by: Environmental Leader, 2013-05-17 14:27:32 UTC Aker Solutions has won a contract to perform the world’s first tests for capturing carbon dioxide emissions from a cement production plant. The CO2 technology company won the award from Norcem, in cooperation with the European Cement Research Academy (ECRA). It did not disclose the contract’s value. Aker Solutions says it will perform long-term testing [...]
by: Environmental Leader, 2013-05-20 14:45:44 UTC Gillette, BMC Inks and Coop Cooperative have won DuPont packaging awards for reducing waste in packaging. Procter & Gamble’s Gillette brand won the gold award for reducing by a third its plastic content for the Venus & Olay razors, switching from PVC to the more recyclable PET and using 50 percent recycled materials, DuPont says. [...]
Kenny is a new roundy curvy armchair made out of folded simple strip by Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay of Raw Edges for Moroso. Using a simple pattern and a single linear strip of fabric, they created a volumetric shape that becomes like a cocoon in which you sit. This project is all about the effortlessness of its geometry.
To emphasize the simplicity of a rectangular strip being turned into this rounded curvaceous armchair the designers used Kvadrat Hallingdal 65 textile, a ‘warp and woof’ fabric, where two different colored yarns are woven perpendicular to each other. By pulling out the warp, the longitudinal thread in a roll, more of the woof’s color is exposed thus creating a linear graphic that emphasises the shape and geometry of Kenny.
Product photos by Alessandro Paderni, process photos courtesy of Raw Edges.
With a 13.1 inch tall mid-sized model, Helical Robotics’s HR-MP series robots can scale immense wind turbines to inspect them for damage. Unlike the similar tethered prototype GE and International Climbing Machines began developing last year, these wheeled robots are wireless. Controlled by a radio signal and equipped with digital cameras, the climbing robots may serve to replace high powered telescopes used to inspect wind turbines from the ground, which grow less effective as towers get taller and blades get longer. Remote controlled climbing robots also offer a safer, more practical alternative to inspectors climbing up themselves.
Weighing 42 pounds, the HR-MP20 model (pictured above) can carry up to 20 pounds of sensors and other equipment, has a top climbing speed of 43.6 feet per minute, and, according to Helical Robotics, offers a radio control range of 2500 feet. Using five neodymium magnets, the robot is capable of clinging to curved metal surfaces ranging from 7 feet in diameter to flat planes. Controlled by a technician on the ground, once the HR-MP20 scales a tower, it can navigate onto the blades for inspection.
What happens when you mix a pinhole camera with a vintage twin reflex, then craft the whole thing out of stiff paper? We don’t know, but we’d sure like to find out.
At a camera shop in Edinburgh, I spotted it: A vintage, bellowing lens camera with crystal clear glass and a pricetag within my reach. I’d been eBay-stalking these old beauties for months. Now, one was mine, complete with the original leather case and a few free rolls of film. For the next week, swapping 12-frame rolls in mud, mist, and high winds beneath nothing more than the tenuous shelter of my raincoat (and the infinite expanse of my wife’s patience), I experienced more fun taking photographs than I’d had in years. And when I finally got the photos developed, even my mistakes reminded me of the place and time.
The Videre is a pinhole camera by Kelly Angood, decorated with an intricate, cardboard twin lens reflex camera body (so it looks like a TLR, but it’s not). Like my bellowing lens camera, the Videre celebrates expensive, limited-exposure medium format film. But in every other way, it’s even more rudimentary. The pinhole camera is the world’s simplest camera, after all, consisting of little more than a hole in a box that allows light to strike the film. To take a photo, you essentially open up that hole, for anywhere from five seconds to several months. The results, however, can be impeccably detailed and wonderfully ephemeral.
What makes Angood’s creation so weird is how it’s mixed two styles of vintage camera into one exceptionally quirky cardboard construct--a construct that took a lot of love to make into a relatively high-performing camera (that, incidentally, has been designed to capture shots somewhere between 8 and 40 seconds). And at the same time, she solved an engineering problem that plagues most homemade pinhole cameras.
“The key moving part is the internal mechanism where the 120 film feeds into the empty spool. The mechanism has a slightly curved film plane to help ensure the exposures are evenly exposed,” Angood explains. “This is because when you have a flat film plane, light fall-off from centre to edge (caused by the increased distance from pinhole to edge, effectively increasing the focal ratio) causes the exposures at the edges and corners to be less than at the centre. This was the most complicated part of the design, but ultimately the most rewarding to get right.”
