Twenty-First Century Farming

Vertical Farm designed by Chris Jacobs and Dean Fowler 

Demand for food resources is increasing as the global population increases. Economists, agriculturists, aquaculturists are finding new ways to meet this need of increase in food production in the twenty-first Century. Over the next 40 years, U.N. predicts that global population will increase by 2.5 billion people. Among those 2.5 billion people approximately 80% of whom will live in urban cities. This poses two problems: 1) land scarcity and 2) food scarcity. Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor of microbiology at Columbia University, came up with the idea of the Vertical Farm Project, as a solution to the future pressure on land and resources and as a way of reducing the carbon footprint of our cities. His argues that “vertical farming” is legitimate due to environmental reasons. He claims that cultivating plants and animals in skyscrapers requires less energy and water, and it even produces less toxicity to the environment.

Traditional agriculture and aquaculture were both practiced unsustainably for several reasons: croplands destroying forests and natural habitats, fish farms polluting water, and long “food miles” of transporting from suburban farms to urban cities leading to carbon dioxide exhaust. Cities which heavily rely on other “food-producing” cities (such as China) are now researching on new ways to sustain themselves. Dr. Dickson Despommier and his advocates of environmentalists, scientist, and aquaculturists, claim that the solution is “vertical farming.”

“Vertical Farming” is “a concept that argues that it is economically and environmentally viable to cultivate plant or animal life within skyscrapers.” Some conceptual proposals of vertical farming that have been usually designed with integration of systems such as hydroponics and aquaponics.

Hydroponics is “a method of growing plants using mineral nutrients, in water, without soil.” This allows plants to grow in a tube, tank, anywhere--even in indoor space of high-rise buildings. This solution allows avoiding the usage of land around our cities; the old farm lands, which were reducing soil quality and unnecessarily damaging to our environment, can even return to an unspoiled ecosystem of forests and grasslands. By placing our food source right around the corner in the center of the city, we can now shorten the food miles, relieving the pollution from CO2 emission of delivery trucks and ships exhausting fumes.

However, one of the disadvantages of hydroponics is that the system recirculates the same water that filtered through the plants, which means that it requires additional nutrients in order for the plants to be full of nutrients and flavor. (Hydroponic tomatoes are claimed to have no flavor.)

This problem is solved by system called aquaponics. Aquaponics is system that combines a traditional aquaculture with hydroponics in a symbiotic environment. If run correctly, aquaponics systems can be extremely efficient, since the only major input needed is food for the fish. Their waste then provides nutrients for plants, and the plants filter out nitrates and ammonia that can harm the fish as the water returns to the tank. Only a little bit of water to account for transpiration is needed.

Because the cycle of these systems are closed loop, the orientation of farming can be vertical--the water travels down the system from the top (providing nutrients for plants) and the water on the bottom of the system is pumped back up to the top. According the Dr. Despommier, the benefit to the environment of producing food in vertical greenhouse-like farms in the heart of urban cities would be multiple. By farming in completely controlled environment allows consistency of food production--no soil borne diseases or pests, no drought, no flood. What is even better is that vertical farming allows all this optimal condition in verticality. Also, hydroponics claims that the system only uses one-twentieth of the water used in traditional farming for irrigation.

Many developers, investors, mayors, and city planners have become advocates of “vertical farming” and are looking into making it reality in the future. Time magazine wrote an article on “Vertical Farming” and have commented positively by saying this proposal can possibly feed the world. Oliver Foster, an Australian architect, currently works on a design to build the first full-scale vertical farm for about five years and is about to be built in China. The new concept of “vertical farming” provided opportunities for architectural students and competitions to conceptually visualize futuristic scenarios of the vertical farming in our cities without holding practical potential for providing food. Currently, AWR Competition “Loft London Farm Tower” is calling for entries for innovative “design of a vertical farm with a residential use.” The competition advocates Dr. Despommier’s proposal and is asking designers to further explore the idea of “vertical farming” in the heart of London.

Although the idea is providing opportunities for architecture students and designers to create innovative, sometimes beautiful building designs, it holds little practical potential for providing food.

