Different places on the face of the earth have different vital effluence, different vibration, different chemical exhalation, different polarity with different stars: call it what you like, but the spirit of place is a great reality. — D.H. Lawrence
Different places on the face of the earth have different vital effluence, different vibration, different chemical exhalation, different polarity with different stars: call it what you like, but the spirit of place is a great reality.
“Guerrilla gardening and street art come together in this recipe for green mayhem. Get out there and spread some spores!” Adbusters
Ingredients: -1 can of beer (or 12 oz yoghurt) -1/2 tsp sugar -Several clumps of garden moss (found in damp, shady places)
1. Rip the moss into small chunks, blend with sugar and beer (or yoghurt) until smooth and creamy. 2. Find an appropriate location (fairly moist without too much sun). 3. Using a stencil or freehand, paint your design. 4. Over the next 2–3 weeks revisit the spot and spray-mist your design with water. 5. Watch your green design grow!
While we all known plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis, NASA’s 1989 study showed that many houseplants also remove harmful elements such as amonia, trichloroethylene, benzene, and formaldehyde from the air – how elegant is that!?
image from www.naturaire.com
In researching how to create a breathable environment for NASA orbiting space stations, scientist Dr. Bill Wolverton discovered that houseplants are the best filters of common pollutants – chemicals released by furniture, carpets, synthetic and treated building materials, photocopiers, and all manner of other toxic crap born out of inelegant chemistry and consumptive in-dust-reality, leading to a host of dis-ease, respiratory and allergic problems.
Newer homes and buildings, designed for energy efficiency, tend to be tightly sealed to avoid energy loss from heating and air conditioning systems, trapping VOC’s and creating poor IAQ
“Palms and ferns are among the best filters,” says Bill C. Wolverton, “Spider plants are also excellent because they target benzene, the chemical released from house paint.”
Plants, as the lungs of the earth
Plants produce the oxygen that makes life possible, add precious moisture, and filter toxins. Houseplants can perform these essential functions in the home or work place with the same efficiency as a rainforest in our biosphere. Read that again!
The advantage that houseplants have in particular is that they evolved in tropical or sub-tropical forests, where they received light filtered through the branches of taller trees. Their leaf composition allows them to photosynthesize more efficiently under relatively low light conditions, which in turn allows them to process gasses in the air efficiently.
Unlike man-made filters that absorb toxins like a sponge—and ultimately end up in the landfill—plants break toxins apart, says Wolverton. Plants suck air into the ground, where microbes degrade toxins into fundamental sources of energy and life. and therein lies an example of an elegant solutions to model our own industrial chemical processes on – green chemistry and biomimicry are the progressive forefront of a solutions oriented movement to this end.
[See: How to Grow Clean Air - 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office, by B. C. Wolverton]
Recent Studies
In a new study from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, biologist Margaret C. Burchett and colleagues tested the impact of two plants, the Spathiphyllum “peace lily” and the “Janet Craig” Dracaena on air quality in 60 different offices. After 18 weeks of measurements, the findings were striking: As few as six small potted plants reduced overall toxin levels by 75 percent.
“The most remarkable finding is that the plants seemed to ramp up their filtration abilities when the air was more toxic,” says Burchett. She found houseplants were better filters during weeks when pollution levels were high, and performance waned when the air was more pure. Overall, offices with plants had cleaner air than those left without the additional splash of green.
According to a Washington State University study, houseplants also reduce stress and help people relax. Plants have been shown to increase employee productivity, reduce sick leave rates by as much as 60 percent, and heighten a patient’s ability to tolerate pain and physical discomfort. Installations of indoor plants have been shown to help control temperature and humidity as well.
Wolverton recommends adding a few plants to each room, but to see a drastic improvement, Wolverton argues houseplants have to be used as a technology platform.
image from www.manhattanplant.com
From rooftop ecology gardens to greenhouse window boxes that circulate filtered air, Wolverton says houseplants have the most impact when they are literally planted into the house. Wolverton has also designed an EcoPlanter, which claims to more than double a plant’s filtration capacity through the use of activated carbon, and has been marketed in Japan for nearly a decade. Phytofilter, a startup based in Saratoga Springs, New York, recently licensed the exclusive rights to Wolverton’s research and technology, and hopes to integrate large planters into the ventilation systems of buildings and apartment complexes by 2010.
