Urban Land Project Transforms Commercial to Green Space
October 14, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Steph in Art & Design & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
In places where glimpses of greenery are typically limited to flowerpots and tufts of weeds sprouting up in sidewalk cracks, scenes of nature bloom in vivid color: mossy stones, subterranean pools, woodland paths and lush forest floors. Photographer Tim Simmons reminds city residents of all that lay beyond the concrete jungle in his billboard series, The Urban Land Project.
Blown up to a grand scale, Simmons’ images of pristine nature scenes are juxtaposed against the gritty surfaces of urban L.A. and Philadelphia.
But these scenes are not just a tease at beautiful, relaxing natural places unavailable to the people who may spend nearly all of their time in the city. They depict close-ups of the nature that can be found right there within the urban environment – by those who will just look.
“From the outset I have tried to produce work that captures the feeling of a place, and expresses the memory of that feeling. That is what I am trying to communicate to others.”
“This project is meant to stimulate awareness. These images against these backdrops accentuate the tension between the human and natural worlds.”
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Salty Power: Renewable Tidal Energy From Floating Platforms?
September 21, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design & Energy & Fuel & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
Solar and wind power are commonly looked to when we mention renewable energy, but there are plenty of other sources of renewable energy that has not yet been explored to its full potential. Deep sea currents are a natural force that is just ripe for the harnessing, and Italian designer Marco Paolucci thinks he has worked out a way to make good use of these powerful natural waves.
The S2S Project would place sustainable energy generators on the sea bed to harness the massive perpetual power of ocean tides and turn that power into clean, renewable electricity. Paolucci estimates that each generator could produce one megawatt of electricity.
The perpetual motion of tidal currents could provide enough energy to dramatically reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. For all of their power, tidal currents haven’t been harnessed anywhere near their full potential. Sea-bound generators and floating control platforms could give the world a healthy boost toward weaning off of non-renewable oil and gasoline.
In Paolucci’s vision, the platforms will be outfitted with touch-screen control panels. The stations will not only be able to provide large amounts of clean, renewable energy – they will also be able to filter and desalinate sea water.
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The Great Outdoors: Office Space Goes Green and Open-Air
August 24, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design & Home & Garden & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
When you work at a desk, the nine-to-five workday can seem like an eternity – even if you like your job. An outdoor installation in downtown Denver uses fabulous living greenery to remind office drones that we all need to get out of the cubicle and into nature once in a while. The installation, put together by Tres Birds Workshop, was part irreverent, playful art and part serious commentary on our increasingly sheltered (as in: lived out within the walls of our homes and offices) lives.
(all images via: Tres Birds Workshop)
Using recycled office furniture and real living greenery, Tres Birds Set up five workplace-themed installations in the 16th Street Mall area of Denver’s business district. A conference room, a cubicle, a break room, a filing cabinet and an executive office line the outdoor space and entice pedestrians to stop and interact with them.
The charming bits of furniture all covered over with growing vines, leaves and various other green plants look like they must have been there for years. Indeed, it was the intention of Tres Birds to make the installation look as if nature had reclaimed the entire area. They call the project “Natural Systems Domination,” a reference to the ability of nature to completely take over and dominate everything if we only step aside and allow it to happen.
The green spirit of the installation carried far past its concept. The live vegetation was recycled into the neighborhood following its display, and all of the office furniture was re-donated to secondhand stores in the area. Nothing went to waste, which is just how this green-minded collective likes it.
Overall, the message of this fun but poignant installation is that we can all find a bit of time to step away from the desk each day. Nature is out there waiting to be enjoyed: it’s healthy, free relaxation. And who couldn’t use that in the middle of a busy workday?
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Naturayarte: Nature and Art Meet in Delicate Cut Leaves
August 3, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design & Home & Garden & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
Natural materials are often the most striking in art. Their irregular organic shapes and delicate lines are as breathtaking as any image dreamed up by an artist. These impressive leaf cuttings by Spanish artist Lorenzo Duran combine the best of organic shapes and precise human-made cuts.
(all images via: Designboom)
Duran uses a technique similar to that used all around the world in traditional paper cutting art. The self-taught artist uses his amazing skill to create these small masterpieces which he uses to support himself and his family.
After studying the paper cutting techniques used in Asia and Europe, Duran figured that he should be able to apply the same techniques to leaves. He began experimenting with this unusual medium, making note of which types of leaves provided the best canvas and which resulted in the most precise cuts.