There are other premium touches, too, like a light-filtering red acrylic window that lets you check how many photos you have left, or a viewfinder that folds down onto itself--like a real TLR camera--even though that viewfinder actually has no practical purpose to a pinhole camera.
“To me it’s really important to get these little features right,” Angood explains. “You’d never guess it but the leather texture on the camera body also took nearly a week to create through various (and highly analogue!) printing methods. “
Indeed, it’s Angood’s perfectionism for artifice that elevates the Videre beyond mere gimmick to a nostalgic reboot, a celebration of vintage cameras, papercraft, and medium format film photography in one. It’s not designed to make photography simple; it’s designed to make photography fun. And if you’d like to pre-order a Videre kit of your own, you’d better act fast, as the offer expires soon. It’ll run you about $40 on Kickstarter.
by: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine, 2013-05-16 20:34:17 UTC
It seems strange to be saying that there’s now another self-balancing electric unicycle on the market, but hey – that’s technology for you. Joining the likes of the eniCycle, Solowheel and SBU, we now have the LED-light-strip-adorned EcoBoomer iGo.
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Continue Reading EcoBoomer iGo joins the self-balancing electric unicycle parade
Daniel Schwaag and Allison Dring, of design firm, Elegant Embellishments, have developed a remarkable three-dimensional architectural tile that is capable of reducing air pollution in urban locations, is quick and easy to install, and provides visual appeal.
In response to the priorities that have been set by the EU Clean Air Strategy 2005 to reduce pollution deaths and pollution-related damages, Elegant Embellishments has developed prosolve370e tiles, which are coated with titanium dioxide (TiO2) to neutralize air pollutants. The tiles can be positioned near sources of pollution and, when installed on a facade, can serve to direct natural light into a building and reduce wind flow, thus generating turbulence that improves distribution of air pollutants across the surface of the tiles.
The complex grid pattern of the tiles has been based on that of sponges and corals but are easily assembled and mounted to a vertical grid. The hollow modules are constructed of ABS-polycarbonate plastic sheets that are vacuum-formed over aluminum. TiO2 and primers that can adhere to plastic substrate are applied in layers. When the coating wears thin, it can be cleaned with a damp cloth and resprayed without requiring removal of the grid.
The pollutant-reducing capability of the tiles occurs when ultraviolet rays activate the electrons in the coating’s 20-nanometer TiO2 particles, which break down VOCs and nitrogen oxides on contact, resulting in by-products of water and calcium nitrate that washes away when it rains. The facade of the Torre de Especialidades (described below) is expected to eliminate NOx in the equivalent of 8,750 vehicles per day.
To date, the prosolve370e tiles have been utilized in three projects: the enex100 retail complex in Perth, the Torre de Especialidades in Mexico City, the Al Bustan Complex in Abu Dhabi.
Prosolve370e 1050 series tiles were installed in the enex100 retail complex at St. George’s Terrace in downtown Perth, Australia in September 2009. Comprising around 750 tiles that cover about 800 square meters of a ceiling and wall, the feature can be seen from an entrance on Hays Street, through the food court and shopping areas, to the entrance on St. George’s Street. The project has received the Julius Eslicher Award for Interior Architecture and the MondoLuce Architectural Lighting Award from the A.I.A. Australia.
The Torre de Especialidades, part of del Hospital General Dr. Manuel Gea González in Mexico City, has been treated with a 100 meter long, curved screen on its 2500 square-meter facade along Avenida San Fernando, a street with heavy traffic in one of the country’s most polluted cities. While creating a visually complex and memorable addition to the building, the antimicrobial and de-polluting effects of the prosolve370e was a key consideration in its selection for the project.
Currently under construction, with expected completion this summer, six suspended, double-sided screens made from the prosolve370e 390 Series is being installed in the dining area of the hotel lobby in the Al Bustan Complex Abu Dhabi.
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2013-05-03 16:58:46 UTC
Back in 1993, graphic designer brothers Markus and Daniel Freitag were on the lookout for a messenger bag. Zurich citizens worthy of the name travel ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2013-05-01 09:44:11 UTC
Designing sustainable product is all about quality of design, fun and changing peoples behavior in a playful fun way. I think this chicken house with ...
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