With all the controversy and outrage surrounding the presence of BPA in plastic water bottles, KOR has stood by its commitment to encourage individuals to stop buying disposable bottled water with its smoothly styled BPA-free water vessels. This past week they announced a limited-edition series of “Thirst for Giving” bottles that feature beautiful art and provide sales proceeds to non-profits that are working to preserve the environment.
Global warming has dramatically increased the unpredictability of weather patterns, but what if we could more accurately pinpoint the future location and intensity of floods and droughts? That might be possible if all goes as planned with the Soil Moisture and Salinity (SMOS) probe, launched today by the European Space Agency. The $460 million probe, launched on a Russian rocket launcher from the Plesestk cosmodrome, will measure soil moisture, plant growth, and ocean salt levels across the globe.
Drinking water is all around us — if we know where to look. The Giving Tree-inspired Savior Bud designed by Seol Ah Sun and Kim Hyo Jin is a portable device that attaches to tree leaves and slowly collects water. After four hours, a full cup of water is ready for drinking.
Synch your workout with a little river detox, then rehydrate with a cup of the fresh water you just filtered. This people-powered water purification island, designed by Jakub Szczesny as part of the Synchronicity architecture and art festival in Warsaw, Poland, hooks up basic exercise machines to kinetically pump polluted water through four filters into overhead tanks that spill into a large drinking fountain at the end of the cycle. This floating platform on the Vistula River aims to empower citizens toward environmental clean-up, and apparently would work on any body of water with enough local bodies willing to pedal for their potables.
If you were at West Coast Green this past weekend you would have surely noticed the elegant bamboo structures along the waterfront surrounded by beautiful native landscaping. What you may not have realized unless you looked closely is that the structure was actually supporting hanging gardens of marsh grass and was a way of preventing and remediating pollution from water runoff. A collaboration of The Natural Builders, Design Ecology, Floating Islands and Bertotti Landscaping, the installation was the talk of the trade show and highlight for us at Inhabitat.
The concept of harvesting energy from river waves to power New York City just got more enticing. Earlier this year we brought you GRO Architects notable concept, which stood out among the entries for Metropolis Magazine’s 2009 Next Generation Design Competition. Brian Novello, one of the partners in the project, also has a beautiful design to expand these modular docking stations in energy-collecting floating houses, and it looks so cool that we had to spread the news.
We spotted this fancy multi-tasking toilet/sink by Roca at the London Design Festival. It’s obviously compact and perfect for any loft space or small apartment, and its sleek design houses a nifty self-contained greywater system that is capable of reducing water use by up to 25% compared to a standard 6/3-litre dual flush toilet. It’s a much trendier and elegant solution to existing sink to toilet greywater systems, and we’re excited that high design has embraced waste-water management.
Many environmentalists argue that it’s important to focus our attention on Earth’s problems before venturing off into space, but the recent discovery of water on the moon means that exploring other planets could be easier than ever. Now that an Indian mission has discovered hydrogen and oxygen molecules on the lunar surface, the planet can be used as an outer space “service station”, prepping astronauts for their journeys into deep space.
Aquaquest is a beautiful addition to the Vancouver Aquarium that was conceived as an education center to teach the surrounding Canadian community the importance of eco-friendly living. True to its nature, the complex demonstrates these principles through an impressive set of sustainable building strategies including a leafy green wall, rainwater harvesting, and a highly efficient heating and cooling system.
Sietch Nevada is a futuristic concept city that envisions a dystopian water-hoarding society where drought is a constant state and wars are fought over water. Designed by Matsys Designs, the underground city is situated within a network of tunnels and caverns that offer protection and water storage, creating an oasis in the desert. The dense underground community includes a network of waterways and canals enclosed by residential and commercial cavern structures that form an underground Venice so to speak.
It’s a rumor that we hoped would never be confirmed: at least 1,700 miles of plastic trash is floating in what is commonly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Up until this point, scientists only had a vague idea of the scope of the trash they would find in the North Pacific Gyre, a vortex where four ocean currents meet. Isolated patches have been reported by sailors and fishermen, but now researchers, sailors, journalists, and government officials on a nearly four-week journey through the gyre say that plastic shards and netting abound in a space bigger than the state of Texas.
MIT engineers have developed a cheap, compact robotic fish that can go where no man (or underwater vehicle) has been able to go before. The pint-sized robofish, developed by Kamal Youcuf-Toumi and Pablo Valdivia y Alvarado, could potentially be used to detect underwater environmental pollutants and inspect submerged boats and oil and gas pipes. Another plus is that they don’t smell.
