architizer:

Roads Cover 4.8 square miles of Manhattan

Howler and Yoon, winners of the Audi Urban Future Award image a NYC where roads become soccer fields and solar panels.

Do you know what else Manhattan is largely comprised of? Rooftops… where more solar panels should go. Hint hint…

Just an aside… I like the fact that the top graphic highlights Lower Manhattan and part of Midtown in its 23.2% of households portions considering the devastation of superstorm Sandy back in the fall. I think it’s much more telling of the possibilities for disaster prevention/recovery in the city because of that.

(via urbanresolve)

plantedcity:

A Big (Oil) Barrier to a Clean Energy Future… 

(Source: Dayton Daily News via The Oil Drum)

Related:

• ‘The Great Carbon Bubble: Why the Fossil-Fuel Industry Fights So Hard’ (Grist)
• ‘Clean Energy Switch to Cost Fossil Industry $4 Trillion by 2020’ (Clean Technica)
• ‘Today, ALEC Hosts Legislators & Big Oil — Topic? Undermining Clean Energy’ (Clean Technica)
• Memo: Group Wants To Create Fake Grassroots Wind ‘Subversion’ Campaign That ‘Should Appear As A Groundswell’ (Climate Progress)

(via urbnfutr)

A few years ago, I created a design for a sustainable eco-village in Haiti for a studio design project. In that design I incorporated an “urban swale”, if you will, that cut through the main public/commercial promenade in my master plan. Despite having this as part of my design, I never quite knew what it could or should look like exactly. Well… my question has been answered. Design inspiration… two years down the road.

Balfour Street Pocket Park by Jane Irwin Landscape Architects

The planted brick swale introduces a locally scaled stormwater management system, with protruding bricks to capture rubbish and slow water flow. [via enochliew]

(via urbnfutr)

ikeaspotting:

TrashKEA home design: trash + IKEA + design = eco-cheap chic by kirstendirksen

Most designers begin a remodel by choosing what to trash. Petz Scholtus chose what to collect from the trash to be upcycled (recycled for a higher use). 

When Scholtus bought her Barcelona apartment in 2006 it had no plumbing nor electricity, though it had some choice trash, like the long piece of glass she stopped her construction crew from throwing away. With two sawhorses (recovered from the street) for legs, it became her dining room table.

Other furniture was scavenged directly from the street, like a chair she later covered with old newspapers (mostly from Scholtus’ native Luxembourg) and her ubiquitous Bidon lamps made from used jerry cans and a CFL lightbulb.

Much of the kitchen furniture- the shelves, island and FSC-certified countertop- was bought from IKEA, though the style-making piece are the cabinets constructed from old wine boxes (some of which Scholtus and her partner drank themselves).

More information on apartment: http://www.pokodesign.com/
Original story here: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/trashkea-homesign-trash-ikea-sign-eco-chic/

Banned Billboard [via nevver]

(via urbnfutr)

books i’d love to read // Bird of Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City [humanscalecities]

Wind Turbines - Utilizing Freeways as Wind Corridor

I came across this image on Google while researching ways to utilize wind power in my design studio project for an eco-village in Haiti. The design was created by an Arizona State University student. If this wind turbine design is feasible, then America, can we PLEASE get on this and utilize our massive freeway system that pollutes our earth and encourages our dependency on depleting oil supplies as a source of renewable, clean energy. PLEASE!

Is It Time To Stop Constructing New Green Buildings? [via studio630]

This is a hot-topic issue in architecture as much of the work being done depends upon new construction. Preservation Green Lab, a Seattle-based think tank, thinks otherwise. They have recently released a study this week showing that, in the think tank’s words, “the greenest building is the one that’s already built, in almost every case.”

“The study uses life cycle analysis (a method of measuring impact from cradle to grave) to compare the environmental impacts of reuse and building renovation versus construction over 75 years of use. Preservation Green Lab measured six building types— single-family home, multifamily building, commercial office, urban village mixed-use building, elementary school, and warehouse conversion—across four U.S. cities with varying climates (representative of Portland, Phoenix, Chicago, and Atlanta)…

It can take up to 80 years for a new “green” building to make up for the climate impact of its construction process with energy efficient features.”

(via klynnec)