“Theo Jansen has been creating wind-walking examples of artificial life since 1990. What was at first a rudimentary breed has slowly evolved into a generation of machines that are able to react to their environment: “over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.” From >Inhabitat
These sculptural ‘animals’ are amazing; like a combination of DaVinci and David Cronenberg. Jansen has hit upon a form that resonates with a sense of the future/past as present; fairy tales, dinosaurs and mythical beasts.
Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun’s energy that could allow just that.
The work, to be reported in the July 11 issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel “solar concentrator.” “Light is collected over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges,” explains Marc A. Baldo, leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.
As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell “by a factor of over 40,” Baldo says.
Because the system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be implemented within three years–even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.
The houses at the Housing Exhibition 2008 in Vaasa will be heated by energy from the old abandoned waste dump and by energy from the bottom of the sea.
-”We realized that the temperature of the sea bottom a few metres deep will remain at +8-9 degrees celsius even in the coldest winter. Up on land at the same depth the temperature is only +3-4 degrees. “, one of the two innovators of the idea tells. “Even the experts were surprised”.
The housing exhibition area has its own energy station that transforms and moves out the energy into the city´s energy network. The methane gas taken to use from the old waste dump in Suvilahti will last for twenty years, but the sea is a huge energy reservoir. “There is potential for the future”, Mauri Lieskoski says.//aito
Från den nedlagda sopstationen i Sunnanvik transporteras metangas till en nybyggd energianläggning. Enheten, utrustad med bränslecell och mikroturbiner, producerar el och värme som sedan körs ut i Vasa Elektriskas nät. Totalt får över 40 småhus och tre höghus sin el- och värmeenergi via mässans kraftverk.
Juvelen i kronan är det lågtemperaturnät som suger upp jordvärme från ett 40 meter tjockt sedimentlager på havsbottnen. Nästan åtta kilometer rör är begravda under vattenytan i Stadsfjärden.
– Nätet ska vara i bruk året runt. På somrarna används det till att kyla ner husen, säger Mauri Lieskoski på företaget Mateve.
Det var Vasaborna Lieskoski och Pertti Reinikainen som gjorde den sensationella upptäckten. Deras mätningar visade att medeltemperaturen i jordlagret är 8–9 grader på 3–4 meters djup – vintertid. Uppe på landbacken, i torr mark, är motsvarande temperatur 3–4 grader.
– Haven och insjöarna är stora solpaneler. Det handlar om enorma energikällor och värmeförråd, säger Lieskoski.
– Den största utmaningen består i att fördela värmen på ett jämnt sätt. Det fungerar bra på ett avgränsat område men vi vet inte hur långt man kan transportera havsvärmen. Det krävs mera forskning.
Fyndet överraskade energispecialisten Jarmo Kallio på Geologiska forskningscentralen.
– Bottensedimentet lagrar solvärme effektivt under sommaren. Tack vare vattenmassorna avkyls det inte ens under kalla perioder. Här finns stor potential. Framtidens teknik
Bränslecellen har utvecklats av Wärtsilä. Kraftverket är det första i sitt slag som drivs med gas från en avstjälpningsplats. Mikroturbinerna och bränslecellen producerar en energimängd som motsvarar den årliga förbrukningen för 150 egnahem.
– Enheten tillverkar miljövänlig el- och värmeenergi med mycket hög verkningsgrad. Utsläppen ligger på en ultralåg nivå. Om några år kan man börja använda tekniken kommersiellt i hotell och butiker. Vi kommer till exempel att testa bränsleceller i fartygsmotorer, säger Juha Kytölä, vd på Wärtsilä Finland.
Sopstationen är ingen evig gasleverantör. Enligt Kytönen räcker metangasen i minst tjugo år, kanske längre.
– Fördelarna med decentraliserad energiproduktion är att kraftverken kan utnyttja lokala energikällor effektivare. Dessutom blir bränsletransporterna kortare. Stort intresse
Enligt Henrik Vehkaoja är lågtemperaturnätet en relativt billig affär för husbyggarna.
