Auerworld Palace

In 1998, natural artist and architect Marcel Kalberer "planted" this project, a pavilion made of living willow trees.  I find his use of arches particularly interesting here.  Could we create an illustration/animation that showed this thing moving through time? (When I say "animation," I mean a series of keynote transitions, nothing more fancy than that.)

I have a bunch more bits and pieces of living or recycled architecture, which I'll be posting here shortly.
Paul Rivers, 5:30pm November 30th, 2010.


 Sources:

• "Make: Online : Living willow architecture." DIY projects, how-tos, and inspiration from the workshops and minds of geeks, makers, and hackers @ Make: Online, the MAKE magazine blog @Makezine.com blog. http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/08/living_willow_architecture.html (accessed November 30, 2010).
• "Marcel Kalberer - Auerworld Palace." ARCPROSPECT. http://www.arcprospect.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1865%3Amarcel-kalberer-auerworld-palace&catid=86%3Aother-design&Itemid=16〈=es (accessed November 30, 2010).

Solar tracking technology borrows from plants to point PV at the sun

This article speaks of a solution developed by students at MIT that allows a solar PV panel to follow the sun using a method that mimics how plants turn their leaves to get the best exposure.

Wade
(Nov 30, 2010)

Boston (MA) - Students at MIT participating in the annual MADMEC (Making And Designing Materials Engineering Contest) have devised a zero-input energy solution which allows solar panel arrays to track the sun's movement thereby increasing solar panel efficiency by 38% over stationary panels. The three-person team of Forrest Liau, Vyom Sharma, Geroge Whitfield, all Materials Science graduate students, won top honors and a $10,000 prize for their invention.

Borrowing from the very technology used to track the sun by plants coupled to the relatively primitive approach used in coil-based temperature gauges, the device is basically a temperature sensor that responds mechanically to changes in heat. Constructed from bimetal aluminum and steel, two materials which expand at different rates when exposed to identical changes in temperature, the device is built into a type of arch affixed permanently at one side and attached to a pivot arm on the other.  As the sun moves it heats up different portions along the arch causing it to flex and bend to varying extents allowing the solar panel to track with the sun's movement, as per the expansion of the arch.

The team is exploring additional methods and materials for creating zero-energy tracking systems, ones that will continuously orient the solar panel at a more accurate perpendicular and planar angle to the sun.  The idea of having completely autonomous solar panel tracking mechanisms is very exciting, especially in developing nations where an additional 38% efficiency would be most desirable.

Solar panels that orient themselves are so much more efficient than stationary models, albeit more costly, that the extra energy they generate more than makes up for the small amount of energy required to track the sun through movement by electric motors and tiny computers which compute the angle at various points throughout the day.  This team's solution will simply do the same job less costly and without parts which will more easily wear out over time.





"MIT develops solar panels which track the sun without motors,"
TGdaily(2010), Rick C, Hodgin, Mon 22nd Sep 2008, 08:35 am.
Accessed November 20, 2010, http://www.tgdaily.com/trendwatch-features/39411-mit-develops-solar-panels-which-track-the-sun-without-motors .

Self-repairing Concrete

Brown, Wade
November 18th, 2010

Researchers have designed bacteria that can produce a special glue to knit together cracks in concrete structures.

This article may have already been covered. I just saw it on Slashdot this morning...

