Rebecca11.18: The Social Entrepreneurship project has been interesting. The Good Store (the name of the moment but probably not permanent) has brought up questions of marketplace and demographics. Is a green lifestyle only pursued by the well-off and young? How much can we educate people without making them feel overwhelmed? How to avoid greenwashing as every company is starting to talk about 'natural'? Are we encouraging a feel-good mentality - just change a couple light bulbs and you can feel less guilty and not have to think about global warming for a while? I think the key in most of this is giving people information and letting them make their own decisions. But you have to push the envelope. I think in the next version of the Plants project I would want to expand it outwards more - use this simple one plant - one human interaction to highlight broader issues of ecosystem and responsibility. 11.13: The plants project is now called BotaniCalls, and has its own site. I've been working on designing various components from the on-plant display to the data visualization. We want something organic, compelling, unintimidating and informative. This weekend there was an event called Habitats at the Brooklyn Lyceum. ITP was represented with Luke and Rushkoff. Lots of sound installation, some panels and performance. The Green Building panel was interesting, and the questions asked by the diverse audience was informative in terms of thinking about people's typical concerns. (Are green buildings as durable? Do they look funny? Would I have to water my green roof all the time?) 10.26: The ITPlant project is coming along - take a look at the schematic on the page. The project has brought up some interesting issues about visualizing data and communicating between objects and people in ways that are more natural and intuitive. I've been getting quotes from some companies that do energy audit consultations. 10.02: Here's the Energy Audit. Please take a room! And here's the ITPlant idea. Next Fest had some interesting projects, including two urban wind turbines that are light, pretty, and efficient. Here's the QuietRevolution one from XCO2. The Interactive Institute had their light-up power cord and lightbulb radiator, Xero Flor America had some good new green roofing technology, Edenspace and Cornell Extension Service had good info about using plants for fuel. And the Growing Connection has some good technology for plant growing. Speaking of which, my mother, an interior landscaper, gave me some great studies about air filtering done by plants. Aerovironment was also representing. It was started by Paul MacCready, who invented the first human and solar power aircraft - really amazing stuff. Last week during the class meeting, we talked about the "Smart Room" idea. Not sure if that really made it into the notes. We had a good discussion about whether the most important thing is to educate people or to make something energy efficient. I think we decided that education is key - showing that it works is more important than getting completely off the grid. Also, we discussed doing a Drive By workshop on reusing trash - I'm still trying to schedule that... Project Ideas: a) During our class meeting on Thursday, we tossed around the idea of trying to get one room instead of all of ITP off the grid this semester. The conference room could be a Smart Green demo space, with everything run off the solar panel, low energy lighting, motion detectors and timers, plants with monitored air filtering, etc. I love this idea and would like to work more on the concept of it, along with how the room could effectively serve to demo these things beautifully. b) The plants in the lounge or smart room. I would like to measure how plants effect air quality and help people connect to plant life. c) Energy Audit - I want to continue and streamline this process. Also document it to help anyone do it in their home or office. d) Documentation, Education, Visualization - related to all these projects - online and installation views. e) Materials research and reuse/redesign projects and workshops for detritus. f) Running small pcomp projects off of solar panels or wind power. Oh, I also would like to figure out if it would be possible to build a cheap latrine that uses anaerobic digestion to produce energy - solving sewage and water pollution problems plus providing energy in poor areas... Oh wait - Dean Kamen is ahead of me on that. 9.18: I went on the tour of the Solaire yesterday. It's apparently the greenest residential building in the US right now, and pretty impressive in terms of the details they've gotten into. From cleaning products to building materials sourced within 500 miles, the green roof and water reuse... all with cost effectiveness in mind. It would be great if they published so other developers could see that this sort of thing is conceivable. Also, which of the improvements can be instituted in buildings already built? A couple facts picked up: 25% of energy usage is for pumps, which are often inefficient and poorly designed for their particular purpose. Maybe they mention this in the next chapters, but reading Cradle to Cradle reminded me of the Precautionary Principle, which states: "if the potential consequences of an action are severe or irreversible, in the absence of full scientific certainty the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action." So, a company must prove beyond a doubt that their product or process is harmless before moving forward instead of the current model of making and then evaluating and regulating to make things less bad. Green Roofs
Everyday practices
resources
project questions/ ideas for me and others
ART Artists doing work (that I like) related to sustainability, ecology, etc.:
I'll update this with details very soon! |