planetarium, colombo (#45)

Planetarium, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Architect: Pani tennakoon
Structural Engineer: Dr. Kulasinghe
Photos: JD

sahara forest project moves from concept to reality

Image from www.treehugger.com 

How can large-scale revegetation through profitable production of food, freshwater, biomass and electricity be achieved?
 The team behind the Sahara Forest Project has developed a combination of proven technologies that bring along highly beneficial synergies, allowing for commercial viability. Core values of the Sahara Forest Project are illustrated through the input and output of the system. 
The Sahara Forest Project uses abundant resources like arid land, sunlight and seawater to produce key resources that are in high demand. Exiting new technologies and a new mindset when it comes to creation of valuable products will not help without capacity to turn vision into reality. The partners of the Sahara Forest Project will realize a Demonstration Centre as the first step towards a large-scale roll-out of the Sahara Forest Project.

Read about Sahara Revegitation Project
Read more at tree hugger.com

Earlier attempts at vegetating sahara @ edible geography

Image from www.ediblegeography.com

Magnus Larsson, a student at the AA lay down his vision for vegetating and inhabiting arid land.
Read his blog 

Image from Magnus Larsson Dune: Arenaceous Anti-Desertification Architecture

jane jacobs and the death and life of american planning

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
— T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

During a recent retreat here at Chapel Hill, planning faculty conducted a brainstorming session in which each professor — including me — was asked to list, anonymously, some of the major issues and concerns facing the profession today. These lists were then collected and transcribed on the whiteboard. All the expected themes were there — sustainability and global warming, equity and justice, peak oil, immigration, urban sprawl and public health, retrofitting suburbia, and so on. But also on the board appeared, like a sacrilegious graffito, the words "Trivial Profession." [1] When we voted to rank the listed items in order of importance, "Trivial Profession" was placed — lo and behold — close to the top. This surprised and alarmed a number of us. Here were members of one of the finest planning faculties in America, at one of the most respected programs in the world, suggesting that their chosen field was minor and irrelevant.
more 
via design observer

prof. harsha munasinghe on sustaining urban scapes

Sustaining Urbanscapes from Young Asia Television on Vimeo.

'the wall house': anupama kundoo

Located in Auroville, India the residence is designed by award winning architect, researcher and writer Anupama Kundoo. Kundoo has presented her work and shared her insight in to low cost housing in India at SLIA sessions 2011.

More info
Anupama Kundoo

bob marley died 30 years ago today

b m

TED TALK: michael pawlyn: using nature’s genius in architecture

How can architects build a new world of sustainable beauty? By learning from nature. At TEDSalon in London, Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing energy from the sun.

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TED TALKS: radical look at sustainable architecture