Despite the benefits of “vertical farming” which Dr. Despommier claims, “vertical farming” does not calculate its ecological and environmental costs of extracting materials to build skyscrapers for the simple purpose of agricultural production. The costs of the additional energy needed for “consistent conditions” such as artificial lighting, heating, and other vertical farming operations, would outweigh the benefit of the building’s proximity to the areas of consumption.

Most importantly, major downfall of “vertical farming” is that it does not expose plants to “the most plentiful and ecologically benign energy source of all: sunlight.” Stan Cox and David Van Tassel writes and investigates the feasibility of “vertical farming.” The authors argue that “vertical farming” does not expose plants to “the most plentiful and ecologically benign energy source of all: sunlight,” unlike the traditional farming, which are horizontal. They further elaborate the argument that “for obvious reasons, no one has ever proposed stacking solar photovoltaic panels one above the other. For the same reasons, crop fields cannot be layered one above the other without providing a substitute for the sunlight that has been cut off...As a result, the lion’s share of a vertical farm’s lighting would have to be supplied artificially, consuming resource-intensive electricity rather than free sunlight.” The authors calculated the efficiency of converting sunlight to plant matter, and found that the vertical farming’s lighting alone will require “eight times as much electricity as all U.S. utilities generate in the entire year.” (See calculations here.)

After disclaiming the idea of “vertical farming,” the authors conclude by stating that we don’t have to farm vertically, but we do have to change the way we do it horizontally: “it will mean a reliance on natural processes and cohesive rural communities, not technological fantasies.” Knowing the downfalls of vertical farming and suburban farming (long food miles), we must seek alternative solutions. The growth of population and urban centralization will inevitably lead to increased demand for food in the urban cities.

One possibility is “floating farm.” “Floating farm” is a concept of farming on river or on ocean to be close to urban coastal cities and provide food without using spaces on land. While this can be hard to visualize, similar concept can be seen in a competition entry from the “South Street Seaport: Re-envisioning the Urban Edge.” N.E.E.D., whose entry was awarded First Place, proposed “an aquaculture-driven floating park” called “Fish Works.” Looking at its site plan on the left, we can imagine vegetation farms spread out on New York’s riverfront horizontally, utilizing sunlight (which was one of criticism of “vertical farming” by Cox and Tassel). If proposed as urban farm, this proposal not only can fully use the free source of sunlight but also the resource of water. Because the project is situated on the surface of the water, it can easily “borrow” the water the river by bio-filtering the water to irrigate vegetations instead of using waters from aqueducts and reservoirs (which are valuable for human consumption). “Floating farm” not only can provide energy-and-resource efficiency, but also can provide variety of food production. For example, “Fish Works” proposes fish farms on New York’s riverfront. When the water is filtered, the river can be home to fish farms.

Fish is becoming one of the most important food resource for human consumption as it is known as healthiest food choice. Unfortunately, wild fisheries are overfished and ocean is in danger to be depleted because of human consumption. CBS news further predicts that the world marine ecology will be depleted by 2048. By providing floating fish farms, there is opportunity for urban aquaculture to sustain fish consumptions in the future.

The major potential problem of “floating farm” will be recycling. The dirty water and fish waste must not be released to surrounding environment to not harm the natural ecologies. This can be easily solved as hydroponics and aquaponics systems, which already solved the issue by providing closed-loop system. Although the “floating farm” also needs to be further investigated for its feasibility, it brings hope for our urban cities to become environmentally responsive cities--marrying environment and human usage, while using residual spaces which our minds do not perceive as occupiable spaces.

grounded design: Monumental Fragility: The Stunning Design for the ...

grounded design: Monumental Fragility: The Stunning Design for the ...: "World’s Fairs have long been a celebration of human industry and invention, our Promethean spirit on display. Most World’s Fairs have a cent..."

This beautiful design for Milan Expo 2015 propose beautiful landscape of food produce and heightens the awareness of active recycling and reusing system within the project. The project bio-filters blackwater and graywater through natural filtration and gives the clean water back to its nature. The solid wastes and sludge is fed into composting system and turns into energy.

