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.