Green Options

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Inspired by the diverse kingdom also known as our biosphere, researchers are developing a new way to efficiently meet the demands of web users. The inspiration is derived from a very intricate yet communicative dance that honeybees do when they’ve found a hot spot of premium nectar. Since these bees have no central commander and highly inconsistent resources, they do a dance to communicate to each other how to efficiently collect a lot of nectar in little time. This “swarm intelligence” has been used as an inspiring model by researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology to “improve the efficiency of internet servers faced with similar demand challenges”.

The efficiency development model helps servers that used to be assigned to only one task to now multitask and move between tasks as needed. In other words, the servers can now meet the fluctuating demand that the internet has more quickly. This model reduces the chance that a website gets overwhelmed with demand and locks up. It is also said to increase efficiency and service by 20 percent.

Georgia Tech professor Craig Tovey was struck with a curiosity of honeybee behavior in the early 80s. He realized through conversations with a colleague from the University of Oxford that “bees and servers had strikingly similar barriers to efficiency.” Bees have very inconsistent resources. Sometimes there is an abundance of nectar to collect and sometimes there is very little. Year after year the supply is different and the location of the nectar oasis’s change. Yet somehow, they always seem to maintain a fairly consistent supply of nectar in the hive. Tovey saw this as a stimulating intricacy in the natural environment that yielded very effective results. Tovey among other colleagues conducted research for decades on how they work and how to use their brilliance in our built environment.

The greatest breakthrough was the discovery of the waggle dance. Australian zoologist Karl con Frisch won a Nobel Prize for this. When bees that hit an oasis return to the hive, they do a dance at the hive floor, wagging their tail back and forth. Each movement of the dance indicates location, scent, sound and gives other foragers clues about where the oasis of nectar is.

Latin America has only established two LEED certified buildings so far but due to progressive trends it appears that this number will grow. In 2004, Mexico established its own Green Building Council called MexicoGBC. This is the first in Latin America. “Mexico’s building and construction industry is just waking up and realizing that we are big players,” says Cesar Ulises Previno, MexicoGBC president. “We have a lot of potential to make a difference.” Now, the government is showing interest and the MexicoGBC is creating their own LEED program called SICES that will be specific to the countries climate, available materials, and other related conditions. Among the most critical aspects are site management, water conservation, energy efficiency, materials selections and interior air quality

The holiday season is hectic and stressful for many, but the aspect that often gets consumed by other activities is the fact that we get a few days off of work. In light of vacation and travel I decided to interview a close source of wisdom- my sister, TV show host, and Natural Living Expert, Sara Snow. First, Sara and I talked about the importance of taking a break from the daily grind, then she gave us a few tips on traveling lightly and with intension.

Sara, why is it so important to rest and disconnect?
“Life is about balance, and I know first hand that life can be extremely busy. Sometimes you have to be able to react and work at that busy pace. In order to do that and avoid burnout you must take time to relax. For me, I can have eight extremely busy days on the road, but then it has to be followed by a few days of rest at home or somewhere else.”

This is another of our Guest Posts through our parent Green Options network. Elizabeth Redmond is a product designer currently based in Chicago. She writes about a range of design issues for Sustainablog.

With the portfolio of commercial and urban green building projects happening across the globe right now, how is it possible to see them all? For those of us who are construction fanatics we like to see them in person but flying to location is definitely not the most or even a sustainable way to do things. Well, as with so most everything these days, there is a solution. To increase our remote access to ongoing and completed green building projects nationwide, Building Green Inc. has teamed up with Google and the Department of Energy to bring us an interactive way to view these projects.

The information is presented in Google Earth (must be downloaded) through a layer called the High Performance Building Layer, which is something that you have to download as well. Once you have both of them, you can choose from the 96 different projects they have highlighted thus far through the collaboration. Most of the projects selected reside in the United States, but there are a couple others around the globe. The models are created in Sketch-up and are completed with a full project description. Each building in the High Performance Building Layer also provides links to detailed case studies on the buildings performance. These studies are located on the web through different databases- AIA, USGBC, Building Green…

Imagine the implications of urban sprawl if we had begun building out into the ocean in the ‘50s?  Well, as our world population rises and developed land in cities and surrounding zones becomes more and more scarce, we are starting to see ocean sprawl becoming more popular all over the globe. We are already seeing this with the development in the United Arab Emirates and the overzealous and outrageously expensive projects there and around Abu Dhabi.  They are essentially pouring mounds of sand into the ocean to create new “luxury” land and resort destinations. This is an image of the man made palm in Dubai’s Persian Gulf constructed for the Palm Island Resort. “When completed, the resort will sport 2000 villas, 40 luxury hotels, shopping centers, cinemas, and other facilities.” With these new types of developments this idea of vacationing on/in the ocean without actually needing to leave land is growing in demand.

With the portfolio of commercial and urban green building projects happening across the globe right now, how is it possible to see them all? For those of us who are construction fanatics we like to see them in person but flying to location is definitely not the most or even a sustainable way to do things. Well, as with so most everything these days, there is a solution. To increase our remote access to ongoing and completed green building projects nationwide, Building Green Inc. has teamed up with Google and the Department of Energy to bring us an interactive way to view these projects.

