CLIMATE CHANGE: VIEWS FROM THE HUMANITIES
A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE
The EHI’s 2016 nearly carbon-free conference: “Climate Change: Views from the Humanities”
In this talk, EHI Director Ken Hiltner explains the rather unusual format of this year’s conference and the rationale behind it (view call for papers).
Note that this talk was recorded by Hiltner in his home using a standard computer, a Logitech C920 webcam, and the QuickTime software preinstalled on all Apple computers. No other special equipment was used. The Q&A session on this page is made possible by Wordpress.
Also view this talk at vimeo.com/153325962.
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Q & A Session
SHoP Architects has partnered with Kids of Kathmandu and Asia Friendship Network to rebuild 50 public schools in areas of Nepal that were devastated by the April 2015 earthquake. The firm has conceived two flexible prototypes that can be adapted to different site conditions and available resources. “The structures are designed to ensure easy assembly with a limited kit of parts comprised of materials readily available in the affected regions,” said the firm. The designs will also be shared online to help other groups and communities build schools without needing to pay for architectural and engineering planning. Both designs feature walls made of locally sourced earth bricks – a strategy that saves on transportation costs. In some cases, the schools will be constructed in remote areas that can only be reached by canoe. Using locally made bricks also engages the community in the building process, and ensures the buildings are better able to endure an earthquake. (source).
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CLIMATE CHANGE: VIEWS FROM THE HUMANITIES
A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE
The EHI’s 2016 nearly carbon-free conference: “Climate Change: Views from the Humanities”
In this talk, EHI Director Ken Hiltner explains the rather unusual format of this year’s conference and the rationale behind it (view call for papers).
Note that this talk was recorded by Hiltner in his home using a standard computer, a Logitech C920 webcam, and the QuickTime software preinstalled on all Apple computers. No other special equipment was used. The Q&A session on this page is made possible by Wordpress.
Also view this talk at vimeo.com/153325962.
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Q & A Session
Rising sea levels and a shortage of development sites are leading to a surge of interest in floating buildings, with proposals ranging from mass housing on London’s canals to entire amphibious cities in China. People will increasingly live and work on water, as planning policies shift away from building flood defences towards accepting that seas and rivers cannot be contained forever, say the architects behind these proposals. Adeyemi, who is founder of Dutch studio NLÉ, has already designed several aquatic buildings in coastal Africa, including a floating school for a Lagos lagoon. With over a quarter of its land mass lying below sea level, the Netherlands, where Adeyemi is based, leads the world in water management and has developed sophisticated planning policies that encourage water-based living.
“Flooding is likely to increase in frequency, severity and intensity,” Baca co-founder Richard Coutts said, “Intuitively we have been taught to hold water out rather than let it in,” he said. “The Dutch have embraced living with water as they have had no choice.” (source).
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Mineral crystals grown on thin threads form the shape of a chair in this installation by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka. He created the Spider’s Thread sculpture of a chair by suspending just seven filaments within a frame that was set in a pool of mineral solution. The solution was drawn up the threads and gradually formed into crystals around them, fleshing out into the shape of a piece of furniture. “Spider’s Thread applies the structure of natural crystals in an advanced way aiming to produce a form even closer to the natural form,” said Yoshioka. The designer says this iteration references a traditional story by Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. “The Buddha takes a thread of a spider in Heaven and lowers it down to Hell so that the criminal can climb up from Hell to Paradise,” explains Yoshioka. “In the story, the thread of a spider is a symbol of slight hope and fragility.” (source).
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Swiss designer Fabienne Felder has worked with University of Cambridge scientists Paolo Bombelli and Ross Dennis to develop a way of using plants as “biological solar panels”. The team has prototyped the world’s first moss-powered radio to illustrate the potential of its Photo Microbial Fuel Cells (Photo-MFCs). Moss was chosen because its photosynthetic process makes the plants particularly efficient at generating electricity. The radio is the first time Photo-MFCs have been used to run an object demanding more power than an LCD screen. The team has high hopes for the potential of this emergent technology. “We may assume that in five to ten years the technology is applicable in a commercially viable form,” they said. Currently the technology used in the radio can only capture about 0.1% of the electrons the mosses produce. (source).
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Estonian studio Salto Architects have completed a temporary summer theatre in Tallinn made of black spray-painted straw bales. The Straw Theatre is built on top of the former Skoone bastion. At the beginning of the 20th century, the bastion worked as a public garden, and during the Soviet era it was more or less restricted recreational area for the Soviet navy with a wooden summer theatre and a park on top. With the summer theatre having burnt down and the Soviet troops gone, for the last 20 years the bastion has remained a closed and neglected spot in the centre of town. In such a context, the Straw Theatre is an attempt to acknowledge and temporarily reactivate the location, doing all this with equally due respect to all historical layers of the site. The Straw Theatre is a unique occasion where straw has been used for a large public building and adjusted to a refined architectural form. For reinforcement purposes, the straw walls have been secured with trusses, which is a type of construction previously unused. As the building is temporary, it has not been insulated as normal straw construction would require but has been kept open to experience the raw tactile qualities of the material and accentuate the symbolic level of the life cycle of this sustainable material. (source).
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Architecture studio Kilo has pitched a traditional Moroccan camel and goat wool tent in front of Jean Nouvel‘s Institut du Monde Arabe building in Paris. The studio covered the large rectangular tent with over 650 square metres of camel and goat wool, woven into long strips by members of a female cooperative in the Sahara Desert. The texture and curving form contrasts against the smooth facade, which is patterned with geometric designs typically used in Arabic architecture and on tiles. Beneath the woollen ceiling, the museum has attempted to recreate a souk-like atmosphere where works by Moroccan designers and craftspeople are displayed and sold.
“The rhythm and scale of the tent’s silhouette renders a topographic dimension to the structure, which pays homage to the nomadic traditions of southern Morocco,” said the architects. (source).
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A delegation of UC Santa Barbara scholar-activists are in Paris for the 21st Annual United Nations Climate Summit.
See full story in the UCSB Current
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Film Screening: Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
Q&A directly after the screening with Professor David Cleveland (Environmental Studies). Tuesday, December 1 / 12 PM, McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB.
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From Mesoamerica to Colombia: The Beehive Collective on Resistance, Rivers, and Regeneration
Tuesday, November 24 / 1 PM, McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB.
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