klikin20′s blog

Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, the Urban structure Framework Plan, is designed to help Abu Dhabi filter and respond to current and future development needs, establish a planning culture and introduced strong guiding principles for new development.  Everything we have covered in this Urban Design Course so far can be seen in plans for Abu Dhabi 2030.  Issues include transportation, parking, alternative transportations and mass transit, green building and construction, pedestrian traffic, ferry traffic, Energy and Efficiency.  The UPC also works closely with other municipal heads such as the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD), Abu Dhabi Municipality and Masdar City Officials.

All of this is being implemented on the basis that the cities population will increase 3 forld over the next 20 years.  Being carefull not to “Sprawl”  The UPC is working with architects and planners to ensure the fluid transition to the future with an ideal dense urban fabric that can accomodate the population growth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=humt5nlBa-U

Cities all over the world are beginning to take a sustainable responsiblility and this is is not a trend, rather it seems to be imperative as the name indicates.  On a more local scale we can see programs and organizations that perhaps we are more familliar with.  Most of us have heard of things like Leed, Ashrae, and Southface.  The next case study will be focusing on the city of Atlantas Green initiatives.  There are a couple of organizations working in Atlanta currently to begin to implement sustainable ordinances into building codes that are adaptable to Leed Standards.  The primary organization is Southface.  Although SouthFace is not a government organization they are workin very closely with local jurisdiction and town hall officials.

Mayor Shirley Franklin has made a commitment to transform the City of Atlanta into a world-class leader in sustainability. By the year 2030, she is dedicated to achieving zero net carbon emissions from buildings in the city.

Oscillating temperature and weather patterns in the south east Pacific ocean have a direct impact on weather patterns in the entire rest of the world.  Fisherman in the 16th Century noticed how the weather was effected by the Southern Oscillation but it wasnt scientifically documented until the 1920′s.  Scientist called the wet cycle El Nino and the dry cycle La Nina.  The cycle turns around historically about every 7 to 10 years.  The temperature of the oceon surface temperature normally would stay on an average high which would create weather patterns of more rain in areas like Australia and Latin America,  When the ocean surface in the Southeast Pacific cooled then the weather patterns would show drought conditions in the Rainforrests throughout Latin America and Africa.

 Since the 1970′s the cycle of the Southern Oscilation has indreased to every 4 to 5 years as opposed to every 7 to 10.  This has caused more violent hurricanes, stronger storms, and has increased the frequency of flooding and drought.  Scientist beleive that the increases water temperatures due to global warming are responsible for the increase in the El Nino Effects. 

The sisutation is also putting the worlds Glaciers at risk. As the temperature across the globe and the surface of the oceans icrease so to does the temperature at the worlds highest elevations and the cycle of melting begins.  The melting cycle is triggered but not sustained by the temperature increase.  Basically that means that the melting snow washes itself of itself and so once the moisture is introduced to the dry ice, then the water leeches through the ice until it reaches the earth creating an irreversible melting cycle.

There are places all over the world that will be affected by glacial melting, especially in Tibet and South America.  For a lot of villages the Glacier is the only source of fresh water so it is imperitive that we find new methods of distributing fresh water to these desparate regions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfTZJySZmr0

The name Rizhao comes from an ancient poem “ri qu shien zhao” which means ‘first to get susnshine’.  The city is located on the east coast in China’s Donggang district.  The city is consistently rated in the top 10 every year for air quality in China. 

More than 2.8 million residents enjoy that early sunshine (even if Gisborne in New Zealand is actually the first to see the sun in the morning) as well as a gentle sea breeze.  Rizhao is among only 4 cities in the world that have committed to becomming completely carbon-neutral.  Rizhao’s motivation for this feat is to embrace the transition to a green economy.  A series of new skyscrapers along its waterfront will utilize the suns energy to completely fuel the buildings.  Nearly 100 percent of them take advantage of Rizhao’s 260 days of sunshine to heat water for bathing—and 30 percent of those going up in surrounding suburbs and villages also make use of the technology.

