Building Green

The Library has set up a trial for the BuildingGreen suite, an online resource providing current, authoritative information on sustainable design and construction.

The suite is composed of 3 integrated databases:

- 200 case studies of high performance buildings, including energy data and project details

- all content from Environmental Building News, the premier journal on sustainable building practices and products, published since 1992

- a complete directory of environmentally preferable building products

The trial will run until mid-November.  Please give it a try and send any questions or feedback to Michele Laing, the Architecture Librarian here at Musagetes.

Between the covers

It's that time of year when all the gardens are flourishing with new life.  Don't have a garden?  Perhaps try putting your old comics (or textbooks?) in the window and get growing!

"Manga Farming" is a project by Tokyo-based artist Koshi Kawachi, and is on display at the Matsuzakaya department store in Nagoya.

The process is simple... stand a book on its end, sprinkle with seeds (radish, broccoli, basil...) and water.  Sprouts start to appear in days!  A great way to upcycle materials that would otherwise end up in a landfill or recycling centre...

...together at last!

Two of my favourite blog topics - Bjarke Ingels and parkour - join forces in the new documentary My Playground.

MY PLAYGROUND - PREVIEW from KASPARWORKS on Vimeo.

The film explores the changing perceptions of urban space and interactive architecture by speaking with freerunners, architects, planners, politicians and philosophers across Europe and Asia. It also follows Denmark's Team JiYo through the process of creating the world's first and largest dedicated parkour park in Copenhagen.

A YouTube search for JiYo Park will bring up plenty o' videos showing the park in use.

More than meets the eye

We live in a world where we Google the closest cafe, get directions from our phone, send tweets while standing in line and blog about the whole experience over coffee.

Reality is becoming so much more than just what we see in front of us. It is being created by companies and individuals at the global scale and in the palm of our hand. Want to change the world? There's an app for that...

Check out these two examples of the potential that exists to augment our perceived reality of buildings and space:

SARA brought to you by the Netherlands Architecture Institute is "the worlds first mobile architecture application featuring augmented reality with 3D models."



And Microsoft demonstrated the astonishing capabilities for augmenting reality in Bing Maps at this year's TED conference... and you thought Google Earth was cool.

Going bananas

Waste not...

This month Maclean's magazine exposed the horrific amount of food wasted every day around the world. In many cases more food is wasted than consumed.

"...58 per cent of all the carrots grown currently went in the trash. That is, Stuart says, “for every carrot you eat, you have paid for at least one more to be thrown away.” Lettuce is even worse: for every serving of fresh salad eaten [...] another two have been thrown away"

More than institutionalized, the practice of throwing out perfectly healthy, fresh food is often legislated:

"...bureaucrats [...] have cooked up laws to ensure that all EU citizens are eating fruit and veggies of the same shape and size. In 2008, one British wholesaler was forced to chuck 5,000 kiwis for being four grams lighter than the 62 gram cut-off—the equivalent of being one millimeter too thin..."

But we can't put all the blame on the bureaucrats, everyone from farmers to consumers are getting their hands dirty in this mess.

"...Torontonians generated 70 kg more waste per person last year than just 10 years ago. Indeed, from 1990 to 2005, we increased our municipal waste by 24 per cent, compared to the OECD average increase of just five per cent."

This waste is not limited to the fields, but plagues our streams as well:

"The European Commission estimates that 40 to 60 per cent of all fish caught by European fleets are thrown back to sea because they are too small, or the wrong species (Greenpeace puts the figure even higher, suggesting that 117 million of the 186 million fish caught in U.K. waters are tossed back to sea). [...] the amount of fish-based protein actually consumed amounts to just 10 per cent of the marine animals removed annually from the oceans..."

Not only are these practices painfully counter-intuitive to feeding the hundreds of millions of starving people (mostly women and children), the consequences are also looming for the rest of the world:

"Factory farms have become one of the biggest sources of pollution on the continent. So when we waste from the industrial food system, we are also wasting oil, releasing greenhouse gases, polluting waterways and hastening global warming. Even worse, many of the environmental costs of creating, then wasting, so much food—such as deforestation, water depletion and soil erosion—are being foisted on developing countries, where increasing amounts of cereals, grains and produce are being grown to sate the West’s growing appetite. When we pay Brazil to chop down the rainforest to grow soy, or have Kenya drain the Tana River delta to make sugar, we of course also hasten the never-ending extension of the agricultural frontier into the world’s last, remaining forests and wetlands."

The added linkage is my own. You can read the entire original article here, or in the reading corner of our library. Get angry, get active!

Want not...

