Those who firmly believe that eco-friendly living is devoid of luxury, the Kokopo House is here to change your perception. Situated in Papua New Guinea’s volcanic region, the Kokopo House offering a tree-house look is a luxurious dwelling for a shipping CEO.
The Calfee, designed by Rachel Hammond and carved out of specially selected bamboo stems collected from remote mountains of Taiwan’s Yushan National Park, is a great way to go green.
The innovative idea shaped into reality in California, where the bamboo stems are smoked and heat-treated to give it that extra strength to ride miles, and then is put together into a frame. The extremely durable hemp fiber lugs are joined to the various pieces and then the process of coating it with a satin polyurethane sealant begins for the successful completion of the production.
Weighing almost the same as its metal equivalent, the Calfee has a lot to offer to the environment. Bamboo being a good absorber of greenhouse gases pays its share to the environment. It is exceptionally strong, hence supports greater load than mild steel and is more flexible than carbon fiber to absorb shock well.
Cristina L. Archer from the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, California State University and Ken Caldeira from the Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford have come up with research on the available wind power resources worldwide at altitudes between 500 and 12,000 miles above ground. Based on the geographical distributions and the persistent wind strengths at all altitudes, their reports identified New York, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Seoul and Mexico City as having the highest high-altitude wind potential. These high-altitude winds are capable of meeting the world energy demands 100 times over. They re-analyzed 28 years of wind data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the Department of Energy.
Our busy schedules hardly allow us to think beyond the mundane worries. So finding time to establish any sort of equilibrium with nature is definitely out of the question. Contrarily, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities urges people to devote some space to plants on their rooftops. The green roof movement is being encouraged by replacing painted rooftops with plants. This movement becomes instrumental in cutting down on storm overspill, insulating buildings and moderating the urban heat. It also filters pollutants and carbon dioxide from the air and increases wild life habitat in built-up areas. New York State is providing subsidized thin-layered soil and edible plants for luscious rooftops. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities is a group of companies that create green roofs. Their accumulated efforts witnessed a 35 percent growth in green roof users in the preceding year.
While looking out of their cardboard houses, New Yorkers generally witness the green spots giving way to concrete. The lack of living space, blind race for basic amenities and unsympathetic attitude toward the environment intensify the scenario evermore. Overturning it to some extent, landscape “agritectures” James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed the High Line Park. Unveiled just recently, it will provide the city dwellers with a cue to re-green their living.
Check out the video and a picture gallery after the jump:
PowerSat Corp. aims to harness the solar power from space as a part of a major move toward energy efficiency. The Washington-based power company has filed a provisional patent for two technologies, i.e. BrightStar and Solar Power Orbital Transfer or SPOT, which enable the reduction of launch and operation costs by roughly $1 billion for a 2,500-megawatt (MW) power station. This well-timed development would confirm an unrestrained supply of supple energy undaunted by weather and geographical restrictions. It’s a 24/7 solution to the world’s energy crisis. Soaring high on hopes with a $3-$5 million in angel funding, this 2.5-gigawatt project would actually cost around $4-$5 billion. However, the tangible fruition of plans might go on to take more than a decade since PowerSat hopes to go functional by 2021.
Eastern Lowland Gorillas have been severely affected by human activity and fighting for survival since the 1990s. There has been continuous reduction in their count due to the instability in the Congo escalating into rebel war and violence. Gorillas are hunted more than ever before and their habitat is being destroyed drastically by mining, deforestation, illegal charcoal production and increasing pollution. The Kahuzi-Biega national park, which is responsible for protecting the gorillas, is on the verge of closing.
Quite often, we just impose ourselves on the planet for our survival bothering in the least about the possible outlays. Still, there are radicals who wish to sustain man’s long-drawn-out continuation and keep on suggesting strange methods to unify art and sustainability. Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009 is one such attempt to maintain the equilibrium. Some 25 architects and artists at the Barbican Art Gallery in London will put their art on display from Jun 19 to October 19.
Just a fortnight after Scottish Power unveiled its plan to capture CO2 at Fife, Norway follows the suit to explore the North Sea. This time it’s all embracing since the project aims at sequestering the entire Europe’s carbon emissions underneath the sea bed. The project will encompass each nation’s carbon emissions and the storage potentials. The go-getting plan was almost finalized by the North Sea Basin Task Force at the Bergen Conference last month. The proposed site is somewhere in the Utsira deep saline formation and is potent enough to store up to 600 billion ton of carbon emissions. It will be a $200 million project jointly ventured by the UK and the Nordic country.
Brian Mcallister has designed a Plug-in Electric bike for The University of Washington Design Show 2009. Designated with the name Cykel, it has a system design that caters to a wide range of users and topographies. It has a sharing system of the plug in electric bicycles that is capable of being charged when plugged into the docks. Inspired by a concept, which is quite prominent all through Europe and is popularly known as the bike share program, integrates both muscle power and electric power to function. The Cykel comes with an electric mode, which provides convenience to the users while riding through steep slopes and rough terrains and all those nature lovers can pedal their way making use of the pedal-power.
