After finishing his architecture degree at the University of Monterrey in 2001, he realized that he wanted to focus on sustainable architecture, and knew nothing about it. Foolishly thinking that it would become important in fifteen years time, he packed up his suitcases, left Mexico and headed for Australia, where he studied a Masters in Design Science at the University of Sydney. During his time in Sydney he worked as an ESD consultant and product assessor, looking at everything from the thermal performance of a building, to the environmental impacts of a particular product. Currently working at the Green Building Council of Australia, he continues in his quest to learn what sustainability is and how to achieve it. He figures that it will take some time, but refuses to make any estimates.
Named after one of the world’s most treasured natural wonders, Argington’s new Ayres Twin Bed tucks in your little treasures with the sleek signature style of this next generation minded furniture maker. We’ve featured many of Argington’smodern children’s pieces, but are particularly pleased by this sweet, sustainable, timber trundle bed. Presenting at BKLYN Designs this weekend, the Ayres Twin Bed upholds this sustainably-grounded company’s commitment to beautifully crafted children’s furniture made with the earth in mind.
We get all revved up whenever we hear new developments on the fabulously sexy electric Tesla Roadster. We were floored when we caught our first glimpse of this ultra-sleek sports car, and beside ourselves when this amazing electric vehicle started into production. You can be sure that the latest news announcing that Tesla has just opened its first dealership in Los Angeles has got our green vehicle radar on overdrive. Built close to the 405 freeway (11163 Santa Monica Blvd. for those of you living in Los Angeles), the Tesla Store is the first of five stores currently planned to open up in the United States.
If you have a bike, and have always wanted to ride it to work, get ready to give it a go. The League of American Cyclists is gearing up for Bike-to-Work week, which is running from May 12 to the 16th - just one of many events celebrating May as Bike Month. If cities were designed to have more people using a bike, then perhaps, we wouldn’t have as many problems with congestion and air quality as we have right now. And this initiative is a great way to prove it!
High-end watchmaker Urwerk is bringing new meaning to the term “small wind” by replacing the traditional self-winding mechanism in their UR-202 watch with miniature wind turbines. While this small scale turbine installation isn’t solving any energy crisis, it is a step towards better design, and a wind-driven move that extends the life of this distinctive timepiece. While we’ve seen wind turbine technology in many forms, from large, powerful designs that can power neighborhoods, to small hand-held devices that can charge your mobile gadgets, we can’t recall any innovation that used wind power in such a small (yet significant) detail.
The Salone Satellite, an event featuring young talent, is probably one of the most exciting sections of the Milan Furniture Fair. It features some of the most inventive prototypes and pieces, and is a must see for all visitors and furniture lovers. This year, students from the University of Belgrade presented their work made from industrial wood, and we happen to love the designs that these students brought to Milan. It’s been hard to pick our favorite, so we’ve decided not to even try. Instead, we leave the decision to you, which is your favorite piece?
Next time that you are in Toronto and need a quick ride, you might be able to call upon one of the city’s new EcoCabs. Starting May 1st, Go Mobile Media will introduce 28 EcoCabs throughout the city to provide eco-friendly transit to weary travelers and in-city commuters. And, in addition to being an emissions-free form of transport, Toronto’s EcoCabs are provided free of charge!
This solar-hydrogen plane might just be what Transportation Tuesday heaven looks like! The Hy-bird, by Lisa Airplanes, is a lightweight, hybrid plane made out of lightweight carbon fiber - it’s final weight will be just 1.1 tons. Lithium-polymer batteries will provide the plane’s main power source and solar photovoltaics, covering the plane’s 20-meter-long wings, will provide about 10% of its power. Those of you who find this innovation familiar may recall seeing a computer animation of the Hy-bird in the 11th Hour documentary. But this eco-friendly flying dream machine will soon be taking flight for real! The Hy-bird is set to travel around the world early next year!
