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International Dialogues: Architecture and Climate Change

Category: ⚐ EN+sustainability

Climate change is an urgent global challenge. In response to the Stern Report, the RIBA Trust launched “International Dialogues: Architecture and Climate Change|”, a major programme of symposia exploring climate change, ecology, architecture, design and urbanism. Inaugurated by Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, Founder of the Green Belt Movement, the series brings together visionary thinkers and practitioners from a range of disciplines to consider new possibilities, design innovation, technologies and partnerships in the global effort to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Curated by Tamara Horbacka, RIBA Trust.

View videos of International Dialogues online:

http://www.architecture.com/WhatsOn/Talks/VideoArchive/VideoArchive.aspx

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The Open Source House Competition

Category: ⚐ EN+competitions

The OPEN SOURCE HOUSE design competition started on January 15th, 2010 and is open for team or individual participation. The challenge is to design a sustainable, flexible and locally embedded one family house for a specific location in Ghana. The modular construction should be suitable for local implementation and affordable for its future owners. The winning design(s) will be built in Ghana.

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Architecture and Entropy

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+sustainability

What do we think or talk when we refer to Sustain and Develop in the last years and for the forthcoming future? How can architects confront their work and ideas within the paradox that any new building, any new city will inevitably disrupt the natural ecology? continue reading

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Sustainability After Zero

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+sustainability

volume #18

In its newest edition Volume #18, published by an international think-tank including AMO, Archis and C-LAB, is raising questions about the condition of sustainability in a world that seems to have yet accepted its importance, but still searches for its meaning. continue reading

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Sustained development Dubai style II

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+sustainability

With Kylie Minogue, Charlize Theron, Shirley Bassey, Michael Jordan and Robert De Niro in attendance and a fireworks display literally visible from space, the $20 million opening party for the Atlantis Resort on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah islands last month seemed a fittingly extravagant farewell to Dubai’s construction adolescence. With the UAE’s supposedly impermeable economy feeling the strain together with the rest of the world, Dubai has been forced to redress construction behaviour.

sustained development dubai style

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Here Comes the Sun

Category: ⚐ EN+sustainability

Silicon Valley has changed the world once. Now, thanks to a wave of investment and innovation in solar power, it’s on to the next revolution: A massive disruption of the U.S. electricity market.

(Business 2.0 Magazine) — There’s a missile-bunker vibe you get when walking into Solaicx, a Silicon Valley startup that manufactures the silicon wafers that are the building blocks of solar panels. continue reading

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The Vertical Farm

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+sustainability


The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. continue reading

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$2 Wind Energy for the third-world

Category: ⚐ EN+engineering+open culture+research+sustainability+technologies+Uncategorized

Shawn Frayne, a young inventor based in Mountain View, California, is the creator of Windbelt, a new device for wind-energy production based on an aerodynamic phenomenon known as aeroelastic flutter.

This phenomenon is a well-known destructive force and it caused, for example, the Washington’s Tacoma Narrows Bridge to collapse in 1940 (video). Researchers at Humdinger (this is the name of the company pushing forward the Windbelt technology) have discovered that it can also be a useful and powerful mechanism for ‘catching the wind’ at a variety of scales and costs beyond the reach of traditional turbines.

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Revolutionizing Architecture to Address the Global Energy Crisis and Climate Change

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+sustainability

During the last Biannale of Architecture 08 in Venice,  Enric Ruiz-Geli and Jeremy Rifkin promoted this manifesto: Revolutionizing Architecture to Address the Global Energy Crisis and Climate Change.

We, the architects of the world, recognize that the increase in energy costs is leading to a slow down in the global economy and creating hardships for families everywhere; continue reading

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The Altran Foundation 2008 Award

Category: ⚐ EN+sustainability


Eleven international scientific experts, members of the 2008 Altran Foundation’s Jury, got together to evaluate the 28 applications short-listed for the international scientific Award. This year, the theme is “Reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere: our technological challenge”. During this meeting, 6 Finalists (3 French, 1 Spanish, 1 Dutch, 1 Italian) continue reading