Water and Waste Metric

More on Emily's Zongo Water Project!

A Billboard That Condenses Water From Humidity

Interesting precedent as we get closer to Part II of our semester!

Alternative Food Systems - Crop Circle Kitchen & Freight Farms

Roof Farm Analysis "Higher Farming" Boston's first roof farm on Innovation Design Center Roof (previously called Boston Design Center)

Food System/City Fresh Food & REAP

Food Systems / Slumbrew & Night Shift Brewing

Food Systems - UFI and City Growers

Food Systems - Shrimp Farming and Urban Farming

Intellectual Farming p2

Intellectual farming is using collective knowledge to cultivate a product in which we understand the affects our farming has on the ecosystem. A collective approach drives a further understanding of how a production loop affects the environment and how much of a closed loop it is, much like the teachings of the book, Cradle to Cradle. For me this understanding of what we use and throw away that will bring sustainable ideas to life and help to create cycles in which our activity no longer is a detriment to the world and all its fragile ecosystems. To ensure our survival, each of the systems we affect should be in equilibrium and without the sharing of collective knowledge, we will ensure the destruction of our world's ecosystems.

Lessons Learned from Hurricanes?

Checking the weather before some NFL games, I found this The Weather Channel spot that I thought would be relevant Part2 design polemic fodder. 2 minutes spot.

With his entire life in shambles after Hurricane Charlie, Andy Boyle decided to rebuild - smarter, safer and "green-er." He shut down his coastal condos for 16 months, set up an outdoor office and invested  12 million dollars to rebuild his paradise.

Check out the 175 mph impact balcony doors. Man vs Nature indeed.

** OH YEA **
If anyone teams would like some feedback on their drafts for TOPIC 2, send us a PDF!

SectionCut - a collection of design resources

Hello Class,

I have been working on a pretty sweet little project called SectionCut for the last few months, and I feel that it will be incredibly useful to you as BAC students. S|C is a kind of one-stop-shop to find great ANALOG and DIGITAL design resources available. It is S|C's mission to build a collection and a trusted design community, making us all better at what we do. 

If you're considering purchasing architecture books or looking for tutorials, you might want to take a look at what trusted 'brains' have already recommended in a certain category.  If you want to share your own favorite resources as a contributor, let me know. If not, you can still keep tabs, visit us, and like us on the S|C Facebook page. Let me know if you find this interesting/useful - I would value your feedback!

Cheers, Kyle

Intellectual Farming

Farming to me is using knowledge in order to produce a product. This product is the result of using a intellectual collective understanding used to cultivate an idea into reality. Since becoming interested in sustainable design, it is apparent how many lack an understanding of how human activity affects the Earth's habitat and by cultivating an increased knowledge of our impacts we can cultivate new and innovative solutions that reduce our impacts using knowledge collected from different sources. Farming our understanding of the world around us an creating a collective of specialists will in turn would create innovative sustainable design.

To me a collective analysis of the waste from our activity should completed so we can understand how something starts and ends. Much like in cradle to cradle, a complete production loop from the things we use should be designed such that our activity has no affect on the environment, or at least a positive one. From human waste, to trash, to water use, it is everything we use and throw away that will create sustainable ideas cultivated from our collective knowledge. To ensure our survival on the planet, each of the systems we affect should be in equilibrium, otherwise we will ensure our mutual destruction.

What Will I Farm.....

"Farming harnesses the efficiency of collectivity and community." 
- White & Przybylski

I believe that our most valuable resource as human beings, is the ability to collaborate. The "mind crops" are full of diversity and rich with knowledge. Ideas can be strongest when different disciplines are able to come together and cross pollinate ideas. For example Biomimicry, what can the Architect learn from the Biologist? or the Chemist, and so on.
It is a dream of mine to one day provide the facilities (the field), the initiation (planting the seed), and the financial support (the fertilizer) for the genius of separate fields to collaborate and inspire one another and produce a beautiful crop of thoroughly thought out ideas. No one person can ever be omniscient and a design can only become stronger by introducing new schools of thought to it. A form of integrated design that ensures diversity of perspective. In short, I want to harvest brains.

