Using design to create solutions and environments that uplift citizens and are harmonious with the planet . Also known as the story of one freak girl to become a designer and experiments in personal change.
How one woman is building homes for the poor out of plastic bottles
Ingrid Vaca Diez is on a mission to build better homes for the poor.
With few funds and little support, she uses the only resource she can find in abundance - empty plastic bottles.
Her own life in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, is one of relative comfort but she is shocked by the rising level of poverty she sees around her.
Though completely self-taught, she designs and builds new homes using recycled plastic bottles filled with dirt as the âbricksâ. So far, she has built 10 of these homes.
The people she is trying to help are rural, indigenous migrants, often living in single room, dirt floor shacks.
The Future Living house is a testament to the will of design. It took twenty six designers (a feat in itself) to create it. Every technologic leap was analyzed to make sure anything proposed was possible by 2050. Itâs a paradigm shift in home resource creation and location. Water uses gravity to generate pressure. Energy is harvested from solar and wind apparatuses. Air, water and waste are cleaned using a living bio wall and everything is recycled when possible.
Anti-Smog is a parasite project set up on the post-industrial urban structure of the Petite Ceinture and the canal de lâOurcq in the 19th Parisian district. It is a public equipment dedicated to promote the last innovations on the theme of sustainable development in urban area in terms of housing or transport. Its role is to apply all the avant-garde renewable energies so as to fight against the Parisian smog. This smog (smoke + fog) is a bluish to reddish haze. It is the result of the water condensing (the fog) on the suspended dust and the presence of ozone in the troposphere. The smoke is produced in major part by the burning of fossil fuel and is composed of sulphurous gas (such as sulphur dioxide) in addition to the dust on which the water steam contained in the fog condensates itself. This photochemical cloud is associated to many detrimental effects for the health (asthma, infarct, AVC) and for the environment (acid rains, attrition of the building). This project aims therefore at inventing a new architecture able to disasphyxiate the area in which it is set up!Â
In this episode of Upgrade, Motherboard dives head first into the R+D world surrounding the development of fungi as a viable replacement for plastic, and the people who hope it can lead to a better and more sustainable future.
Itâs Getting Hot in Here: âWhy Planting More Trees is One of the Smartest Things a City Can Doâ
From Vox:
Trees can make a city sidewalk prettier, sure. But thatâs not even their best trick. A growing pile of research suggests that planting more urban trees, if done right, could save tens of thousands of lives around the world each year â by soaking up pollution and cooling down deadly heat waves.
In fact, as a fascinating new report from the Nature Conservancy details, a well-targeted tree campaign could be of the smartest investments a hot, polluted city can make. Which seems important, given that the worldâs cities will add about 2 billion people this century, and theyâre only getting hotter.
âA lot of cities still think of trees as just ornamentation,â says Rob McDonald, the lead scientist for the Nature Conservancyâs Global Cities program and a co-author of the report. âBut they really do so much more than that. And the evidence suggests that we should start thinking of trees as a crucial part of our public-health infrastructure.â
Find out why here.
Photos: Steven Godfrey
Related:
âThe importance of urban forests: why money really does grow on treesâ (The Guardian)
â3 cities taking urban forestry to the next levelâ (World Resources Institute)
âWhy should an urbanist care about biodiversity?â (Nature of Cities)
âOne simple trick to improve cities: plant more treesâ (FastCoExist)
â7,000 cities around the world are way ahead of targets to cut carbonâ (Quartz)
"If we are to elevate the dialogue related to designing for equity, new platforms are needed in which new voices can contribute to the language, evaluation metrics, principles upheld, and narratives told about this work. And this will not happen until we also have a leadership model that pays attention to more than a few architect-heroes who dominate popular critique." What could these platforms for dialogue look like? How can they strive to empower all to contribute? Design for Equity: Introduction to an Eight-Part Feature Series - Impact Design Hub
People across the globe are re-discovering the pleasures and benefits of common activity; neither as passive consumers of culture, nor as needy recipients of charity, but as active makers and designers of where they live.
Tessy Britton - Creative and Collaborative, in Build the City: perspectives on commons and culture (2015)
âItâs possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems.â Environmental film maker John D. Liu documents large-scale ecosystem restoration projects in China, Africa, South America and the Middle East, highlighting the enormous benefits for people and planet of undertaking these efforts globally.
Follow John D. Liuâs work:
Environmental Education Media Project: http://eempc.org/
What If We Change restoration media project:
http://www.whatifwechange.org
Restoring Large Scaled Damaged Ecological Systems:
http://greendeserts.wordpress.com/
Research, Training and Innovation Centers for Ecological Restoration:
https://www.facebook.com/InnovationceâŠ
Papers and other documentaries: https://knaw.academia.edu/JohnDLiu
More information about permaculture designer Geoff Lawtonâs Greening the Desert project in Jordan:http://permaculturenews.org/2007/03/0âŠ
Warka Water relies only on natural phenomena such us gravity, condensation & evaporation and doesnât require electrical power. It is a vertical structure designed to harvest potable water from the atmosphere (it collects rain, harvests fog and dew). Warka Water is designed to be owned and operated by the villagers, a key factor that will facilitate the success of the project. The tower not only provides a fundamental resource for life â water â but also creates a social place for the community, where people can gather under the shade of its canopy for education and public meetings.
Daily water collection: 13 to 26 gallons (50 to 100 L), annual average.
Water tank storage: 800 gallons (3000 L).
Construction: 10 days, 10 people (by hand, no electrical power machinery required).
Assembly: 2 hours, 10 people.
Weight: 176 pounds (80 kg).
Materials: Bamboo, hemp, metal pins, bio-plastic.
Dimensions: Height 31ft (9.5 m) â Footprint Ă 12 ft (3,7 m).
Surface Area: Mesh 323 sq ft (30 sq. m)
Collector 87 sq ft (8.1 sq. m), Canopy Ă 32 ft (10 m).
Cost : ~ $1,000 (production in Ethiopia).
Maintenance : easy to be maintained, cleaned and repaired.
WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO MAINSTREAM âALTERNATIVEâ AGRICULTURE? Innovative food systems such as agroecology can become the norm if we weave a web of legitimacy from science, politics, society and values.
(via What would it take to mainstream small-size, local, sustainable farms?)
Americaâs first sustainable urban agrihood is growing in Detroit
An alternative neighborhood growth model, positioning agriculture as the centerpiece of a mixed-use development. There are some agrihoods around the country, but in rural areas. This is the first within a city.
(via Americaâs first sustainable urban agrihood is growing in Detroit - Curbed Detroit)
Regenerative Design @nadaaziz-blog2 - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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