– Investeringskostnaderna är höga, men driften är billig. Intresset har varit stort. Merparten av husen kommer att vara anslutna till nätet.
Anslutningsavgiften för ett egnahem är 1 500 euro plus moms. Energiförbrukningen mäts inte men hushållen betalar en bruksrättsavgift på 2,50 euro plus moms per uppvärmd kvadratmeter och år.
Satsningen i Vasa har väckt uppmärksamhet också utomlands. I den senaste upplagan av State of the World, som ges ut av Worldwatch-institutet, används Vasaprojektet som exempel på att det går att producera energi ur biogas från avstjälpningsplatsen.
– Projektet kan tjäna som föredöme för hela energisektorn. Det här är hållbar utveckling och ekologiskt boende, säger projektchef Keijo Ullakko.
Would you have ever thought it conceivable to grow vast amounts of produce in the heart of densely populated cities ?
The concept of eco-tower “Tour Vivante” aim is to associate agricultural hydroponic production, dwelling and activities in a single and vertical system.
A continuous agriculture, emancipated from seasons and climatic hazards (drought, flood, weather), which provides a production 5 to 6 time better than open fields cultures.
Tour Vivante allows a local production and to wipe out transportation needed for food supply and thus, the process of the very energy-consuming preservation.
The hydroponic agricultural production purifies the districts air by the provision of plants oxygen.
An efficient use of salvaged rainwater is transformed into drinking water by the evaporation/respiration of plants.
Tour Vivante generates a large amount of methane or electricity by the fermentation of food waste and vegetals.
Located at the top of the tower, two large windmill directed towards the dominant winds produce electricity facilitated by the height of the tower. The produced electric power is about 200 to 600 kWh per annum.
4 500 m of photovoltaic panels included into the facades generate electricity from solar energy.
This tower will have as well : Rainwater and Black water systems, Ecological or recycled materials and Thermal and hygrometrical regulation.
Vertical farming could revolutionize the way we produce food. This new model could replace, traditional farming methods. This is one idea where the sky is truly the limit.
Two young architects bring a down-to-earth brand of tropical Modernism to the balmy Mexican coast
By Paul Makovsky
Posted January 16, 2008
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been a bit frustrated with a lot of “green” architecture lately—you know, the kinds of buildings that focus on the checklist approach, substituting technical wizardry for simpler, time-honored principles. Enter a breath of fresh architectural air: 32-year-old architect Eduardo Cadaval, who shows up at our offices, portfolio in hand, to show us a recently completed house. His “opera prima” is a beautiful beach house on the Pacific Coast of southern Mexico that he and his partner and wife, Clara Solà-Morales, designed—a place where they can go when they aren’t practicing in Barcelona, where she’s from.
Growing up, Mexican-born Cadaval spent his summers in that same sleepy fishing village, Puerto Escondido, now a surfer’s paradise. When he returned as a grad student to work on his thesis about five years ago, he learned that the town was transforming a former trailer park into a residential area. “It’s on the best beach in town, so we bought the site for nothing,” he explains. “My brother, sister, and I paid $9,000—that’s 500 bucks a month for six months for each of us.”
Cadaval says the idea for the project was dictated largely by zoning rules and the need for a low-cost, low-maintenance house: minimum resources meets maximum impact. Mosquito nets, for example, replace glass windows. The front facade is closed off (“You cannot open it to the south,” he says, “or you will be totally fried”), so visitors enter from the side. “Why have a front door in a summerhouse?” The form of the building is two cantilevered blocks—a 16-foot cantilever is balanced on an 8-foot one—that sit atop a small base, forming a kind of Tetris T. Unlike neighboring homes, which are sited in the middle of their lots, the structure’s cantilevered spaces shift off-center to create unblocked views of the sea.
