The High Line: final section designs
Last month while in NYC, I had the pleasure of walking down the High Line, an old rail line that has been converted into a park hovering above the west side of Manhattan. It was one of my favorite places in the world. Not only because it was well designed and provided cool views of the city. But because it represents the kind of transformation we need in cities. With rapid population growth, urban density is becoming increasingly important. It’s crucial that we take steps to renovate and design green spaces into our urban landscapes.
The walkway is 2/3 complete. The designs above are for the final section, which is expected to be finished by the end of next year.
EAMES: The Architect and The Painter
It’s about time somebody made a film about Charles and Ray Eames.
Nice photo set at Inhabitat of the latest addition to NYC’s High Line, a park that follows an old train track through the city.
Great video about rooftop gardening in NYC
The GrowHaus
This post by Ellen Sabina originally appeared on JustMeans, a blog on sustainable business.
Finding healthy sustainable food in the middle of the city can be difficult, particularly in areas that qualify as food deserts. Such is the case in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood in Denver, Colorado, where the nearest real grocery store is a Walmart supercenter that is three miles away. It’s industrial, it’s low income, it’s primarily Latino. But it also happens to be home to a very large greenhouse taking on a very large sustainable food project.
The GrowHaus is a brand new community farm, marketplace, and education center occupying an old commercial flower greenhouse. Thanks to the vision of a local developer, the greenhouse was bought and renovated to transform into a community garden of sorts, with space for neighborhood residents to grow their own vegetables, even through the winter.
In addition to providing affordable garden space for low income residents, the GrowHaus has begun to develop an indoor farm for market production based on the low-input/output models of permaculture. Until the staff creates a master plan for how to best utilize the greenhouse space (which is fairly huge), GrowHaus is also available for use by local sustainable food growers. Currently a small Colorado-based aquaponics company has three aquaponic systems up and running in the space, growing lettuce, chard, basil, tomatoes, perch and tilapia. The farm has begun testing the marketability of their produce and sells to a local restaurant. Eventually, however, the Growhaus hopes to expand to create a “Growasis” market, a place where area residents can come to buy affordable staples, like healthy, fresh, and organic produce, among other items.
Just as important as creating access to healthy, sustainable food for folks living in a food desert, the GrowHaus provides access to food literacy and education. The greenhouse hosts speakers on topics like urban permaculture, garden design, nutrition, healthy lifestyles, and food justice. This interactivity between the farm and the surrounding community is an important piece of creating a lasting and healthy impact. As the GrowHaus grows, it will also include job programs and internships for local high school students.
As the GrowHaus works to make this dream greenhouse a reality, it emerges as a striking example of the way food justice synthesizes all aspects of a truly sustainable food system on a local level. They not only seek to grow healthy, sustainable food, but are also paying as much attention to growing a sense of community, increasing the number of jobs, and providing a space for education.
Tiny apartment
Steve Sauer shows his 182-square-foot Seattle condo.
What I really wanted was one place with exactly what I needed and wanted. Quality is more important than quantity for me, and extra space only a problem.
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(via ISO50)
Plumen lighting
We’ve seen these kinds of designer CFL concepts before, but here’s one that has actually made it to market. The Plumen 001 is currently available in Europe and is coming to America soon. While compact fluorescents will no doubt be replaced by LED bulbs in the near future, these are still a much cooler and more efficient way to light up a space than with traditional incandescents.
The name “Plumen” is derived from plume, “a bird’s show feather, designed to attract attention to a bird’s prowess and beauty.”
(via Creativity)
Passive houses
There’s an interesting piece in The New York Times about passive houses which are designed to use up to 90 percent less heating and cooling energy than a conventional house. That’s kind of a big deal.
America’s drafty building methods account for as much as 40 percent of its primary energy use, 70 percent of its electricity consumption and nearly 40 percent of its carbon-dioxide emissions.
As Alex Steffen points out on Worldchanging, America is woefully behind Europe and Asia in designing efficient homes (not to mention urban development, product design, clean energy and so on). Improving building efficiency standards would go a long way towards addressing our dangerous reliance on fossil fuels.
Infographic details below…
Green roofs
Screw solar panels. For a much greater and more immediate impact on your energy use, you should really take a look at rooftop vegetation. I recently saw the list of benefits at the magnificent Denver Botanic Gardens and haven’t been able to stop thinking about how perfect green roofs are.
Among the many benefits:
- Reduce cooling costs by 50-90%
- Reduce heating costs
- Lower carbon emissions
- Mitigate the “heat island” effect found in urban areas
- Reduce stormwater run-off
- Natural habitat creation
- Filter pollutants out of the air, which lowers diseases such as asthma
- Filter pollutants and heavy metals out of rainwater
- Help to insulate a building for sound
- Agricultural space
- Increase lifespan of the roof
- Increase real estate value
Sure, they take a little maintenance, but the return on that investment would be huge. If anybody out there is looking for a new career path, I would highly suggest getting into green roofs. As global temperatures continue to rise, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be building these on just about every roof in every city in the world.