Sylvia Williams

Week 2 – What will I farm?

I want to positively impact the world using wind turbine farms to create the power for electric railroad systems in America.  We live in fast paced and polluted world with limited access to local to regional railroad systems.  There are forgotten and unused railroads throughout the States that should be reutilized to support my vision.  Flying and driving cross-country are suitable options but damage our environment with pollution and oil will run out eventually, then we will be in a transportation disaster.  To prevent worse case transportation scenarios, I want the United States to have a long-term transportation plan using wind turbine farms.  Wind turbines are minimal harm to the environment and produces large amounts of energy that can channel this transportation opportunity.

What will I 'Farm'?

After reading about tissue-engineering meat in On Farming -which for me is extreme- my farming ideas are more abstract than tangible. I will farm: 

1. Over population social awareness (globally)

2. Global and Temporary birth control-policies

3. Regulations on urban inhabitation

 It is a fact that one of our major issues is the fast growing population around the World, which bring issues as scarce resources such as food, water and energy, also bring high risks of epidemics of mortal diseases.  The population is growing faster than the design and implementation of sustainability approaches that could address our global crisis. I will concentrate efforts in simultaneous strategies to control one of the main factors threatening the future of our well being in this Planet. The development of possible solutions for our global crisis has to be in a holistic fashion, we have to attack the base of the problem, educate the people and then implement the strategies.

Farming…

When I think in farming something, I would farm 2 things that might not help a lot to the food crisis, but might help our ecosystem and definitively our stress levels. As a child I grew up in a natural reserve seeing a bio-luminescent bay  in front of my house in Puerto Rico, also seeing lots of fireflies. Unfortunately both conditions are not longer as evident today as they were 20 years ago. The reason for this is the pollution in the water (do to motor boats) and the pollution of artificial light do to the rapidly urbanization of the area.  So, I will create a farm in the bay for single-celled bioluminescent dinoflagellates (Pyrodimium bahamense) and a reserve area to farm fireflies.

On Farming... Green Opportunism

"Farming harnesses the efficiency of collectivity and community. " - Maya Przybylski and Mason White (bracket-)


Taking into account the above quote from the introduction of bracket- , my impression is that we, as a group of collaborating students and faculty, will be farming green technologies this semester. Our collective research efforts is a type of information and technology farming that will hopefully precipitate improved sustainable building solutions. Solutions that will hybridize buildings and landscapes and resolve the centuries old tension between nature and technology.

Personally, I am convinced that for truly "sustainable" and effective solutions to local and global environmental, economical, and social issues there is a need for farming of hard and soft infrastructure along with technology and nature. In my opinion, simply creating buildings that act as "green machines" will not have significant enough impacts on lifestyles without being plugged into the physical and social infrastructures that are already in place, or that can be co-generated. The "Farm-to-Table" postal program in the early 1900s is a good example of such a hack (25 bracket-).

 In short, I want to farm opportunities, much like the aquaponics system, of systems thinking.

human relies on food, information and energy to survive. But if the earth goes out of its current ecological status no one will survive. So keeping the Earth healthy would be my first intention to consider for creating a farm. our planet is suffering from air and water pollution. Given that 2/3 of our planet is filled with water and its the source of life to nature, I would farm for clean water to preserve the current condition of atmosphere from getting worse. Consequently it would help for better air, agriculture, life quality production. This can be achieved by two ways: One cleaning the polluted water supplies. Two farming for clean water in lands in need of water.

Original Work!

Hi 50SOG crew,

Thanks for a strong second class. I just want to re-iterate as it seemed unclear to a few of you, but all drawings created for next week need to be original work. The first week it is really helpful to collect and share some of the aspects of your case study research and the successful diagrams/data you've found - but we also absolutely expect to see drafts of your original drawings and page layout options at that time. This allows us the opportunity to have a really productive discussion about your own representations at a more detailed level.

This week, you should rely on the discussions we had on the first night and notes from your peers. We'll do our best to send emails with individual comments through the weekend - but the more you show us the more we can help. Squeaky wheel gets the grease!

