The Archipod Comes To America. But Will It Catch On?

Lloyd Alter
Green Architecture
From: http://www.treehugger.com/

archipod/Promo image
I have had an ongoing debate with Alex Johnson of Shedworking, a british website devoted to the subject of working from garden sheds, about whether shedworking would actually catch on in North America. Our own Sami Grover does it in North Carolina, but he is a British expat so probably doesn't count; I thought that it wouldn't fly in North America. My reasons, stated in an earlier post:

• The climate is more extreme in much of America;
• People have greater expectations of the temperature and humidity of their workplace being stable and within a couple of degrees of ideal;
• People have bigger houses, often with basements, so that they can find space within the home to have an office;
• People are more security conscious and would not leave expensive hardware in a backyard shed;
• People are obsessed with the price per square foot of everything and find them too expensive.
• Where's the fridge?

archipod/Promo image
Now we are about to find out if it will work in North America, as the Archipod lands on these shores. (Bonnie saw it in London here) This one is more of a land yacht than a shed, made from curved plywood, mineral fiber and foil insulation, and western red cedar shingles. It has air conditioning and heating and is not meant to be the cheapest shed on the block:

Our 'Pod' has been specifically designed to meet a high standard rather than a low budget. This includes it's unusual and contemporary look, its ergonomic interior placing the user at the centre of the curved desk, and the quality of the fixtures and fittings. There are cheaper garden offices on the market, but our intention is to provide a more interesting and better quality alternative.

And indeed they are not cheap; Hammacher Schlemmer sells the larger 12' diameter unit for $ 40,000. That is $ 666 per square foot.
According to the Business Desk, managing director Darren Buttle says

It’s going extremely well in New York. It’s such an important city for us when you consider the size and scale of the business community... Orders are already coming through, and we’re confident we can build on our success to date in the US and continue our upwards trajectory.

archipod/Promo image
The Archipod addresses quite a few of my concerns about sheds in America; it is well insulated and secure. It will be interesting to see if it catches on. Check it out at Archipod.

Four Amazing Green Greenhouses Built 40 Years Ago By Michael Jantzen

by Lloyd Alter
from http://www.treehugger.com/

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All images credit Michael Jantzen
Artist and designer Michael Jantzen is best known for his visionary building ideas like his M-House, covered recently in Fast Company, but I was really excited by his older stuff like his Autonomous House, that I called a Thirty-year old green wonder. Trolling the older work on his site, I found some amazing looking greenhouse structures, and called him to find out more. What he built and what he said is really remarkable. In fact, it's amazing.

In 1980 he built this commercial greenhouse to raise seedlings prior to the beginning of the gardening season in Illinois. The structure is designed to conserve energy by moving the plants from the outside to the greenhouse to an insulated section,

There is a large mound of earth and it is connected to the greenhouse. There is a steel culvert under the mound of earth insulated with foam insulation. At night the plants roll into this underground space to keep them at the temperature they need so we wouldn't have to heat the greenhouse at night.

This is a commercial greenhouse for growing seedlings. There is a track where you can slided the plant outside into a 35' glazed section, during the day when it was too cold outside, so you could pull the plants from the underground section to the glazed section. When it was warmer outside and you want to harden the plants to the climate, you could move the plants outside.

It was a machine for growing plants, where they could go from a superinsulated cave environment where you didn't need any energy at all. There was an insulated lid that closed up after the plants were in. As the temperature moderates and in the daytime, they would stay inside the glazed section.

Experimental Greenhouse 1987

Experimental Greenhouse 1987 was built for the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It was a modular, transportable unit.

This was much more complex; the white section at the end is super-insulated with foam.

The whole thing was automated; there is a little computer that monitored the air temperature and light levels, and moved the plants in and out depending on the available of light and heat.

And then further, the drawers where plants are sitting on stainless steel benches, there were plastic tubes with phase change material in them. That was the thermal mass that would absorb the heat in the rods while it the material liquified, and that would provide the heat needed at night. It was also designed to self-water and inject CO2.

There is a cable that runs to the back of the insulated tube to the opposite end, and pulls the tray out into the sun.

Note that there is only one section in the middle that is tall enough for a person to step in, so idea was to design the shape of the structure is designed so that you don't have to heat a large volume that the plants don't need, you only need one small section where a person can tend to the plants as they were moving past. In the summer, all of the panels slid open so that it could ventilate naturally. A very complex little structure.

There is a lot more; the early greenhouses that he designed to minimize the interior area, with wings for the plants and a lane down the middle for the gardener, minimizing the air that has to be be warmed.

