Sustainable Communities: N55 Grows Our Human Potential

Caroline Savery — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:48:13 +0000

Occam’s Razor: the scientific principle that the most simple, elegant solution to a given problem is the one most likely to be true.

N55 takes the notion of assembling the world into a sustainable community with a fair mechanism for exchanging resources and simplifies it to its very barest elements. You will find little elaboration on the N55 site. You will find little philosophical jargon.

But what you will find is astonishing innovation, ingenious trial concepts that simplify and minimize our human needs into manageable, bite-sized alternatives (like HYGIENE SYSTEM and MICRODWELLING). You will also find a series of solutions and protocols for interaction that can be cut and pasted onto just about any society of human beings.

Take ROOMS, for example. The following is excerpted from their “Manual for ROOMS.”

“ROOMS gives access to rooms. Any person can use ROOMS. ROOMS can be established anywhere supplying different functions like rooms for sleeping, making food, reading, meeting, producing things etc.

“ROOMS is a system that can be used for sharing rooms with other persons. ROOMS consists of rooms in different places in the world. The rooms are included in ROOMS by persons who guarantee that anybody can use them according to the function they are initiated with and within given periods of time.

“Any person can expand ROOMS by providing one or more rooms. These rooms can be in existing buildings, they can be mobile rooms, or they can be built for ROOMS. Positions of ROOMS can be found in Manual for ROOMS. The manual is continuously updated. A current version can also be obtained by contacting N55.”

It’s the cleanest, simplest definition possible–as a result, it can be easily adapted and interpreted for the diverse situations and peoples found across the planet.

You or I could add a ROOM. You or I could use ROOMS. The same is true for LAND, SHOP, FACTORY, etc. Talk about universal!

World’s First Walking House Can Avoid Natural Disasters, Uses Solar and Wind Power

Ariel Schwartz — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:40:17 +0000

What if your house could simply walk away from natural disasters? This house can. Designed by an art collective in Denmark, the 10 foot high house is solar and wind-powered and can walk across a variety of terrain. It is equipped with a living room, bed, toilet, kitchen, and wood stove, and is controlled by an internal mainframe computer.

Green Options » walking house

Sustainable Communities: N55 Grows Our Human Potential

World’s First Walking House Can Avoid Natural Disasters, Uses Solar and Wind Power