Melbourne 2020 – Single Track Tram System

The use of single-rail, gyroscope-stabilised vehicles, combined with stations between the lines, rather than outside the lines, addresses the narrow confines of many roads and the resultant traffic delays and associated air pollution arising from the present two-rail system.
Benjamin Last and Jess Cameron-Wootten
Monash University

> Link

Metropolis Energy Competition

I have been meening to get post this a while back, so without further delay & before I loose it completly...

This is a very appropriate competition currently run by the metropolis magazine. I belive we should seriously consider entering here. It does requiring a rather comprehensive submission with detailed proposal including a business plan.


"The 2007 Next Generation® prize will finance the development of a bright idea that focuses on ENERGY, its uses, reduction, consumption, efficiencies, and alternatives. Intended to support designers whose entries reflect considerations of sustainability, distribution and manufacturing systems, economy, current technologies and materials, function, and provocative form and can speak to any one of the 6 sub-disciplines supported by the magazine"

I think this might be an interesting process to go through. Maybe we could look at putting together a submission around your micro solar/wind hybrid unit with an extension look at how this is integrated and interfaced with the home/user. This would give us a nice deadline to work towards aswell :-)

Link to website with details

Let me know what you think.

'Everything we have been taught in contemporary times is that monocultures are necessary, to increase both production and growth. But this kind of thinking is really one-dimensional. It negates our true human and ecological state, which is diversity. And we destroy this at our peril'

Vandana Shiva

Dissertation Topic

I've been writing a research proposal detailing what I have planned for next year. Reviewing existing literature has really helped to provide a more realistic notion of what is possible with communal generation. The next stage is defining research goals and methods more concisely.

It looks like the bulk of my design work will surround the generator itself, most likely a micro solar/wind hybrid unit. However, I will also deal with the metering and wider system- with a view to working the whole arrangement into the Newer Zealand idea. In a really simple way, the generators are treated as revenue providing investments, the profits received then being used to pay off conventional power bills- the two processes effectively isolated. This means the turbines can be placed on off-site, optimal locations. It really becomes interesting when one imagines the repurcussions within an avant-garde urban dweller context, or metering which takes into account how much electricity (and profit) the investment is supplying, vs. how much electricity is being bought from the grid....

The University submission will be fairly technical, whilst the application within Newer Zealand will allow for a more conceptual interpretation. Leave a comment if you would like a copy of the research proposal sent to you.

Care to Change?

Hello, yes I'm still in existence.
I thought ill kick things off again a little by picking up a subject I had touched on in a previous post regarding societal commitment & change. The problem of grass root change & and acceptance for new processes.

Not a new problem, but very much worth taking into consideration in this context. No amount of planning, innovation & technology will succeed if the group asked to adopt these have no part in its conception & upkeep.
Sure you can say that in our current political & social model there are processes in place to involve the inhabitants in their environmental development. However I'm thinking more than merely voting on the new pattern of your local pavement in a council meeting. This would be more an intrinsic connection & feedback system with first, you direct environment such as your home (the personal phase[]space).

But coming back to the issue of the psychology of change. For all the innovation, technology & interactive feedback systems, it comes down to wether people can actually be bothered. You could take the approach of forced improvement, build the enhancements right into the product or system, so not using them is actually harder and more costly. A new car or office building is most likely more energy efficient without the user necessary having a desire for such properties. But this can only go so far and I believe that any considerable change requires more involvement. People have to care to change.

So how do you do that? How do you get Mr Bow Jones, driving his brand new red Holden SS, housed in an uninsulated oversize home to care about Co2 emissions, installing a wind generator and reducing his global footprint? The problem with the majority is not that they do not care, but that they probably just do not know any better. We are just too detached from our surroundings to realise the effect we are having on it. Being 'in tune with nature' is a key factor of environmental change for the better, be it through growing your own organic vegetables or being virtually synchronizing with the status of your surrounding. There needs to be some way to directly link inhabitants back into their surroundings. Our current societal model is built on the notion of having to 'conquer nature'. There is us, and then there is Nature which is intrinsically nasty, dangerous and out to get us.