Just room for plants and people.

The other greenhouses, like experimental greenhouse 1980, I was designing for the mass market. I was experimenting with growing plants in a cold climate. it was built with 2x4 and plywood and sprayed with foam on the outside to insulate. there were two layers of corrugated translucent plastic and in between was a blanket that rolled in between the airspace at night and rolled to the back in the daytime.

The corrugated section that you see you could close up like a roll-top desk. the side had a rock wall that would absorb heat during the day and you would blow air through it at night.

And there is still more material for yet another post to come. As I said, amazing stuff.

Compost & Grow Food Indoors With "Parasite Farm" By Charlotte Dieckmann & Nils Ferber

by Kimberley Mok

from http://www.treehugger.com/

Photos: Alexander Giesemann

Indoor composting can seem like a daunting proposition if you're an apartment dweller who's short on space and time. Plus, with so many indoor systems out there, which one is the right one and how would it fit efficiently into your lifestyle and apartment layout?

Here's one stab at it: in envisioning a complete system of vermicomposting plus food-growing under the same roof, young German designers Charlotte Dieckmann and Nils Ferber offer an interesting integrated system that lets you compost under the kitchen counter and grow food plants by the way of illuminated planters that fit right into your bookshelf.

Seen over on Designboom, the "Parasite Farm" by Dieckmann & Ferber includes a vermicomposting bin with a nifty, integrated cutting board that can be hung right under the kitchen counter. Bonus: there's even a built-in fly trap to help get rid of those pesky fruit flies -- which, believe me, can be quite a nuisance when your vermicomposter is still not quite established (though it is preventable).

It's a vertical system that allows the user to produce humus over time, which can be harvested by shaking the grate and pulling out the bin underneath.

Water from your food scraps is also reused as it percolates to another bottom bin, where it's collected as nutrient-rich soup, similar to compost tea, which can be added to your water as liquid fertilizer.

The planters are designed to fit right into a typical bookshelf (like the IKEA-ish ones shown here), while light is supplied from above. Like windowfarms, this is definitely a boon for those who have precious little window space to actually grow food or herbs, and a thoughtful design solution for urban gardening in tight and light-poor spaces.

For more information, check out Designboom and the websites of Charlotte Dieckmann and Nils Ferber.

Inspired but not sure where to start? Or maybe you're already a pro at composting. But if you're in need of some encouragement or a refresher, our Green Basics on composting can help you get familiarized with terms and techniques, or check out the links below for more composting ideas.

Like this? Follow Kimberley on Twitter or subscribe via RSS

More on Composting
Buy Green: Indoor Composters
Easy Indoor Composting: Bokashi + Worm Bin
No Yard? Here's How You Can Still Make and Use Compost
Assemble Your Own Windowfarm: Edible Urban Garden In A Kit (Video)
Composting Basics: Build a Compost Spinner
Compost Conundrum: Backyard Box, Indoor Bin Or A Can-O-Worms?

Statue of Liberty to Close for One Year

But visitors will still be able to visit Liberty Island throughout the yearlong renovations.

By Peter Fulham
From http://slatest.slate.com/

The Statue of Liberty will close in October for a yearlong renovation to make the interior safer and more accessible, the U.S. government announced Wednesday.

The National Park Service plans to begin the temporary closure shortly after the statue celebrates its 125th anniversary on Oct. 28. Officials, however, say that Liberty Island, which is home to the statue, will remain open to visitors throughout the renovations.*

The work, which will cost an estimated $27.25 million, will focus predominantly on installing updated fire and electrical systems and renovating staircases, elevators and bathrooms.

The statue also closed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks so that workers could improve the monument's security. It opened again in 2004. According to the National Parks Service, about 3.4 million people visit the statue each year.

The monument, which was built in the 1880s as a gift from France, remains a popular landmark for visitors to New York City.

Tegan Firth, a spokesman for Statue Cruises, a ferry company that shuttles visitors to the island, told the Associated Press she was confident that business would remain vibrant. "The entire experience of visiting these national landmarks of the United States remains absolutely the same," she said.

*Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly stated that Ellis Island is home to the Statue of Liberty. The statue is on Liberty Island.

