I've been away,
which explains the radio silence on the Sustainable diary for the past few days.
I've been very busy with my day job and I also did a bit of travelling,
Now I'm here, ready to write.
...
30 mar 2013
18 mar 2013
Dabba wallas: 4,000 men and 175,000 lunches delivered. A sustainable food delivery system
Today
Sustainable diary writes about the successful system of the Dabbawallas, who manage to deliver food from mothers and wives at home
into the hands of their sons and husbands who are off at work.
“Dabbawalla” comes from the term tiffin dabba, referring to a
tiered lunch box and “walla,” a carrier or vendor.
This
process, how you can see in the video, is complete sustainable.
In The New York Times:
"In
India, where many traditions are being rapidly overturned as a result
of globalization, the practice of eating a home-cooked meal for lunch
lives on.
To
achieve that in this sprawling urban amalgamation of an estimated 25
million people, where long commutes by train and bus are routine,
Mumbai residents rely on an intricately...
17 mar 2013
Sunday's tale: Bottle Masonry. Made house with recycled plastic bottles
Sunday's
Tale: a post from the past
On
Sustainable diary last Sunday we spoke about an amazing building made
with glass bottles, and also today we decide to tell a bottle’s
story.
Plastic
bottle construction is an idea of Andreas Froese, an architect and
environmental entrepreneur. Froese developed Eco-Tec, a method to
utilize plastic (PET) bottles as “bricks” in the construction of
houses, latrines, and water tanks. It is a good idea to address the
problem by putting to use some of the million plastic water bottles
discards each day in developing nations.
The
first plastic bottle construction project in Africa was pioneered in
Uganda by an organization called Butakoola Village Association forDevelopment - BUVAD. BUVAD is located...
16 mar 2013
Buffalo Project: on-demand mobile electricity. A simple and unique solution
In
recent years mobile phone communication has been a major contributor
to economic growth in developing countries but its spread has been
hindered by limited charging options for the 650 million off-grid
mobile phone users who have network access.
Having
an operational phone means access to services that have improved
banking, health and farming in Africa and Asia. Many millions of
people at the bottom of the economic pyramid are expected to acquire
mobile phones, greatly benefiting their lives, business activities
and access to information. However, most of these new subscribers
will not have direct access to electricity.
In
response to the growing problem, London-based Buffalo Grid have
developed a text message activated solar-powered...
15 mar 2013
Indonesian students create eco-friendly deodorant from cow dung
DwiNailul Izzah and Rintya Aprianti Miki are two students who won the
gold medal at the Indonesian Science Project Olympiad (ISPO), which
is held every year at the end of February in Jakarta, with their
original invention and respectful of environment.
The
two young inventors have create an affordable air freshener made from
cow dung. Yes dung, as weird as it sounds, the formulation actually
has a pleasant herbal smell. This two girls overcame 1,000 other
competitors with their surprising freshener, which was created by
collecting unused cow manure from a cattle farm in Lamongam, East
Java, and fermenting it for 3 days: "Then they extracted the
water from the fermented manure and mixed it with coconut water.
Finally, they distilled...
14 mar 2013
Waiting for the spring: Ecology of Colour Pavilion in Kent, UK
UK-based Studio Wave created Ecology of Colour, a colourful pavilion for
holding a variety of sustainable craft workshops within Dartford
Central Park’s Ecology Island. This is the third Artlands public
realm commission for North Kent. Made from local materials, was designed “to act as a jolly custodian"
and encourage community involvement in a neglected corner of a public
park.
In
response to this unique context, Studio Weave have designed a small
versatile structure with a semi-outdoor space at ground level and an
enclosed area on the first floor with many windows that open wide
onto the landscape. As well for bird watching and art studio the
building will be used as an outdoor classroom, a dyeing workshop and
simply as a...
13 mar 2013
The most beautiful, and green, street in the world: Rua Goncalo de Carvalho
Sustainable
diary has found another amazing green tunnel, so let's go in Brasil.
RuaGoncalo de Carvalho is a street located in bairro Independência in
the city of Porto Alegre, the capital of the state of Rio
Grande do Sul. Flanked by trees on either side, the street became
internationally known after a campaign for its preservation spread on
the Internet leading it to be dubbed "the most beautiful street
in the world", and today it is considered "environmental
heritage" by the city.
