Hasta La Gadget!

In one of the week’s biggest green architecture stories, Inhabitat reported that Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill unveiled plans for Chengdu Tianfu District Great City, China’s first self-sufficient, carless city. Singapore also unveiled the world’s first commercial vertical farm, Facebook’s green cred got a boost when it was announced that its Prineville Data Center in Oregon achieved LEED Gold status, and architecture firm HNTB won a contest to redesign Los Angeles’ Sixth Street Viaduct with a gorgeous high-flying ribbon bridge that promises to be one of the hottest new pieces of urban infrastructure in the US. In another exciting West Coast development, the San Francisco Planning Commission signed off on Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects’ 61-story Transbay Tower. And at Madison Square Park in New York, Leo Villareal created a 30-foot-tall “BUCKYBALL” geodesic dome sculpture with pulsing LED lights.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: 30-foot-tall ‘BUCKYBALL’, diatoms and zombie pumpkins

Filed under: Misc

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: 30-foot-tall ‘BUCKYBALL’, diatoms and zombie pumpkins originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Oct 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We tend to look to green designers and architects to inspire us and reshape our understanding of what’s possible, and this week we’ve seen plenty of visionary green designs over at Inhabitat. First, JM Schivo & Associati unveiled ambitious plans for “Earth City,” a futuristic green city that would be entirely powered by renewable energy. Then, inspired by NYC’s High Line, Fletcher Priest won the Green Infrastructure Ideas Competition with his proposal for an underground mushroom tunnel beneath the streets of London. At the World Architecture Festival, Nikken Sekkei took home the sustainable building award for its evaporative cooling bioskin building in Tokyo, and science fans successfully purchased Nikola Tesla’s old Long Island workshop to turn it into a museum.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Bicymple, computer-age fossils and an underground mushroom tunnel

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Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Bicymple, computer-age fossils and an underground mushroom tunnel originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Oct 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Man-made technology is great, but Mother Nature is the greatest inventor of them all — and scientists are discovering new ways to take advantage of the tools found in nature. Take, for example, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University who developed a solar cell using the photosynthetic protein found in spinach. In New York, Scape Studio has proposed to use the oyster’s natural cleaning ability to help clean up the contaminated waters of the Gowanus Canal. The firm has received funding to create Oyster-tecture, an oyster park at the mouth of the canal where millions of mollusks will “eat” toxins. Meanwhile, the US Forest Service has been deriving cellulose nanocrystals from wood pulp extract to create a material that’s stronger than Kevlar and carbon fiber.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: fluorescent bulb moon, fuel-efficient supersonic jet and a toxin-eating oyster park

Filed under: Misc, Science

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: fluorescent bulb moon, fuel-efficient supersonic jet and a toxin-eating oyster park originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Sep 2012 10:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LED technology shone brighter than the summer sun this week as artist Bruce Munro unveiled plans for his largest lighting installation ever — a field of thousands of LED flowers that will spring up next year at Australia’s Ayers Rock. Best of all, the entire installation will be powered by solar energy! We also saw Rice University flip the switch on its new Epiphany Skyspace — a green-roofed pavilion that’s topped with a brilliant blue canopy of light. If you’re still not convinced that LEDs are the future, we recently produced two videos that are sure to show you the light — check out our interview with five professional lighting designers on today’s state of the art LED bulbs and watch as we give Inhabitots editor Julie Seguss a light bulb overhaul that shaves over $400 off her utility bills. And if you’re ready to make the switch, check out our guide to 24 gorgeous green lamps that look great with LED bulbs.

This week saw some exciting new developments in the realm of renewable energy. First, a group of scientists in the UK developed a new energy-harvesting device that attaches to the joint between the thigh and shin. The device could be used to power monitors and mobile devices, to name a few possible applications. Meanwhile, scientists from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have invented a new toilet that turns human waste into electricity while reducing the amount of water needed for flushing by up to 90 percent. That’s what we call, win-win!

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week in Green: energy-harvesting toilet, LED lightbulb overhaul and a floating, solar-powered resort home

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: energy-harvesting toilet, LED lightbulb overhaul and a floating, solar-powered resort home originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Jul 2012 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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