Getty Images

Peter Gabriel Creates Amazing DJ Booth With His Old CDs and Cassettes

by Leonora Oppenheim

from http://www.treehugger.com/

All images by author

Now that we live in the digital age, the question has often been asked: "What in the love of music do we do with all our old formats?" Yes, all those cassettes, CDs, VHSs and their horribly non-recyclable jewel cases that are still aimlessly floating around our lives. What can we do with all that plastic? Peter Gabriel, he of pop super group Genesis, founder of Real World Records and the WOMAD festival, found a fantastically funky solution recently when all his cassettes and CD cases were used to create a DJ Booth at WOMAD.

Discotastic plastic
Gabriel's collection of cassettes, old CDs and VHS covers were all assembled into a sleekly curved DJ Booth in the San Fran Disco bar, which kept festival goers dancing late into the night. All that plastic piled high did a fab job of reflecting the disco lights and glitter ball. We particularly liked the ever changing coloured strip of LED lighting cutting a dash through the middle of the booth, lending it a suitably flashy air. We're not sure if the individual cassettes and VHS covers were glued together, but the whole layered brick-like construction looked pretty sturdy. We weren't about to try knocking it over to find out.

We think there's great DIY inspiration to be found in Peter Gabriel's DJ booth design. Though there probably aren't too many of us with a music collection large enough to make a structure of this size. Time to relieve some of your friends of their useless jewel cases, perhaps?

Dematerialised Music Saves on Carbon
Interestingly, Peter Gabriel is well known for being a pioneer in digital music distribution, founding one of the first music download services OD2. Did you know that the dematerialisation of music saves masses of carbon emissions?

Leave No Trace
In keeping with his long held interest in human rights Peter Gabriel has always made sure that WOMAD is a showcase for ethical and environmental causes, as well as extraordinary world music. Almost all festival stalls use or support fairtrade and organic goods, there are segregated recycling and compost bins throughout the site and everyone is encouraged to collect their plastic glasses with the 5p per returned cup incentive.

It's amazing how seriously the kids take the cup collecting to earn their pennies. Tall towers of plastic glasses wobbling through the crowds that obscured their tiny couriers, became a familiar and entertaining sight over the weekend. Apparently, one group of kids managed to collect over 400 cups. Impressive!

Transparent Waste Management
This year we liked WOMAD's new policy of opening up their recycling yard to the festival goers, so everyone could see the waste accumulating over the weekend. This transparency was an effort by the festival organisers to improve on the 36% of onsite waste that was recycled last year. We've yet to hear whether this was a successful strategy or not.

Popular Ethical Brands on Site
We also spotted some of our favourite ethical brands in the arena. Ecover were helpfully handing out washing up liquid samples, Pachacuti were supplying stylish head gear, Pants To Poverty were flirting in their underwear and Frank Water was back refilling everyone's water bottles for free.

Pedal Powered Architecture
But wait there's more, we haven't even started on the pedal powered excitements that were going on over at the Roots Architecture stage. The efforts of the amazing volunteer architects and designers over the WOMAD weekend deserve a post all of their own - so watch this space.

Philips AmbientLED 17 Watts LED Lightbulb (Product Review)

by Michael Graham Richard

from http://www.treehugger.com/

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

Finally a 75-Watt Incandescent Replacement (100W Model is Coming Soon)
I liked all the LEDs that I've had the chance to review so far. In fact, I use them every day and don't have much to complain about; in my office, I have a Qnuru 6.4W LED (the cool white model), in my bedroom the bedside lamp uses the FIRST 7W LED, and the living room used the Philips 12.5W LED. Until now that is... While light quality is fine with all these bulbs, brightness for most of these has been hovering around the 40-60W incandescent-replacement level, and that's not enough for all purposes. That's why I was so happy to learn that the new wave of LED lightbulbs from manufacturers like GE and Philips are cranking up the brightness. Today, let's look at Philips' brand new 17W AmbientLED model.

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

Philips AmbientLED 17-Watt Review
This review is kind of an update on my review of the 12.5-watt model of this LED bulb because they are very similar (as you can see in some of the photos below).

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

They both look like they belong on a futuristic spaceship, or at least on a science-fiction show, but what matters most is how well shape follows function. The strange curvature of the yellow part helps the LED bulb project light in all directions much better than the 'ice cream cone' design of so many other LED lights (for example, see the Qnuru and FIRST models)

The 12.5-watt model is rated at 800 lumens, while this new 17-watt model is rated at 1100 lumens.

You might be wondering if it's dimmable. Short answer: Yes, it is dimmable. I've tested it and it works pretty well.

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

As you can clearly see here, the main differences between the 12.5-watt and 17-watt models is that the cylindrical heatsink is longer on the more powerful LED bulb. While LEDs don't produce nearly as much heat as incandescent bulbs, their components are less tolerant of heat than incandescent filaments. That's why they need to shed that heat with large heatsinks.

