Eli Cohen on sustainability and phytoremediation
Eli Cohen gave a terrific talk Monday night on his work, as director of Ayala Water and Ecology, using plants to remove pollutants and contaminants from water, soil and air. We’re grateful to the huge crowd that poured into the Arsenal gallery for the event, to Laura Starr and Yamit Perez for putting us in touch with Eli and, of course, to Eli himself for sharing his work and his thoughts.
One of his bigger themes, telegraphed by the title of the talk, “Sustainability in Practice,” was his strong belief that “Natural Biological Systems”– systems constructed of plants, soil, rocks and other natural materials and supported by forces like gravity and sunlight–are not only just as effective as more expensive, technological solutions to environmental remediation, but also, literally, much more sustainable. He walked through a number of Ayala’s Natural Biological Systems, which filtered and cleaned runoff and sewage from a variety of sites including private residences, a dairy farm, a landfill, a cosmetics plant and an entire city (Hyderabad, India). His full slideshow is available as a PDF (6MB).
You can stream the entire audio of the talk, below, as you page through the slides. You can also download that audio directly as an MP3 (71 minutes, 66MB).
Then: gas storage tanks; Now: home
Four giant coal gasometers, built as part of Vienna’s municipal gas works in the late 1800s, have been refashioned into a complex of residential, commercial and municipal facilities. Formerly Europe’s largest gas plant, the gasometers now house 800 apartments, a student dormitory, a music hall, over 70 shops, restaurants, bars and cafes, a movie theater and the city’s municipal archive.
The gasometers were decommissioned in 1984 as the city transitioned from coal gas to natural gas, and they have evaded demolition through their 1978 designation as historical monuments. Each one stands 197 feet in diameter and 230 feet high and once had a storage capacity of over 3 million cubic feet. Designs for each of the four amended structures are unique and were chosen through a competition in the mid ’90s. The four designs come from architects Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelblau, Manfred Wehdorn and Wilhelm Holzbauer.
(via Inhabitat)
Toward the Sentient City
Amphibious Architecture, an East River water monitoring system, is one of five commissioned projects included in the exhibit.
Toward the Sentient City, an exhibit organized by The Architectural League of New York, examines the implications for architecture of the proliferation of sensor, mobile and other new technologies. According to curator Mark Shepard:
The exhibition examines the relationship between ubiquitous computing, architecture and the city in terms of the active role its citizens might play – or neglect to play – as both designers and inhabitants, in the unfolding techno-social situations of near-future urban environments.
The exhibit includes TrashTrack, the very intriguing project which we’ve blogged about before, as well as Too Smart City, an array of street furniture, signage and trash receptacles that interacts with passers-by. The trash cans demonstrate “overly enthusiastic usage of computational intelligence” by analyzing garbage deposits and throwing recyclable or unacceptable trash back out. Among other projects on display is Amphibious Architecture, a submerged water monitor system in the East River, designed by Columbia University’s Living Architecture Lab. The exhibit is on view until November 7th at The Urban Center, 457 Madison Avenue, New York City. Admission is free.
Hybrid infrastructure in new Singapore gardens
Rendering of a new botanic garden in Singapore, to feature giant, solar 'supertrees.'
A master plan by Grant Associates of the UK has been selected from an international competition for the design of Singapore’s largest garden project to date, Marina South Gardens. The architecture and landscape for the ambitious plan are inspired by orchid anatomy and include a series of micro-ecosystem conservatories to house plants from Mediterranean, temperate and tropical climates. Now the “wow, we live in the future!” part: these facilities are proposed to be powered by 50- to 150-foot tall ’supertrees,’ vertical gardens that contain solar hot water heaters, photovoltaic collectors, rainwater harvesting systems and venting ducts. In addition to creating renewable energy, the supertrees will provide shade and evening lighting, and some will be connected to each other by aerial walkways. The first phase of construction is expected to be complete by 2011.
(Via Inhabitat)
Open House New York this weekend
The Greenbelt Native Plant Center is one of many sites open to the public this weekend.
This Saturday and Sunday, October 10th and 11th, is Open House New York weekend. OHNY’s 7th annual offerings include building tours and site visits of unique locations across the five boroughs. Staten Island is represented by its array of historic buildings as well as two Parks-related listings: Freshkills Park and the Greenbelt Native Plant Center (GNPC). Visiting the GNPC is a great opportunity to check out their greenhouses, containerized nurseries and seed bank. We’ve also opened four Freshkills Park site tours this weekend, but they have already filled up! If you’re interested in coming on the public bus tour, we’ve just opened registration for our November tour dates.