The information is presented in Google Earth (must be downloaded) through a layer called the High Performance Building Layer, which is something that you have to download as well. Once you have both of them, you can choose from the 96 different projects they have highlighted thus far through the collaboration. Most of the projects selected reside in the United States, but there are a couple others around the globe. The models are created in Sketch-up and are completed with a full project description. Each building in the High Performance Building Layer also provides links to detailed case studies on the buildings performance. These studies are located on the web through different databases- AIA, USGBC, Building Green…

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to attend a conference at Design Continuum’s Boston Headquarters office. I attended on behalf of Ecolect with co-founders, Joe Gebbia and Matt Grigsby, as a team materials correspondent. For those of you who don’t know about Ecolect, it is a free community-based website for learning about and sourcing sustainable materials. I serve as a materials correspondent and help to generate community relationships and material information. The site is intended for architects, designers, engineers, graphic artists, but more specifically everyone! The conference was focused on Green Design- the impact of the field of design, and lessons on how to solve problems while helping the world, not hurting it.

Director of Design Continuum, Mark Bates opened the event with a presentation of the design firm’s overall footprint. He estimated that they’ve added about 500 million parts to the world during their 25 years of practice. These parts are anything from screws to Intel processors to cellophane package display windows- anything included in the overall manifestation and presentation of a product. Considering these facts coming from a design consultancy that tends to take a conscious, all encompassing design analysis approach to everything they work on, it makes me wonder about the impact of the companies designing toys for McDonalds.

He sent us with the message of- think of design in terms of aiding the efficiency and health of our earth and future. To begin to understand the perceptions of “sustainability” and “green” to the average consumer, Design Continuum has launched an internal study project called Color Blind. They are obtaining comments from everyday consumers about products and life to hopefully design from both sides- sustainability and the consumer.

The day long conference was broken down into hour-long presentations during which Q&A was included. “Their approach was a model other conferences could learn from - one day, comfortably paced, intimately sized, focused on one topic, inviting speakers with different views, and …free,” says Joe Gebbia.

Add this biomimetic project to the board! Architect, Mick Pierce and engineers at Arup Associates successfully took inspiration from nature when designing the heating and cooling system of the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, the country’s largest office and shopping complex. Where did they get this inspiration? African Termites!

If you’ve ever seen a termite mound you should still be impressed by these built by African termites in Zimbabwe. The termites build mounds reaching multiple feet in order to farm a fungus that feeds them. The finicky fungus must live at exactly 87 degrees F. While temperatures outside the mound walls vary by about 70 degrees F, they had a problem to solve. “The termites achieve this remarkable feat by constantly opening and closing a series of heating and cooling vents throughout the mound over the course of the day. With a system of carefully adjusted convection currents, air is sucked in at the lower part of the mound, down into enclosures with muddy walls, and up through a channel to the peak of the termite mound. The industrious termites constantly dig new vents and plug up old ones in order to regulate the temperature,” describes Abigail of Inhabitat.

For those of you who are stumped about gifts this holiday there is probably a reason. You ask yourself- what do we actually need? Amidst all of the news of poverty and destruction, most of us find ourselves in the upper economy and hopefully and simply grateful for what we have already. Our culture has created an opportunity to jot objects on our wish list that we think we need or really want. Now don’t get me wrong, there is beauty in giving a gift to someone you care about whom you know will appreciate it. But, if you want to maintain your spirit of giving this year yet do it in an alternative fashion, why not try giving together with someone you care about to someone who will appreciate it?

For the past five + years my family has been practicing different ways of sharing gifts for the holidays. We made gifts a couple of years. Then we decided to pool our funds and purchase one big gift for someone in the family that would inspire their lifestyle, creativity, and passion… This year we decided that no one really need anything and we would prefer to do something together as a family to improve the lives and economies of others- invest in a micro-fund.

Microfinance creates social lending networks that gives us lenders the opportunity to connect directly with borrowers who normally wouldn’t get the support of a bank. This allows people in poor countries and rural areas who don’t have access to traditional banks or don’t have the credentials necessary for a bank loan, to start a business. The neat things it that in all circumstances (weather your money is controlled by the organization through which you lend or you choose who your money goes to) you can more or less track your loan. This type of investment has already made profound impacts on developing nations as it funds businesses that support their local economies. Instead of weaving baskets to be sold in the global market, people are able to start water distribution businesses to improve quality of life in their own communities.

This past week has been a dream come true for any engineer, architect, designer, or group working towards developing new sources of alternative energy.  Two monumental events occurred that could potentially change the careers of many, and the source of our energy sooner than we thought.

On Tuesday November 27 Google publicly announced the terms of a new initiative called RE<C (Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal).  Google will invest hundreds of millions of dollars on research and development by hiring engineers and energy experts to lead R&D work.  This research will begin with solar thermal technology, geothermal systems, and wind power technologies. They also plan to spend more hundreds of millions in breakthrough renewable energy projects, which will generate positive returns.