Bamboo as Building Material

As we are more and more aware of sustainability, architects are looking for more use of renewable materials like bamboo to build architecture. Bamboos are renewable material that is durable and easily replaceable. When built with this material, the interior space can feel cool in hot and humid temperatures. Also, because of its raw nature form, it gives a sense of connection to nature.

Here are list of few projects that utilize bamboo as their building material.

1) Folded Bamboo Houses by Ming Tang

The project is inspired by origami--it folds and unfolds depending on the needs of the user and was proposed as temporary housing for Haiti aftermath.

2) Bamboo Pavilion by Esan Rahmani

The Bamboo Pavilion is designed with 100% bamboo material for the homeless.

3) Bamboo dormitories for Thai orphanage by TYIN Tegnestue

This dormitories collect rainwater.

Although these projects are fascinating in that they utilize readily available bamboo from their site, the projects mainly provide for poor, homeless, and orphans. Bamboo is a great material that is sustainable. It helps our forests to survive, is environmentally harmless, and is beautiful in the eye. We should utilize such material in our apartments or luxury hotels, not just for the poor, homeless, and orphans.

Facade Generation in USC

Recently, USC Architecture held a workshop called "TOP FUEL: Filters Funnels Flows" with famous Germany-based architect Frank Barkow, who is known for his research in facade systems. The workshop was one-week investigation of interactive facade system and how the facade system can become to have complex functions such as collecting rainwater, absorbing heat, providing shade, responding to use, responding to weather, transform according to different needs and so on, besides its function as skin of the building. The building skins we see in downtown, Los Angeles, are usually anonymous glass curtain walls that only do its part as a mere closure of the building. USC Architecture pushes students to rethink "what is facade or skin of a building" in terms of its function and performance. The workshop concentrated on facade generation with the help of Frank Barkow. The students designed and fabricated full-scale building components of new solution for skin performance. The workshop was held during March 21-March 28, 2011.  http://arch-pubs.usc.edu/topfuel/

Wetland Matrix for Living

The issue of growing elderly population is critical in China. This student project called Wetland Matrix for Living creatively solves the problem together with sustainability. The project is not only beautiful in its architecture form, but is also beautiful in its creation of these elders' new lifestyle that this student designs. This project's attempt to change and to better people's lifestyle through architecture is successful in that it also enhances the natural environment by cleaning the semi-polluted water.

The site Lu Wei Qiao is located in the Guangdon-Foshan region of China, which is suffering from aging population. There are currently over 10 million residents aged over 60 with around 200,000 suffering from dementia. Yet, the area lacks retirement homes, consisting only 245 in the region to support them. As a result, these elderly population is left idle as their only child lives in the urban cities to work. The project sees opportunity in the site being next to the river to provide retirement home if the semi-polluted river can be cleaned.

The project pays keen attention to psychological health of the elderly population as many of these elders suffer from dementia. This attention includes design awareness for interactive spaces, which will give the sense of contact and emotional support; active lifestyle, which will give the sense of self-needing and societal contribution; and environment, which will give the sense of ownership and connectivity to nature.

The design proposal is a "living machine system," which is a design of a community consisting a large communal greenhouse. Here, biological waste can be processed by fish and plants, which are maintained by the residents. The resulting outflow is filtered through individual residential gardens providing nutrients for gardens before it is discharged into the surrounding wetlands or farms. Landscape and rich aquatic life sprouts as a result in the wetlands, and recycled water and fishing gives back to the residents. The end product is a beautiful landscaped residential physically and visually blending into the natural surroundings.

 Great!

Future for Sustainable Los Angeles

[Solar Serpent in Santa Monica Freeway by Mans Tham]

Foreign architects are envisioning Los Angeles Freeway system as a means of opportunity of sustainability. Sweden-based architect Mans Tham covers Santa Monica Freeway with solar-skin that looks like a serpent's scale. The whole freeway system is covered with this skin, providing nice shade for drivers while collecting hot solar energy, which is abundant in Los Angeles. The collected energy will provide the city grid and also power for electric cars. 