In 2004 the local Rizhao Jurisdiction mandated that solar whater heaters be used in all new construction and now it is requiared that they are installed on all existing buildings.  The city is also taking advantage of other technologies such as solar voltaics and wind turbines.  Rizhou faces a couple of challenges with becoming carbon-neutral which means that that the carbon that is produced in the city is offset by a balance of carbon that is eliminated.  Rizhao is a large tourist destination and also a port city these two things contribute to the difficulty because even if poplar trees are planted along all the roadways in Rizhao it still will not be enough to compensate for the gasoline that is burnt from vehicles coming in from rural areas.  Also, the city cannot do much about the ships that carry seafood cargo to japan and neighboring islands — the boats don’t belong to them.  Aside from those two concerns the city has fully pledged to become 100% carbon neutral although there is not a timeline.

Other cities like Gothenburg Sweeden are Looking towards a sustainable future as well implementing all of the green technologies.  The new plan for the city wide redevelopment by KKA Architects envisions the city as becoming an “Ecotopia”.

By 2020 Gothenburg will be growing at a rate of 8000 new inhabitants per year.  Typically this type of expansion takes place in the form of urban sprawl but KKA is adressing this issue by creating a dense urban center in which more people can live efficiently within a structure of less material than that which would be used in a sprawl.

The plan calls for energy efficient apartments which all have green roofs for use of food production to ensure that all food is locally grown.  Also atop the rooftops onlookers will observe solar panels as well as small scale wind turbines.

Transportation has also been adressed.  The plan calls also for a  personal rapic transportation system that will double as a canopy for bike traffic,  keeping cyclists out of the weather will make their commute more appealing and the two options for transportation provide for a zero emmissions commute for all residents of Gothenburg.

Bio Mass is basically any non-fossil organic matter that can be used for energy use by combustion.  A simple Bon-Fire is a Bio Mass Energy system that produces heat.  There are a couple of ways in which biomass energy can be sequestered:

1.)  Solid Combustion –  What most people think of as garbage can be used as fuel for power stations.  By diverting waste from the landfil, or gathering waste from the landfill, power stations can burn the organic matter that created from construction waste and household waste to boil water that creates the steam to turn turbines. 

2.)  Gas Combustion — Methane Gas that is created from decomposition of organic matter, especially manure, it can be harvested.  Landfill Gas is extracted from the decomposition within landfills.  The methane from a cattle or chicken farm can be collected from the manure that is produced to create enough energy to independently run the farm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd00hST49Ec

Bio Mass is not a C02 neutral system by itself, it has to have our help.  When biomass is burned it still creates carbon emissions just like anything else does.  The benefit of biomass is that the carbon that is produced is already part of the carbon cycle.  The carbon is released into the atmosphere and is absorbed by plants to create more mass.  Fossil fuels contribute more to global warming because the emmissions have been out of the cycle for millions of years and would otherwise remain out of the cycle.  Biomass emmissions will remain in the atmosphere also if we do not put forth efforts to make them renewable — they cannot do it alone.  In other words, simply replant the crops that are used for the manufacturing of the fuel.

The Solaire Building is a Leed Silver Certified Residential building located in Battery Park in New York City 

This residential project includes 380 apartments and incorporates numerous sustainable design features including:

• dedicated fresh air supplied to every residence, with air filtration to remove 85% of particulate matter
• central humidification system to maintain a minimum 30% relative humidity during the heating season
• use of building materials and finishes free of harmful off-gassing and low in VOCs
• ongoing air quality testing after completion; water recycling system to treat and reuse building waste water supply toilets and cooling towers (recycled water used for make-up)
• storm water collection and reuse for drip irrigation systems
• central water filtration system; use of materials containing high recycled content, wood materials from certified forests, and/or use of materials from rapidly renewable natural resources
• a large percentage of building materials originating from within 500 miles of the building site
• highly insulating and air-tight exterior wall system; spectrally selective, low-e glass, which reduces solar heat gain while retaining a high visible transmittance 
• air-tight casement windows
• “Green” planted roofs
• high efficiency lighting throughout the common areas of the building
• occupancy sensor-controlled public area lighting, including stairs, corridors, storage rooms, offices, public toilets and garage
• daylight dimming system in the public lobby
• high-efficiency fluorescent lighting in apartments where appropriate (entries, bathrooms, kitchens)
• master switch to turn off switched-lighting in the entire apartment except bathrooms; Building Management System (BMS), including wetbulb temperature reset for cooling tower
• programmable thermostats to control all apartment heating and air conditioning; gas-fired double effect, absorption chiller heater 
• condensing boiler for domestic hot water, with high combustion efficiency
• variable speed drives on the secondary water pumps, and on cooling tower fans
• exhaust fan modulation in garage based on CO sensors
• premium high efficiency motors
• ENERGY STAR-labeled appliances throughout the building
• photovoltaic panels that generate 5% of peak electricity for the core-and-shell building components

