Our planets dwindling oil supply is front-page news. Less discussed is our lack of fresh water in the face of global warming and permanent drought.
To this end, Grimshaw Partners has planned a new seawater greenhouse for the Canary Islands. Using solar panels to power a series of evaporators and condensers, the structure produces fresh water from moisture in the air. A piece of public infrastructure, it doubles as a waterfront attraction, serving as a sweeping open-air theatre.
Diseño Earle’s Eco House, being built on the Costa del Sol, Spain and to be completed 2009 caused quite a stir when it was launched. Now, several months down the line, the Eco House has been shortlisted for an award at World Architecture Community. WA is an organisation that promotes dialog and discourse in the architecture community and encourages debates on all facets of architecture. Membership consists of architects around the globe as well as a honorary members list of veritable starchitects.
The Eco House features a combination of innovative environmentally-friendly technologies and boasts a beautiful, modern design. We’re all hoping to see the Eco House win, but against such stiff compeition, we’re happy to have been shortlisted. A big congratulations to the design team at Diseño Earle.
You can see the Eco House and the other projects shortlisted here.
Personal transportation is all the rage at the moment. The Segway was the first to gain success and continues to convince people that maybe it just isn’t always necessary to own a car. Toyota have now entered the game with this tiny little unit called the Winglet.
The Winglet comes in three sizes, Small, Medium and Large, and has a top speed of 6kph. The smallest device conveniently folds into an area small enough to carry or store on a seat in your car. Whilst the Winglet doesn’t present itself as a viable option for car replacement, it certainly offers potential for those with longer distances to cover on foot. And, let’s face it, this certainly has something that the Segway lacks - the cool factor.
That said, it’s difficult to know where these devices actually sit in environmental terms. My personal take is that this particular model is essentially useless - it’s not fast enough to replace a car and/or public transport like the Segway, meaning it’s only capable of replacing walking. Which is something that we should be encouraging. So this unit can really only replace the greenest method of transportation that man can use with a not-quite-so-green and not-quite-so-good-for-you alternative. Shame, it looks like a lot of fun to use.
Personally I can’t wait to have a go on these bad-boys. Even if I can actually walk faster than these move.
This small wooden bridge in England is deceptively primitive. Designed by Valentin Bontjes van Beek and Natalie Rozencwajg, the apparently improvised structure is rather carefully designed, - a dynamic web of rough timber struts, steel cables, and computer-milled wood decking that hangs lightly from the existing trees.
This funny looking structure, designed by Specht Harpman, is aims to not only have a host of green technologies, but also to be smarter than other homes. Rather than just throwing a few solar panels on a standard design, zeroHouse maximises it’s efficiency by controlling all aspects of energy management. The house is powered by solar energy, taken from the array of photovoltaic panels that span the roof and stored in an onboard battery. The clever control of power means that the house can operate for up to a week without any sunlight. Perfect for patchy winter months.
On top of this, the unit collects and stores rainwater and even processes it’s own waste - turning it into a clean, dry compost. Even with regular use, this system need only be emptied twice a year.
As mentioned before, the real advantage of this is the fact that it’s fully controllable and adaptable to the owners personal usage patterns. An interesting looking design and a thoroughly sensible answer to making a modern, adaptable living space environmentally friendly.
With the amount of natural disasters increasing, it is becoming more urgent to come up with new ideas for temporary housing to shelter the 1000’s of found homeless. The idea of reusing shipping pallets as a building material was originally developed by I-Beam for a Transitional Housing contest aimed at housing refugees in Kosovo. The pallet houses can be easily assembled and disassembled and they can not only serve as temporary houses, but can also be the framework for more permanent housing. One transitional shelter measuring 10′ x 20′ would take 80 pallets to build and cost approximately $500.
This car is pretty exciting. Borne out of the British love of all things sleek and fast and out of the new sense of environmental duty is this electric sports car designed and built by the Lightning Car Company in England.
The design of the car is stunning, with flowing lines that wouldn’t look out of place on an Aston Martin, but with a slightly more futuristic feel, mainly on the rear of the car. But looks are only a small part of this machine’s draw.
Only the second electric supercar to have been built, the first being Telsa’s delightful Electric Roadsters, the Lightning breaks automative convention to match it’s gasoline powered counterparts. The main problem with electric motors is they simply just don’t have as much get-up-and-go as petrol ones. the Lightning tackles this in a unique way. Rather than burden a single engine with moving the mechanics in the car and the car itself, each wheel has it’s own motor, removing unnecessary mechanics and providing much more power than would usually be available from a single engined vehicle. Plus, the lack of an engine reduces the components that can go wrong, essentially making a maintenance-free motor.
The Lightning Car Company explain:
Hi-Pa Drive™ from PML Flightlink Ltd. is a revolution in motor technology and it’s a British innovation to boot! With its integrated motor and drive electronics in one single unit it produces an ultra high power density - up to 20 times more than conventional systems.
The compact, energy-efficient, electric wheel motors produce unrivalled levels of torque with internal heavy-duty tapered roller bearings that can withstand heavy radial loads for robust use. Yet they achieve the power to weight ratio important for the performance sports car capability of the Lightning.
Other features include total weather proofing, total energy transfer and several levels of redundancy, so any single failure will not prevent the vehicle from operating safely.
The car claims to out accelerate a Porsche and has a top speed of somewhere in the region of 130mph. Who said that going green meant the end of fun motoring?
This one is an interesting concept. A pre-fab house with a host of eco-credentials, that can be put together in a matter of days. The Perrinepod design is quite retro, oblong shaped with rounded edges. The idea behind the design is to counter our over-cluttered existence and create beautiful and useable living environment that can adapt to any setting. As the architect, Jean-mic Perrine states:
“My design is about appreciating the beauty of simple, uncluttered space.” The perrinepod is very functional, very sexy, very simple, with the form of the spaces inside following the function, there’s no pretense, just simple, beautiful designs. It’s a really cool thing to have no falseness - for example, the bathrooms are simply designed as a place to wash, backed up by quality materials.
Living spaces have become as transient and irrelevant as clothes. It’s no longer a look for a generation, the look of ‘now’ only lasts for a three to four year period.
That approach is not sustainable and people are putting themselves under a lot of unnecessary pressure trying to keep up. The Perrine Pod is the antithesis of all of that - simple design, beautiful materials that will remain classic. It’s not a ‘look at me’ statement, but a home that is comfortable, stylish and above all, functional.”
A great idea if you ask me. The design is also stackable, giving the option of a larger, family home. The time-lapse video below shows just how quickly these things can be put together.
Mention green energy and most people think of solar panels or giant wind turbines. Well, think again. Researchers are developing new technologies to harvest the power of ocean waves – like this 200 meter rubber tube called the anaconda. See video below.
Congestion… pollution… cars are nothing but problems. But not for long. The brain trust at MIT’s Media Lab is currently developing a shared commuter vehicle system that combines the clean efficient driving of an electric car with the ingenious stackable parking of a Pringles can. See video below.
This blog is brought to you by the team at Diseño Earle, Architects. Diseño Earle specialise in modern design and work on projects all over the world in places such as Dubai, Spain, Morocco and Tunisia.
Diseño Earle have recently launched a new product which combines exclusive plots with unique modern villas and superior construction. Visit Blueprint Modern Villas for more information.
Diseño Earle also publishes a monthly magazine Modern Design, which is also available as a free PDF download.Modern Design highlights the finest examples of modern design, architecture, art, fashion and more.