[New Green Transportation Solution for LA by ODBC Architects]

French architect Odile Decq and Bonit Conrnette Architects proposed an extensive plan to make the "freeway city" a little greener. The project proposes large stretches of green space over freeway system and a system of small vehicles with designated transportation lanes and parking stations. 

Looking through the eyes of these foreign architects' view of Los Angeles, we can see how unsustainable our city is and how much it would be a better place if these ideas would actually be built. 

Invasive Seaweed Still Growing in San Francisco

[Undaria pinnatifida: one of world's top 100 invasive species]

Two years ago, there were news articles about an asian kelp known as wakame hit San Francisco. It is known as one of the world's top 100 invasive species. It can grow one inch a day in its length, and can spread rapidly. In 2009, the divers attempted to rip out the kelp in a race to stop the release of millions of spores that can grow into new plants. They did this until the fund was cut. If it is inevitable, why not enjoy it?

First of all, wakame is good when used in miso soup and Undaria pinnatifida. It can also help clean the bay water, if you prefer not to eat it for some reason. Although there is a risk that when these seaweeds take over the bay that they can change the ecosystem in the water, if it can be grown with control, the seaweeds can be used for the benefit. The seaweed can consume toxin and algae while it can also be converted into bio-fuel.

Nowadays, we face many obstacles with nature like natural disasters or foreign species invasion. We cannot win the nature by resisting it, but rather we must accept the change and turn it around by utilizing it. The seaweed should be investigated and researched further if it could be used for medicine, bio-fuel, and bio-filtering.

Urban Fish Farms

[ Fish Tower by Hsing-O Chiang ]

While urban vertical farming is widely used idea for emergent architecture, urban fish farms are newly introduced through student projects. The Fish Tower project by Hsing-O Chiang, a student from Taiwan, won Honorable Mention in eVolo skyscraper competition. This vertical fish farming uses advanced technology of aquaponics, where fish are raised in tanks, here in vertical building. This allows 30 times efficiency compared to traditional domestic fish farms. By providing domesticated farmed fish to the city, the pressure on wild fish will be alleviated. Although the structure of the building seems weak to hold the water-filled heavy ceramic tanks, I advocate the idea to feed the people in urban cities with domesticated food instead of consuming imported or wild fish.

A more realistic project of fish farming by a student in University of Oregon is "Reconditioning the Urban." The project places itself alongside of the waterfront of the Willamette and cleans the pumped river water through bio-filtering system and then farms fish in the clean water and farms vegetables on the site. The fish disposals are used as fertilizers for vegetables. The goods are transported deep into the city by the moving sub-hubs for easy access to the locals.

Only few years ago, the idea of "vertical farming," introduced by Dr. Dickson Despommier, was used merely as conceptual idea for architecture. Now, the idea is used in many real projects and many are already built. Likewise, this wild but feasible idea of farming fish in our own cities will soon become our reality. Looking at these innovative projects, I realize how powerful architecture is to this society. Architecture is now improving the way people live by incorporating vital needs of the people in design, like urban farming. As global population grows, water becomes more scarce, and demand of food rises in future, the need for these kind of innovative design will become more evident, and the role of architecture will become more and more crucial in global needs.

Architectural Drawings Are Beautiful

Here is a blog that I visit everyday as if it is my daily newspaper. This blog is very unique one, which is a collection of architectural drawings of architects, designers, and students. These drawings show how an architectural drawing can become an art itself. These drawings inspire me to be more imaginative in my own projects' drawings. Its blogger Nikita posts three to four drawings almost everyday (I don't know how she finds all these gems!). 

Below are few drawings that I personally love from the blog... 

to check out more, go to drawingarchitecture.tumblr.com

Koh Panyee FC's True Story

Today, I stumbled across a video of an ad campaign for TMB Bank in Thailand which tells the inspiring true story of Koh Panyee floating village in Thailand and how soccer became the number one pastime for the fishing villagers. 


The video tells a story about a group of boys who loved to watch soccer and wanted to play soccer. However, their circumstances were different than what we usually take for granted--they did not have land to play soccer. So the boys builds floating pitch with pieces of wood and pontoons. Because the pitch was small and floating on the water, the ball would often fall into water. The boys learned how to play soccer on wet and rough wooden platform that they have built. One day, they enter the tournament for youth soccer. Despite the rain, the team was able to play comfortably on wet field with barefoot as they usually practiced. Although they did not come first place, they won second and the tradition of playing soccer in the village continued in generations.


