The world-wide mobility explosion is an enormous challenge for designers. How can we convince people that current forms of continuous mobility are no longer ecologically sustainable? Should mobility simply be made unaffordably expensive? Or can we design viable alternatives
As a prelude to the ElectroSmog festival De Balie in Amsterdam will present a showcase of design proposals, practical projects and design-ideas that should persuade us to start moving less.
With on-line and on-site contributions by among others:
John Thackara, director of Doors of Perception, the international conference and knowledge network which sets new agendas for design, will highlight design projects that try to tackle the question of mobility reduction. www.doorsofperception.com
Stefan Agamanolis, director of Distance Lab, Dublin, will present the specific focus of his organisation on networking rural and remote area’s. The relevant question for the ElectroSmog festival is whether we can live in a sustainable way in the green and still connect to the rest of the world, culturally and economically? www.distancelab.org
David van Gent is a managing consultant for IBM on Learning Strategy & Technology, Virtual Worlds, Serious Gaming & Web 2.0. He will talk about and demo the Virtual Offices project of IBM, using open SIM technology (similar to second life):
( See for instance this CNN item )
The Medialab Prado, Madrid will present their recent project “In the Air” (tbc); “a visualisation project which aims to make visible the microscopic and invisible agents of Madrid´s air (gases, particles, pollen, diseases, etc), to see how they perform, react and interact with the rest of the city.
(..) The project proposes a platform for individual and collective awareness and decision making, where the interpretation of results can be used for real time navigation through the city, opportunistic selection of locations according to their air conditions and a base for political action.” www.intheair.es
Eric Kluitenberg, head of the media department of De Balie and initiator of the ElectroSnog festival, will present the concept behind the festival. Besides exploring the critique of mobility theoretically, ElectroSmog will also address the issue practically. All international presentations in the festival will be realised by means of tele-connections between the different international locations.
www.electrosmogfestival.net
This program will be streamed live on the internet – for details please refer to: www.debalie.nl/live
datum | Thursday 21 January, 20.30 hrs.
language | Engels
entrance free entree
Shall we start to move less? This question will be asked (and answered?) during this coming event in Amsterdam. Some names to follow here (like John Thackara).
For my part I would rather say "move more sustainably", "move with purpose(s)" and somethimes "move in a mediated way", mix all those approaches, because I believe mobilty will increase in the future rather than the countrary.
Besides, mobility has brought a lot to the transformation of societes. In good and bad ways of course. Experimenting more with the ones that have some potential (like mixing of cultures while keeping differences or on the other side interbreeding, hybridations, some side of tourism --a tiny part--, creation of abstract and interferential environments and experiences --planes, trains, -- global spatial experiences --airports, branded hotels--, ...) would also be an interesting path to experiment while keeping a critical look to it.
One can hardly deny the fact that mobility has created new spaces (and paved the way for globalization, unsustainable at this stage) that have some potential (hybdrids, interferential, ex-dimensional, etc.). These environments add themsleves to the already existing "local spaces", that won't and shouldn't disappear. Mobility is in fact an old dream (even an old utopia from the 60ies) that is coming to reality in its own way. It's time probably to architecture this mobility and this global scale with sustainable and contemporary concepts that look further than just mere economics, profits or functionality!
Depuis un an, les clients de la Poste peuvent compenser les émissions de CO2 engendrées par l’acheminement de leurs lettres, colis et marchandises en s’acquittant du supplément «pro clima», qui sera investi dans un projet de protection du climat. Par le truchement d’un vote en ligne, la Poste invite désormais sa clientèle à choisir le projet certifié «Gold Standard» qui bénéficiera de la somme réunie en 2009 à l’enseigne du supplément «pro clima».
Depuis février 2009, tout expéditeur d’un envoi par la Poste peut s’acquitter du supplément «pro clima» et compenser ainsi les émissions de CO2 liées à son acheminement. La Poste n’est pas en reste, puisqu’elle applique ce supplément à sa propre correspondance. Avec les fonds récoltés, la Poste achète des certificats d’émissions issus d’un projet de protection du climat, dont la concrétisation est en partie tributaire des ses propres apports financiers. Ce modèle est la cheville ouvrière des envois sans impact sur le climat. Depuis le lancement de son offre, la Poste a déjà acheminé plus de 55 millions d’envois «pro clima» et acquis plus de 100 clients commerciaux à sa cause.
