1. You could get rid of your neighbour once and for all by melting their house with your solar panel windows

2. Create the cheapest outdoor festival EVER!!! by using a wind farm to create strobe lighting

3. Save up your compost heap and ask someone in the heavens to ensure it lights up (ok so it might combust- which is slightly different) every summers evening, for a good old BBQ

4. For a short period of the year, the new LED lightbulbs will give all of us the chance to a) put our foot down on the peddle and get out of the cold quicker without being stopped by the police or caught for driving through the red lights (I never said any of this was safe or moral) and b) use the money we would have spent on traffic fines to buy a special someone something extra special for Christmas

Ok so maybe these ideas are ridiculous, but the article by Heather Farris and Nick Masercola highlight some of the potential dangerous and harmful flaws with new green tech, but rather than rant about, let’s invite some techies, engineers and scientists to develop a better solution and if that doesn’t work we should get the builder to enforce proper construction design management solutions, so that I don’t have the chance to melt my neighbours home- because actually I quite like them.

visualoop:

Via

(via humanscalecities)

I wonder if this will set a precedence? Anyone know of any case studies where deprived communities have demanded access to renewable energy?

thisbigcity:

Shared space roads, where cars, cyclists and pedestrians are expected to mix, have received criticism for being unsafe for the visually impaired. Will this textured surface on London’s first shared space road help? More on This Big City.

共享空間道路讓汽車、單車與行人共用同一條道路，但受人批評對視障者不方便，增設路面刻紋後，對英國倫敦第一條此類道路會有幫助嗎？全文請見《城事》。

Well I think this will go down swell!!!

There are more of these shared space roads (in small portions) e.g Peckham High Street and on Walworth Road which were once known for the speedy traffic, but now crossing in these areas has become a lot easier. As they are being rolled out across London in small doses, more users (peds, cycl, drivers), especially drivers will get used to it,  so I’m confident that it can work on a larger scale…although I still think there will be issues for disabled users- I wonder if there are any promotional / training support for the visually impaired using these new street designs?

Look forward to the update.

(Source: thisbigcity)

GOOD FOOD FOR GOOD PLANNING

Great introduction to the relationship between planning and food. I used this in conjunction with the new London plan in a recent essay and its really useful. At the moment food and spatial planning is not really built into my course, but its discussed in terms of sustainability, urban design and the contribution of planning to other fields.

Its inspired me enough to get in touch with Sustain and I’m currently doing some research on some case studies to update this document…wooo-ooo!!

WILL BIRMINGHAM CLEAN UP?

Birmingham currently asks its residents to put black bags full of rubbish, including food waste, out on the streets every week with recycling in open boxes collected every 2 weeks.

On most streets around the city, this means that by the time the lorries arrive to collect the stuff we put out, bags have been ripped open by rats, birds, foxes or cats and on windy days (like recently) the recycling is blowing all over the street. http://www.karmadillo.co.uk/b31/?p=5725

The second biggest city in the UK could challenge rubbish collection and recycling practices nationally but is the will of change there? or could we see the introduction of more standardised approaches set elsewhere?

I will be following this one…. update to follow later

Im currently researching  the challenges that planners in London face around building and supporting sustainable food resources and so this article by Kendra Pierre-Louis is particularly interesting to me at the moment.

In this article she talks about how marketing organisations and food producers are now targeting LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) with organic food which is not necessarily healthy and although organically produced is not necessarily sustainable . She identifies this as chocolate made from ‘organic coco’ and coconut water, both very popular with organic foodies .

As a Londoner from an ethnic minority group, a point within the article that really struck me was on the question of Western demand for quinoa

Personally I am not into this or is it a native food source of my parents, but to date with my research, I have found that many writers currently support the local independent shops and produce found in many inner city deprived neighborhoods as a good example of local access to healthy foods, supermarket rivalry and a more sustainable source. However, while I dont doubt that some of the carrots, potatoes and peas are healthy and maybe locally sourced , what about the Yam, plantain and casava? While these are healthy foods, these are not local in anyway, and if they are given our climate they are not organic.

So my questions around sustainable food and the potential of planning is:

1. In a globalised locality how do you grow organically and encourage better use of local traditional foods in a community where local is segregated, culturalized and sometimes feels entirely foreign?
2. While evidence of community growing and local farmers market is evident throughout the UK, what is being done to challenge less sustainable but organically produced foods that arrive by Air to UK supermarkets international isles and local shops?
3. Is there an educational gap on the ‘organic truth’ and are planners ready to challenge sections of the community on the less sustainable food choices?

ON THE MOVE IN HCMC, VIETNAM

BOTTLE SCHOOLS

The project by Hug it Forward is innovative way of building. I have seen innovative stuff like this here in the UK via the ‘grand design’ type projects. It would be great if there was much more of this. I think if there was more of this, particularly in future housebuilding or community building would definitely demonstrate the UK’s innovativeness and willingness to tackle climate change and environmental landfill sites. However other considerations would need to be consider such as their impact on the people using them in terms of climate and durability of such a build.

At a time like this where there is very little money floating around, I think that this would be a great idea to develop and execute in more developing countries, particularly by cash strapped charities. From my experience in India, where building extra classrooms etc, this was not a technique which was even considered, despite the fact that most of the material (rubbish) was right there and free.

Anyway to read more see:

http://hugitforward.org/