The Other Ultimate Archive

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault  vault in Norway opens this week. From Andrew Revkin’s posting at NYTimes Dot Earth:

“The new repository is intended to be an insurance policy for individual countries and also for humanity more generally, should larger-scale disaster strike (anything from pestilence to an asteroid impact).

The Norwegian government put up more than $7 million for construction. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing money to help developing countries package and ship seed samples, as part of a broader $30-million project to protect the genetic diversity of the world’s main food crops.

The ongoing operation of the seed vault will be paid for through the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is maintained by contributions from countries, international agencies, and foundations.

A secure supply of thousands of varieties of keystone crops like rice and wheat will be ever more important, experts say, as populations grow, climate changes, and people keep moving species around the global, both intentionally and accidentally.”

Energy Islands

from inhabitat.com

“Ocean waves are already being used as a source of renewable energy, but could differences in water temperatures in the sea be our next source of green power? A decade old idea to generate renewable electricity for the globe with offshore, floating ‘Energy Islands’ could soon become a reality. The concept – creating artificial islands to collect wind, wave and solar power in the tropics – is based on the work of Jacques-Arsène d’Arsonval, a 19th-century French physicist, who envisioned the idea of using the sea as a giant solar-energy collector.

“Their goal is to build a network of “energy islands”: floating hexagonal-shaped platforms of reinforced concrete and corrosion-resistant metals that would generate electritict via wind, wave, and solar in addition to having an OTEC plant. It’s estimated that each island complex could produce about 250MW, and that 50,000 “energy islands” could meet the world’s energy requirements (as well as provide two tons of fresh water per person per day for the entire world population — desalinated water is one byproduct of the OTEC process). OTEC plants work best when there’s a temperature difference of 20°C between water at the surface and the water below, making tropical and sub-tropical seas the best candidates for energy islands.”

The Other Ultimate Archive

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault  vault in Norway opens this week. From Andrew Revkin’s posting at NYTimes Dot Earth:

“The new repository is intended to be an insurance policy for individual countries and also for humanity more generally, should larger-scale disaster strike (anything from pestilence to an asteroid impact).

The Norwegian government put up more than $7 million for construction. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing money to help developing countries package and ship seed samples, as part of a broader $30-million project to protect the genetic diversity of the world’s main food crops.

The ongoing operation of the seed vault will be paid for through the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is maintained by contributions from countries, international agencies, and foundations.

A secure supply of thousands of varieties of keystone crops like rice and wheat will be ever more important, experts say, as populations grow, climate changes, and people keep moving species around the global, both intentionally and accidentally.”

The Ultimate Archive

As reported in today’s NY Times, scientists are putting together a Book of All Species online at www.eol.org. The archive will eventually have an entry for every species known. If printed as a book, the known 1.8 million species would be over 300 feet long….and that’s not counting the fact that it’s estimated that 10 times that number of species are still waiting to be discovered. 

What’s especially interesting is that the entries are compiled using an algorithm that searches through scientific databases and publications. As libraries and their content go digital through new media and the scanning and digitizing of old media, we may be looking at a prototype for a new kind of knowledge infrastructure.

Electromagnetic Radiation Powered Light Field

Vertical Farming: Food Production of the Future

The Vertical Farm Project is a concept developed by Columbia University’s class of Medical Ecology in 2004. It is meant to provide enough food for a minimum daily caloric intake of 2200 calories/per person for 50,000 people. Their research includes figures for growing not only plant life, but raising livestock as well.

You can view design concepts proposed by various architecture firms here

Unbearable Lightness of Being?

One of the entries of a recent ideas competition hosted by NYC’s Office Emergency Management featured on bldgblog.
This entry is by Studio Lindfors.

Network Hydrology

History Channel’s recent “City of the Future” competition winner by San Francisco architects IwamotoScott.
More details at bldgblog.

SOM’s proposal for a ‘green island’ in Shanghai

“In SOM’s conception, Chongming was positioned as a ‘green island’ with its urban development confined to eight new, distinct, and highly-compact coastal cities. Each would consist of walkable, transit-rich districts built at a high-enough density to enable a population of nearly a million people to live and work in only 15 percent of the island’s total area”

SOM’s website has disabled the ability to copy images so click below.

http://www.som.com/content.cfm/an_island_in_the_sustainable_stream

office da architecture’s installation

A beautiful and amazing on-site installation by office da architecture.

recycled digital origami: 300th post

Students at the University of Technology in Sydney collaborated with architect Chris Bosse on this pretty “digital origami” exhibit featuring 3,500 recycled cardboard “molecules.”

u+a + neil m. denari architects: useful + agreeable house

Not sure if I like the design of the exterior, but i have to agree that the concept is pretty ill. . .

Water Cube

The Beijing Olympic Aquatics Pavilion (The Water Cube) is open. Images posted here. 

Madrid’s ‘Air Tree’

The Winner of the 2004 ‘Eco Boulevard”competition by ecosistema urbano from Spain.

Atlas of Novel Tectonics

Reiser + Umemoto

Self Made Tapestry Pattern Formation in Nature

Smog Scrubber building

“Architect Vincent Callebaut’s latest project balances public galleries, meeting rooms and gathering spaces over canals and abandoned railroad tracks in the 19th Parisian district. The prototype uses green technologies and techniques but is more than just an example of sustainable design. Callebaut’s ‘Anti Smog: An Innovation Centre in Sustainable Development’ is a catalyst for cleaner air.”

via treehugger.com

Deforestation

An extraordinary satellite image of rainforest in Bolivia being converted to farmland. From earthasart.com via the Times and NY Times Dot Earth.

FutureGen

The Times reports on the scrapping of plans for an emmisions-capturing coal power plant from the DOE. It’s a shame that budget concerns have tanked the project, but there are some interesting bits of information here about the technology involved.