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

Here's another example of form following function. The way the top part of the bulb is split in three sections helps it have a large surface area to radiate heat and provide airflow. In practice, once the LED bulb is lit this isn't visible and doesn't affect light diffusion. Same with the yellow exterior, which acts as a filter for the blueish LEDs inside. Once the bulb is lit, the light is of a normal warm-white tint and isn't particularly yellow.

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

Light Quality of the Philips 17W LED
Unfortunately, I'm still not set up for very elaborate light quality testing, and since my last reviews I moved to a new apartment so I can't take a photo in exactly the same room as before (I always keep the camera settings the same between these photos, and I don't tweak them in Photoshop). In fact, this new room is bigger and has darker walls than the room I used before, so the photos don't quite do justice to how bright this LED is. You'll have to rely on my word, I suppose...

I found light quality to be quite good, as with the 12.5W model. As I wrote at the time:

"If I don't tell people, they don't know it's a LED, and I could easily see myself using Philips AmbientLEDs as my main source of light without problem.

To me this really shows that LEDs are ready for prime-time, all that needs to be done is to reduce the price, and that will happen with economies of scale and as R&D into new ways to make them pays off."

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

We'll have to wait for the 100w replacement model (which is supposed to come out in a few months) before we have a truly bright LED, but this one is sufficient for most mid-sized rooms, and a couple of them would be enough for most big rooms (I guess it depends on personal preference - some people like things to be really bright, in which case you can either wait for the 100W model or just add a third or fourth 75W replacement LED).

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

Also noteworthy is that a Philips LED bulb using very similar technology to the one used in the AmbientLED 17-watt model won the U.S. Department of Energy's L-Prize after going through some pretty thorough tests. This is a good sign regarding the quality of these bulbs.

Price: The bulb will be available online exclusively at Home Depot at an initial retail price is $39.97.

If you like this article, you can follow me on Twitter (@Michael_GR) and Stumbleupon (THMike). Thanks.

Pocket Gardens Sprout on Paris's Anti-Parking Posts

by Jennifer Hattam

from http://www.treehugger.com/

A 'Potogreen' in Paris. Photo: Anne Mazauric via Paule Kingleur.

Necessary as they are to keep cars from blocking the sidewalk, anti-parking posts, or bollards, can be an ugly sight in a city. Parisian artist Paule Kingleur has commandeered some of the 335,000 posts in the French capital as sites for hanging micro-gardens -- what she calls a neighborhood "vegetable insurrection."

"Tomatoes, arugula, radishes, and flowers of all kinds" grow in these micro-gardens, according to the website Le Parisien. Kingleur worked with 600 children from Paris schools to plant the seeds and help keep them growing, she told Treehugger in an email this week about her "Potogreen" project.

Sewn Out Of Recycled Tents
"Children are adopting gardens. They are responsible for their care and are committed to leaving them in public spaces," Kingleur told Le Parisien.

The planters themselves are about as eco-friendly as you can get, made of discarded milk cartons collected from local businesses and wrapped in fabric pockets sewn out of recycled tents by Emmaus Maisons-Alfort, a rehabilitation association that works with homeless people.

Though each pocket garden can't grow much, the splashes of green are brightening up Paris neighborhoods. As one resident told Le Parisien: "When I left my house and I saw all these stakes with umbrellas of green, it was a piece of poetry in the street."

The Autonomous House By Michael Jantzen Is A Thirty-Year-Old Green Wonder

by Lloyd Alter

from http://www.treehugger.com/

Image credit Michael Jantzen

I have not posted much of the recent work of Michael Jantzen on TreeHugger; he has interesting visions but very little reality, mainly renderings of architectural wonders in open fields. (Jerry covered a recent one here.) But I learn from a reprint of a 1982 Popular Science in Modern Mechanix that thirty years ago he was designing very green, cutting-edge stuff that pushes every button that we talk about today. The Liberated House, or Autonomous Dwelling from 1979 is a wonder.

The goals of the Autonomous Dwelling Unit were not dissimilar from what so many architects are trying to achieve today:

• First, be a mobile home, light and small enough to be towed long distances over the road, or be carried by helicopter, or even be floated on water.
• Second, be independent of utility hookups--electricity, gas, water, and sewage--and of fossil fuels.
• Third, be mass-producible at a cost competitive with luxury travelers of comparable size.

