Posts Tagged ‘innovation’
Wangaratta High School: Applied ESD
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on March 10th, 2010
Source: Green Building Council Australia (GBCA)
From the Green Building Council Australia Fact Sheet
Wangaratta High School in north-eastern Victoria was awarded a 4 Star Green Star – Education PILOT rating in August 2009 for Stage One in its three part redevelopment plan, becoming the first Green Star certified school in Australia. Utilising environmentally sustainable design (ESD) principles, the Taylor Oppenheim/Meinhardt Group project team aimed to reduce the new senior school’s negative impact on the environment, while at the same time, providing students and teachers with a healthier, more productive space. With US studies revealing green schools foster higher reading retention, better test scores and greater staff retention, it is easy to see why educational facilities around Australia are considering greener alternatives.
Ground heat exchange system
During project consultations, Wangaratta High School and the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development outlined their vision for the new school to be as energy efficient as possible, reducing the electrical power demand on-site as well as the recurrent energy costs accrued by the school. This brief was realised through the implementation of a ground heat exchange (GHE) system which would service the majority of the facility’s heating and cooling needs. This geothermal technology uses the earth as both a heat source and a heat sink, circulating water in a series of grid loops under the earth’s surface to cool or warm the building above. The system circulates water through a grid of 42 loops extending 100m below, using heat pumps to push the water through hydronic pipes in the building’s floor slab. Because heat energy naturally flows from areas of higher temperature to those of lower temperature, the GHE heating and cooling system is a highly efficient, renewable energy source that maintains a pleasant temperature range of 20-26°C throughout the year, with little need for supplementary heating or cooling.
Associate for the Building Science & technology Group at Meinhardt, Dr Mirek Piechowski says: “By tapping into the renewable energy stored in the ground, the GeoExchange technology offers the most energy efficient heat transfer mechanism for climate control system. The other significant feature of the GeoExchange technology is the fact that in the heating mode only up to 25 per cent of the heating energy is derived from fossil fuels, i.e. electricity, while the remaining 75 per cent is renewable energy. In contrast, in traditional gas heating systems 100 per cent of heat is derived from burning gas,” he explains.
A feasibility study conducted by the Meinhardt Group predicted the GHE system would save the school around $35,000 in energy bills, as well as a reduce CO2 emissions by 253 tonnes annually. Combined with other energy efficient measures, this system achieves energy savings of up to 75 per cent, compared to conventional buildings of the same size.
Tags: consumption, energy, innovation, Urban Design and Built Form
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Knowledge Collaboration & Learning for Sustainable Innovation: Call for Papers
Posted in seeking by Kate Archdeacon on March 9th, 2010
The ERSCP-EMSU 2010 conference, ‘Knowledge Collaboration & Learning for Sustainable Innovation’, will take place in Delft, the Netherlands, on 25-29 October 2010. Representatives of academia, business, government, NGOs and civil society organizations are very much invited to submit abstracts for (1) paper presentations or (2) poster presentations, as well as proposals for (3) discussion workshops/roundtables or (4) paper sessions that are within the Conference’s scope or themes.
The conference themes are:
1. Sustainable Universities and Higher Education
2. Knowledge Collaboration for Sustainable Innovation, Design, Business & CSR
3. Sustainable Consumption and Production
4. Climate, Energy, Water
5. Sustainable Cities and Regions
6. Sustainable Consumption, Production and Innovation in Developing Countries
All paper and poster abstracts can be submitted online at http://www.erscp-emsu2010.org/submissions until March 20, 2010. Full papers are due on September 1, 2010. More information can be found in the call and on the website. The organising committee can be contacted at conference@erscp-emsu2010.org.
Confirmed opening key notes include prof Tim Jackson, University of Surrey and prof Wubbo Ockels, Delft University of Technology. The conference is a joint effort by TU Delft, TNO and The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
Tags: conference, innovation, sustainability, TU Delft
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Living Climate Change Video Challenge
Posted in Visions by Kate Archdeacon on February 22nd, 2010
Source: Inhabitat
As designers, we believe that envisioning the future leads to new choices and opportunities. Living Climate Change, an online community hosted by IDEO, presents a conversation designed to move the dialogue about climate change toward inspiring, human-centered scenarios that create new possibilities for business and society.