solaire skyline

 the solaire.com

 Located at 737 Milwood Avenue and designed by Patrick Tighe this Home contrasts greatly in scale to the Solaire Building in New York but besides the size the two buildings ar actually quite similar.  Both incorporate the use of water reuse and solar design in order to maintain sustainable systems

• An expansive green roof;
• On-site, solar photovoltaic array;
• Smart home energy management system;
• WaterSense plumbing by Kohler;
• Non-toxic glues, solvents, and paints;
• Energy-efficient Lennox HVAC system;
• Energy-efficient windows;
• UltraTouch denim insulation; and
• A green, natural lap pool;

View of Roof

Conservation Pool

737conserve.com

Park(ing) in Park Slope, Brooklyn, May 6, 2006. The sign says, “Public space reclamation in progress.”

 The first Parking Squat was in1935 in Oklahoma City according to Aaron Naparstek at sf.streetblog.org.  This photo was taken on International Parking Day on September 21, the day when urban dwellers all around the world reclaim on-street parking spaces for purposes more creative and life-affirming than private motor vehicle storage. 

I think it really is time to take back our green spaces and start walking barefoot through the grass to get to our destinations.  Well, maybe that’s not feesible, but what certainly is is that we have too many cars as it is now and too much asphalt.  What if every crowded Wal-Mart Parking spot was turned into a beatiful park with fountains and trees?  Actually, this isn’t too far fetched in this era when all trains are run on electricity and we have a pressing need for less cars.  Be prepared to see more blending of commercial and transport spaces. 

Cock Pit of Deutche Bahn Bullit Train Cockpit

Deutsche Bahn AG railways carry more than 1.8 billion
passengers per year throughout Germany and neighboring
countries. Deutsche Bahn is also responsible for moving
78 billion tons of freight annually.  It’s a wonder why more people aren’t using trains.  The Company Deutsche Bahn is building their German engineered high speed rail systems in countries all over Eastern Hemisphere.  The video below called “German Made”  shows a man going to Tapei, Taiwan to train engineers working at a new train station.  I think America is still behind on this new technology because there are still too many Auto Makers in Washington D.C. instead of Detroit where they need to be.  Anyhow, there’s a lot of potential for a modern trainstation.  The film mentions how the commuters are usually commuting to go to shops or to go to dinner anyways and the train stations should be setup to deliver people directly to these sorts of hubs.  The photo below is a very beautiful one but remains an example of what not to do.  If the site and the budget and the clients of these sorts of projects are well suited then there should definitely be more infastructure than simply a train platform.

Are You Hungry?

The population of the world is nearing 7 billion people and half of them live in cities.  That means that just to stay alive by keeping fed we are trucking food from farms for miles in order to proccess and  distribute the nourishment that we all take for granted.  The transportation costs and the carbon that is created are both problems with the current set up. 

What if “eating local” in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Dr. Despommier’s pet project is the “vertical farm,” a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.

The idea, which has captured the imagination of several architects in the United States and Europe in the past several years, just caught the eye of another big city dreamer: Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.

When Mr. Stringer heard about the concept in June, he said he immediately pictured a “food farm” addition to the New York City skyline. “Obviously we don’t have vast amounts of vacant land,” he said in a phone interview. “But the sky is the limit in Manhattan.” Mr. Stringer’s office is “sketching out what it would take to pilot a vertical farm,” and plans to pitch a feasibility study to the mayor’s office within the next couple of months, he said.

