Paris: City of Bikes

As many people know, Paris has implemented a bike rental system servicing the majority of the city. I had heard of it, but until now had not investigated it in detail. What I found is that Velib, the name of the system, is fantastic! The stations are spread out 300m apart, so they are extremely accessible. You buy daily, weekly or yearly passes, and this grants you access to the system. From there, if you have a day or week pass you punch in a code at the station meter to access the bikes, a yearly pass holder gains access by a single swipe at the rack itself! A credit card number is required when purchasing your pass, and this card number is charged for any fees accrued. So, after you get your bike the first 30 minutes are free. After that, fees are added after the next half hour, and every consecutive hour after that. It gets quite expensive after a couple of hours, and this is to encourage short term use, freeing up more bikes for a higher turnover of users. This system has been highly effective, and is being used frequently by Paris's 2 million residents and 30 million yearly tourists. Paris now has 20,000 rental bikes available. This is 20,000 less people participating in the carbon emission system. Think of the impact this could make if major cities around the world did the same; we all know the impact our own lives have from doing the metabolism journals. Every little change counts. This type of change what we need to see more of to create cleaner, healthier societies!

Check out this video for a better idea

Experiment in the desert

Masdar, a new ambitious city plan funded by an oil rich Abu Dhabi government is currently underway in the UAE. Their goal is to build a city ground up that will house ~47 000 people, have no carbon emissions, no cars, and no waste by 2015. Combining the brightest researchers, scientists and technology they have planned what the sustainable city of the future should be.

The ideas in the initiative a refreshing way to re-create the cityscape. I would love to live in a place with no cars. Just think  the decrease in stress and accidents if no one had to drive. As great as this new Carbon Zero city sounds, we have to remember things work differently in reality. This environmentally utopian city really isn't dealing with our current problems of existing infrastructure. It's ignoring a massive problem our generation needs to face: the millions of people already living in suburbs. 

Masdar initiative has an immense budget to work with. By building everything from scratch with a virtually unlimited budget (so it seems) relieves the designers of a huge restriction. It gives them freedom to implement all the ideas they have. Rarely does this ever happen in reality. Masdar may be environmentally sustainable, but is it sustainable socially and economically? I mean how many countries can build a city ground up when they aren't happy with they existing ones? So many new materials are being used to create this city, are they ALL made from recycled materials? When they say Carbon Zero do they take into consideration all the energy and resources needed to build Masdar in the first place? In a bigger sense this reminds me of the disposable mentality we have today, that when we don't like something or get bored of it we just buy a new one.  Building a city from ground up isn't solving the problems of current infrastructure. By building a walled city where only those who can afford it is gentrification and creating large social divides. The situation to me seems like rich people get to enjoy clean air and the freedom from environmental guilt, while the poor remain in the polluted, decaying cities.  

Land is such a precious resource, the answer is not to use more of it. I think we need to work with what we already have. Instead using more land we should stop building and figure out ways to maximize land with boundaries already set. 

Masdar is a great and interesting experiment. It's also great that people are trying to be new and innovate about the ways we go about building our cities. But I feel (for now) this is all it ever will be, an experiment that includes 47 000 wealthy people. We've already invested so much in our current cities, how can we afford to build new cities? I think Masdar should be taken as an incredible experiment from which we can learn from, but to create all new cities like this seems somewhat unrealistic.

Looking To Nature For Design Solutions

Imagine looking to nature for design inspiration beyond application of form, but for our application of technologies too. Think about using the naturally built world as a model for the human built world so to create a more sustainable, healthy way of living and solving problems. It is apparent that nature has already solved most of the problems that humans still struggle to find solutions to, and manages to do it in the most efficient and strategic way possible. “Biomimicry” is essentially this, the process of emulating nature’s natural strategies and patterns in our own design technologies, therefore enabling them to adapt much more sustainably to our environments. This, I feel is crucial in reversing the way we approach the design process, by shifting our energy towards finding solutions and learning from existing organisms instead of focusing on implementing completely artificial solutions that work against the earth's systems.

Jane Benyus, the biologist who coined the term, shares amazing insight on innovative, sustainable design ideas drawn directly from nature in this inspiring presentation on Biomimicry.

Sustain without invention!