Partner Ted Bakewell III explains the construction:

"Let's look at the external features first," says Bakewell, leading the way through the large muddy field in the center of a Bakewell office park. "The shell, for example." The interlocking, aluminized-steel sections that form the rounded ends of the vehicle are normally used for silo tops. The center section would normally be used to join twin silos. "They're very thin sheets, fabricated with a ridge in each panel, so they easily slide together, interlocking, for a totally watertight seal," Bakewell says.

The exterior has rainwater collection and solar panels.

With the sun shining, it has a peak output of 80 watts, going to 120 at noon when the reflector comes into use. Four 12-volt marine batteries store the electricity. "It works because we have designed our electrical needs with the most energy-efficient appliances available," Bakewell says. "We have a truly microload demand that is matched to this small solar panel."

The funkadelic interior includes a thermal storage system under the bed that gathers heat in the daytime and releases it at night, that I am thinking of knocking off for a LifeEdited. A round wood stove hangs from the ceiling. Transformer furniture abounds:

In the dining area, inventive design abounds. Leaves drop down or snap up to extend the table. Seats drop down to get out of the way. Most of Bakewell's cooking is done on an alcohol stove; he believes in using renewable fuels as much as possible. The refrigerator was designed from scratch. In winter, ducts below bring in cold air, saving electricity. A butterfly valve controls the amount. In summer, a solid-state thermionic device supplies cooling.

The toilet area contains a shower and a Clivus Multrum Bio-Loo, a Swedish waterless toilet that composts human waste odorlessly. The shower resembles a nylon telephone booth. Square hoops support an ingenious curtain arrangement (see photo) sewn together by Jantzen's wife, Ellen. Bakewell economizes on water by using a special nozzle head, developed for distributing chemicals from crop-dusting planes. It is capable of producing a very fine water-conserving mist that is, he says, nonetheless very effective in washing. Or, if he feels like splurging, he can open it up all the way. Bakewell showers with, basically, recycled water from a gray-water (used wash water) tank, to which he adds, as needed, fresh water taken from the vinyl rainwater bladder.

"We pump gray water into a pressure tank," he says. "Then it's forced through a five-micron filter, then a 0.25-micron filter, then an iodinator. Then it goes into a storage tank. Before it's delivered to a faucet or shower, it goes through a carbon polisher-activated charcoal. We take out the bacteria with the filters, and then we kill the viruses with the iodine."

It is a wonderful design, full of ideas that are just being rediscovered today. I so wish Michael Jantzen still built things like this, we have so much to learn from him. More at Modern Mechanix.

While reviewing other older work on Jantzen's site, I found this wonderful summer house from 1976. The exterior is certainly a period piece, but the interior!

Look at that transformer kitchen in the middle of the unit, with the sides that fold up to make a dining area. The bunks, hanging around the side of the unit with seating below, just like a railway car. The whole thing is brilliant.

The First Image of the World’s New Tallest Building

From http://gizmodo.com/

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By Jesus Diaz

This is the first image of what's going to become the tallest building in the world by the end of the decade: The 3,280-foot (one kilometer!) Kingdom Tower. It will dwarf the 2,717-foot (828-meter) Burj Khalifa. Take a look.

Until now, there was only one blurry generic sketch. This image is an actual rendering of the finished tower. According to Chicago's Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the building's designers, construction will begin imminently. The foundation plans are now complete and "the piling for the tower is currently being tendered" in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, near the Red Sea.

Mindblowing statistics

The Kingdom Tower's numbers are impressive. The building itself will take a staggering $1.2 billion to build, "while the cost of the entire Kingdom City project is anticipated to be $20 billion," said AS+GG. The massive 3,280-foot spire will house a 5.7 million square feet (530,000 square meters) space and will beat the Burj by "at least 568 feet" (173 meter). It will have a Four Seasons hotel, a Four Seasons apartment area, office space, luxury condos and the world's highest observatory.

Full size.

There will be 59 elevators, 54 single-deck and five double-deck, along with 12 escalator distributed through the Kingdom Tower. The elevators going up to the observatory deck will travel at 10 meters per second. That's 22.3 miles per hour. It will take you one minute and forty seconds to reach the top of the tower.
There's even an outdoor space at the top of the spire which will be used by the penthouse floor at level 157. You can see it sticking out in the rendering, 98 feet (30 meters) in diameter.

While it will still not reach Frank Lloyd Wright's never-built dream of the Mile High Illinois, its hard-edged, sightly asymmetrical design reminds me more of Wright's sketches than the rounded Burj Khalifa ever did.