Cheers, K+L

Geothermal Energy in Large and Small Scales

Since these geothermal ‘hot spots’ are only in specific geographical locations throughout the world, a more commonly available technology has been developed called ground source heating.

Ground source heating can supply a home or building with heat and air conditioning supply practically at any location.

The reason ground source heating is so widely applicable is due to the constant temperature of approximately 55 degrees Fahrenheit just below the surface.

The ground source heating uses the temperature differential of the above and below ground air temperature to draw hot or cold air out of buildings.

This air then gets channeled through underground piping to supply the comfortable living temperature for any home or building.

HOME

In the first class we talked about what each of us chose this course.
It took me a while to remember what suddenly made me to decide thinking about Green Design and Sustainability...
On a very boring Friday night browsing through YouTube to find free movies to watch, I found this movie, and since then my vision to my impact on earth has changed fully.
Its pretty long for a documentary, but if you have free time it's really worth watching. I think everything about this movie is great.

Anaerobic Digestion

City of Sunnyvale Wastewater Treatment Plant Tour - Anaerobic Digesters

When was the last time you had a nice meal and then several hours later your body digested and transported it to the nearest water closet? Well, those digestive by-products that our bodies create can be further digested to create biogas suitable for use as natural methane gas for heat and generation of electricity.

The system uses various types of microorganisms that further decompose organic waste into biogas consisting primarily of methane and a solid sludge. The biogas can be purified and used as a fuel source, while the sludge can be dried and used as a soil cover, fertilizer, or even animal feed additive.

Here is a timelapse video of a typical Complete Mix Digester being constructed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddbbJW8NDhQ

Building melts a car?!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2409073/Walkie-Talkie-melted-Jag-Londons-Fenchurch-Street-skyscraper-melts-businessmans-car.html

LECTURE02 and WK02 Handout Uploaded to Blog

Check 'em out! See you in class tonight!

SOLAR THERMAL

It is a technology being in use since 1980's. However some political issues in the background slowed the process of its distribution. Solar thermal technology basically uses solar energy for heating water or air. It is classified by its temperature collection system, to 3 types: -Low temperature -Medium temperature -High temperature.

Ivanpah: The World's Largest Solar Thermal Plant Passes First Solar Capacity Test It will provide energy for 140,000 U.S. houses in CA.

Solar Thermal How it worksNov2011

Geothermal Energy

Geothermal Energy

Definition:

"Geo" means earth and "thermal" means heat. 

Geothermal energy which is one of the  renewable and sustainable power sources, comes from the heat generated by the earth. 

This means hot dry rock resources occur at depths of 3 to 5 miles everywhere beneath the Earth's surface and at lesser depths in certain areas. Access to these resources involves injecting cold water down one well, circulating it through hot fractured rock, and drawing off the heated water from another well.

 Some geothermal power plants use the steam from a reservoir to power a turbine/generator, while others use the hot water to boil a working fluid that vaporizes and then turns a turbine. Hot water near the surface of Earth can be used directly for heat. 

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/tech/geothermal-energy

Living Machines

Dwell has an interesting article, A Look at Living Machine Systems, in which they toured the San Franscisco Public Utilities Building, a LEED Platnium building where a biological waste water treatment system referred to as the "Living Machine" was installed. The video below explains how the living machines works to process waste water into water for irrigation.

Algae-Based Energy Production

Algae @ Work: Rethinking Fueling Stations.

David E. Bell. 115.

Have you ever driven past a pond in the middle of a field that was so filled with green slime you could have probably walked across it? Well that disgusting sludge could be an environmentally responsible answer to our fuel addictions.

According to science.howstuffworks.com, Bio-diesel makers claim that a 1 acre pond filled with Algae can produce up to 100,000 gallons of Algae Bio-fuel per year. To meet our needs currently filled by crude oil, this would require 95 million acres producing some 140 billion gallons of Algae Bio-fuel per year. In comparison other Bio-fuel producing products, such as sugar cane and corn, require Billions of acres of land.

