Smart Design

Not to geek out on you ~ but i admit, i was watching Numb3rs the other night… the one with the Resident Evil/Portal like “OMG the human like copmuter AI has gone rogue and is killing people!”… yes yes, all that silliness aside, the guy who built it was also working on a “smart house” with his wife… and as they interrogate her and show off part of her “high tech automated house”… i totally got excited to see the Kohler Karbon as the focal point of the kitchen! AND they made the carbon fiber, fully articulated faucet make tea on its own! Ok well, more like move around and put water in the pot ~ but it does look so awesome doing it.

I’ve seen (and played with) the Karbon at various tradeshows and events ~ but never in action the context of a real home. I’ve secretly wanted one for a while, and i think it’s spot on TV made me want it just a little bit more… product placement works? Ack! Here’s a peek at some the many different positions it can take on…

See more pictures and videos of this fun faucet after the jump!
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Lawns are hardwired into the American psyche – a green, luscious, well-manicured lawn is part of what shows off our success. We spend hours or pay someone to spend hours mowing the lawn, trimming the edges, and putting fertilizer on it. And yet, the lawn gives us nothing back. Instead it just sucks down water, time and money. For those of you tired of maintaining a fruitless lawn, it may be time to consider killing your lawn and replacing it with native vegetation, drought tolerant landscaping or an edible garden. At first it will take a commitment and some hard work, but the goal is to reduce your lawn maintenance, water usage and have a beautiful garden. read more

$1.50 for a quart of filtered local tap water in a plastic bottle. 50 cents for a quart of gas from Kuwait. The jarring difference in cost of these two vital liquids, one from a local source, the other from the other side of the planet three miles below its surface, has long struck me as a little, uh, odd.

$1.50 a quart for something that is in essence relatively plentiful, free and local? Move over plastic water bottles, with aquaovo’s new THERM-O I can take my own filtered, or unfiltered, tap water with me.

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No matter how different our cultures may be, every dwelling in the civilized world has some sort of toilet in it. And all of us toilet-users do one of two things with it; let’s call those #1 and #2.

Both #1 and #2 can be used as fertilizer, but due to their respective chemical backgrounds, not together.

In our sewage systems, #1 and #2 are normally combined, and then the resultant mixture goes to a sewage cleaning plant. Such plants require lots of power, because separating #1 and #2 is an energy-intensive task.

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While we take it for granted that we can turn on the tap and get water whenever we want, imagine if you lived in the Sahara Desert. And never mind your own personal water needs, imagine if you had entire fields full of crops you had to hydrate.

That is the aim of the Sahara Forest Project, an ambitious undertaking to bring fresh water to one of the more barren places on Earth. The project utilizes two technologies: The Seawater Greenhouse, and concentrated Solar Power. As reported in Inhabitat,

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During a backpacking trip to Italy, I watched a fellow backpacker being chastised by our Italian hostess. Said backpacker had picked some lovely flowers and handed them to our hostess as a gift–upside-down, which is a huge no-no as it’s considered bad luck.

Hopefully they’d be a little more tolerant with upside-down potted plants. The Boskke Sky Planter is an inverted pot-and-plant combo, with a special internal reservoir system integrated into the pot that gets water to the roots without leaking. The unique design means you only have to water the plant every 20-30 days, with the end result being that it uses 80% less water!

In addition to the water conservation angle, the Sky Planter has an obvious home-decorating benefit–it takes up less floorspace, and is one less thing for the vacuum or Roomba to bump into. Not to mention you don’t have to worry about Fido rummaging through it, unless he’s got incredible leaping skills and/or you have an extremely low ceiling.
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Save water and beautify your home. That’s what MOSS SUND Architects and Fig Forty had in mind when they created the CISTA rainwater harvesting system. The system is designed for urban environments and provides 100 gallons of rainwater storage within an 8-foot vertical planted frame, simultaneously conserving water and increasing green space. The vertical arrangement sits beneath an eaves trough downspout where it collects rainwater, the resulting water pressure is enough to operate a soaker hose that can be housed in a storage compartment at the base of the unit. A potted climbing plant such as ivy is placed at the base so it can eventually grow and climb up into the frame. There’s also an LED lit water level indicator, the system can be expanded both horizontally and vertically, and thanks to the nesting design it can be efficiently shipped. Necessity was the mother of invention in this instance; the partners of figlforty were clients of architects MOSS SUND and having recently completed a major modern green home renovation were looking for ways to harvest rain water and were disappointed with the options available. So together they created CISTA, a stainless steel pillar of green that can add beauty and conserve water.

Water is our most precious resource. It covers 70% of the Earth’s surface and every living organism is dependent upon it for survival. Less than 30% of people on this planet even have access to safe drinking water – a basic human right. In the coming years, we will likely see that access to clean, safe water will become even more important than the climate change.  In fact here in the US, 36 states anticipate local, regional and even statewide water shortages by 2013. We can all take immediate steps starting in our own households to more efficiently use water so there is enough to go around.

The US EPA estimates that an average family of 4 in the US consumes around 400 gallons of water a day, 280 of which are used indoors. At least 20-30% of that water usage can be reduced with a few simple acts and upgrades. Here are 10 easy ways to save water in your household, starting from very simple and free to slightly more involved with an investment.

Save Water For Another Use – Keep a pitcher on hand near the sink or shower to catch extra water for another use. When you’re waiting for the water to get hot or cold, put the pitcher under the faucet and a bucket under the showerhead. Use that water for your plants, to wash fruit and vegetables, for your pet, or for cleaning. It may seem excessive, but in reality, every drop counts. read more

While thinking about the intersection of Water Conservation, Smart Design, Landscaping, etc ~ i couldn’t get the idea of PlayPumps out of my head. It’s brilliant really! The idea of these structures first surfaced to me on NOTCOT.org #18506, where it was described as “The PlayPump, a playground merry-go-round that uses the boundless energy of children to pump water out of the ground. More than 1000 such pumps have been installed in schools in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia.”

Sure it’s probably not something you’d have in your backyard, but you never know, the concept may come in handy some day… so here’s how it works ~ “While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round (1), clean water is pumped (2) from underground (3) into a 2,500-liter tank (4), standing seven meters above the ground. A simple tap (5) makes it easy for adults and children to draw water. Excess water is diverted from the storage tank back down into the borehole (6). The water storage tank (7) provides a rare opportunity to advertise in outlaying communities. All four sides of the tank are leased as billboards, with two sides for consumer advertising and the other two sides for health and educational messages. The revenue generated by this unique model pays for pump maintenance. ” It seems so simple! Kid energy put to good use, pays for it self through advertising, fresh water for all! See more images after the jump of the PlayPump in use, as well as a map of where some are currently located.
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