The story reveals a true team's adaptability and success despite their lack of sufficient land to make their dream come true. When people are under limited circumstances, they become more creative and successful. 


So get inspired!!

Venice’s Plan to Stay Above Water

[Acqua Alta in Venice, Italy by REUTERS/Manuel Silvestri]

   The seriousness of rising sea level is apparent today as we see many coastal cities are building new flood-defense systems and flood-resistant buildings. In March of 2010, the Maldives government and Dutch Docklands/Dutch Water-valleys signed an agreement to develop floating structures; and by 2015, five artificial floating islands will be completed. New York revised their building codes for new buildings to be watertight in flood-risk areas. St. Petersburg’s new flood barrier, which is capable of protecting the city from a “one-in-1,000-year flood,” will be completed next year. 

Venice in Italy, often called the “floating city,” is not an exception. Venice is one of the low-lying coastal cities which are most vulnerable to the effects of rising sea level.  According to this diagram (see figure 2), Venice will be completely underwater if sea level rises to 2 meters. A report says that Venice may be submerged completely in less than 100 years at the current rate of the rising water level in Venice lagoon. This means that although we may still be able to visit Venice in our life time, our offsprings may not be able to visit Venice.

Venice has always experienced occasional floods resulted from Acqua Alta (Italian word for “high water,” a phenomenon of exceptional tide peaks that flood part of Venice and occurs mainly between autumn and spring). This exceptional high tide can bring the water up to more than 140 cm; and it happens about 18 times February (detailed info). Acqua Alta causes damages to buildings and inhabitants. For many times, merchandises and products are damaged in retail stores on the first floor because of the flood; and “no Venetian lives on the ground floor any more.” As the sea level continues to rise even more, the city might become uninhabitable at all.

In the 20th century, Venetians drilled many artesian wells around the edges of the lagoon for the demand for waters. Draining out water from the wells caused the city to sink on its own land. Artesian wells were banned in 1960s as the government realized the depletion of the aquifer was causing the sinking. Although the sinking stopped after the ban, Venice sank 11 inches and the city is to submerge into water even faster because of it. 

Venice is currently under construction for building a flood barrier system called “MOSE,” a project consisting 79 floating barriers to block the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea when high tides are forecasted. This project underwent 30 years of debate and testing until it was finally inaugurated in May 2003. In 2006, the project was “under review” for budgetary reasons. The completion date is now extended to 2014 from 2011. The project costs 4.3-billion-euro (MSNBC).

[MOSE project - http://www.sharenator.com/Engineering_Feats/#/venice3-2.html]

However, this project has always been controversial as it inherits many problems that suggest it may not be the best solution for Venice. The project is irreversible and outdated. The project did not consider the predictions of rising sea levels over the next centuries into its equation. According to Sylvia Poggioli’s article, “MOSE engineers responded that the mobile gates are designed to last at least a century and to protect Venice from a difference in water level between the sea and lagoon of up to six and half feet.” But as the rate of rising of sea levels increases, the project’s life may become shorter and will eventually need another solution to replace it. Also, the barriers will close the lagoon too often as Acqua Alta occurs more frequently, which will stop the flow of water of the lagoon. This can damage the health of the ecosystem and make the lagoon more vulnerable to flood.  Although the project still undercurrent despite the controversy and flaws of it, Venice must seriously consider alternative solutions that can sustain Venice for more than a couple of decades. 

Rather than building barriers to enclose the city from the outside world (Adriatic Sea), Venice should consider building a new “floating” community. Although floating community may sound too radical, such utopia already exists in Netherlands. Maasbommel in Netherlands has neighborhoods built with floating housings.  Even worse than Venice, half of its land mass is only 1 meter above sea level. “Dutch Floating Homes,” designed by architecture firm DuraVermeer, rest on land but is built to rise when the water rises. The houses can float up to as much as five and a half meters, responding to the height of water level. Each of the houses are built on the hollow concrete cube base that contains air to allow floatation by its buoyancy. This allowed the Dutch to stay near and live with the water. Venetians should look into the Dutch floating housings to see how that can apply it to their city. 

