding, is the smooth hydro-isolation coated surface.

The UK is serious about cutting down on its CO2 emissions and reducing the ever-increasing noise pollution. As it’s quite imperative to monitor the air quality before actually suggesting some remedial measures, the Imperial College London’s researchers plan to transform pedestrians and cyclists into “Mobile Pollution Sensors.” It’s never going to be a speedy program, since a collective three years’ data will reveal some of the pollution hotspots in and around South Kensington, Leicester, Gateshead and Cambridge.

InterHome, a new home that is capable of learning and adapting to its residents and take critical actions. In case the doors are left unlocked or burglers intrude, you will be immediately sent a text message informing you about it. Developed by the University of Hertfordshire, this home will be unveiled at the finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup in Cairo, Egypt, from July 3-7.

SMIT (Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology) does a great job in making solar panels to flutter and gleam while lending a perfect grace to your abode. The siblings, Samuel Cochran and Teresita Cochran, are almost there to introduce Solar Ivy, a thin sheet of photovoltaic panels, having piezoelectric generators on each leaf. In a way, it’s capable of generating continuous electricity since you can never dismiss the presence of either sol or the wind at a time. I mean, when sun isn’t there you can rely on the wind power.

Motorola, one of the world leaders in the development and deployment of TETRA communication solutions, has been commissioned by Sine Network to install a total of 40 TETRA Base Stations with fuel cell back-up across Denmark’s SINE public safety network. Under the terms of the contract, Motorola will deploy approximately 50 other base stations throughout the remainder of the year.

Developed with Dantherm Power, the fuel cell-based back-up system has been installed with continuous secure communication across the nationwide SINE network in Denmark in order to provide mission-critical operations.

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One of the world’s best hybrid cars, Toyota’s Prius thinks ahead of the times. Even before hitting the market, Toyota has plans to keep it fully recyclable when it bids adieu finally. So, it won’t add to the environmental nuisance. As is reported, it will be 85% recyclable and it will be perfectly possible to recover 95% of its materials through a process involving only 2% of its life cycle CO2 emissions.

The architects at Gray Organschi Architecture have designed a simple but innovative structure from raw materials giving a completely new meaning to creativity. This amazing storage barn was build by converting a place that was once a residence to a scrap lumberyard. Storing lumber into a rectangular cube hole in a well-organized manner, it creates a beautiful mosaic-like texture with the stone structure. Bringing creativity and functionality under one roof, the structure uses translucent polycarbonate panels for the walls to facilitate day lighting.