our concrete grid

Image and Article taken from Inhabitat - http://www.inhabitat.com

Anyone who’s taken a barefooted tryst across a paved parking lot knows that blacktop can reach sweltering temperatures when exposed to the summer sun. Now researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute have found a way to use to employ the heat-soaking properties of asphalt as an energy source by inserting heat exchangers a few centimeters below its surface. The development may pave the way for an inexpensive source for electricity and hot water that re-imagines our existing auto infrastructure as a massive conduit for solar-thermal energy.

URL to article: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/08/18/unlocking-thermal-energy-stored-in-asphalt/

Mobile Consumption

image and article

Consider the reality of shopping any where and anytime...catalog sales where perhaps the first, then came telemarketing, the internet and now...the cell phone. Consumers can now simply scan with their cell phones bar codes from magazines, billboards or whatever and directly purchase merchandise whenever they happen to see it....instantly. While not mainstream in the states, versions of this appear already in Japan.

This technology throws into question the physicality of retail all together. Malls, downtowns have already been disjointed from community...is this an opportunity to reintegrate? by simply dissolving the "store" all together.

How does mobility enter into this? As we move about the day, shopping can just be completed along the way...our destinations become more recreational and work-based? The necessary details of living (food, warmth, energy) simple disappear into the "network".

And the car? could the automobile be an extension of our cell phones? Can the car serve similar if not greater functions...if not the greatest...that of physical mobility? Safety, security, expression, communication...

Volkswagen already has introduced a touch screen interface for all their vehicles beginning in 2009. --- bring on the iCar.

Additional articles:
Ralph Lauren shopping by cell phone
http://www.geeksugar.com/619077

Green Washing Gas

Image: bp.com

The Helio House is BP attempt at marketing a green gas station. Though they don't offer any type of alternative fuel, they did manage to create a building with LEED certification. The building has recycled this and that, education materials, LED lighting....cell phone recycling. But as many have argued...its still gas, its still harmful no matter what container you put in it.

These stations out of Oregon, SeQuential, might have the better idea. Not as flashy to make national headlines, they do offer a variety of alternate fuels ... and a green roof.












So what are the opportunities for "fueling stations" in our urban environments? How will the station evolve when real alternatives to fueling becomes more mainstream? How can a gas station really engage the community, the environment, watershed, energy system, transportation systems? How is energy distributed, consumed within nature?

additional resources:
NPR Report

Urban Films

I know there are a lot of films that architects covet for their use of space and light. Its not hard to see the strong comparison to an architect designing space and light...and the film maker capturing space and light. But here I wanted to begin listing films that capture a bit more than just the spatial, but include films that are about city-building. Films that give us that amazing opportunity to see a city - different.

In the Pit (2006) - Life and Culture of Mexican road construction workers
Paris, Je T'aime (2007) - five minute stories painted with Paris as the canvass
The Fifth Element (1997) - futuristic adventure set within a 3D city
The Truman Show (1998) - New Urbanism and a stage set community

Solar Big Boxes

Original Article from New York Times here

"...the day might come when people can pull their electric cars up to a store and recharge them with power from the roof or even from wind turbines in the parking lot."

Its the last sentence in this article that grabs you. The article points out an increase in retail business including solar panels within their retail big-boxes. While the energy savings and bottom line of these maneuvers is clear (though it represents 10% - 40%) the price isn't such an easy answer - costing millions of dollars making coal still the cheapest option.

But a marketing maneuver it is, green-washing and visual displays of "do-gooding." But what of the notion of having a new infrastructure of retail energy outlets. What is the draw of retail business offering "energy" for free if you shop with them? How could this feed into the great (mobile) infrastructure of energy and its distribution? Can we imagine a scenario of working/shopping during the day, recharging our Car to return home and plug our cars into our house...energy is shared, distributed. What are the new market forces? energy, time, open space, energy prices, battery storage.

The Frontiers of Mobility

How does nature move? What is the purpose of movement? What is the infrastructure of this capacity and how are the parts designed? What are the impacts and incentives? What are the feedback loops, schedules, participants, sizes, shapes, seasons?

Communication, Reproduction = Expansion.

What can be learned, understood by looking at human mobility through the lenses of pollen, seeds or migratory routes? Particle movement, electricity...air.




photo credits

Q-box: for neighborhood fun and games

from the website

The Qbox is a Local Energy Network (LEN) Interface. It is at the heart of a building's infrastructure and it communicates with the surrounding buildings.