The recent furniture fair in Milan has certainly made us appreciate how some of the simplest furniture pieces, like chairs, can be reinterpreted in any number of ways. Tokujin Yoshioka’s Bouquet chair, part of the Moroso collection at Salone Internazionale del Mobile last week, is an extraordinary example. With a thin, chrome metal tube supporting a simple egg shaped shell, Yoshioka has applied a bouquet of fabric squares to create an incredibly snug, and beautiful, chair. While our sustainable side is a little on the fence, we can’t help but be intrigued by this amazing design, which was easily one of the most talked about innovations in Milan this year.
Today, on Earth Day, we wanted to celebrate alternate modes of transportation, and what better way to do so than showcasing a beautiful bike from Mercedes-Benz. Starting in May, MB Accesories GmbH will add the Trailblazer mountain bike to its bicycle collection - the latest in the growing range of the Mercedes-Benz line of high-end bicycles. Perfect for going out to the trails or for trekking around the city, this bicycle has all the high-quality components that you would expect from a company like Mercedes-Benz.
Big things are happening in Sydney. First Earth Hour, which began in Sydney, went global last month. Then, the city unveiled its brand new 2030 vision, which outlines the steps that the city will take to reduce its emissions by 60%. And now, a new project planned for the outskirts of the city will become the most sustainable development in Australia. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, the new 5.8 hectare (14+ acre) development - a mix of commercial, retail, and residential space - will have contributions from none other than Pritzker Prize winners Foster + Partners and Ateliers Jean Nouvel!
If the current US trends of foreclosures and suburban flight continue, one might expect that the suburbs of the future will be desolate, abandoned places. How will we ever recover those large swaths of land and put them back into good use? Enter the CV08, a suburb crushing, land restoring robot designed by Australian architect, and Inhabitat favorite, Andrew Maynard. Its mission is to bring Mother Nature back into the areas left unoccupied thanks to the rising costs of fuel and energy. A provocative, polemical and impossible solution? Sure. But, absolutely awesome at the same time.
Odd-looking doesn’t even begin to describe this hybrid concept vehicle, but the Toyota Hi-CT is a reflection of what a cool and enjoyable vehicle should look like, according to Toyota’s team of young Japanese and European designers. The Hi-CT evolved from the theme of “unbalanced” - the concept behind the entire design of the front-centered proportions. Wanting something that would make you stop and take a good look, Toyota has succeeded. And the young team of designers behind the Hi-CT have given this cool and enjoyable vehicle some very green aces up its sleeve.
There are some intriguing ideas with how to deal with the greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation - the most commonly heard being carbon sequestration. But what else could you do with those emissions? How else could you sequester them? Well, according to Thomas E. Müller, Ph.D., and Toshiyasu Sakakura, Ph.D. CO2 could be used to make polycarbonate plastics for use in products such as DVDs.
You may remember that about a year ago we brought you news of the Bahrain World Trade Center, which was designed to have three giant turbines provide power to the building. Well, this past Tuesday, the project was finally completed, with the final testing and installation of the enormous wind turbines which power the building. This week, Bahrain WTC has, for the first time, activated all three 29m-diameter turbines at the same time!
Hydrogen fuel cells are not new technology but are an intriguing alternative power source. A fuel cell is a device that can convert hydrogen into electricity and is effectively a zero-emissions fuel source in operation (though not in manufacturing). It is commonly deployed in automobiles, and has also been used as a supplementary source of energy within buildings. Last week, Boeing demonstrated a small manned Dimona motor glider using only hydrogen fuel cells, making it the first time that a manned airplane has ever flown on this technology.
It seems like every other day now that a car company announces a new concept that is redefining what it means to be an environmentally friendly vehicle. However, when Toyota says it, we tend to take a closer look. It was Toyota, after all, that created the Prius, the standard to which all subsequent hybrid vehicles are measured. The Toyota 1/x concept, which recently appeared at the Chicago Auto Show, is Toyota’s latest attempt at redefining what a green vehicle means. And to them, it is all about making it weigh less.
