Sydney’s ugliest building may soon be getting a new lease on life through to a plan to ‘reskin’ the entire tower with a high-performance photovoltaic skin. Architecture firm Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) has proposed the retrofit, and if their plan is enacted it would turn the 1960’s brutalist building into a brilliant super-efficient eco-tower.
Project H Design, the design nonprofit founded in 2008 by Inhabitat Senior Editor Emily Pilloton, is in the running for a $50,000 grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project to launch Studio H, a high school design and vocational program in the poorest county in North Carolina. Studio H will be a one-year program, taught by Emily Pilloton and Project H architect Matthew Miller, combining design thinking, vocational shop skills, and community service to collectively build one big project per year in a rural county in need (first project: bus shelters for the school bus system!).
The $50,000 grant would fund Project H’s shop build-out at the high school, and the first year’s construction materials. To land the funding, they need votes to secure a spot in the top ten (right now they’re at #12!).
**3 clicks if you vote using your Facebook log-in!
Portable wireless mice have a problem: most of them rely upon disposable batteries, which often wind up in landfills as e-waste. Adele Peters’ Corky mouse aims to change all that — it’s a kinetic energy-harvesting mouse that is powered with a flick of the wrist. One of 18 finalists in this year’s Greener Gadgets Design Competition, it’s also made from 100% recycled plastic components and recycled and biodegradable cork.
It’s easy enough to find a solar-powered charger for iPods, cell phones, and other gadgets, but this ultra-tiny solar-powered sensor system is smaller than anything else on the market — 1,000 times smaller than standard systems, in fact. Developed at the University of Michigan, the 2.5 x 3.5 x 1 millimeter system is the smallest in the world, and it can harvest energy from its surroundings almost perpetually.
Storytelling design is the first step towards a healthier future for patients at the Evangelisches Konigin Elizabeth Krankenhaus children’s psychiatric hospital in Berlin. Designed as a collaborative effort between the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Dan Pearlman Creative Agency, the center creates a fantastic narrative that guides patients on a journey to “Elise Island”, a safe place to play and rest hosted by Princess Elise.
Ocean-bound shipping containers are an often-overlooked source of CO2 emissions — over 90% of all non-bulk cargo carried worldwide arrives in containers, and many of them are sent back empty. Enter the innovative Cargoshell collapsible shipping container, which can drastically cut emissions on return trips by collapsing to a quarter of its full size.
When most of us think of convention centers, we think of big empty spaces that are certainly not very environmentally friendly. That’s not the case for the next generation of centers — case in point, the very cool looking Qatar National Convention Center. The striking 177,000 square meter structure is seeking a LEED Gold Rating, a first for a building of its type in the region. When it’s completed next year the center will boast 3,700 square meters of solar panels in addition to a host of other resource-saving features.
Have things gotten a bit cramped in your home since welcoming a new baby? Belkiz Feedaway is the perfect solution to recoup some space. Certainly sturdy enough to support a smiling little guy (or gal!) within its recycled cardboard frame, this portable seating system can also be flat-packed and slipped out of sight whenever things start getting cluttered!Â
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If you’ve ever lamented having to throw away a piece of saran wrap, this might cheer you up. This rather striking piece of outdoor eco-art is made out of 10,000 feet of recycled plastic-wrap salvaged from a warehouse! Reader amputectecture says:
“This piece invited people to leave the prescribed paths and enter the chained-off grass. The plan was comprised of four triangles, radiating from one tree …
If you’ve got a toddler running about the house you may have asked yourself “Isn’t there some way I could put all of that energy to good use?” Well the folks who came up with Rocco, one of the awesome entries in the Greener Gadgets design competition, were thinking …
One of the biggest challenges of building a sustainable future is figuring out how to efficiently move people and objects from one place to another. Electric cars and biofuel-powered planes might be the answer in the short-term, but now a physicist at Tohoku University in Japan has figured out how to teleport energy from one point in the universe to another.
As more and more people across the world adopt cars as their primary mode of transportation, well-lit highways become increasingly important. But how can we sustainably power all those energy-sucking lights? TAK Studio addressed that question in their entry into this year’s Greener Gadgets competition to find the green technology solution of the future. Dubbed the Turbine Light, their design aims to illuminate our roadways using the power of the wind.
Heads up gadget geeks!Want to catch a glimpse into the future of green technology? Then check out the freshly unveiled finalists in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition! These 18 designs offer smart green solutions that range from creating energy-efficient households to supercharging our freeways with renewable power to rocking our way to clean energy. Don’t miss your chance …
From its modular modern design to its shipping container components, Olgga’s student housing complex struck us as a pitch perfect project for prefab friday. The French architecture firm designed the complex to be constructed from 100 repurposed shipping containers. Talk about putting your students in a box!
Imagine: a solar-powered screen that could quickly charge up your new iPad. Solar chargers are certainly nothing new, but this circuit is embedded right in the touchscreen, so you don’t have to set the device on its back to catch light. It’s not a reality yet, but it might be soon, courtesy of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania.
This month Project H Design is hitting the road in a vintage Airstream trailer with their Design Revolution Road Show, starting with exhibitions in SF and LA this week! The show will be run by Inhabitat’s very own Emily Pilloton and will showcase 40 great examples of humanitarian design (as seen on the Colbert Report).
The tour kicks off tonight at 6pm in San Francisco with an opening party at the Academy of Art University and will be in Pasadena at the Art Center’s Hillside Campus on Monday, so if you’re in either of these cities we highly recommend checking the show out before it leaves the state. Hit the jump for details on each exhibition!
Check out this tip we received from reader isupereco: “H2O Architects designed an incredible looking wall planter dubbed the “Grass Mirror.” The planter is 43 inches long and 4 inches deep and adds a stunning effect to any room. The “Grass Mirror” is actually made up of highly reflective polished stainless steel which creates a very unique look for your wall.”
Thanks isupereco!
Cork is a useful material for making a number of things — wine bottles, furniture, and cork boards, to name a few–but airplane parts? A group of Portuguese cork producers recently launched the Aerocork project, which is investigating the feasibility of replacing plastic PVC with cork in the fuselage, wings, and flaps of light aircraft. The cork-based parts could be coated in carbon fiber sheets to create a lightweight, fire-retardant material.
A proposed 239-unit development in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley has yet to come to fruition, leaving an ugly, empty lot in its place. Seeing this, a group of enterprising citygoers have decided to turn the lot into Hayes Valley Farm, an education and research project sponsored by the San Francisco Parks Trust.
LOTS MORE GREAT GREEN DESIGN STORIES HERE... KEEP READING!
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