When choosing materials, Cadaval says, the de-signers discovered that good local stone was not available and the small circular ceramic tiles they wanted to use were too expensive, so they settled for a traditional local material: concrete. They brought in a carpenter from Mexico City who could build the wood-frame structure and pour the concrete. After the concrete work was finished, they recycled the formwork for different parts of the house: square tiles—cut like “pizza slices”—for outdoor walkways and longer pieces for fences. Even the excess rebar was used by local craftspeople for custom handrails and chairs. When new wood was specified, they used ayacahuite, an inexpensive, untreated, water-resistant tropical species perfect for the local climate. “I use this wood because the local contractor, who is now my friend, told me to use it,” he says. “All the local workers use it, not the rich guys.”
Cadaval is proud of the cross-ventilation, which eliminates the need for air-conditioning. Even the garden terraces are indigenous: the designers planted dry gardens of river stones with local perennials. “Some of the guys wanted to have a green garden, but we decided we wanted something totally natural with no water expenditure,” he says. “People tend to associate green with sustainable, but real sustainability may mean going the other way around.”
Helsinki City is building a multistorey apartment house without any heating; no radiators, no underfloor heating. The house will generate its heating trough a heat absorbtion system in the ventilation, that turns the heat back inside insted of losing it out in the air. This house will be extremely well insolated and the heat neaded to keep the house warm is taken from heat generated by bodies in the building, light bulbs, electrical appliances etc. This system is not very complicated, and the building is calculated to cost only 10% more than a normal apartment house to build. The gain in heating costs in the coming years will in a lifespan economics calculation make this house very economical. In Stockholm they are working on similar innovative methods; //aito
Ethical living
Crazy idea, but it might just work
Body warmth to power heating. Trucks that run on chocolate. Floors coated with cheese. Bibi van der Zee looks at new ways of turning our waste to good use
Body heat
In Stockholm, they are going to capture the body heat generated by all the passengers at the central train station to heat water, which will be piped to the next-door office and used to heat the building.
It is an inspiration in terms of lateral thinking, but it was also done with such ease and lack of discussion and argument that it feels as if it should be contravening some obscure unitary development agreement, or some other typical obstacle to common sense. Karl Sundholm, of building managers Jernhusen AB, explains: “We were just sitting in a meeting, chatting and drinking coffee, and the idea popped up. Someone pointed out of the window to the railway station and said, ‘What about all that heat over there?’ We did a couple of drawings and that was it.”
They have finished the design stage, and are now finalising the details. Work is due to start in the autumn. The predicted cost is about £23,000, and they expect that it will reduce their heating bills by about 15%. “It’s not so complicated,” says Sundholm. “Just a couple of pipes and water pumps. Actually, I’m surprised no one thought of it before.”
Road power
It is kind of a vicious circle, but at least Dutch company Road Energy Systems is deriving some benefit from heavy traffic. It has developed a road that has an asphalt layer (which is very effective at conducting heat) on top of a system of water-bearing pipes. The water absorbs heat generated by vehicles on the road surface and from the sun. It is then piped away and stored thermally until needed. It is then piped to buildings, where it is used to heat the air. There is already one system in operation that powers four office blocks in Scharwoude in the Netherlands, but whether it will be used more widely remains to be seen.
Already for years Helsinki City geo department has planned the foundations and the ground for building land in the Helsinki region so that it takes into account a rise of sea level of 2 meters. For example the Arabianranta area has such elaborate foundations. Now Helsinki is preparing for the effects of the environmental changes by also building earth dams on coastal areas. Considering the costs of housing in Helsinki already today, the economic impacts of climate change is starting to show in a very tangible way. Also the coming new regulations on curbing energy use in buildings will show soon in the building costs. Is it finally only the effect of climate change on our own wallets that will make our consumer culture change?
Since Finland has a rise of land level, the effects of rising sea level are not as great as in areas with sinking land. The Benelux countries are facing some tough times… //aito
Helsingfors bygger jordvallar
Publicerad: 12/01 20:20 ›uppdaterad: 12/01 20:20
I de finländska kuststäderna garderar man sig för översvämningar. Utöver Helsingfors förbättrar man också vallarna i städer på Finlands sydvästkust.
