I am attending the ACADIA conference in Chicago this week and am impressed by the both the city and the innovative projects presented there. ACADIA, the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture has held a conference in a different city and with a different theme each year for the past 29 years. This year’s theme was appropriately “Building a Better Tomorrow” and the projects demonstrated how hardware, software and middleware technologies can transform the way buildings perform, act and operate. One thing that really stood out to me about the work was a nearly ubiquitous bottom-up approach where the designer started with the material, technology or unity, developed a mock-up to explore its potential, subjected it to various experiments and then made adjustments or second and third versions based on their findings in an iterative design process. This approach seems like a natural one for scientists, but also signifies a return to craft that has profound implications on both the way architecture is taught in schools and the relationship between architects and fabricators in practice. Ultimately, the prospect of architects actually making things is exciting. Well at it’s least more exciting than drawing lines on an Autocad screen. But this bottom up approach also seems like a much more fluid way to achieve innovation and makes me wonder if architects haven’t been swimming against the current for the past couple of decades.
Backed by recycled paper imbued with wildflower seeds, once you are done with the puzzle, you can literally throw the puzzle pieces on the earth and watch them grow into flowers! Read more…
Thinking about taking the LEED exam but discouraged by the compounding cost of all the study materials required to take the test? While studying for the LEED AP for New Construction exam a few months ago, I discovered a bunch of free resources of LEED study materials. Read more…
The Kor One Hydration Vessel is the slickest reusable water bottle on the market. Despite the pretentious name, Kor One scores high points for an inspiring design and environmental responsibility. Read more…
If you are sick of spending your vacation sipping umbrella drinks at a crowded beach and if you fell asleep on your last guided bus tour of a foreign country, Roadmonkey may be exactly what you are looking for. Roadmonkey is a visionary travel company that organizes intimate, off the beaten path expeditions that combine adventure with philanthropy, resulting in a more rugged and profound cultural experience for the bold traveler. Read more…
The “Think” trainer is a running shoe composed of modular parts assembled with mechanical locks instead of adhesives or cements, meaning each part of this intelligent design can be removed, recovered and recycled. This also means that you could buy extra parts in different colors and change the look of your shoe any time you want! Read more…
ReProduct’s Zero Waste Greeting Cards are 100% reusable. This is how it works: you send a greeting card to your loved one in a two-way envelope. Similar to Netflix, once your loved one is done enjoying the card, they just place it in the postage paid self-addressed return portion of the envelope and drop it in the mail. The card ends up at Shaw Industries, where 100% of the card is reused in the manufacturing of Shaw carpet tiles. Read more…
Eager to know what products are currently incorporating C2C strategies after reading Cradle to Cradle, I set out to do a bit of internet research, expecting to be blown away by numerous innovative products. Instead I found a lot of criticism directed towards William McDonough for thwarting the many designers eager to implement their C2C designs because of his legal ownership of the term. Read more…
Unlike the previous generation of sustainability manifestos that pit the economy against equity & ecology, Cradle to Cradle “sees commerce as the engine of change” and allows one to embrace their inner capitalist by proposing a sustainable world of guilt-free growth, prosperity and abundance. Instead of viewing consumer waste through the austere lens of the 3 R’s (reduce, reuse and recycle a.k.a. downcycle), McDonough and Braungart, inspired by the abundance of nature, propose the visionary idea of designing consumer products as either biological nutrients or technical nutrients. Read more…
Last week I took a tour of the micro-turbines at Astor Wines & Spirits in Greenwich Village, New York. Astor Wines & Spirits generates its own electricity using two natural gas powered Capstone Micro-Turbines to offset the intense energy consumption required for chilling sake and wine, resulting in lower emissions, reduced natural resource depletion and lower energy costs. Read more…