Ecological Design Collabratory (Event)
Philosophy
"The success of this movement depends on individuals and local groups having the skills and knowledge necessary to create resilient communities capable of adapting to change. Members of these communities will need to be adept in a wide range of skills — skills that were at one time commonplace but are now greatly undervalued (e.g., food growing, basic repairs, natural building, maintaining renewable energy systems), as well as have the capacity to solve problems in ways that work in harmony with natural systems. Rebuilding community resilience will require self-reliance, creativity, and knowledge of place...the quest for increased self-reliance and resilience is predicated on an intimate knowledge of the ecological potential and cultural heritage of the local landscape. Such an in-depth understanding of a particular place - the flora, fauna, climate, culture, physical features, and ecological processes that make it unique - is fundamental to our ability to design elegant ways of living that promote sustainability and vitality. As Van der Ryn and Cowan explain in their seminal book on the topic: "Ecological design begins with the intimate knowledge of a particular place. Therefore, it is small-scale and direct, responsive to both local conditions and local people. If we are sensitive to the nuances of place, we can inhabit without destroying.""
Review
The "collabratory," a term coined by Professor Walt Polman, the narrator of this gathering, was a celebration of ecologically minded persons coming together from all different fields to share inspirations and demonstrate how interdisciplinary ecological design is. The event attracted many guests from all reaches of the state and country to talk on topics of permaculture, urban design plans, community space designs, ecological art and student ecological design projects. The turnout represented how this was an incredible success and the highlight of the night was the unveiling of a Living Place Design Competition, a student and faculty created and run contest with a cash prize for the best redesign of a communal space. It is predicted that this, with a combination of other ecological design classes, will be the start of a self-designed major the university will soon offer as a standard option.
Chinampas 2.0 – an Elegant Technology From the Past to Save the Future
Nearly 200 Gigawatts of US Energy is Wasted (Popular Article)
Citation
Kraemer, Susan. "Nearly 200 Gigawatts of US Energy is Wasted." Clean Technica.
2010. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://cleantechnica.com/2010/08/09/nearly-200-gigawatts-of-us-energy-is-wasted/>.
Review
The article above begins with the sentence, "Heavy industries like steel mills, paper mills and cement mills have by far the largest untapped potential for energy generation in the wasted heat they generate but do not tap to make electricity. It is not just heavy industries that wastes this potential. Coal-fired power plants lose as much as 51% of their efficiency." It later proposes that we have a major problem on our hands in terms of overexploitation of energy sources when we are already loosing so much "free energy" from our current sources right now. What i enjoyed about this article was that it covered an array of sources like nuclear and wasted building heat and not just coal-fired power plants. They also brought up current international policies being made in Finland providing incentive to capture all lost heat from energy sources to more ecologically conserve them and make use of them.
Ecological design applied (peer reviewed article)
Citation
Todd, John, Erica J.G. Brown, and Erik Wells. "Ecological Design Applied."
Ecological Engineering: The Philosophy and Energence of Ecological
Engineering 20.5 (2003): 421-40. ScienceDirect. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857403000648>.
Personal Review
I believe that this article is more than relevant because the study of applied ecologically designed systems was executed by former Professor at the University of Vermont, Dr. John Todd, as well as one of the case studies being in South Burlington at their Waste Facility Treatment Plant. Dr. Todd created, researched and provided results for five different ecological system designs in five different locations in the United States. His studies concluded that by using waste wastewater and sunlight he was able to; create drinking water; provide remediation to a pond deemed anaerobic; create a net zero carbon and energy facility at Oberlin College; cultivate mycelium from brewers waste; grow organic hydroponic tomatoes; and lastly design a sustainable eco-park for burlington's waterfront that processes water runoff naturally before reaching the lake. Dr. Todd has been the grandfather of ecological design and living technologies and this paper only solidifies his reputation and provides optimism for waste to energy models being prevalent in the future of human society.
Sustainable Housing through Holistic Waste Stream Management and Algal Cultivation
Mission statements and calls to action through principles of how to live sustainably and holistically in a community.
William McDonough: Cradle to cradle design
Paul Hawken, the first principle of his book is "waste equals food"
“The solutions for all three dilemmas are three fundamental principles that govern nature. First, waste equals food. In nature, detritus is constantly recycled to nourish other systems with a minimum of energy and inputs. We call ourselves consumers, but the problem is that we do not consume. Each person in America produces twice their weight per day in household, hazardous, and industrial waste, and an additional half-ton per week when gaseous wastes such as carbon dioxide are included. An ecological model of commerce would imply that all waste have value to other modes of production so that every- thing is either reclaimed, reused, or recycled. Second, nature runs off of current solar income. The only input into the closed system of the earth is the sun. Last, nature depends on diversity, thrives on differences, and perishes in the imbalance of uniformity. Healthy systems are highly varied and specific to time and place. Nature is not mass- produced.”