Trois projets au choix
Au travers de sa stratégie environnementale en trois volets, la Poste s’efforce de réduire sa consommation énergétique, de remplacer les énergies fossiles par des énergies renouvelables et de compenser les émissions de CO2 de ses besoins résiduels en énergie. Les projets présentés ci-après ont été sélectionnés par le comité «pro clima». Ils seront proposés au vote des internautes sur le portail de la Poste, du 18 au 27 janvier.
Courant produit par les déchets agricoles en Inde
La centrale à biomasse du Karnataka produit de l’électricité à partir de déchets des récoltes, comme des feuilles de cannes à sucre ou de cocotiers. Cette centrale, d’une puissance de 4,5 mégawatts, peut notamment recycler une biomasse à faible indice thermique. Le courant est injecté dans le réseau d’alimentation local. En remplaçant de l’électricité tirée de combustibles fossiles, il contribue à la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre.
Electricité tirée des gaz d’une décharge en Turquie
La décharge de Mamak, près d’Ankara, produit du gaz, du biogaz et du gaz synthétique (syngaz). Des moteurs à gaz utilisent ce combustible pour en tirer de l’électricité. Pour mettre en place cette centrale, il a fallu couvrir la décharge, installer un système de drainage des eaux d’infiltration et créer un centre de tri et de recyclage. Ces installations complètent les centrales traditionnelles de la région et, grâce à la production de courant vert, réduisent les émissions de gaz à effet de serre.
Energie éolienne en Chine
Quarante turbines éoliennes assemblées en Chine, d’une capacité totale de quelque 50 mégawatts, produisent 110 gigawatts par année, remplaçant des centrales à charbon a forts rejets dans le nord du pays. La centrale éolienne est raccordée au réseau de distribution du nord de la Chine. Elle favorise le développement de la production d’énergie au moyen de ressources renouvelables ainsi que celle des technologies associées.
Projets certifiés «Gold Standard»
La Poste soutient uniquement les projets de compensation certifiés «Gold Standard». Ce standard indépendant répond aux exigences les plus strictes. Il garantit que le projet contribue effectivement à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre et favorise le développement durable dans le pays concerné. Jusqu’à présent, aucun projet certifié «Gold Standard» n’a été mis en œuvre dans notre pays.
Initiative pro climat de la poste suisse (payer un peu plus cher l'acheminement de son courrier...), avec pour conséquence cette possibilité surprenante de pourvoir voter en ligne en faveur d'un projet "durable" de compensation (correspondant à l'investissement de la somme réunie).
Bien qu'intéressante, l'initiative reste un peu tendancieuse... dans le sens où l'on dépense de l'énergie dans les pays développés au Nord et on cherche à l'économiser dans ceux qui se développent au Sud ou à l'Est...
Open Source House (OS-House) is a non-profit organization that aims to provide better, more sustainable housing in low-income countries. 8 Design principles are utilized by OS-House to guarantee standards of sustainability, and meet the challenge of flexibility, ensuring that all designs can be locally embedded. Establish your name, and contribute your ideas and designs in our first design competition starting on the15th of January 2010. The competition results will be shared on the OS-House platform thereby marking the beginning of this ongoing project.
OS-House is an initiative of Enviu and architect Vincent van der Meulen. Let’s generate choice for those who don’t have any.
Personal comment:
Open source comes to architecture, along with sustainability (not a surprise) and projects for developing countries.
Google Street View is a great resource from Google, but sometimes the pictures can be months or years out of date. This means that billboards in Street View are often outdated and different – until now. Google has filed a patent in the United States that would let them place their own ads – observably something similar to AdSense – over the old, real life billboards.
Google’s patent filing mentions modernizing certain ads – like if a movie theatre owner wants to purchase ad space so the movie posters outside his theatre are modernized to reflect current movies (Avatar) instead of ones from 9 months ago (Monsters vs. Aliens).
But these are the only uses that Google sees for these virtual adspaces. Part of the patient mentions an auction system, where advertisers could bid over the rights to place their ads over the top of old billboards. This could lead to legal issues – like a restaurant buying a prime billboard over a rival.
Of course, there is the legal issue of the billboard owners getting upset about Google making money on their billboards – but they don’t have a case. In 2002, the USA Today paid Sony Pictures Entertainment for placement in the Spider-Man movie. In the movie, when Spidey was swinging through Times Square, the film’s editors digitally removed a Samsung ad and turned it into a USA Today ad.
Samsung, the ad company, and the building’s owner sued Sony Pictures Entertainment, but a court ruled that it was legal. Billboards are big money, and Google will likely be sued by some enterprising billboard company – but they’ve got legal percent on their side.
Of course, this may never come out at all. A Google spokesman told the UK’s Telegraph: “We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don’t. Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patent applications.”
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We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings.
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