Lorenzo Duran calls his craft Naturayarte, and he is kind enough to share his process on his website. After selecting, washing and drying the leaves, he places them into a press. While they are being pressed, he sketches out a one-of-a-kind drawing for each leaf.
Duran then tapes the drawings to the freshly pressed leaves and uses the drawings as templates for his intricate cuttings. Removing the drawing from the leaf is the trickiest part of the process since the leaves are extremely delicate and prone to ripping. Entire days of work can be lost in an instant if Duran attempts to hurry this part of the creation.
Each drawing – and therefore each cutting – is entirely unique. In keeping with the independent artisan vibe of his work, Duran doesn’t set prices for his completed works – he lets the buyers of his art decide what they are worth.
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The Gates of Hell: Forever-Burning Crater of Poison
June 29, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Energy & Fuel & Geography & Travel & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
Turkmenistan is known for its offbeat tourist attractions, but one of the most unusual is the hole in the ground known as The Gates of Hell. The hole, an impressive 230 feet across, is filled with leaping flames that have been lighting up the area for 40 years.
Those looking for supernatural meanings could certainly come up with many to describe this surreal site. The actual origin of this oddity, however, is far more mundane. In 1971, a group of geologists drilling in the Darvaza area accidentally punched through the rock to a deposit of natural gas. The ground crumbled and fell away beneath the drilling equipment.
Since methane is considered dangerous when released into the atmosphere, the geologists decided to light the hole on fire and burn the methane off. They clearly expected it to be a simple, short-lived fire that would burn itself out within days. It was anything but simple.
Now, four decades later, the fire burns on. Looking into the pit, it is easy to understand how it got its name. It almost feels like stepping into this fiery abyss will take you directly to the devil’s lair. The massive deposits of methane below the entire field simply continue burning while curious travelers often make their way to the dangerous location with the sole purpose of peering into the bizarre burning hole.
In 2010 the Turkmenistan government decided that something should be done about the crater. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered the hole covered up and the other gas deposits in the area explored for their mining viability. As of press time more than a year later, the crater continues to burn 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
(top image via Wikipedia – all other images via Atlas Obscura)
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Stunning St. Petersburg Zoo Inspired by Pangaea
April 29, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Steph in Animals & Habitats & Art & Design & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
Imagine experiencing the richly varied ecology of every major continent in the world – all in a single zoo. A new proposal by architecture firms TN Plus and Beckmann N’Thépé aims to recreate Pangaea, the supercontinent that existed on Earth 250 million years ago, in a sprawling man-made development outside urban St. Petersburg, Russia.
With St. Petersburg’s current zoo, the historic Leningrad, beginning to show its age and grow outside its limited space, the city has set its sights on developing a 1.15-square-mile parcel of land where the animals will have much more room to live in a more natural setting. Relocating the zoo will also open up much-needed space in the city for residents and businesses.
Designed as an archipelago on land with plentiful water sources, the new zoo will place each continent on an island, connected to the others with walkways and, in the case of North America and Eurasia, a recreation of Arctic ice. Each island will feature animal exhibits and preserves native to the continent it represents. The designers are aiming for a balance between artifice and nature, prioritizing the needs of the animals but also offering an enriching experience for visitors. The designers have not, however, revealed any plans for sustainably maintaining these artificial environments so far outside their natural climactic range.
“The zoo as sphere is seen as a metaphor for the history of humanity, the deep connection between man and his environment and the link between self and other. It makes this coexistence possible by demonstrating the idea that it is possible to produce an ideal world that can easily translate to the real world. The spheres determine the variable boundaries of our living space, whether it has the intimacy of a bubble or the cosmopolitan immensity of a globe.”
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Nature’s Schedules: How Animals Really Spend Their Time
April 24, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Animals & Habitats & Art & Design & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
Animals in the wild lead busy, busy lives. They have so much to do that it is frankly amazing that we see them without little day planners or digital organizers. As a public service, these are the facts that animals can’t tell you themselves: how they really spend their days.
Elephants, as we all know, find it almost impossible to forget anything. But surprisingly, they do not devote much time each day to retaining memories. Most of their days, as it turns out, are spent eating. It takes a lot of time to find enough peanuts to fill up those big tummies.
Contrary to popular belief, jellyfish do not spend all day plotting to ruin your trip to the beach. In fact, the vast majority of their days are spent just lazily floating in the water and waiting for food to come to them.
Spiders aren’t the conniving monsters some people think they are – but nor are they unpaid advertisers of the virtues of farm pigs. Their days are spent mostly resting, though the chart does not differentiate between innocent rest time and rest time used to lure unsuspecting flies into traps.