Needing only sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to grow, Algae is ridiculously easy to adapt to vertical growing methods reducing its footprint even further.

Here is a link to some interesting ideas on how to harness the amazing power of Algae:
http://www.algaecompetition.com/algae-slideshows/algae-biofuel/

Wind Power

Wind turbine architecture, a hot trend in the twenty-first century. Capable due to the sun’s energy, wind turbine design is existent.  One percent production of wind energy conversion into electricity is estimated to supply present consumption of the world.  By 2020, wind turbines could power the universe’s energy.  In retrospective, transferring one to two percent of sun’s energy into wind energy is one hundred times more than the energy converted into biomass using every plant on earth. 

There are various styles and techniques to wind turbine design.  Construction of these structures is on land, water or in air.  Ultimate wind energy is accumulated in open fields on land or calm water offshore.  Wind turbine design has minimal impact to the environment impact.

An interesting article I found about wind turbines is Obama’s recent plan to auction off New England shores for wind farm development.  The first proposal extended to wind energy investors is an auction for wind energy rights to 164,750 acres off New England’s coast, Rhode Island and Massachusetts waters.   By federal environmental reviews, these water areas are the most optimal for developing offshore wind farms with low risk of environmental impact. 

This is an opportunity to generate 3,400 megawatts of electricity, that can power over a million New England homes.  If constructed, it will be the first wind farm constructed in the United States. (?)

Question

Hi Lauren, Kyle

For the first week, we are just investigating our assigned technology and creating one 11x17 board based on the provided template? Or, that, and investigate a specific system in a specific project? in multiple 11x17 boards?

JAMES

PhotoVoltaic Systems

Solar Park in Lees Mees, France. Over 36 acres, the park can produce 18.2 MW (watts and watts of power!)

Nothings worse than the common residential house converting to PhotoVoltaic power with its roof size tray of PV panels complimenting the paint chipped shutters...  quite an eye-sore amongst the month old christmas decorations polluting the roof. Same goes for bought up farmland converted to solar farms just outside small neighborhoods.

NOT to say PV systems are bad, but their only downfall is the sq footage required to collect the solar energy. Its always a relief to see designers incorporate PV systems aesthetically; even in large scale landscapes.

Planted Roof and Walls

Hi everyone,

I found this interesting study and research about planted walls. The study presents the advantages of 'green' walls systems as solar shading for buildings, mainly because it's dynamic qualities. The diagrams and drawings are very provocative, please click on the link. Archilovers

Blog Exercise 1

Hi 50SOG crew, 

All but one of you for Fall 2013 has signed up as a blog author. Next, we encourage you to sign up for blog updates by subscribing with your preferred email address on the left toolbar. This will be our preferred means of communication throughout the semester - so post if you have a question or if you've found something awesome!

For Blog Assignment 1, please make your first individual post as indicated on the handout by posting a thoughtful jpeg image or particularly interesting article relevant to your assigned technology by Sunday at 8pm. Your Post title should be only the name of your Topic 1 green technology.

Great first class this week - enjoy your weekend!

50SOG Booklet (Draft)

Hello followers,

I'm pleased to share the progress of the 50SOG Booklet (draft) after our first Spring semester course, and the excellent work done this summer by Daniel Lear - editor and former 50SOG student.

Please take a chance to browse the work in progress draft by downloading on our blog sidebar or via the link above.

Lastly, a special thanks to the Rob Haimes and Joan Shaffran Foundation for supporting our ongoing work.

Welcome Fall 2013 Students!

Thanks you for agreeing to take this journey with us! I hope that you will all find the 50SOG Workshop a valuable experience in your BAC education. The blog will serve as a primary means of communication and will be incorporated into a few of our assignments.

Please be sure to familiarize yourself with our Dropbox and Course Materials!

Cheers, Kyle and Lauren

Thanks For A Great Spring Semester!

Hi Class,

This was an excellent group and a great kick off for the 50 Shades of Green Workshop. Thank you all! We will e working with Rob Haimes and a student as editor to put final touches on the book, and will share when it's complete.