“I think we can really do this,” he added. “We could get the funding.”

Dr. Despommier estimates that it would cost $20 million to $30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000 people. “I’m viewed as kind of an outlier because it’s kind of a crazy idea,” Dr. Despommier, 68, said with a chuckle. “You’d think these are mythological creatures.”

-nytimes.com

There are many pros to the idea of vertical farming.   1.)  It is easier to control pests.  1.)  All Food is Locally Grown.  3.)  No diseases spread by livestock.  4.)  Eliminating transport (fresher lettuce).  5.)  Ability for artificial lighting making them about 3 times as efficient because food is able to grow at night.

I can only think of one con to the idea and that would be that the food would not be grown under a natural proccess — it would not be organic.  The proposed vertical tower in Dubai adresses this issue by creating a series of pads that offshoot from a main core.  The pads are greenhouses that radiate from the core in different directions allowing for natural light to feed all plants from above.

Studio Mobile Architects

It has taken between 50-300 million to form, and yet we have managed to burn roughly half of all global oil reserves in merely 125 years or so.The world now consumes 85 million barrels of oil per day, or 40,000 gallons per second, and demand is growing exponentially.

Oil production in 33 out of 48 out countries has now peaked, including Kuwait, Russia and Mexico. Global oil production is now also approaching an all time peak and can potentially end our Industrial Civilization. The most distinguished and prominent geologists, oil industry experts, energy analysts and organizations all agree that big trouble is brewing.

www.oildecline.com

The rate at which oil producers can extract oil is now reaching the maximum level possible.  In some places it has already occurred.  Once peak production has occurred oil consumption must begin a permanent and irreversible decline.  Scientists and Geologists agree that 95% of the Earth’s recoverable oil has been found.  This does not mean that it has been found and extracted but it means that we now have within reason, a specific amount of oil left on the planet and that we can begin to compute how long it will last. 

It seems that we have already began to use our extracted “reserve” of oil already due to the peak.  Perhaps this is because there is a war in the middle east and because we havn’t tapped into new rescourses.  Maybe it is because since 1981 we have consumed oil faster than we have found it!  To date we have used 1/2 of the worlds total reserve of about 2.5 trillion barrels.

Now we are begining to see new websites and information devoted to “debunking” peak oil.  They say that is part of the liberal agenda to get us off oil and that in the United States we are hisitant to begin drilling.  Well, I think it has nothing to do with liberal verses conservative because by definition I think that conservatives would want to use less oil, wouldn’t they?  The point is that we are at war for this oil and its bad for the  environment so I don’t see why either the liberal or conservative agenda would want to see us continue on this track unless there was some initiative by the military industrial complex which Eisenhower warned us of.

Peak Oil Cartoon

My name is Kevin Likins.  I came to Savannah in the summer of 2003.  The time has flown even though I’ve been in college for 6 years now it still seems like I learn something new about Savannah every day.  Before I left my home town in Kentucky I mostly worked manufacturing jobs on assembly lines and helped my father with carpentry work on our house.  When I came to Savannah my first priority wasn’t school but it was to get a job!  After a few temporary positions I finally started work at LMI Aerospace, a sheet metal provider for Gulfstream, as well as other aircraft manufacturers in other areas.  My position was as a sheet metal mechanic and also Inventory Control.  I worked there for 3 years while I went to Armstrong Atlantic State University getting my core curriculum.  By 2006 I had transferred to SCAD and no longer worked at LMI — because if you can work a full time job and go to SCAD — YOUR CRAZY!  Now my first priority is no longer to get a job but rather to get through school.  On the upside I received a scholarship and two grants to attend SCAD, but on the other hand It’s hard to pay rent and I’ve given up driving because I can’t afford my car anymore.  At least I’ll have my education!  And at least there’s one less car onthe road!  I make a lot of sacrifices to be here and I can proudly say there is a lot of conviction in my work.  I’m looking forward to graduating so I can start making money again.  Until then, and until the reccession is over, I guess I’ll just be ridin around on my bicycle doing construction work on the weekends to keep fed.  Wish me luck!

Kevin

myspace.com/krosslikins