Living Walls and Biofiltration
The landscape+urbanism blog and naturaire.com say:
living wall biofiltration involves a hybrid of two technologies: “… biofiltration, the use of biological systems of beneficial microbes to break organic pollutants down into their benign constituents, and phyto-remediation, the use of green plants to facilitate the remediation or reclamation of contaminated soils or water.”
Unlike mechanical filters which clog or saturate, plants are self-rejuvenating: “Because the pollutants in the air are broken down to their benign constituents, there is nothing to accumulate in the system.”
Plants are beneficial in other ways, by a variety of means. These include, a high surface area ratio, they are regenerative, can actively break down microbes versus merely filtering – both in vegetation and roots, accumulate airborne pollutants and dust, and provide a CO2 sink via photosynthesis. While NASA found that some of the plants were better than others for absorbing these common pollutants, all of the plants had properties that were useful in improving overall indoor air quality. NASA also noted that some plants are better than others in treating certain chemicals. For example, English ivy, gerbera daisies, pot mums, peace lily, bamboo palm, and Mother-in-law’s Tongue were found to be the best plants for treating air contaminated with Benzene. The peace lily, gerbera daisy, and bamboo palm were very effective in treating Trichloroethylene. Additionally, NASA found that the bamboo palm, Mother-in-law’s tongue, dracaena warneckei, peace lily, dracaena marginata, golden pathos, and green spider plant worked well for filtering Formaldehyde. After conducting the study, NASA and ALCA came up with a list of the most effective plants for treating indoor air pollution.
Recommended plants
The NASA studies generated the recommendation that you use 15 to 18 good-sized houseplants in 6 to 8-inch diameter containers to improve air quality in an average 1,800 square foot house. The more vigorously they grow, the better job they’ll do for you.
Soil and roots were also found to play an important role in removing air-borne pollutants. Micro-organisms in the soil become more adept at using trace amounts of these materials as a food source, as they were exposed to them for longer periods of time. Their effectiveness is increased if lower leaves that cover the soil surface are removed, so there is as much soil contact with the air as possible.
image from www.good.is - click image to enlarge
Obviously using food crops for fuel is a phenomenally stupid idea that could only be born of the rapacious corporate mind for profit before humanity.
An effective solution to the issue of using vegetable oils for diesel fuel is exemplified in this eye opening video on prolific algae farmed fuel oil production (though of course we’d like to see glass tubes or other materials in the place of the implicated seas of plastic here wouldn’t we) (And remembering, that this is still fuel for the archaic combustion engine and remains an interim solution for an antique technology.)
[Planet Waves] Bucky Fuller: This Is The Future
Born Friday, July 12, 1895, which makes today his 113th birth anniversary. He shares a birth year with Dane Rudhyar, Rudolph Valentino, Jeddu Krishnamurti and Carl Orff
… informative article on Bucky Fuller dymaxion design and astrological musings here
A Pattern Language is the seminal work of Christopher Alexander et al. describing a functional system to meet humanistic needs in the design of buildings, the urban environment and vital community.
Pattern number 58 “Carnival” is a prescient and perfect description of what has organically arisen as the ephemeral Black Rock City – otherwise known as Burning Man!
Burning Man I might add is the greatest expression of human creativity, play, ingenuity and celebration of life, love and art on the planet today (in my humble opinion). Definitely not for the faint, but the wild of heart and free of spirit (or maybe just eccentric and lunatic)
I give you
pattern 58
Carnival
. . . once in a while, in a subculture which is particularly open to it, a promenade may break into a wilder rhythm – and perhaps every promenade may have a touch of this.
Just as an individual person dreams fantastic happenings to release the inner forces which cannot be encompassed by ordinary events, so too a city needs its dreams.
Under normal circumstances, in today’s world the entertainments which are available are either healthy and harmless – going to the movies, watching TV, cycling, playing tennis, taking helicopter rides, going for walks, watching football – or downright sick and socially destructive – shooting heroin, driving recklessly, group violence.