Algae production, BIQ house!

http://inhabitat.com/the-worlds-first-algae-powered-building-opens-in-hamburg/

Class this week - Part II begins!

Hello All,

Thank you for a strong push towards our mid review. We're quite excited for you to put your efforts towards Part II of the class.

UPDATE YOUR GRAPHIC INDEX, BY CLASSTIME.
We ask, as a final step to close out the case studies, that you complete the evaluation of your precedent using the latest version of the graphic index (3 circles and the building parti). Please ask us tomorrow if you have any questions or concerns about filling it out.

SUBMIT PART 1 PACKAGE VIA EMAIL, BY THURSDAY.
If you have not done so, please 'Package' your InDesign files, zip them, include a PDF and transmit each case study as a single email to Lauren and myself. We will not rely on Dropbox for this because it will take up too much space on everyone's account. We need all of your working files if any adjustments need to be made after the course is complete to make the booklet read clearly.

TOMORROW'S CLASS FORMAT.
Tomorrow, we begin Part II with paired desk crits. Each student will present their initial work for the visual polemic to Lauren, myself, and a classmate. We will strategize your work together and the rest of the class will be a work session! Bring what you need to be productive!

We can't wait to see these ideas and technologies find their way into your own design work!

(Snowy) Spring Break - Go Wild.

Hi Class,

Hope you're out of town enjoying the break - or hunkering down to relax while occasionally catching up on the semester. You should have all received your mid-semester evaluation by now. These were written before our desk-crits for Topic 4.

We're all set for our review on the 27th with the editor. Lauren and I are relying on you to orchestrate revisions/additions/printing of all case studies within the template with your partner, and that you will also develop a response statement to (2) of the (3) prompts given out in last weeks assignment sheet. Be bold and eloquent.

Once you solo-post your drafts as this week's blog post exercise, we'll be able to give you feedback before the review. Give yourself a solid 30 minutes for each and fire it out there for us to chat about as soon as possible.

We'll be following up with a synthesis of the conversations we've had as a class around the 'graphic criteria' component on the first page of the case studies - there may be a revision to that component of the template in the next few days.

Cheers, Kyle

BAC Lecture Tomorrow!

Hi all,

You might be interested in attending Diana Balmori's lecture tomorrow at 6 pm in Cascieri Hall.  We'll be reading from her book Groundwork this week!

Blog Exercise 5: The Architectural Detail

Hi all,

Please respond to the following prompt via the comments section by Sunday at 8 pm as soon as possible.  

BLOG EXERCISE 5

Ed Ford, in the introduction to The Architectural Detail, lays out five ways of thinking about a detail and offers his opinion about how architects should approach the work of detailing.  Choose one of the precedents you have studied thus far and think about what the detail you drew expresses relative to the overall project concept.  Which of Ford’s categories would it fit into?   

Stacking Green - Arch Daily

www.archdaily.com/199755/stacking-green-vo-trong-nghia/

Incredibly beautiful project - how could it be even better?

Blog Exercise 4

Hello all,

Please respond to the following prompt via the comment section by Sunday at 8pm. These count towards your studio grade and are meant to help you develop a polemic for the second half of the semester!

BLOG EXERCISE 4

In response to the LID-IR reading, what should we change about our graphic template? What works well and should be maintained? What makes LID so successful as a manual/booklet?

Blog Exercise 3: Boston Urban Ag Map

Hello all,

Please respond to the following prompt via the comment section by Sunday at 8pm. These count towards your studio grade and are meant to help you develop a polemic for the second half of the semester!

BLOG EXERCISE 3

Post 1: In response to the in-class reading, What will you farm? What scale? What delivery method? (1 paragraph polemic)

Post 2: Save your (4) Boston Urban Ag sites map file to the UA MAP Dropbox using the following convention: ua_lastname.ai. The instructors will compile the map next week!