In Graduate School of Design in Harvard University, a student thesis project was proposed for housing for Venice which used same base-technology of “Dutch Floating Housing.” The project proposed modular housing system that can configure to aggregate to build a community. Each housing unit is built on stilts and when the water rises, the air-tank below the floor slabs allows the building to rise with the water levels(see the image below). Although its complexity in form is intriguing, the project lacked contextual coherence with Venice. 

[Housing for Venice - GSD thesis project 2009]

This student project is rather more suitable for Maasbommel as Maasbommel is a suburban residential area. For Venice, the floating community must not only address the housing, but also the retail stores. The city of Venice is organized differently than Maasbommel. Unlike Maasbommel, Venice’s public zone exist in the same building as private zone. For example, ground floors are usually occupied as retail stores and public areas while upper floors are occupied as residential apartments and hotels. Venice has close relationship between the public and private zones. By including public zones in this new floating community, this new Venice will keep Venetians to live in Venice and continue supporting tourism. Therefore, each floating building units will consist more than one floor to keep the first floor for public use and upper floor for residential use. The community should continue to advocated pedestrian and boat transportation by creating canals and bridges. 

Besides the rising sea levels, the sewage conditions in Venice is another serious problem in Venice that has to be solved. For several hundred years, black-water was drained down directly to the lagoon mixed with chemicals which tremendously damaged the fragile ecosystems of the lagoon. Venice still has no sewage treatment facilities; and toxic components of untreated wastes are still dumped into the lagoon. To build a completely sustainable community, a new sewage treatment system must be factored into the design as well. By providing an efficient sewage system, the “new” Venice will be a big leap of its evolution finally after its several-hundred-years-old sewage systems.

Because the city has long been completely dependent upon boat transportation for bringing in goods into the city, all of their goods are transported by boat, which makes “everything” expensive in Venice. Several years ago, the tourists and locals had separate prices for products--the tourists paid taxes. However, now even the locals are required to pay the tourist prices. Thus, it is hard to Venetians to survive to live in Venice. Many Venetians moved out the city to live in other cities because of its expensiveness. If the new community can provide new urban farms to produce their own goods, it will help the products to be affordable to the locals. In terms of public transportation, Venice is a sustainable city as it advocates pedestrian and boat transportation. There is no vehicular transportation system. The new floating community should continue to advocate such sustainable transportation system as carbon emission is biggest issue of global warming. 

Such community will be more suffice to Venice than building barriers to block the city from its closest and oldest friend--the water. This is not an issue just for Venice. Many coastal cities needs changes of the way people live, the way buildings are designed and built to cope with our changing world and rising sea levels. By rethinking how we live and build communities, we can still continue to live closely with rising water and still benefit from it too. 

James Corner Visits USC

James Corner, the designer of New York's Highline Park, was here at USC this Wednesday to lecture about his recent works. His recent work includes the Planning of the Qianhai Region of Shenzen, which was awarded First Prize for its International Competition. His design envisions a new "Water City" for 1.5 million people in Shenzen. The design will manipulate the water (the most important resource of the area) to purify and revitalize its quality. The city will embrace the water as its strong identity. The five "water fingers" will create large public parks and water filtering infrastructures, including all of the storm-water runoffs. Through the levels of natural filtrations of rocks, marshlands, and plants, water will be purified in different stages from primary treatment to secondary treatment to tertiary treatment until it is discharged and reused for clean water for marine culture to grow. While treating the water, the city will be hosting gardens and large public parks for better living. The city will also have water park for tourists.

China is developing its urban areas with sustainable solutions, and it will be interesting to see how it will look like in 20-30 years. In 20-30 years, I wonder how our urban cities like London, Paris and New York would look like compared to cities in China like Shenzen, Shanghai, and Beijing which are in many ways already far ahead (or striving to be much more advanced in the next couple of years).

