People have been claiming that sustainability and green are being thrown around so much that they are losing their meaning, at this point I am inclined to agree; Versace is building a luxury hotel that will have a refrigerated beach so that the uber wealthy won’t have to get their feet hot when they come to visit. The hotel chain and by extension Ms Versace who has sold them the name, then has the gall to claim that refrigerating the outdoors can some how be sustainable;
Versace says the beach will be environmentally sustainable. Soheil Abedian, president of Palazzo Versace, said: ‘We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on. This is the kind of luxury that top people want.’ A source added: ‘The super rich want pure luxury. They don’t want to walk on scalding sand.’ S
In terms of reasons why I have been trying to avoid the Dubai Hype this could count as a big one. I mean if I had told my mother that it was ok to leave the door open in the summer because cooling the planet with our air-conditioner was somehow ‘sustainable’ she would have smacked me across the head. Someone needs to do the same for Donatella and Santo.
It happens time and time again, we come up with a fantastic new technology that will be the solution to many if not all of our problems only to find out that it brings a problem that we were not aware of before. Such is the case with wind turbines. Turns out they are only environmentally awesome and good for the planet if you hate Bats.
Scientists have discovered that wind farms and wind power generating wind turbines are killing bats. It isn’t the obvious thought of, bats being too stupid and flying into spinning blades… see bats detect the propellers just like they detect anything else using ‘echolocation,’ the bats are not actually flying into the propellers, simply flying too close to them. It turns out that wind-turbine blades create an atmospheric-pressure drop around themselves. This pressure drop is causing the bats to die of internal hemorrhaging due to barotrauma when they fly into the low pressure zones around the turbines. The bats are unable to see these low pressure pockets, much like we are unable to see a temperature change in the water at the lake.
Image from Gizmodo.com
Turns out that the respiratory systems of bats are more like other mammals, being balloon like with two directional airflow and a pair of thing flexible sacs surrounded by capillaries. When the pressure drops suddenly the sacs (lungs) over expand and often times burst. Bird lungs are much more rigid and therefore able to handle pressure changes much more easily.
The implications are a little frightening when you think about it… as wind power expands in popularity so too could the miquito population, more and more of them don’t get eaten by bats. There are a whole bunch of reasons we don’t want that not least of all the irritation factor and the spread of blood borne pathogens.
Scientists say that there is no obvious way to reduce the pressure drop at wind turbines without reducing their use and effectiveness.
There is an article over in engineering news online about new russian technology which could help South Africa meet its medium-term energy needs.
You may or may not be aware that Eskom, South Africa’s state owned power utility is operating near i’ts maximum. The utility’s reserve generating margins are pretty much at zero and this is unlikely to change in the next five years until new base load power stations start coming online from about 2013 and onwards. South Africa is already feeling the effects of the lack of capacity and is afflicted by rolling black-outs. The official term for them is “load-shedding,” anyone who has lived in an area beset by rolling black outs is aware of what a disruption they can be both to life and too the local economy.
The country is in a bind in that there is no way for it to see any additional capacity to the system before 2012. That date isn’t even the new baseline plants but the potential start up date for a number of short term co-generation projects, these plants are joint ventures between Eskom and the private sector to build small gas-fuelled power stations to help cover peak periods.
However Russia is currently building the worlds first FNPP or Floating Nuclear Power Plant. The main devision of Russia’s State Nuclear Shipbuilding Centre, Sevmash began construction in 2006 and will see the first boat completed in 2010. It is possible that South Africa might be able to convince Sevmash to lease them an FNPP. Though currently the first is earmarked to stay at Sevmash and power the companies facilities, along with ‘the local social infrastructure,’ oh and it also will generate heat to be used in the community and desalinate water. The company has a second boat in the works but it is also earmarked for use in the East Siberian Sea. However the Russia government has made suggestions that it would be willing to lease one of them to South Africa for a couple of years.
The idea of a number of these floating nuke stations being used to provide power in areas that need it is an intriguing one. The possibilities for their use in area’s that have maxed out their capacity or after a natural disaster gives flexibility to the worlds power grid that has until this point never existed.
Of course the idea of a floating nuke station is likely an environmentalists nightmare, not to mention the potential security concerns that come with having a nuclear plant that isn’t sitting on solid ground and therefore could be approached from underneath. The KLT-40S is however reported to be a well-proven design and is already employed in a number of nuclear icebreakers. The gross power production of a KLT-40S is 35 MWe. To give you a comparison the Western GeoPower Unit at The Geysers Geothermal Field in California will be 35 MWe. Each FNPP with be comprised of two KLT-40S nuclear reactors built on top of a 20,000 ton non-self propelled barge with a length of 140m and a beam of 30m. It should be noted that when the FNPPs are towed the reactors will be off line and emptied of nuclear fuel. I mean you would have to be a true idiot to risk getting a working nuclear power plant caught in a storm at sea.
Whether or not you agree with it the FNPP is coming. The Russian News and Information Agency, Novositi, reports that Russia considers the FNPP to be a ‘Vital element’ in the national energy programme.