But man has a great need for mad, subconscious processes to come into play, without unleashing them to such an extent that they become socially destructive. There is, in short, a need for socially sanctioned activities which are the social, outward equivalents of dreaming.
In primitive societies this kind of process was provided by the rites, witch doctors, shamans. In Western civilization during the last three or four hundred years, the closest available source of this outward acknowledgment of underground life has been the circus, fairs, and carnivals. In the middle ages, the market place itself had a good deal of this kind of atmosphere.
Today, on the whole, this kind of experience is gone. The circuses and the carnivals are drying up. But the need persists. In the Bay Area, the annual Renaissance Fair goes a little way to meet the need – but it is much too bland. We imagine something more along the following lines: street theater, clowns, mad games in the streets and squares and houses; during certain weeks, people may live in the carnival; simple food and shelter are free; day and night people mixing; actors who mingle with the crowd and involve you, willy nilly, in processes whose end cannot be foreseen; fighting -two men with bags on a slippery log, in front of hundreds; Fellini-clowns, death, crazy people, brought into mesh.
Remember the hunchbacked dwarf in Ship of Fools, the only reasonable person on the ship, who says “Everyone has a problem; but I have the good fortune to wear mine on my back, where everyone can see it.” Therefore:
Set aside some part of the town as a carnival – mad side-shows, tournaments, acts, displays, competitions, dancing, music, street theater, clowns, transvestites, freak events, which allow people to reveal their madness; weave a wide pedestrian street through this area; run booths along the street, narrow alleys; at one end an outdoor theater; perhaps connect the theater stage directly to the carnival street, so the two spill into and feed one another.
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take a peak at some of my BM photos here!
From the Design like you give a damn series at TED
Returning from the EcoCity conference in SFO, flying the presentations in left brain** “technician” caffeine overdrive, certainly coming away with valuable tools and information, but what I really came away with, after some initial inner unhinging, was inspiration, motivation, wonder and ever renewed faith. Tadaaa! … Read the rest of this entry »
High tech, high profile design presentation at TED
I’ve posted some commentary below from the TED post (linked above) on the flavour packed question that arises when discussing celebrity architects and architecture. I would add that building and design for the less priviledged is another arena addressed by different designers, technologies, organizations and plain old folks in the field of life, some of which you will find here in the links and under the green / eco / design category.
Jared Carlson – June 10 2008 How does Norman Foster’s green agenda relate to the homeless or those in poverty? Money is needed to build and enjoy this green agenda, but there are those who do not have that money. Will this agenda only be for that class that can afford it and no one else? These and other question must be looked at or Norman Foster is just another dreamer with a grand plan for himself and no other..
Jared Carlson – June 10 2008
How does Norman Foster’s green agenda relate to the homeless or those in poverty? Money is needed to build and enjoy this green agenda, but there are those who do not have that money. Will this agenda only be for that class that can afford it and no one else? These and other question must be looked at or Norman Foster is just another dreamer with a grand plan for himself and no other..
Denisse Prado – June 27 2008 Jared – dreams are good if you dont dream then u gave up. in terms of poverty, well everything is relative and new technology its always down the block from us. If something is not affordable now, at one point it will. to answer your question yes, a person w/o money might not be able to enjoy his own “green” home, but this is this is when he talks about “green agenda,” buildings being part of nature; then your homeless person will not be enjoying it in a micro aspect but on the macro aspect. Lets built on a green agenda !.
Denisse Prado – June 27 2008
Jared – dreams are good if you dont dream then u gave up. in terms of poverty, well everything is relative and new technology its always down the block from us. If something is not affordable now, at one point it will. to answer your question yes, a person w/o money might not be able to enjoy his own “green” home, but this is this is when he talks about “green agenda,” buildings being part of nature; then your homeless person will not be enjoying it in a micro aspect but on the macro aspect.
Lets built on a green agenda !.
Philip Bussey – July 3 2008 One of the major ideas behind the ‘green’ movement is that it decentralizes energy production to a more local level. In theory this will create more jobs and money for emerging economies..
Philip Bussey – July 3 2008
One of the major ideas behind the ‘green’ movement is that it decentralizes energy production to a more local level. In theory this will create more jobs and money for emerging economies..