Of course, not every animal’s schedule hides a surprise. Pandas, quite predictably, spend every moment of every day being adorable. Now that is sound scientific information. (Totally accurate pie charts via Jeff Wysaski and Pleated Jeans)
Breathe Easy: Building Concept Cleanses Dirty City Air
April 20, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design & Nature & Ecosystems & Science & Research. ]
What if, instead of trying to remove all of the things that poison our environment, we built an infrastructure that uses these poisons as fuel to build a better world? That is the idea behind Bubble Wrap, a concept from Andrew Tetrault and Ben Lee for the purification of New York City’s air. An active, living infrastructure would take the very things we hate about city life – the pollution and poor air quality – and turn them into a vibrant, sustainable public space.
Bubble Wrap was designed specifically for New York City, a metropolis known both for its pollution problem and its rich culture. This futuristic project would mesh both in a surprisingly sophisticated way. Densely planted “bubbles” would be linked together and used as a unique type of building material to create living public spaces.
The plants inside the bubbles would take in polluted air and scrub it clean, releasing it again at ground level. Air from the subway exhaust system and from street level is drawn in to be purified and cleansed, making the “pods” into a large-scale air purifier.
The space inside the bubble structure would become a new venue for cultural and neighborhood events. Imagine a farmer’s market in the freshly-cleansed air inside this bubble building – or an open-air festival where everyone can breathe with no worries about pollution.
The designers call this idea a “parasite” that feeds on the excess energy and pollution of the city. Perhaps the relationship between the concept and the city could be seen instead as a symbiotic one: the conceptual building is “fed” by our lifestyle and the city receives a beautiful, living, breathing public space in which to enjoy and experience life.
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Butting In: Portrait Made of Over 20K Used Cigarette Butts
March 27, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design & Nature & Ecosystems & Tricks & Hacks. ]
Cigarette butts litter the streets of most cities and towns, creating an environmental burden that could easily be avoided. Swiss street artist Jinks Kunst has come up with a great way to use these omnipresent pieces of rubbish to immortalize one of the most influential popular music artists in the world.
(image via: Oddity Central)
Kunst is known as a graffiti and stencil artist, but he adopted a new medium in order to create this portrait of French musician Serge Gainsbourg. Kunst is a big fan of the singer, so he spent three years collecting used cigarette filters to create this amazing – and kind of disgusting – portrait of Gainsbourg.
(image via: Jinks Kunst)
Overall, there are 20,394 cigarette filters making up the legendary singer’s face. He was famously fond of smoking and drinking, making the choice of unusual medium completely logical. But besides fitting the subject, the medium is an ingenious way to clean up the streets in a small way. A cigarette butt portrait would be perfect for an environmentally-themed piece of art.
(image via: Oddity Central)
The portrait was created to mark the 20th anniversary of Gainsbourg’s death. It’s just one of a complete exhibit of unusual depictions of one of France’s greatest musical treasures. Jinks Kunst’s creation and a whole series of previously-unpublished photos of Gainsbourg are being displayed in Nantes.
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Tentacles of Terror: Trash Monster Attacks Slovenian Town
March 6, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design, Nature & Ecosystems, News & Politics. ]
If our consumerism were a living, breathing creature, what would it look like? A group of environmentalists in Slovenia picture our growing consumerist culture as a scary monster with tentacles that reach out to envelop the world. This giant sculpture in the town of Ljubljana represents the waste problems and consumerism that threaten to overtake the planet.
The group collected more than 40,000 plastic bags and 7,500 used plastic cups from all over the town. Collecting from individuals, kindergartens, primary schools, high schools, school faculty and even picking up trash from the street, the environmentalists amassed this huge collection and then set to work turning it into the scary (yet sort of adorable) face of consumerism.
The waste monster’s shape soon took form and its tentacles began to spread all throughout the town. Its message is clear: the curse of our modern culture is the mounds of garbage we leave behind. If we are not vigilant, the waste will continue to multiply and overtake the world.
The monster feeds on laziness and environmental irresponsibility, growing and continuously stretching its tentacles ever further. The sculpture is called The Tackle of the Tentacle and it is the work of The Miha Artnak.
According to the group, the monster has grown acclimated to its environment and that makes it even more dangerous. It continues to thrive and will eventually replace humans in the food chain if we do not become aware of the problem and work to solve it. The monster itself may be cute, but its message is serious. The reaching, wandering tentacles are a novel and very tangible way of getting that message out to everyone in this town and beyond.
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