You know those SIGG aluminum water bottles that eco-geeks carry around with them as a protest against plastic bottles? Well apparently, SIGG bottles manufactured before August of last year contain …
All renderings courtesy of Tangram3DS
Arcology may sound like a made up word – probably because it is. A hybrid of architecture and ecology, it is essentially a mega city which packs a ginormous population into one hyperstructure – think Death Star, Zion in The Matrix or the Anthill of Antz fame. Now, a real-life group of ambitious designers has taken their looming pyramidal arcology and placed it smack dab on the Mississippi River as a proposal for the rebuild of New Orleans which is currently in progress. This 30 million square foot beast-building with an array of green features is aptly named NOAH (Get it? Noah and the Arcology?), and is meant to house 40,000 mostly human residents.
As the housing crisis wreaks havoc and suburbia suffers a critical blow from the credit crunch, what will become of all those foreclosed McMansions? Designer Calvin Chiu has proposed one solution that seeks to reinvent these monuments to excess as micro-wetland ecosystems that filter and provide fresh water to urban centers. One the more interesting top 20 finalists in our Reburbia Competition to redesign the suburbs, Frog’s Dream takes an inspired approach towards preserving the wetlands, solving the water crisis, and ensuring the sustainability of our cities in one fell swoop.
Once a status symbol of wealth and affluence, the iconic topaz swimming pool has, in more recent times, been tainted as a wasteful pit of water and energy. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Designed by Craig England, the ingenious puRE water filtration system (not to be mistaken for that other system with no “E”) rehabilitates resource-greedy pools into productive designs for society by giving them new jobs as mini wastewater treatment plants! The forward-thinking design is one of 20 finalists in our ReBurbia competition to redesign our suburbs.
In answer to the ever-intensifying global water crisis, industrial designer Talia Radford has created the AquaIris, an elegant, portable water purifier for developing countries with tropical climates that is simple to use and requires no electricity! How does it work? Contaminated water enters the AquaIris, passes over a removable/re-usable filter, then travels under a layer of ‘converter crystals’ where germicidal UVC rays purify the water molecules as they pass by.
Recently Edinburgh-based company Aquamarine Power unveiled plans to install a new type of wave power system in place in the seabed off the Orkney Islands coast. Dubbed the Oyster, the system utilizes an on-shore base that is much easier to maintain than standard wave power designs, and the system is capable of operating at shallow depths, making it more consistent than systems that operate far out at sea. Each unit is capable of producing 300-600kw of electricity, so a commercial farm of ten units could provide clean energy for a town of 3,000 homes!
Hopefully most of us already have low water flow toilets installed in our homes, but what about all-in-one greywater systems? The Caroma Profile Smart Dual Flush is a 2-in-1 sink and toilet system that implements graywater recycling in a neat compact design that reduces toilet water consumption by up to 74%!
You may have heard of camping next to the water, but a band of guerrilla social engineers in Amsterdam have taken it to the next level – camping on the water. Literally. Our first thought? How the heck did they get that trailer onto that teeny tiny island nowhere near dry land? Read on to see the few facts that we do know about this mysterious spectacle.
Atmospheric Water Systems of San Luis Obispo has released their Dewpointe® Atmospheric Generator, a device that taps humidity in the air to provide a steady source of clean drinking water. The unit is about the same size as a standard water cooler (44.5″ tall), has on-demand hot water, is CE and WQA certified, runs quietly, and is capable of producing enough drinking water for an entire household even in desert climates (maybe)!
You might not be the biggest fan of swindler Bernie Madoff, but at least he is supporting the green building movement by serving out his prison sentence in the U.S.’s only LEED-certified correctional facility. Not that he has a choice. In fact, word on the street is that Madoff didn’t actually want to go all the way to Butner, North Carolina where the green jail is located, requesting a stay at Otisville which is only 70 miles away from his hometown in Queens instead. While we don’t have much sympathy for him, we are pretty interested in what his daily life will be like.
The Big Apple’s known for its bright lights, but the city’s iconic luminescence also sucks up huge amounts of power every year. Luckily, a team of designers came up with a plan to keep the city’s lights burning bright by harnessing the power of its massive rivers. One of the most exciting entries into Metropolis magazine’s 2009 Next Generation Design Competition, Richard Garber and Brian Novello’s design provides a way to power street lamps using tidal power.
The small Australian town of Bundanoon just set a new standard for sustainability by voting to do what no community has ever done before: ban bottled water! The measure was founded over concerns about the tremendous amount of resources used to extract, package, and transport bottled water, and it passed nearly unanimously in a town hall meeting. Will this be the beginning of a trend?