Särskilt Helsingfors drabbades av översvämningar under trettondagshelgen 2005, då havsvattennivån steg rekordhögt. Nu tänker staden skydda sina mest känsliga områden med ett par meter höga jordvallar. Vallar byggs bland annat i Degerö, Marudd och Nordsjö. Det beräknas ta tio år att bygga vallarna på alla ställen.
Dessutom byggs vallar i Björneborg och Lovisa. Bryggområdet i Åbo hamn höjs och Salo planerar ett bättre skydd.
- Det mest översvämningskänsliga området i sydvästra Finland är Björneborg, säger ingenjör Juha-Pekka Triipponen vid sydvästra Finlands miljöcentral. Det beror på att Kumo älv rinner genom staden och utmynnar i en lång havsvik. Om havsnivån och vattennivån i älven samtidigt står högt leder det lätt till översvämning.
Den internationella klimatpanelen IPCC förutspår att vattennivån i oceanerna kommer att stiga med 20-60 centimeter under de kommande åren.
Forskaren Antti Kangas vid Havsforskningsinstitutet säger att nivån i Östersjön kan höjas till och med litet mer än genomsnittet. Största delen av Finland skyddas dock av landhöjningen som började efter istiden.
I Finska viken är höjningen rätt långsam, och därför ser höjningen av havsnivån och landhöjningen på Helsingfors stränder ut att upphäva varandra. Efter 100 år väntas havsvattnet i Helsingfors vara på ungefär samma nivå som i dag medan den i Vasa kan vara cirka 40 centimeter lägre. FNB
The population of the Helsinki region will grow from 1,3 million to 2 million within the next 50 years. The amount of required new building is so great that it enables developing the region’s overall structure in a way which strengthens the region’s position and competitiveness as one of the Baltic Sea region’s leading cultural and technological centers and an appealing residential and business location.
The competition was organized by 14 towns and municipalities of the Helsinki region: Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen, Kerava, Tuusula, Järvenpää, Nurmijärvi, Mäntsälä, Pornainen, Hyvinkää, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Sipoo, together with the Ministry of the Environment.
The winner of the international Greater Helsinki Vision 2050 ideas competition is an entry entitled Emerald. Its author is planning agency WSP Finland Ltd. The core members of the competition team are the architects Juha Eskolin, Jenni Lautso, Ilona Mansikka and Tuomas Vuorinen.
Winner: Emerald is an innovative entry where building is directed both to supplementing existing community structure and to some completely new areas in the urb
an core and border municipalities of the metropolitan area. The consequent community structure for the whole region is balanced. The choice of focal points for growth is determined by rail transport connections. Residents are encouraged to choose more ecologically viable lifestyles through various active inducements. The service structure is considered from new, innovative, and ecological bases. The service innovations include the idea of a mobile shop that comes to the client. Public transport is proposed to introduce a “climate bonus card” which benefits the user through e.g. free fares for favoring public transport. The entry thoroughly considers the quality of life from the perspectives of residents of different kinds and ages.
Shared 2nd prize: Towards City 2.0 is an interesting and in a positive sense idealistic entry whose goal is to activate residents to create information, innovations, services, and entrepreneurship on their own initiative. Social innovations are presented to be the area’s central developmental force (”Social Silicon Valley”). The members of the entry’s creative team were architect Tuomas Toivonen, Hans Park and researchers Roope Mokka ja Aleksi Neuvonen, Finland.
Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity. From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air. Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. That’s the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar power that’s ubiquitous because it’s cheap. The basic technology has been around for decades, but this year, Silicon Valley–based Nanosolar created the manufacturing technology that could make that promise a reality.
The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute. With backing from Google’s founders and $20 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, Nanosolar’s first commercial cells rolled off the presses in 2007.