The silver lining in this dark cloud came when I found this article today in the Hamilton Spectator. The Ontario Christian Gleaners are an inspired and motivated organization, just down the road from us. They take some of this perfectly good, but unwanted food, and divert it from the dump.
Their over 150 hardworking volunteers process 9,000kg of food each week into dried snacks and soup mixes which is then donated to relief organizations and distributed around the world. Find out how by watching this video.
The operation costs $150,000 and runs entirely on donations. If you're looking for a place to channel you energy after reading the Maclean's article, this is a great place to start. Your time, money and food can help them keep up the good work.

Want to learn more? The Gleaners are hosting open houses tomorrow (Dec 2) and Monday Dec 7th at 10:30am.

The Cat's Pyjamas

Congratulations to our very own GALTstudio, winners of the Nuit Blanche People's Choice Award for their twofold project!

If you didn't get a chance to see it in person, you can virtually maneuver the intersections of time and space right here:



This win comes right on the heels of North House placing 4th in the U.S. DOE's Solar Decathlon, the City of Cambridge working with students to develop guidelines for core area revitalization, and the completion of the Grand House housing initiative.

One of our current students was just published in an anthology stacked with big-name Canadian writers, and a former student was chosen to design the medals for the 2010 Olympic Games.

UW Architecture is always making its mark on the world and we're so proud of our students for everything they've accomplished this year!

Not just another pretty face...

Bjarke Ingels, from Denmark's hottest architecture firm, talks about some BIG ideas in this inspiring and humourous lecture from TED:



Like what you see? Check out BIG's book Yes is More: An archicomic on architectural evolution in our collection!

Fresh and crisp

New books to get the season off to an invigorating start:

How to Build an Igloo and Other Snow Shelters

Norbert E. Yankielun

TH 4890 .Y36 2007

In this instructive, whimsical manual, U.S. Army engineer and seasoned cold-regions explorer Norbert Yankielun takes readers through the process of constructing and inhabiting a range of useful snow structures step-by-step. Whether you want the know-how to protect yourself from adverse weather conditions while back-country skiing or want to try your hand at building a backyard igloo just for fun, this book can show you how.

Extreme Architecture: Building for Challenging Environments

Ruth Slavid

NA 2543.35 .S624x 2009

Architects face some of their m

ost difficult challenges designing for extreme environments. Divided into sections titled Hot, Cold, High, Wet and Space, Extreme Architecture showcases 45 recent buildings designed for these challenging environments, giving valuable insights into the extremes of architectural thinking. Projects range from the fantastic – a lunar hotel – to those already built, including a school in Burkina Faso, a floating sauna in Sweden and an underground seed vault in Norway.

Smart Surfaces and Their Application in Architecture and Design

Thorsten Klooster

TA 418.7 .K56x 2009

Luminescent wallpaper, curtains which generate electricity, self-cleaning windows: new developments in the field of surface technologies will continue to influence the

ways in which materials can be used in architecture and design. Smart surfaces expand the range of design options available to architects, leading to new concepts which can meet the changing requirements of buildings and design. Smart Surfaces provides background and technical information for the categories of surfaces, nano, energy, light climate and information, with samples of amazing and often mind-boggling projects from around the world.

Albert Speer & Partner: A Manifesto for Sustainable Cities: Think Local, Act Global

Jeremy Gains & Stefan Jäger

HT 166. G24x 2009

For more than forty years, Albert Speer & Partner have been designing ecologically sensitive communities throughout the globe. As one of the world’s most forward-thinking architectural and urban planning practices, many of their trailblazing projects are discussed and analyzed for their success in satisfying the array of social, economic and environmental demands of the twenty-first century. Focusing on projects in cities such as Shanghai, Baku, Cairo, Changchun and Abuja, this book explores themes like the redeveloping of aging cities, resource conservation, urban density, zoning and new technology.

Livin' la vida local

This season, the library staff are challenging ourselves to eat only (or mostly) local foods. Largely inspired by the 100-Mile Diet, we each have our own goals, rules and reasons for doing this.

We will be promoting local eating throughout the summer in various ways. Drop in to the library now to check out our display of student theses, library books and DVDs, and Eat Fresh Eat Local maps you can take home. We are also compiling a binder full of maps, articles, farms, CSAs, stores, restaurants and recipes. We are perfectly situated here to make the most of what's grown and raised in Ontario...and don't forget the school's own Community Garden, where you can adopt your own plot to get growing!

Try challenging yourself to eat locally this summer. It doesn't have to be 100%, start with one meal, check out the farmer's markets, sign up with a CSA. There are countless reasons to eat locally: the health of our environment, our own health, the consequences of peak oil and just getting to know your food - who makes it and where it comes from.

Keep an eye on our Eat Local blog for tips, tricks, events, ideas, sources and more!