The genetically modified microbe has been programmed to swim down fine cracks in concrete and once at the bottom it produces a mixture of calcium carbonate and a bacterial glue. This glue combines with the filamentous bacterial cells, ultimately hardening to the same strength as the surrounding concrete and essentially "knitting" the building back together.
The bacterium tweaked by the researchers is called Bacillus subtilis and is commonly found in soil. Accordingly, the research team calls its building-healing agent "BacillaFilla."
The agent was developed with the goal in mind of prolonging the life of structures that are environmentally costly to construct.
"Around 5 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions are from the production of concrete, making it a significant contributor to global warming," said joint project instructor Jennifer Hallinan, a research fellow in complex systems at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom. "Finding a way of prolonging the lifespan of existing structures means we could reduce this environmental impact and work towards a more sustainable solution."
Hallinan continued: "This could be particularly useful in earthquake zones where hundreds of buildings have to be flattened because there is currently no easy way of repairing the cracks and making them structurally sound."
As part of the research, Newcastle students have not only considered the advantages of their engineered bacteria, but also the potential risks to the environment.
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The BacillaFilla spores start germinating only when they make contact with concrete — triggered by the very specific pH of the material — and they have a built-in self-destruct gene that prevents them from proliferating away from the concrete target.
Once the cells have germinated, they swarm down the fine cracks in the concrete and are able to sense when they reach the bottom because of the clumping of the bacteria, or so-called quorum sensing.
This clumping activates the concrete repair process and the cells differentiate into three types: cells which produce calcium carbonate crystals, cells which become filamentous —acting as reinforcing fibers — and thirdly cells that produce a glue that acts as a binding agent and fills the gap.


“Designer bacteria can heal cracks in concrete buildings,” TechNewsDaily (2010), accessed November 17, 2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40201539/ns/technology_and_science-green_innovation/.

EarthShip

Gao, Charlie
November 17th 2010

Garbage Warrior is about designing house types that are completely self-sustaining and built from garbage.

So, summary of the ideas from Garbage warrior, forget the place, people, event. So, it is possible to build, by hand and primal tools, a house completely made from trash other people don't want-especially tires-and dirt, and have it be self reliant and require no infrastructure to function. So, the whole theory of these things started out with heating (blah blah blah, long to short), essentially, the guy figured out a way to heat houses by building them out of tires and dirt because tires, being rubber and what they are, contain heat for a ridiculously long time. And you could do this with a team of people and some sticks, hammers, nails, clubs, poles, and other stone age tools. Then you can buy some solar panels and once, a windmill which almost broke off and was too loud, stick them on, and you'd have electricity. Since the guy's an experienced architect, he figured out a way to make the plumbing work so that you could purify most of the water so long as you didn't use the washroom every hour of the day. He also had a nice little garden which gave produce so you didn't really need to go shopping, or foraging. So, there you have it, a house that has electricity, heating, food, water, and is comfortable all year round without any need of infrastructure to support it. Yes, you need a place where they throw out tires, and I guess beer bottles so you can make pretty lighting fixtures, and unused solar panels. But really, most of it is just reused trash. It can also be made to fit a lot of people, but its usually just a one family home. It looked really cool both on the inside and outside-very modern, cool lighting, spacial experience, etc. Funnily enough, for one of the projects, the heating became so effective that it melted the plastic in the kitchen-so yea, it takes a lot of fine tuning, but so do most good things.

I was thinking that it could be an existing example of alternative housing that really isn't all that difficult and certainly NOT expensive to built. It can be changed to fit large number of families or even be smaller to save space, I'd imagine, and probably pretty easily once you figure out how the heating works for that particular climate. It is also very clean, or could be kept extremely clean as the water is purified-he never explained the process, but I'm sure it works since people didn't die from waterborne diseases in the ones he built. Its surprisingly flexible in that you can do quite a lot with it aesthetically. Packed earth and tires also seem pretty damn strong. Or packed earth and some other kind of heat sinking garbage-it doesn't seem like it had to be tires, its just that the garbage in abundance was tires in Taos. Whats more, the labor comes from the person who will live in the house and others who collaborate with him (you help build mine, I'll help build yours too). It also gives a great sense of community. To be honest, the only thing that can go wrong with it is if we can't buy solar panels or make wind mills out of garbage to support the electricity-but I don't think lighting is something people in poverty are THAT concerned with at the moment.

By the way, can somebody help me cite the movie? Its garbage warrior, and the rest of the information is on the website, so, talk to me tomorrow or anytime. Another thing, can I ACTUALLY use this? It is all facts, he didn't use computer graphics to fake the whole movie, so its almost more like a documentary or autobiography...sort of. Or, should I find real examples of this in article form and lost all the visual fun?

GARBAGE WARRIOR. Film. Directed by Oliver Hodge. Seattle, WA: Morningstar Entertainment, 2007.