It is a forest. Over
a span of 500 meters the sidewalks are lined with more than one
hundred trees of the genus Tipuana, going up to the seventh floor of
the buildings in some cases. These trees were planted in the 1930s
by employees of German origin who...
12 mar 2013
My space is small. My life is big
TreeHugger
founder Graham Hill describes his lifestyle in the New York Times,
Here youcan read the complete interview. I did not consider the case to
summarize it, it is very good and well worth to read it all!
"I
sleep better knowing I’m not using more resources than I need. I
have less — and enjoy more."
He draws
the principles of degrowth theory. The
decrease is a current of political thought, economic and social
environment to the controlled reduction, selective and voluntary
economic production and consumption, with the aim of establishing
relations of ecological balance between man and nature, as well as
fairness among human beings themselves.
Degrowth
is something that we need to think:
"Our
fondness for stuff...
11 mar 2013
Make food not war! Vegetable Weapon by Tsuyoshi Ozawa
Sustainable
diary loves speaks about food and food culture, so when we watched
the pictures of Tsuyoshi Ozawa on Inhabitat we thought: "This is
a good story for start the week".
The
artist was born in 1965, Tokyo. In 2001, he began “VegetableWeapon”, a series of photographic portraits of young women holding
weapons made from vegetable.
He
realized this photo project in different countries around Asia,
America, Europe, and Africa. He finds a woman that live in the place
and asks her to gather vegetables and other ingredients needed to
make an indigenous hot-pot dish. After the food is creatively
arranged in the shape of a firearms, he starts shooting the absurd
war-like portraits.
Once
the photograph is made, Ozawa and his model...
10 mar 2013
Sunday's tale: the Thai Temple of recycled beer bottles
Sunday's
Tale: a post from the past
In
the Thai landscape, Buddhist temples are very common sight.
Deep
in Sisaket province, in the north-east of Thailand, lies one
incredible temple complex. Its official name is Wat Pa Maha Chedi
Kaew but it is known by almost everyone as Wat Lan Kuad or the Temple
of a Million Bottles.
There’s an estimated 1.5 million bottles
bound in concrete into the temple. It is a novel way to recycle any
empties.
The
construction of this temple complex began in 1984, as the monks found
themselves with an excess of donated beer bottles that they
previously used just to decorate existing buildings.
The
resident Buddhist monks at the complex encourage local authorities to
deposit any used bottles...
9 mar 2013
A Forest Year by Samuel Orr. How landscapes change over time
This
Saturday Sustainable Diary does not have many words. It leaves
pictures to tell the story today. A year long story, which you can
see in three minutes. Photographer Samuel Orr for about 2 years in
2006-2008, lived just outside Bloomington, Indiana, at the edge of
one of the more wooded regions in the midwest. He was there because
at the time he was creating several nature documentaries on the
natural history of Indiana for PBS. His house was into the middle of
a large nature preserve.
Every
day for 15 months, took photos out of the window of his house, then
put the accumulated 40,000 photographs into an amazing time-lapse
video, A Forest year.
Samuel
explain:"Over 40,000 images were taken, and I made little movies
of 5-8 seconds...
8 mar 2013
Starving Artists Project tells the stories of homeless artists
Despite
their massive presence, the homeless are widely ignored. They are
part of city invisible culture. But every day this people communicate
to us, telling their basic need for help through a piece of
cardboard. Each sign expresses a basic human need in a creative way
completely unique to the creator’s life.
StarvingArtists Project is a new initiative, it try to change all of that by
giving NYC’s homeless community a platform to showcase their cries
for help. The program seeks to turn the cardboard signs we see being
held up on street corners and in subway stations into art that funds
social change.
The
creators of the project, Nick Zafonte and Thompson Harrell, worked
with world-renowned photographer Andrew Zuckerman (famous...
7 mar 2013
NLE architects and Makoko community in Lagos: floats idea for life on the water
Today
is a rainy day here in Milano and maybe for inspiration, Sustainable
Diary speaks of a water story. As
you know on our planet water levels are steadily rising, and along
west Africa's densely populated coast many waterfront communities are
finding themselves inundated with the problem of adaptive housing
solutions that withstand swelling tides and swift currents.
NLÉArchitects has been working on a three-phase plan for the waterfront
community of Makoko in Lagos, in Nigeria. An estimated 250,000 people
live here, they trade, shop and build aquafarms on the lagoon's
waters. This slum was said to be created in the 18th century as a
fishing village, but has ballooned as others have sought to find a
home.
Each
year, the...