The Living Climate Change Video Challenge invites you to show us your vision of a future shaped by climate change, as we move along the path toward reduced carbon emissions.
The Challenge
Create an original video that envisions how climate change will impact our lives over the next 20 to 30 years. Looking beyond the doom and gloom and the policy discussions that have dominated the debate, how would you envision a human-centered, sustainable future? Which behaviors will change? Which will be preserved?
Tags: climate change, design, ideo, innovation
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Green Star Social Housing: Lilyfield, Sydney
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on February 10th, 2010
Source: Green Building Council Australia (GBCA)
The Lilyfield Housing Redevelopment in Sydney is the first social housing scheme in Australia to be awarded a Green Star certification, and is also the first project of its kind to achieve a Green Star residential rating on the East Coast of Australia.
Representing ‘Australian Excellence’ in environmentally sustainable design, this project by HBO+EMTB for Housing NSW sets a new standard for public housing developments in Australia, and demonstrates that highly sustainable public housing outcomes are both realistic and achievable in terms of building function and use, project demographics and importantly, housing affordability.
ESD initiatives featured in the project:
Indoor Environment Quality
* All 88 apartments are naturally ventilated and there is no air conditioning in the development
Energy
* Roof elements over stair wells have been designed to support and orientate solar hot water and photovoltaic (PV) panels, which provide on-site energy
* All roofs to north facing units are tilted in order to maximise solar access to those units during winter (low sun angle) and to avoid direct excess solar radiation to those units in summer (high solar angle)
* The lighting design has utilised energy efficient bulbs throughout
* A common area interior lighting occupant movement and daylight sensor
* Solid floors exposed to the northern sun for thermal mass
* Low-E glass in all east and west façades
Water
* Water efficient fixtures throughout apartments and common area
Innovation
* Exceeding the benchmarks of TRA-1 by providing significantly less car parking than the minimum – there is no on-site car parking in the development
Tags: behaviour change, innovation, residential, Sydney, Urban Design and Built Form
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Japanese Bike Parking Station
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on January 24th, 2010
Source: Treehugger
Image: guardian.co.uk
From “Tokyo’s High Tech Bike Parking Revisited” by Sami Grover.
From solar-powered bike parking pods to the Indian-designed vertical bike tree, TreeHugger is not short on neat concepts for better bike storage. But it was Tokyo’s automated bike parking that really got us excited. Now the Guardian has created a short English-language video piece on how the system works. Essentially, bikes are fitted with a small sensor strip, and as the bike is rolled into the machine—it scans the identity and ensures you have a fully paid membership.
Membership, incidentally, costs the equivalent of about 15USD a month. And just check out the speed at which the bike is returned to the user—almost exactly 30 seconds from arrival at the unit and inputting your membership details, your bike is returned and you can pedal away. Impressive stuff.
Read the full article by Sami Grover.
Tags: bicycles, enabling technologies, innovation, Transport
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City Challenge 2010
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on December 4th, 2009
Source: Globe Forum
Globe Forum has decided to challenge all European cities to share their sustainability projects to promote urban sustainable development. City Challenge arose with the goal of showcasing innovations and promoting collaboration between city, municipality and region. The City Challenge database will give cities from all over Europe a tool for sharing best practices and together shape the cities of tomorrow. The challenge launched at the EUROCITIES meeting in Stockholm 27th of November 2009 and will go on until Globe Forum 2010 in April.
The first phase of the challenge is all about data collection and finding the right projects. Starting in January, the database will open up and the participating cities will start to fill it with information. The goal for the cities will be to get as many sustainable projects as possible registered and linked to the city. These projects will form the basis for a unique global database for projects, innovation and ideas about sustainable development. This is an ongoing process of collaborative problem solving, and the vision is to gather all best practises, from all cities, all over the world.
The database will be used for collaboration and inspiration. The city with the most sustainable projects registered will be recognized at Globe Forum 2010 in Stockholm.