East River Waterfront Esplanade and Piers
Pruned’s three-part “Under Spaces” survey (Parts 1, 2 and 3) explores the problems cities face when planning under and around elevated infrastructure like rail lines and highways. Recent projects have converted these typically neglected landscapes into urban public centers, mountain biking and skating parks and waterfront green spaces.
Noted in Part 3 is New York City’s East River Waterfront Esplanade and Piers Project, a proposal to revitalize the two-mile stretch of waterfront between the Battery Maritime Building and East River Park. A master plan by SHoP Architects and Ken Smith Landscape Architects re-establishes the space between South Street and the East River as a public-friendly mix of amenities while reactivating a major broken link in the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway.
Low-income housing from cast-offs
Phillips' company built this ceiling for a low-income house in Huntsville, Texas out of thousands of picture frame corners.
The New York Times features Dan Phillips and his construction company, Phoenix Commotion, which builds housing for low-income families out of discarded materials that would otherwise be sent to landfills.
So far, he has built 14 homes in Huntsville, which is his hometown, on lots either purchased or received as a donation. A self-taught carpenter, electrician and plumber, Mr. Phillips said 80 percent of the materials are salvaged from other construction projects, hauled out of trash heaps or just picked up from the side of the road.
Energy efficiency, durability and capacity for homeowner repair are other strong factors influencing the design. The Times has also put together a slideshow of some of the beautiful details of these homes.
Re-imagining suburban ecological function
From Calvin Chiu's winning entry in the ReBurbia design competition, "Frog's Dream: McMansions turned into Biofilter Water Treatment Plants."
The aim of Dwell Magazine and Inhabitat’s recent ReBurbia design competition was to reimagine the American suburbs in the context of the current home foreclosure crisis and rising energy costs. The competition’s cheeky winning entry posits the transformation of abandoned suburban mansions into wetlands and water purification systems for urban centers: the buildings become machines housing micro-ecosystems, and the front yards become micro-wetlands, providing habitat for wildlife. The collective end result is a suburban skirt of wetlands supporting the water needs of the central city.
Other notable entries include a rezoning proposal to encourage small business entrepreneurship, a strategy to reuse big box stores for agricultural production, and the people’s choice award winner, a toolkit of infill techniques to address urban sprawl.
(via The Dirt)
Pier 57 winning design selected
The Hudson River Park Trust has selected a winning design for its reimagining of Pier 57, near Chelsea on Manhattan’s west side. LOT-EK’s design makes use of disused shipping containers in the construction of a mixed-use community facility on the 375,000 square-foot pier. The design includes 170,000 square feet of artisan work space, a 90,000-square-foot ‘Underwater Discovery Center’ for education and exhibits, a rooftop venue for the Tribeca Film Festival, an open-air public market and a 2-acre rooftop park. Dutch landscape architecture firm West 8 and Beyer Blinder Belle will partner with LOT-EK to design the public green space around and on top of the structure. The Park Trust and developer Young Woo & Associates haven’t set a date yet for the estimated $210 million project.
(via Inhabitat)
Zero-net energy
The Omega Center for Sustainable Living at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY
Zero-net energy buildings are designed to be as energy-efficient as possible and to offset what energy they do use through renewable power generation. Some have already been built, like the Omega Center for Sustainable Living in Rhinebeck, NY. The state-of-the art education center and natural wastewater treatment facility boasts not only zero-net energy use due to its solar array, but also zero-net water use. Within the building, a wastewater filtration system called an “Eco-machine” treats and recycles all of the wastewater generated by the Omega Institute’s 23,000 projected annual visitors (the system has a daily capacity of 52,000 gallons). Other sustainable features include fly-ash concrete, a green roof, rain gardens, automatic windows to vent out hot air, recycled content steel throughout, closed-loop geothermal heating and cooling, and locally sourced, chemical-free construction materials. The Omega Center could become the first LEED platinum building to also win the Living Building designation.
At other scales, the US Department of Energy hopes to develop marketable zero-net energy commercial buildings by 2025; General Electric plans to have zero-net energy homes by 2015.
(via Greenbiz and Jetson Green)