Sharing with neighbors: The Qurrent Qbox will handle this complicated task completely autonomously. It will measure all electricity production and consumption and will make it possible to share capacities with your neighborhood, or cluster. In that process it will take into account the energy rates, however varying they may be, government subsidies, your production and consumption profiles and personal preferences you might have. All without you having to look after it.

Its what technology was meant to be...completely transforms our life yet utterly, unnoticed. What happens to suburbia when we actually start sharing something...something as important as energy? Does this sustain our wasteful land use practices? Or will it ultimately promote greater community? More importantly, are we willing to share?

Tata for Now

Also called the "Peoples Car", this Indian car, already in production is being offered in India for $2,500. The cheep price allows a great number of Indians to afford the car, the expect the sale of the Tata in South America and Africa in the next four years.

But is the American dream of everyone owning a car really best for the "people?" No matter what the size and the price, its an increase in the number of individual cars and adding to pollution and traffic.

What is the "Peoples Car"? isn't this just another "persons car"? How can the industry rethink sales in terms of community, public or infrastructure...instead of numbers, individuality...consumerism. Is there a place for the auto industry in transportation for "the people?" and what does that look like?

Tata Motors
The Worlds Cheapest Car

Zippy

Zipcar.com. strategically placed automobiles within communities make this for-profit car share program one of the most known of the programs. 9 bucks an hour.... 66 a day?

This depends upon a network of vehicles, placed, filled, sized, allocated perfectly....A personal zipcard allows you access when requested. Its like a smart parking lot....

How large of scale could this work on? Do people personalized their cars? their zipcard? their parking space? How could this combine with social networking as we see in goloco? leaving notes, messages for the next driver?

Share My Ride - NY TIMES

Go Loco

"...turn your social networks into travel networks." (www.goloco.org)
The more transparent we make our everyday lives the more we are able to actually come together. Since our urban scale prevents us to "gather" and "relate" with neighbors, we have the internet, with the "social networks" that have "virtually" brought people together. Now comes GoLoco, that operates much like a social network, communicating to friends, offices, churches, or the greater public, opportunities to meet up and share expenses.

This becomes even more transparent with new personal devices with GPS, such as the iphone, where one can see at a glance where others are.

It seems while our physical network of community degrades, the virtual one strengthens.
What impact will this have on our cities?

...or are we already seeing it...

they are becoming theme parks, movie sets and un-real spaces....or simply abandoned.

Too Much Space

We have just too much space. Consider great cities, think density. Think walking, people and great architecture...public spaces. The constraints those cities were under where slightly different than todays cities - Trade, Health, Politics, Security....it wasn't until transportation and cheep energy did cities inflate to the linear, car dominated scale we find today. Even Chicago in a post fire freak out, create an urban form of safety, well within the density of the human scale. Bring on the car and places like Branson, Missouri (above) have come to be the expected urban form, now found all over the world.

So, with the car as our urban measuring stick, can new great cities evolve? Dubai is a transportation disaster, and newer cities being built have simply removed the car for good. New Urbanist have recycled older urban models while some cities simply take on "Eruo-urban" elements (like round-abouts and landscaped medians) as if it really mattered.

I'm not anti-car. I want to ask this question: how will peak oil impact the American urban fabric? We are already seeing an emergence of smaller cars pushing through in the marketplace. There has also been a spike in the number of riders of public transportation. We are already experiencing lower real estate markets for housing stock in suburbia.

Will our cities see a new formal/design transformation. What role can the car play in remaking our cities? How can re-thinking the automobile assist in creating that transition.

related articles:

In Missouri, Investors Seek a Profit in Branson Airport, By CHRISTINE NEGRONI Published: April 20, 2009

Car Shares

PhillyCarShare. This car share program out of Philadelphia has claimed their 50,000 member. The concept is pretty simple...you don't have to buy a car, you buy into a community non-profit that allows you to borrow a car. They offer monthly plans, parking spots and multiple vehicle types.

How does this work on a rural scale? or can it? How could this operate on a commercial level? shipping vehicles with distribution hubs. Can Americans share their automobiles? What of individuality? of Materiality? will energy rates alter our options for material identity? What sort of urban scale could this increase too? private/non-profit owned public transportation? How could dealers begin to operate/outreach in this way?


(photo from mslk.com)

additional articles:
Diamler to Bring Car Sharing to Texas:
Ikea Announces Car-Pooling Service