Tags: collaboration, enabling technologies, innovation
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Small-scale wind farms
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on December 1st, 2009
Source: Environmental Research Web
Image via physicsworld
From “Fish inspire wind farm configuration”, Edwin Cartlidge
Conventional wind turbines work best when located as far as possible from the destructive vortices of neighbouring turbines. However, a pair of scientists in the US have worked out that the performance of other kinds of turbine actually improves when they are placed close to one another, concluding that wind farms could therefore be made much smaller than they are today. The familiar propeller-like turbine with a horizontal axis of rotation can convert 50% or more of the energy from the wind that it is exposed to. In a wind farm, however, the wake from one turbine will disturb the air reaching the blades of its neighbours meaning that turbines must be placed far apart.
A less familiar family of turbines have a vertical axis of rotation. Individually, these vertical-axis turbines are less efficient than the horizontal-axis devices because only part of the turbine can be pushed by the wind at any one time, and they have therefore proven far less popular. However, these turbines have a significant advantage over the horizontal-axis variety – their power output can be increased when they are placed very close to one another. Now, Robert Whittlesey and John Dabiri of the California Institute of Technology have worked out how best to arrange such closely spaced turbines by drawing on the work of aeronautical engineer Daniel Weihs, who showed in the 1970s how fish save on energy by swimming within schools. Such fish form a series of offset rows, and Weihs found that fish get carried forward by the vortices created by the swimming motion of their two closest companions in the row immediately in front of them. Whittlesey and Dabiri wondered whether the relative spacing of vortices produced by an individual fish might serve as a good template for the arrangement of vertical-axis turbines within a wind farm and set up a computer model to test this idea.
Read the full article by Edwin Cartlidge.
Tags: energy, innovation, wind
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The Big Green Idea
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on November 17th, 2009
Source: GreenRazor, the GreenPages Newsletter
An innovative funding scheme for eco-visionary Australians
Got a big green idea? Need money to help it grow? Then the British Council wants to hear from you. The Big Green Idea is a new funding initiative from the British Council designed to help put eco-visionary ideas into action. For the first time, in 2009 we’re offering five project grants of AU$10,000 each to people who will make a real contribution to Australia’s environmental future. The Big Green Idea is designed to assist in initiating new projects that motivate people to minimise their own climate change impacts. We’re looking for eco-entrepreneurs with savvy ideas to address some of the biggest sustainability challenges faced by urban communities.
Tags: climate change, funding, innovation
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Saving marine life with flowerpots
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on November 9th, 2009
Source: The Ecologist
Image: British Ecological Society
From “How to save marine life… with flowerpots” by Emma Bocking, 27th October, 2009
Although sea walls are a strong form of coastal defence they effectively wipe out rock pools which are important oases for marine life. Scientists in Sydney have found a solution involving flower pots… As anyone who has ever been rockpooling before knows, these little pools of seawater can be a haven for marine life. But when a natural shoreline is replaced with a vertical seawall, the gently sloping foreshore, along with its rockpools, vanishes.
Without rock pools the number and diversity of animals and plants species in the intertidal area plummets. Two ecologists at the University of Sydney, Dr Mark Browne and Prof. Gee Chapman have come up with a solutions that is so simple you wonder it hasn’t been done before – flower pot pools.
Tags: behaviour change, environment, innovation, local action, new systems/services
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Victor Civita Plaza: living with a site’s history
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on October 9th, 2009
Source: MetropolisMag
Image: Victor Civita Plaza via treehugger
An urban park in São Paulo, Brazil, has taken a different approach to addressing site contamination. Victor Civita Plaza opened last year on the site of a former municipal incinerator. The facility had been used for hospital waste disposal, among other things, and the city authorities decreed that the contaminated site would need to be covered by about half-a metre of clean soil to protect the public. The cost of doing so would have stopped the project altogether, if not for the park’s designer, Anna Dietszch. Instead of covering the site with soil, she covered it with a floating timber deck which allowed the “landscaping” to be designed into the form.
Tags: healthy cities, innovation, Urban Design and Built Form
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