I recently have noticed a poster for a unique movement in Winnipeg. It especially stood out to me since I am a person living on my own, without a vehicle. On top of that, since signing my life over to the Faculty of Architecture, affording a vehicle is not possible. The poster was advertising a car sharing community, so to speak. It's catch heading is "Need a car? But only sometimes?". This is exactly how I feel... I think I might have actually said "yes" out loud. I think that this type of initiative is exactly the type of thinking that must accompany new design, new product, and new invention. It is true that there are thousands of brilliant solutions out there to help people lessen their impact on the earth. From low-flush toilets and low-flow shower heads to electric cars, our everyday habits are leaving a much shallower footprint on the environment. However, truly the best solution is to CHANGE the way that we do things. If we all still own a vehicle, electric or not, they must still be produced, they must still take up space, and eventually they will need to be disposed of somewhere. By sharing a car, we will take public transit more, save money, and lighten the landfill load by lowering the quantity of vehicles being produced, and thus disposed of. Just as we do not have to flush every time, and I'm very sure we all could take shorter showers, sharing a car is a step into a greener evolutionary society, without any technology at all!

In consideration of our upcoming project(and celebration of my getting this video posting right!)I thought this video would be appropriate. I first saw Elizabeth Redmand in a magazine. The idea behind her flooring system is similar to the night club flooring Jae showed us in the first class. What I really liked about her version of this tecnology,in comparison, is the scale. It is accessible and realistic. It is something you could potentially install in existing spaces, as opposed to having to design a new space around it, like the dance floor. She took a common "energy-harnessing" idea and designed a realistic application, which I feel a lot of the time is half the battle as a designer.
I think in our context in this class, and on this blog,the most important thing about this video is to realize that Elizabeth is still a student, just as we are. It goes to show that no matter where we are in our design careers, we all have the power to make a differnce. At any age! At just 23, this young woman is marketing one of the most innovative new products out there today. Who knows if we may make a powerful discovery in the next project that could lead us to bigger things!?

Building your own wind turbine

Backyard wind turbines would be a great and cheap way to generate power in a city as windy as Winnipeg. By building our own sources to generate energy we can starting giving back to the system not to mention save ourselves a whole lot of cash. Here is the definitive guide to making your own wind turbine for under $150! The astronomer (yes he's probably a genius but he claims its really not that hard) who built the turbine gives you a detailed step by step list of instructions, breaks down all the prices of parts, even showing the prices of generators on eBay. 

Click to find out how to harness energy in your own back yard.

The road to finding alternate energy sources able to sustain our wants and needs is not going to be an easy one. We all need to work hard and be self motivated to think of our own solutions instead of waiting for solutions to be discovered by someone else. Because the more ideas we come up with, the better armed we will be to face the many problems we need to confront.

A Balanced Conscience

Just because something is renewable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for the World. When being environmentally conscious we can’t forget to be socially conscious as well because in the end, we are trying to sustain HUMAN life and culture. Products such as bio-diesel and bio-plastics made from renewable crops (i.e. corn) appear to be a great renewable source of energy, but alas there are two sides on every coin. In a world where millions of people still don't have the means to properly feed themselves can we really afford to turn food, a basic human need into items that aren’t necessarily key for our survival? We need to look beyond our own environmental egos and look at the big picture (or the full cycle). Corn is a renewable resource that can be produced in a fairly short time, but also a staple food in many countries. The raise in price of specific food items, such as corn, has caused havoc in countries like Mexico where the masses can’t afford to buy the own food they grow. Is it ethical to try to sustain the people of the future while starving the people of today?

 

Here is an alternative to bio-plastics made from corn: Maple Syrup Bio-plastic 

Maple syrup is not a staple food, but more of a luxury food item that we can afford to use as product rather than food. Trees are less energy intensive when provided with the proper climate, acts as carbon sinks, prevents soil erosion rather than causing it, etc. In short, trees are a positive element to the ecosystem, while farming crops require huge amounts of resources and energy being a negative impact on the environment. Please click on summary below for full article on maple syrup.

Scientists have discovered that an obscure type of bacteria can turn maple syrup into natural polymers that can be used to make biogradable plastic-like materials.

As designers, when creating a product that we think is environmentally friendly we also have to ask ourselves who is this going to affect? Will there be social consequences? We have to be careful not to get lost in the new fad of going “green”. When creating goals for design, we should always keep in mind that we design for people first.

Prefab Potential

Prefab homes could potentially be the new wave of homes for the future. They consume very little time and energy in their construction, have low impacts on the environment, and can be superbly stylish. The prefab potential cannot only aid environmental ills, but social ones as well. Prefab would be better fit than our current mode of building today to keep up with the demand of infrastructure needed to house growing populations i.e. Schools. The reductions in construction time and using recyclables could also provide more low income housing for those in need. The cellophane house is an example of how a home can be recycled- where the disassembly is just as easy as the assembly, and parts can be reused.

MoMA in New York is currently displaying Kieran Timberlake's Cellophane house, a dwelling venturing into a new frontier of design and construction methodology.