View this 10 min video explaining the Planning of the Qianhai Region of Shenzen.

Shellfish Save Polluted Waters

Did you know that shellfish can clean water by filter feeding?

A single oyster can clear over 30 gallons a day, retaining particles as small as 2 microns. As they feed, shellfish is able to remove microscopic plants. Recent studies reveal that shellfish aquaculture can improve species abundance and diversity. Oysters are a keystone species, meaning they control the environment in which they live by cleaning the water, while the spaces between their shells provide habitat for juvenile fish, crabs, and the organisms on which they feed. When hundreds and thousands of shellfish grow, they have the power to clean our polluted rivers. 

There was a report back in 2008 stating that in Charles River, oysters are used for cleaning the river. 150,000 of oysters were installed in the river for their sole purpose: "to eat sewage." The Massachusetts Oyster Project installed these oysters in the river as a solution for water pollution project. These "shellfish potentially stand to process 3 million gallons of sewage-tainted liquid every 24-hours, slowly purifying the Charles," says James, who wrote about this news in 2008. Oysters that filter sewage have been found to contain salmonella and other harmful bacteria, which makes them dangerous to eat. There will be signs posted to ban people from attempting to harvest these shellfish. They are solely sowed for the purpose of purifying the river to help revitalize the ecosystem. 

Another report stated that oysters cleaned the oil spill at an unprecedented rate. The oysters can filter out toxins in the water. The oil spill triggered four conservation organizations (the Alabama Coastal Foundation, Mobile Baykeeper, the Nature Conservancy, and the Ocean Foundation) to propose a restoration idea that is to "create 100 miles of oyster reef in the region, and 1000 miles of replanted marshlands." The report stated that "the cleaner water leads to more seagrass growth, creating new habitats for fish."

In the past, people spent so much money and time to develop technologies to treat sewage waters when nature can do it better and cheaper. As these projects take nature as solutions, other regions with polluted waters should invest their time and money to resolve water pollution naturally like oysters rather than trying to build big and expensive water treatment plants that cleans water expensively.

For more info on sewage treatment 

Paris to Become a Global Warming Utopia!

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Paris--a global warming utopia!

A French architecture firm Collectif Et Alors proposes Paris Utopia after global warming effect on the city. Yannick Gourvil and Cecile Leroux, the imaginative architects from the firm, shares their imagination of Paris in 2100 through their creative and beautiful images. The images reveal that the city will confront the global warming  with realistic solutions like community gardens providing citizens fruits and vegetables while giving cool natural shades from the hot sun. The images portray Paris lush with green like a paradise. What is most fascinating about these images is that they are realistic solutions that are feasible, yet they are "fantastic and fun."

The project imagines a climate fiction of hotter climate of Paris and unveils an opportunity “to reinvent our urban lifestyles.” The Seine is transformed into occupiable spaces and medium for transportation. Seine will be used for public transportation via water-taxis and for transporting construction materials like wood or harvests of local farmers. The river will accommodate recreational spaces like swimming pools and will be used for tidal energy resource. The floating market on the Seine will be hosted by local gardeners to sell their produce directly in the heart of Paris. The means of transportation is developed in a more-sustainable way--cable cars and blimps are utilized as public transportation. Amazing, right?

Although these utopian drawings are merely imagination of two architects, I think that these images give us an insight of optimistic future of global warming when different disciplinary work together. I appreciate the architects’ optimistic take on the global warming compared to usual negative connotation which global warming is addressed as. The images show us that if we are willing to change and to take actions, the warm earth might be actually a better place to live than the one we have right now—if we follow these images as our guidelines.

4 Futuristic Inhabitable Bridges

Few days ago, I encountered two blogs written about inhabitable bridges. Jeremy and Lloyd talked mostly about existing inhabitable bridges, so I would like to talk more about conceptual and futuristic bridges that are worthy of acknowledgement.  

As Jeremy writes, “a bridge connects one place to another, and thus seems to promise transition and adventure.” Although this is true, futuristic bridges these days seems to offer so many more than transition and adventure. In a time of fast-paced changing world, the bridges are adapting more functions that just retails and apartments as the two bloggers lists. 