We are always on the lookout for non-petroleum based means of transportation so its no wonder that the stylish Vectrix electric motorbike caught our attention. If you are going to live life in the fast lane, this sleek, all-electric, zero-emission motorbike might just be your best green solution for reducing fossil fuel consumption and emissions while riding around town. It runs clean, super far per charge and extremely fast, making it a smart alternative to four-wheeled city travels. See just how fast the Vectrix gets around in the video after the jump.
It is not often that an architecture master reinvents himself, but that is precisely what Pritzker Prize winning architect Frank Gehry has done. Gehry, who first won international recognition with his own residence, a masterpiece of post-modern architecture, has revealed what can only be described as the first post post-modern architectural work, the New Gehry Residence, completely confounding both his critics and promoters alike.
Today’s microchips, while tiny, still use a fair ammount of power. This means that batteries have to be large and don’t usually last very long. But what if microchips were just a little bit more efficient? That’s what a team of engineers at MIT was thinking when they set out to redesign the microchip to make it even more efficient. The result is a microchip with a power consumption that is so low it can be recharged by your very own body heat.
Malaysia is no stranger to iconic buildings. Two of the tallest buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers, are located in Kuala Lumpur, the country’s capital. So it comes as no surprise to us that a stunning new residential development is planned for the Putrajaya waterfront known as Precinct 4, just 30km south of Kuala Lumpur. The design, however, is a refreshing and original with unique, marine-inspired structures - which also draw from traditional Islamic designs - arranged in a permeable, radiating block of bioclimatic architecture.
When the Miami Art Museum required a new headquarters they decided to hire famous Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. They were expecting an incredible design worthy of a cosmopolitan city such as Miami. What they got from Herzog & de Meuron can only be described as the modern interpretation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon - an imaginative structure that bridges urban spaces, climates and cultures.
Step right in ladies and gentlemen, and gaze at the marvels of modern technology! Allow us to show you the most amazing car of the century: The magnificent Detroit Electric, the car of summer luxury! This 100 year-old antique electric car will be available in early 2009 from ZAP and China Youngman Automotive Group, proving once and for all that there is no such thing as a new idea. The Detroit Electric is considered to be the most popular electric car in history — and was produced by the Anderson Electric Car Company in 1907 (production ran from 1907 to 1939). This cute little EV could go fo 130 miles on one charge, and had a top speed of about 32km/h. Famous Detroit Electric owners included Thomas Edison, Charles Proteus Steinmetz and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
There is nothing like a little competition to inspire everyone to design better and greener. At least that is the theory behind the Progressive Automotive X-prize, which aims to create incentives to promote innovative thinking in the different industries. Well, now the X-prize has set their sights on the automotive industry, by announcing a 10 million dollar prize for whoever can design and bring to market a 100mpge vehicle. Doesn’t sound like much, but already 60 different teams have signed up for the competition!
We’re not your typical car geeks here at Inhabitat, but if there is one vehicle that we go gaga for above all others it is the Tesla Roadster. The gorgeous all-electric sports vehicle drives as smoothly as any other sports car out there, only it is way better looking, and completely emissions free! This month, Tesla Motors announced that the highly anticipated 2008 electric Tesla Roadster is finally in production for sale this year!
Installing solar panels on the roof of every new building in the world would go a long way towards solving our energy needs, but as we all know, solar panels are costly and often difficult to install. But what if the solar panel was an integral part of every building? What if solar cells could be painted on building products? Well, according to a team from Swansea University this type of technology will soon be coming to a hardware store near you.
What is the most efficient vehicle on the planet? And more importantly, how far can it go on a single liter of gas? The Microjoule is your answer, getting over 3,794 kilometers per liter, or approximately 8,923 miles per gallon! Looking less like a car than an amoeba-on-wheels, the Microjoule is the design of students from the French Technical School, St. Joseph La Joliverie, who are set to compete in the Eco-Marathon 2008 to be held in Europe this coming May.
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