Take a hike!

This weekend (May 2 & 3, 2009) is the annual Jane's Walk. In celebration of the legacy of urban theorist and activist Jane Jacobs, the event is designed to help people explore and learn about the community around them.

There are well over a hundred walks planned in over 20 cities, including Toronto, Hamilton, Waterloo, Kitchener, Vancouver, Guelph and more. One of the two walks happening here in Cambridge is even being led by one of our Architecture students!

If you have your own idea for leading a walk in your community it's not too late to register.

The weather should be perfect for walking this weekend, so what better way to get in touch with your neighbourhood and your neighbours! As Jane said it herself, "No one can find what will work for our cities by looking at suburban garden cities, manipulating scale models, or inventing dream cities. You've got to get out and walk."

Room to Grow

Want to grow your own food, but don't have the space? Have space to grow food, but don't have the time or the energy? Sign up on Sharing Backyards! This site matches people who want to grow with people who have room to grow...it's like online dating for local food lovers.

Can't find a backyard to use? Don't discount those forgotten corners of your city...there's always room to grow!

Unfortunately, Waterloo Region has just voted against allowing chickens to be raised in residential backyards, so you'll have to stick to plants.

Don't have space, time, energy or know-how? Let someone else do the growing for you. Support one of your MANY local food growers by visiting the Farmer's Market, a local farm, or buying into a CSA co-op.

Our grass roots are far reaching

The UW School of Architecture is making its mark internationally!

The Grand House Student Co-op, brain child of our very own Chantal Cornu, is featured in this month's Architectural Record. Check it out on the magazine rack and online!

Not just a pretty facade...

Zerofootprint has just announced the Z-prize. The "Zerofootprint Skin Renewal Award" will be launched at the Discovery '09 Conference this May in Toronto.

More than just an anti-aging cosmetic approach, this award will challenge designers from across the wold to come up with new solutions to an old problem...old buildings. The largest greenhouse gas emissions in cities come from buildings. Rebuilding cities is not an option and retrofitting can be inadequate. Re-skinning, however, has many advantages:
· It can be used to hide a cheap retrofit
· It is potentially non-invasive
· It can make a ho-hum building into a handsome green role model
· It can be used to engineer an energy reduction of as much as 70%
· Re-skinning can be smart — solar, thermal, media, vegetation etc.

More information, and tonnes of inspiration, can be found at the new Zerofootprint resource area for a limited time in the library.

You can also find more books about designing like you give a damn now on display in the library.

Good on paper

Check out the latest edition of Spacing magazine. Their fifth anniversary issue focuses on the "Next generation of city builders" (psst....that's you guys) and features the winners of their thinkTORONTO urban design ideas competition (you guys again).

Some of them wanted to shine a light on the subway, and others wanted to get people reading on the rails...but all of them are about making the city a community.

Of the 20 winning ideas, many were from current and former UW Architecture students. Check out those entries on our bulletin board, or flip through the whole issue on our magazine rack!

New Books...on natural and fashionabe technology

For more about these books, check out our New Book Spotlight!

Free floating

Online mag FLYP features Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut's idea for a new kind of island getaway. It is expected that global warming, and the resulting rise in sea levels, will create hundreds of millions of refugees. Callebaut's solution to this devastating problem are self-sufficient, amphibious cities called "lilypad".

A little (fish) food for thought...

To learn more about this looming crisis, and how it is already affecting millions of people around the world, check out the documentary "The Refugees of the Blue Planet" available in our film collection.

Able to leap tall buildings...

UW Urban Planning student, Michael Lee discusses the rising popularity of Parkour at UW and in the Waterloo Region in today's Hamilton Spectator.

Down the rabbitt hole...

Urban adventurer and human geographer Michael Cook will be lecturing at the School of Architecture on Tuesday, October 28th at 7pm.

Cook chronicles his adventures through underground tunnels and waterways with striking pictures on his site The Vanishing Point. If you want to dig a little deeper, check out this interview he did with the BLDGBLOG.

For more about urban exploration in the Toronto area you can look here or here or check out the book display in the library.

Interested in a more gentle introduction to urban exploration? UW School of Architecture alum Emma Cubitt will be guiding a walking tour this Saturday of the alleyways in my Hamilton neighbourhood. And that's not all she's up to...

Learn from experience...

With these NEW BOOKS!

Geo-abstract

They say art imitates life. This exhibition by the University of Waterloo's Map Library proves that life IS art

Geo-Abstract

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Exhibit runs Monday September 15th ro Friday Spetember 19th at the Modern Languages Gallery, University of Waterloo

Want to know more about how YOU can make maps like these? Ask me!