I came across an interesting concept in 'Green Architecture' by James Wines. 'The system of totemic identity, as a condition of dualities where one's soul is shared by a self and an alter ego in nature, has intriguing implications for ecology'. The totemic identity was common in Aborginal culture, which has facinating human <> nature relationships (which in my mind are very much ahead of their time, so much so we still can't quite comprehend them). The Aboriginal totem acts as a conscience, guiding tribal and individual relationships with the natural environment. Quite how this can be applied yet I am not sure yet. However it relates well with my ideas of interactive phase[]spaces. It is about getting people to have a relationship with their surroundings, inviting involvement and direct improvement.
Totemic identiy could pose and excellent model of a societal monitoring system.

TBC

More Interactive Cocoons

Some brilliant interactive architecture, Liquid 2.0, by Daan Roosegaarde.

How about an actual functional exhibition space modelled on an urban conceptualisation like this.... Perhaps we should be less literal- imagine this sort of thinking across a whole Newer Zealand. The implications for transport and farming are fascinating. A living surface which reconfigures itself completely during the middle of the day, when occupants are out and plants can recieve more sunlight. Or adapts to funnel the most wind energy to integral turbines. Highways based on the human neural pathways etc. I still like the idea of migrating living spaces. I expect your 20+ hours in an aluminium tube to be spent wisely....

Philip Beesley Architect

Fantastic work by Philip Beesley Architect, Toronto. Geo-morphic membranes which interact with their human occupants.

I particularly love Gill Array, Orpheus Filter, Reflexive Membranes and Orgone Reef.

Similar to my nesting idea, but abstracted by an order of magnitude and utterly beautiful. Article on BLDGBLOG

Personal Rapid Transit

I haven't covered ULTra yet, as I have been quite undecided about the feasibility of the system. On the one hand, rapid transit would cut out the unused capacity of light rail, and fits into the concept of perfectly balanced units of energy expenditure. On the other, it appears over-complicated and not particularly versatile in real world operational conditions.

Part of my problem is the language of proponents of the system. The Wellingtonian, a local free paper, ran an article (June 8, 2006) where a backer states 'Wellintonians have a view that public transport is for 'losers' and that will not change by upgrading buses and trains.' There is a persisting capitalist assumption that personal rapid transit will succeed because the rest of society has an ego which precludes the use of 'loser' group public transport. However, this mindset appears to be akin to the idea that commuters currently have a god-given right to travel to work solo in giant SUVs. The key is to make public transport attractive, and I don't think anti-social, self-imposed isolationism is always the solution.


Further links:
Citizens for Personal Rapid Transit

PRT at Worldchanging - the comments section has some good debate.

Wiki -notice that 'The manufacturers of ULTra acknowledge that current forms of their system would provide insufficient capacity in high density areas such as central London, and that the investment costs for the tracks and stations are comparable to building new roads, making the current version of ULTra more suitable for suburbs and other moderate capacity applications'

The Wellington plan involves 6km of tracks, eventually spreading to the outer suburbs, so this follows the above.

The opponents of the scheme, however, do make a lot of sense. I particularly can see the likelihood of traffic jamming in the system. Rebuttal is here.

Overall, I can imagine PRT working in and around the various urban enclaves, in concert with high speed light rail to outlying urban areas, with the overall pax of the medium increasing as route length/demand does. Also, PRT gondolas need not look like a style-bereft fantasy of computer programmers, inspiration could be taken from Venice. The stations could be stunning, and the guiderails mounted on the ground anyway. Computer processing now exists to allow the system to flow where it previously failed, so I am fascinated to see how it works out in Cardiff. I would love to see this work, but remain sceptical.

Finally, a link to Charge. I have found this to be one of the most neutral, realistic websites out there debating future energy. The article follows my assesment of plug-in hybrids as the most suitable automotive energy source, and they see PRT as viable scheme.

Edit: Intruige!

A local has a blog with his own take on the situation. Great!

I am steering further into scepticism....

May 27 Listener

It is worth purchasing a copy of this weeks Listener. There is a reasonable article about the future of city planning in New Zealand, detailing the possibilities for our main urban centres.

'Auckland is run by a business class which favours development and employs a bureaucracy to further developers. They just let developers do whatever they wanted to do and couldn't see they'd made mistakes.'

Says Ian Athfeild, 'Now the country is looking around for a champion for their physical environment... If architects are going to rule, now's their chance.'

inflatable decentralised racing hydroplanes

From Greenpeace UK, a very detailed analysis of decentralised energy in the UK. (If only John Lydon was a greenie) It is crucial you download the full report on distributed energy, I wish I had seen this a year ago.

Mmmmm, inflatable buildings.

Imagine a series of canals, with solar racing hydroplanes shooting passengers through them. Very cool.