Could the middle of the ocean offer sustainable dwelling places for mankind in the future? Estonian architect Marko Järvela of Hirvesoo Arhitektibüroo, winner of the aesthetics category in the first design competition for seasteading, believes that sustainable water-locked living could in fact become a wonderful reality. He saw designing “SESU Seastead” (short for SElf-SUstained seastead), as an opportunity to find the reality in ideas that are “balancing at the edge of utopian.” Järvela says that his winning design for a mini-society in the ocean is based on a self-sufficient lifestyle that requires a rearrangement of priorities.
There is plenty of water in the world for everyone, the problem has always been trying to convert it into a form we can drink. German Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute recently announced that they have developed a new method to convert air humidity into drinking water using renewable energy. They are proposing large water harvesting plants to be located even in the most remote of places, such as the Sahara desert. Is this the solution to our water problems?
It officially became summer this week, and in anticipation of the heat we have talked about keeping cool, and why wind is important. This week we are thinking about water, because who can argue how refreshing a cool glass of water can be on a hot summer day? In the past, water often had to be moved across miles to get to its consumers. It seems, …
Architecturally and thematically designed in the shape of a drop of water, the Water Building Resort intends to become the first building ever to convert air into water with the help of solar power. What sounds like magic will be achieved with the following combination of nature and technology: A sunny, southerly facing facade made of photovoltaic glass will harness solar energy, allowing light to pass through. The northern facade features a latticed design for ventilation as well as unprecedented Teex Micron equipment that will convert humid air and condensation into pure drinking water.
Called “365,” Hero Design Lab’s newest line of functional and attractive outdoor sustainability solutions wowed attendees at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair this year with its eye-catching looks. 365 consists of an outdoor drying rack and rain collection system, dubbed DR-1 and RC-1 respectively, which perfectly illustrate Hero’s talent for morphing items that are typically quite boring into outdoor decor with flair. After all, if we are going to integrate these water and energy saving products into our homes, why shouldn’t they also be fun to look at?
This gorgeous swimming pool isn’t a typical chlorine-filled watering hole–it’s actually a natural swimming pond that relies on plants to filter the water. (Don’t worry, you’re not swimming among the plants and stepping in squishy mud; the plant regeneration area is kept separate from the swimming area.) Even if you already have a swimming pool, you can enjoy the benefits of a chemical-free pond and relaxing natural environment using the structure you already have with a few design changes.
So you think it’s okay to continue with your 15-minute shower because you’ve got your super-efficient, on-demand water heater and extra-conservative shower head? Perhaps you’ve even gone as far as funneling your shower water into a personal greywater system. Well, your shower curtain has heard it all, and thanks to artist Elisabeth Buecher, it’s not taking any more of your excuses. Your soapy butt is getting kicked out after 4 minutes, when the shower curtain Elisabeth designed inflate with spikes.
Think humankind discovering fire was revolutionary? How about a cardboard box that uses the sun’s rays to cook without burning firewood? That’s precisely what the Kyoto Box, a cardboard solar cooker, can do. Made out of basic, 5th-grade-science-experiment type materials, the Kyoto box solar cooker offers a life-altering solution for thousands of people: the ability to cook and heat water without burning wood. So how does it work? Inventor John Bohmer says the box uses “the greenhouse effect for something good.”
Only 14% of plastic water bottles are recycled, and Americans add 30 million PET water bottles to landfills every day! Aiming to provide an alternative to this alarming trend, Michigan-based Boxed Water Is Better is filling FSC-certified Tetra Pak boxes with Minnesota water and in doing so, giving us a new way to tote H20. But is boxed water truly the best option, or are there more ecologically-sound alternatives at hand?
Who says plumbing is boring? The forward thinking folks at Sloan Valve Company have come up with a compact greywater system for your bathroom that is easy to install and works with the existing fixtures. The Sloan® AQUS® Greywater System filters the water that goes down your sink drain and then uses it to flush your toilet, potentially saving a household up to 5,000 gallons of potable water each year.
Design firm Aquaovo have created a whole new reason for water cooler talk with the OVOPUR, an environmentally-friendly water filter. Shaped like a sleek egg, the OVOPUR uses an Aquacristal filter, made of activated carbon, quartz, copper and zinc. The filter last four months and can clean about 530 gallons of water. The oval dispenser holds 3 gallons at a time and is made of white lead-free glazed porcelain and recyclable and non-toxic parts like silicone and polypropylene. The unit can also be used without the filter as a simple drink dispenser — and is sure to be a conversation starter on any occasion.
LOTS MORE GREAT GREEN DESIGN STORIES HERE... KEEP READING!
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