Here is a list of futuristic and “unbuilt” bridge designs that are innovative and appropriate to our changing environment.

1. Maribor Pedestrian Bridge by Ja Architecture Studio

A winning entry of the competition for 130 meters long pedestrian bridge on the Drava River in Maribor, Slovenia is designed with undulating surface of the bridge to provide the structural stability and closer access to water for pedestrians. The pedestrians can now sit on the sloping stairs to overlook on the river and enjoy fishing closer to the water. Although it is skeptical how boats will pass through the low-lying bridge, I think the project is successful in providing more public space on the bridge. 

2. London Bridge Vertical Farm by Laurie Chetwood Architect

Another competition was held in 2009 in London calling for new ideas for London Bridge. The winning entry proposes a vertical farm in the bridge which is completely supported by solar power energy. According to Chetwood, “the project uses EFTE over core to provide lightweight PV skin, harvest rainwater to supply non-potable for hydroponic landscape and WCs, and recycle grey water. As population grows in urban cities, the demand for food will increase up to the point that farmers in suburban will be not enough to support these cities. Providing its own food resources within its city is a great solution and this bridge is successful in that way. 

3. Carbon T.A.P.// Tunnel Algae Park by The PORT Architects

This rotating bridge connects Brooklyn and Manhattan by constantly rotating on the surface of the water. The bridge utilizes high-technology to farm algae, which will convert carbon emissions from New York City into bio-fuel. The bridge also provides high-speed bike lanes to advocate carbon-zero transportation. The project will offer a large park floating on the water to the New Yorkers. 

4. High Tide Street by James Gardener

James Gardener, an architecture student at University of Westminster in UK, designed a conceptual bridge for the Thames River in London, which will be moving with the tide. The design consists a series of floating elements that are linked to freely move with the tide. High Tide Street connects the two sides of the river’s edge when the high tide occurs. When the bridge is connected, the public can fully enjoy the programs in the bridge, such as a concert hall, library, fish market, and oyster bar. Moving with the ebb and the flow of the tide, the bridge provides unusual spatial moments that is created by the nature. 

Personally, this project is my favorite among the four bridges listed here not only because it is the only project which responds to the movement of the river but even more, this project makes me wonder how it would be like to be in this bridge. Also, high tides comes in different time of the day in different time of the year. So it is interesting to think that people will adjust to the schedule of the Moon to access this bridge. Perhaps different programs will be activated according to when the high tide occurs? I would love to visit London just for this bridge if it ever gets built. 

[Image sources from referenced websites]

Earthquake: Next Target Is California

'Earthquake Prediction 2011 Jim Berkland - A Major Earthquake in North America Imminen'in Fox News on March 15, 2011 (Watch the video below).

 

Even before we settle our grief on Japan's tragedy from earthquake and tsunami last week, a geologist predicts a major earthquake will occur anytime this month, and possibly this week (between today to March 26, 2011).

Jim Berkland, a geologist who predicted the 1989 San Fransisco Earthquake, argues that weird animal behavior and phenomena such as massive fish kills near California show "changes in the magnetic field that often precede large earthquakes". Although there is no guarantee that such signs are consistent prediction of imminent earthquake, Berkland's credibility of prediction is hard to neglect. His predictions are accurate 75% of the times, which, I guess, means that there is 75% chance that his prediction is right for this one, too. If he is right about this prediction like the San Fransisco Earthquake in 1989, most of California, including the nation's important cities--San Fransisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles will be destroyed, not to mention the suburbs, too.

Many news have informed us about the impact of the 'next earthquake' in California will be the greatest in the history, which will be a 10 pointer, 30 times bigger than the earthquake in Japan last week. Although the earthquake's imminence in this month can be still skeptical, everyone agrees that the earthquake will come eventually. (See Next big earthquake...)

Some people believe a different sign of imminent earthquake-- a rainbow cloud.

Supposedly, there were 'rainbow clouds' on clear skies in China, Chile, and Japan before the quakes happened. Californians... watch out for a rainbow cloud!

A rainbow cloud seen 10 minutes before the earthquake in China 2008

What do you think?