What’s Wrong With What We Eat | Mark Bittman

This is a great talk. It’s not architecture or design related but it has everything to do with the environment and healt so it’s well worth sharing with everybody. Somewhere along the line in the food industry things have gone from bad to worse, so continuing with our eating habits would be like building more filthy factories.

”Mark Bittman is a bestselling cookbook author, journalist and television personality. His friendly, informal approach to home cooking has shown millions that fancy execution is no substitute for flavor and soul.”

Click on the image above to view the video.

TED

Save The Planet: Make Cows Fart Like Kangaroos

Our Crap In Space

Oh. Fuck. These are the ESA (European Space Agency) images of the debris humans sent into space from Sputnik to January 1st, 2008. We are an extremely freaking disgusting species. How the hell will we ever clean all this mess up? This makes me wanna throw up.

”Between the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957 and 1 January 2008, approximately 4600 launches have placed some 6000 satellites into orbit, of which about 400 are travelling beyond geostationary orbit or on interplanetary trajectories.
Today, it is estimated that only 800 satellites are operational – roughly 45 percent of these are both in LEO and GEO. Space debris comprise the ever-increasing amount of inactive space hardware in orbit around the Earth as well as fragments of spacecraft that have broken up, exploded or otherwise become abandoned. About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).”

Images: click here for high resolution images from ESA

.

(via: Gizmodo)

Sir Norman Foster | Building On The Green Agenda

This is a Norman Foster talk done in Munich in January 2007 and was just posted now, over a year ago, but nevertheless is important. ”The green agenda isn’t about fashion, it’s about survival.” Hopefully more big studios will take on the sustainable design because it truly is not just another trend. Click on the image above to view the video.

(TED)

March 22nd | World Water Day

Video: UNICEF's Tap Project

In 1992 The UN General Assembly proclaimed March 22nd as World Water Day. They wanted to draw international attention to the lack of clean drinking water around the globe. About 20% of the World’s population, that is 1.1 billion people, lack access to safe drinking water. The lack of clean water kills about 4500 children per day. Water stressed countries posses a third of the World’s population which mostly contains of Third World residents, Sub-Saharan Africans and South Asians. The clean water issue is much greater though; those countries cannot develop properly with no knowledge of basic hygiene and lack of basic sanitation.

Please continue reading, your attention is crucial.

World’s First Energy Positive Building

I wrote about Abu Dhabi before and since they’re going absolutely nuts over sustainable building, they diserve yet another post. Masdar headquarters is getting a new building designed by AS+GG Architecture that will be the first  energy positive building in the world. How? The roof is entirely covered by solar panels. And I’m not talking about a few square meters of panels- the roof covering a 1,4 million square feet (=130000 m2) building is absolutely gigantic. The building will also have integrated wind turbines, solar-driven cooling and de-humidification will consumpt 70% less water than other building of its size. They even decided to make the building process as green as possible by building the solar roof first – that way it alone will produce enough energy to power the rest of the construction. It’s very encouraging to see progress like this in the sustainable building field but I find it hard to believe that other countries will be able to follow its example – the building will cost over $300 million. Ugh. It’s somehow funny to see all the oil giants building green buildings, it’s nice, just funny. That, and steam must be coming out of Coop Himmelblau’s ears for the design (BMW Welt, wink wink).

slideshow: click

animation: click

.

(via: Eco Geek)

Attention Class: Lifestyle Choices

Click on the image for a larger view.

Oh this is so old school I needed to post it. As a very visual kid, often called ‘different’, I used to love colorful graphs and animations. That way information got stored in my head instead of it ending up somewhere in the dark corners of my brain, where it would have no effect and would die of boredom. The point here is simple, the author is trying to explain the ways to green your life and make it less fat/ smelly/ greedy, something we all need to not only consider, but start practicing asap. I’m being bashed with information about _global warming_ omg it’s here I tell ya, HERE! But the ‘change’ can be so simple if only change itself doesn’t scare you, and it shouldn’t, you’re young. What you, being on a student budget, can still do is: travel by train/ bus, use cloth bags instead of plastic ones, choose energy efficient home appliances, buy the right light bulbs, recycle and don’t stuff your face with so much meat so we won’t have so many cows farting us into the inevitable ecological disaster.

(via: TreeHugger)

Rubbish Soup – The 8th Continent

click on the image for a full-size view

Aw heck. Soon the Earth will suffocate because our vicious species keeps shoving waste down its throat. Here’s the story, please read it. The Independent is reporting that an oceanographer Charles Moore ‘discovered’ a – to say the least – really dirty patch floating on the surface of the ocean between Japan and Hawaii. What he was looking at was the largest rubbish dump in the world held in place by the ocean currents. Up until today people thought that the patch was an island swamped by plastic that you could walk on. The huge thing, however, is no island; it is nearly twice the size as continental United States. The rubbish is basically debris that drifted from the mainland and shipborne garbage. The most worrying thing isn’t the garbage itself, although that alone is a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions; what will effect the marine ecosystem the most is the toxins that are produced by the decomposing plastic. You can’t detect the thing from the sky because of its translucency but it can be spotted from the ships.

/read more after the jump if you have a heart (haha, now you must)

Last Call For Planet Earth | Architects for a Better World

Last Call For Planet Earth is a movie made by Jacques Allard that will be screening from January on all over Europe. The movie includes interviews an oppinions of architects such as Kengo Kuma, Thomas Mayne of Morphosis, Massimiliano Fuksas and many more. It is made to raise awareness of the importance of building sustainably and to emphasize the fact that buildings can and do effect the environment profoundly. In an era when ecological topics are the buzz, I’m not surprised they made this movie and I’m happy to see them pushing the topic forward to the masses. It truly is not a trend, It’s a necessity.

Alpine Ski Resort in Texas | What The F%&#

No, no, NO! There are very little things that upset me at all, this is one of them. Now I love snowboarding with all my heart, but all I can think of doing with my snowboard in freaking Texas is punching these developers in the nuts so hard they’ll be pissing particles of my bindings for years to come. Some bright cookies in Texas thought this was a brilliant idea. Them having an IQ OF A FLEA, I’m not surprised. “Not only will Bearfire Resort be a huge economic boost to North Texas, but its innovative approach may prove to be a trend-setter for other cities around the country looking for ways to spur their local economies,” said Armey (one of the fleas). Keep reading, it gets better…

School of Art, Design and Media Singapore | CPG Consultants

The School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore got a new building designed by CPG Consultants. It’s covered with a green roof that blends with the environment and serves as a gathering place. The unique form of the roof elegantly touches the ground making it easy to access. What is more, it also insulates the building and collects rainwater to irrigate itself an the surrounding landscape. The glass facade provides a lot of daylight for studios and classrooms and at the same time cuts off the heat. The shape of the building is simple. The whole concept is made out of three curvy shapes that form an atrium in the heart of the school which is being cooled by pools of water and fountains. Flawless.

photos: 1 2 3 4 5 6

(via: inhabitat, photos: designflute)