v |
i |
s |
t |
a |
s |
p |
m |
e |
h |
t |
a
|
Oh, this is good! A company that mainly develops unmanned aircraft has turned its skills to making rooftop wind turbines. Small and light (no price yet so I don’t know if it’s cheap) and mounted on the building parapet – to make best use of the structure’s aerodynamic properties – it requires only 3.1m/s of wind-speed to work. That’s a huge drop from the 12m/s average for larger windmills.
Full article :: EcoGeek at Wired NextFest
C|NET reports that a company based in Ohio, USA has created interior lighting systems that consume just one-third the energy compared to the average fluorescent system. In addition, it is said to emit neither heat nor UV light and won’t leak mercury if broken. Although the systems are expensive at the moment, they are expected to become affordable in the near future.
Okay, let’s be clear about how it works. What the system does is that it takes light from a conventional source – say an incandescent or a metal halide and distributes it via flexible plastic cables with optical fibre inside. This light is transferred to numerous “bulbs” which are naturally highly efficient given that there is no emission of heat at all.
Edit [27.09.2015]
The site <http://www.fiberstarspoolandspa.com> seems to have disappeared. Here’s a link to the most recently cached version of the site on Wayback Machine.
Although the report is quite US-centric, the suggestions here can be directly applied by anybody. Most of them don’t cost you anything – all you need, is to care a little for the environment.
Full Report :: 50 ways to save water
This may not be great dinner-table conversation but simply separating urine from excreta can make a huge difference to how we approach the issue of human waste. Wost Man Ecology, a firm run by Swedish farmer Ingvar-Nilsson, makes separating toilets that are now selling all across the world. Essentially, the urine can be directly used as a source of urea while the solid waste composts (and turns into fertiliser) much quicker when it’s dry.
As bamboo makes its way into the building industry mainstream, this article questions whether it is always as green as it’s made out to be. We need a neutral body to certify the processes involved in growing and manufacturing bamboo products.
Full Article: Bamboo in Construction: Is the Grass Always Greener?
More and more people both, architects and material suppliers, are jumping onto the “green architecture” bandwagon but how many practices really follow any sort of eco-principles. Just calling something green doesn’t necessarily make it so.
The term “greenwashing” has entered the lexicon to mean giving the appearance of being green without providing substantive environmental benefit.
Saw this house along the main Kondhwa Road yesterday. The bricks are very thin so it’s quite possible that they’re sun-dried and not fired. And thanks to their slimness, what fantastic textures they make!
It’s been about 4½ years since the Karjat Project was completed. I’ve been going there on and off for one reason or another, so I don’t see too many dramatic changes but, yesterday, we had a meeting with Anil Doshi who hasn’t been there since the inauguration. He was amazed at the change because at that time everything looked bare and now, with the trees all grown, it looks so much softer.
The meeting was regarding future development at the site. That’s all I will say at the moment although it isn’t a state secret or anything.
When I read the advertisement in a trade magazine, I was happy to see more competition in the field but, when I headed over to the Godrej site, I found nothing that looked even remotely like this news. A Google search led me to a 404 (page not found) error and it took some hunting to find this news release. (Edit: The page disappeared again!)
What amazes me is how even such a large (and professionally managed) business conglomerate can’t seem to grasp how important it is to keep a web site in order. And, at the end of it all, the tone of the news sounded like it was meant for in-house consumption – a company magazine maybe? Who the heck cares what the vice president thinks for goodness sake. Tell us about the blooming product and why we should buy it!
Masonite, on the other hand, have a well laid out site and may need to push their partners to do something similar if they want to make any headway in the Indian market. Godrej have their own construction business so maybe they’re importing this just for themselves. That would be an opportunity lost, in my opinion.
I’ve always advocated that small structures should be built using load- bearing walls because, to my mind, reinforced concrete cement (RCC) is not merely a waste of high-energy material but is, most of the time, very badly cast as well.
For the plinth, I usually specify random rubble – it is cheap, stable and highly effective as a detterent to dampness. In the Pune project, I decided to semi-dress the stone. Although it costs a bit more, it does look so much better. The guys who specialise in this work are plentiful in Pune and much better at what they do than the ones I’ve come across elsewhere.
They were a bit surprised, though, that I wanted it random and not shaped into rectangular blocks. It seems there are only two varieties of people these days – those who use the stone undressed and those who want ashlar. The path I chose is, apparently, the one least trod.