Oh my it looks like I am breaking my Dubai rule yet again, of course once again I am doing it to be a negative Nancy. Maybe we should just call this the Dubai Reality Check week! Over at Building Design there is an article on Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne, who announced in his address to the World Architecture Congress’s Cityscape Dubai conference that Dubai is building itself up for an ‘ecological disaster’ if it continues on the path it is currently taking.
The architect stated that the dominance of the private sector in the gulf state has led to a serious lack of overall planning and that this combined with the sheer speed of development will lead to a major crisis in the future.
Its true really, do we have any idea what kind of traffic patterns we are going to see from the residents of a building like the Burg Dubai? While the building has a number of built in amenities it isn’t likely that they are all going to just stay inside. Since most of the city is being built all at once, just what is it going to look like at the ground and on the human level once its done.
Mayne goes on to say;
“There is no connected tissue,” he said. “It might work today, but the prognosis is not good for the future.
“It’s not going to work on many levels, from social to infrastructure and ecological. It’s going to be a disaster in ecological terms.
“The political class is no longer in charge of cities… which means there is no planning. Los Angeles is a prototype for that. The private sector rules. It takes hours to get downtown in LA as there is no public transport.”s
Of course this is true and not true. The political class owns the private sector here. Nakheel properties, is owned by the Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. So one could argue that the political class still exerts a pretty hefty hand in affairs. The article is worth checking out.
Namba Parks was the result of a visionary design, in a city that wanted something great and didn’t have real estate to waste on parking spaces. The resulting commercial mall and mixed use residential complex is what a mall should be.
Canal City is a mixed use development with a primarily commercial focus and a number of cultural and entertainment functions as well. The project was designed by Jerde and covers 9 acres with a total building area of 240,000 square meters.
Southdale Centre. Southdale center opened in Edina, Minnesota in 1956. The complex was the first climate controlled shopping complex, fully enclosed and featuring rival department stores. Minneapolis has an interesting relationship with the mall being the first city to house one, and the home to the largest mall in America, the aptly named Mall of America, which is just four miles away from its progenitor.
The Millau bridge in France currently holds the record for the worlds tallest road bridge. At a towering 343m (1,125ft) at its highest point, it is definitely not for anyone afraid of heights. The bridge crosses the River Tarn and the valley of the same name and has been termed by some as "one of the most breathtaking ever built."
In Redhill Surry Robert fiddler created a massive pile of hay bales in his yard and his neighbours didn’t really think anything of it, he is a farmer after all. Then about six years later the bales came down and voila a Mock Tudor Castle. The fiddlers built the house in secret over the course of two years and then lived in it while it was hidden within the hay bales for four years in a bit to avoid needing to get planning permission for the structure. The town council wants it down but Robert fiddler is arguing that he followed the letter of the law. A law which states that if a structure has been built/erected for four years and there are no objections to it then planning permission is automatically granted.
Times Square is an iconic location in the City of New York. In planner speak a place like this is often called a magnet, attactions like these generate activity and draw in people. They call them attractions for a reason. One of Times Square's more notable citizens is Robert John Burck, more popularly known as the Naked Cowboy, an American Busker with a signature style of wearing only his hat, cowboy boots, a pair of tighty whiteys and a strategically placed guitar.....until recently Times Square, while known as an attraction for people, was predominantly a space for cars. However with the induction of New York's Fearless new Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, and the changes that have come with her, Times Square is now a different place.
The infamous 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang has awoken from its slumber and is once again seeing construction work. It has been reported that Egypt’s Orascom group has been contracted to refurbish the top floors of what has been termed by some as the ‘Hotel of Doom.’ Construction originally started in 1987 and it was thought that the tower was a jealous response to the South’s Olympic construction boom. The structure is 105 stories high and, if it were fully finished, it would contain 3.9 million square feet of floor space. Kim Ill Sung started construction to show off the state's burgeoning economic power.
In the not so distant future, it is predicted that as much as 80% of the world's population will live in urban areas and, by 2050, the population of the world will increase by as many as 3 billion people. Three billion people require a fair bit of food and current farming practices are unlikely to be able to provide the needed supply. Dr Dickson Despommier suggests Vertical Farms.
In the last few years, every town, village and post office box has announced it's plans to build the tallest building in the neighbourhood, town, province, or galaxy. It's gotten rather confusing, but I'm going to try and sort through the hype and look at some of the future giants that will make the skylines of Korea more unique. People might try to point out the lack of super tall buildings currently in Korea, but one must remember that the Burj Dubai is being built by none other than Samsung construction.
Regulations will require green roofs on new residential buildings in the city starting January 31st 2010 that are more then 2,000 square meters and 20 meters or higher. Industrial construction will have an extra 12 months to prepare for the requirements. For industrial buildings they will have to reserve either 10% of the roof area or 2,000 square meters, and have the option to choose the lesser amount for sod and other greenery.
In the not so distant future, it is predicted that as much as 80% of the world's population will live in urban areas and, by 2050, the population of the world will increase by as many as 3 billion people. Three billion people require a fair bit of food and current farming practices are unlikely to be able to provide the needed supply. Dr Dickson Despommier suggests Vertical Farms.
