Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture

Energy Server Architecture At the heart of every Energy Server™ is Bloom's patented solid oxide fuel cell technology. Each Energy Server consists of thousands of Bloom's fuel cells. Each cell is a flat solid ceramic square made from a common sand-like "powder." Each Bloom Energy fuel cell is capable of producing about 25W... enough to power a light bulb. For more power, the cells are sandwiched, along with metal interconnect plates into a fuel cell "stack". Milan's Vertical Forest Wednesday, 12 October 2011 GreenMuze Staff Milan’s Vertical Forest from Stefan Boeri Architects. The Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) will be the greenest building in Milan when completed, which is one of Europe’s most polluted cities. Designed by Stefan Boeri Architects, as part of their BioMilano vision to incorporate 60 abandoned farms into a greenbelt surrounding the city. The Bosco Verticale building has a green façade planted with dense forest systems to provide a building microclimate and to filter out polluting dust particles. The living bio-canopy also absorbs CO2, oxygenates the air, moderates extreme temperatures and lowers noise pollution, providing aesthetic beauty and lowering living costs.

The hidden beauty of pollination: Louie Schwartzberg on TED Live from TED2014 Mysteries of the unseen world: Louie Schwartzberg at TED2014 Louie Schwartzberg is fascinated with exposing the world’s wonders through photography. Three years ago, his talk, “Nature. Beauty. Biomimicry and e-Readers - Spark - CBC Player Jan 19, 2014 | 12:07Spark Net Neutrality Audio Spark Net Neutrality Jan 19, 2014 | 12:07Could your ISP intentionally slow down Netflix or throttle your Skype calls in order to make their own services more appealing? Stanford law professor Barbara van Shewick explains recent U.S. Net Neutrality news, and what it could mean for Canadians.

Earthscrapers: Is Going Down Instead Of Up A Greener Way To Build? Evolo/via Every year, TreeHugger and all the architectural websites troll through the Evolo competition entries, looking for the most imaginative work from young architects with time on their hands. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder at the creativity and drawing skills. In 2010, I did not pay a lot of attention to Bunker Arquitectura's proposal for Earthscraper, an upside down pyramid in downtown Mexico City. Ultra Modern and Luxurious Thailand Architecture Building Ole Scheeren September 10, 2009 by newhouseofart This is great modern architecture building pictures from Mahanakhon Ole Scheeren, OMA Thailand. All people always say that this is best architectural design. May be you can find and get inspiration to make your modern house design ideas. Ole Scheeren, OMA’s associate and development leader of the newly completed CCTV tower in Beijing, measured one of the majority imaginative achievements of the modern architecture world.

Dror Designs...an Island If this comes to fruition, this may be the sweetest, or at least largest-scale design gig we've ever heard of: Dror Benshetrit designs an island for 300,000 inhabitants. Not just the structures they'll live in, but the entire island. The Canal Istanbul project is the current Turkish Prime Minister's plan to bisect Istanbul on the European side, connecting the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. Twisted Architecture I didn’t set out to tie knots in Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower or wrinkle his Gherkin, but I got carried away. It’s one of the occupational hazards of working with Mathematica. It started with an innocent experiment in lofting, a technique also known as “skinning” that originated in boat-building. I wanted to explore some three-dimensional forms, and a basic lofting function seemed like a quick ticket to results. I dashed off the function Loft, which takes a stack of three-dimensional contours and covers it with a skin of polygons.