Food Production - Precedent Assignments

TOPIC 2: Food Production

          (Hyrdoponic Facades) 
          I'mLostInParis, R&Sie(n)
          Dan & Todd

          (Installation/Demonstration) 
          Public Farm 1, Work AC
          Sean & Jason

          (Institution/Incubator) 
          The Plant, Illinois Dept. of Commerce
          Mary & Amy

          (Greenhouse Typology) 
          New York Botanical Garden, Mitchell Giurgola
          OR  Gruningen Botanical Garden, Buehrer Wuest Architekten 
          Nway & Katusha

Great work this week!  Thanks for sticking it out to the end of an ambitiously programmed class on Wednesday.  Please see our comments and notes on each project below.  

Keep in mind as you work, that with these case studies you are defining/casting the project through detail and diagram.  Get the base drawings exported/modeled ASAP so that you can spend 75% of your time on how you choose to deliver the representation.

-------------------------------------

HARMONIA 57, Triptyque

Amy & Todd

AS YOU ARE DEVELOPING YOUR DRAWINGS, CONSIDER:

What systems are celebrated and what is hidden?

Figure out a great way to draw the spraying water activity of the building.  Do you consider that a spatial, functional, and experiential move?

Map the material geography of the 'sustainable concrete'.

The rough exterior vs. clean polished interiors. How does this add tension to the super function aesthetic of the exterior?  How does this question relate to the expected/actual use of the building and what the architects are suggesting about lifestyle?  

Combine or link the system diagram (that you need to draw yourself) with the detail section.

-------------------------------------

SIDWELL FRIENDS SCHOOL, Kieran & Timberlake 

Dan & Katusha

AS YOU ARE DEVELOPING YOUR DRAWINGS, CONSIDER:

You might cast this as 'Building as an educational device.'

If you were to diagram all of the systems with a different color on the same massing, could we understand a majority of the building?

SUPER LEED - how do you use all these statistics?

Compare the green roof with raised beds (heavy, intimate participation) vs. constructed wetland (viewed from the outside). How are students educated in both systems?  What is the spatial experience associated with each system?

Don't feel like you have to label this as a solely green surfaces system - many of the projects have multiple components and you are the first to wrangle with this. How does this shape\ the way the booklet might be organized?

HOW ARE YOU USING/ADAPTING/CRITIQUING THE TEMPLATE?

-------------------------------------

ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, Renzo Piano

Jason & Nway

AS YOU ARE DEVELOPING YOUR DRAWINGS, CONSIDER:

How does the tectonic move of deforming the flat plane of the roof to create the iconic 'bubble' inform the way the green roof system was designed?  The modularity, the drainage system, the structure, and how it grew over time (breakdown/knitting between modules)….

The ironic aspect of not being able to inhabit the roof as a human, but to 'pop' up and view it from a sanctioned flat patio! Ironic real green roof that you cannot experience vs. the fake/real plants and animals on the interior that are celebrated.

Habitat created with 'local' plants and bees. What is their effective radius (the potential for a building to affect a region!)

HOW ARE YOU USING/ADAPTING/CRITIQUING THE TEMPLATE?

-------------------------------------

BLACK BOX, Martijn de Geus & Philip Mannerts

Mary & Sean

AS YOU ARE DEVELOPING YOUR DRAWINGS, CONSIDER:

Temporality as a theme: (design build burn design build… ?)

The short life of this building and the previous version is curious. it seems that its implicit temporality might be represented in a construction and deconstruction 'timeline' that uses the detail and a 'series' as a way of exposing it.  have fun with it!

Ironic/fad factor: coconut fiber  (product grown far from The Netherlands

It would also be really interesting to map in a small diagram the material geography of this product

How does the technology accept growth and actually morph as the plants grow?  What is the visual affect that results from this and how can you represent this as complicit with the ambition of the project (constant change of both interior and exterior)?  How can you represent the shifting interior activities and environmental factors?

The black box with the big door (the ability to be hidden and exposed is interesting

Each drawing could describe both the experiential/psychological/cultural role of the project as well as the technological execution.  How would this be represented on the site plan vs the detail?

HOW ARE YOU USING/ADAPTING/CRITIQUING THE TEMPLATE?