-Paul Hawken
US EPA’s solid waste and materials management flow chart for a localized scale
An Ecological Economic Order - The New Economics Institute
"Most modern societies are faced with the crisis of waste accumulation. The natural world is threatened by our inability to integrate our agriculture and industry within the great planetary cycles. Industrial cultures are cancerous, yet they need not be. I see the cleansing of water as one point of intervention. Sewage treatment plants, as an example, are expensive but do not purify water. When they work, which is not often enough, they kill the "bugs" and remove the solids; they do not remove nutrients or toxic materials. This need not be so if wastes are seen as resources out of place and if concepts like total resource recovery underlie the design of waste purification systems."
Interview with Matt Beam
Professor of Ecological Design and Living Technologies
Designer and Research of the Aiken Center
Q: What is the connection between a sense of place and waste management or waste to energy models currently and in the future?
Philosophy
"The success of this movement depends on individuals and local groups having the skills and knowledge necessary to create resilient communities capable of adapting to change. Members of these communities will need to be adept in a wide range of skills — skills that were at one time commonplace but are now greatly undervalued (e.g., food growing, basic repairs, natural building, maintaining renewable energy systems), as well as have the capacity to solve problems in ways that work in harmony with natural systems. Rebuilding community resilience will require self-reliance, creativity, and knowledge of place...the quest for increased self-reliance and resilience is predicated on an intimate knowledge of the ecological potential and cultural heritage of the local landscape. Such an in-depth understanding of a particular place - the flora, fauna, climate, culture, physical features, and ecological processes that make it unique - is fundamental to our ability to design elegant ways of living that promote sustainability and vitality. As Van der Ryn and Cowan explain in their seminal book on the topic: "Ecological design begins with the intimate knowledge of a particular place. Therefore, it is small-scale and direct, responsive to both local conditions and local people. If we are sensitive to the nuances of place, we can inhabit without destroying.""
Review
The "collabratory," a term coined by Professor Walt Polman, the narrator of this gathering, was a celebration of ecologically minded persons coming together from all different fields to share inspirations and demonstrate how interdisciplinary ecological design is. The event attracted many guests from all reaches of the state and country to talk on topics of permaculture, urban design plans, community space designs, ecological art and student ecological design projects. The turnout represented how this was an incredible success and the highlight of the night was the unveiling of a Living Place Design Competition, a student and faculty created and run contest with a cash prize for the best redesign of a communal space. It is predicted that this, with a combination of other ecological design classes, will be the start of a self-designed major the university will soon offer as a standard option.
Chinampas 2.0 – an Elegant Technology From the Past to Save the Future
The Chinampas Agricultural Society
1519
Current Efforts to Recreate System
2013
Through integrating techniques of permaculture, hydroponics, channeling and ecological design a holistic system that produced food for approximately two million people in the society at it's height, created a greater dependance with the Chinampas and their land and cleaned water sources pure enough to drink. This system was destroyed by Cortez during spanish colonization but efforts to recreate the system with a more modern and economic form. The new Chinampas system incorporates cash flowers for markets and is wide enough to fit tour boats down for more revenue.
Nearly 200 Gigawatts of US Energy is Wasted (Popular Article)
Citation
Kraemer, Susan. "Nearly 200 Gigawatts of US Energy is Wasted." Clean Technica.
2010. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://cleantechnica.com/2010/08/09/nearly-200-gigawatts-of-us-energy-is-wasted/>.
Review
The article above begins with the sentence, "Heavy industries like steel mills, paper mills and cement mills have by far the largest untapped potential for energy generation in the wasted heat they generate but do not tap to make electricity. It is not just heavy industries that wastes this potential. Coal-fired power plants lose as much as 51% of their efficiency." It later proposes that we have a major problem on our hands in terms of overexploitation of energy sources when we are already loosing so much "free energy" from our current sources right now. What i enjoyed about this article was that it covered an array of sources like nuclear and wasted building heat and not just coal-fired power plants. They also brought up current international policies being made in Finland providing incentive to capture all lost heat from energy sources to more ecologically conserve them and make use of them.
Ecological design applied (peer reviewed article)
Ecologically Designed Waste Treatment Facility
Oberlin College's Net Zero Carbon and Energy Facility
A Sketch of an Ecomachine Incorporated in all the Designs
Abstract
"Over the past three decades ecological design has been
applied to an increasingly diverse range of technologies and innovative
solutions for the management of resources. Ecological technologies have been
created for the food sector, waste conversion industries, architecture and
landscape design, and to the field of environmental protection and restoration.
The five case studies presented here represent applications of ecological
design in five areas: sewage treatment, the restoration of a polluted body of
water, the treatment of high strength industrial waste in lagoons, the
integration of ecological systems with architecture, and an agriculturally
based Eco-Park. Case #1 is an Advanced Ecologically Engineered System (AEES)
for the treatment of sewage in Vermont, a cold climate. The facility treated
300 m3 per day
(79,250 gallons per day) of sewage to advanced or tertiary wastewater
standards, including during the winter months. A number of commercial
byproducts were developed as part of the treatment process. Case #2 involved
the treatment of a pond contaminated with 295 m3 per day (77,930 gallons per day) of
toxic leachate from an adjacent landfill. A floating Restorer was built to
treat the polluted pond. The Restorer was powered by wind and solar based energy
sources. Over the past decade the pond has improved. There has been a positive
oxygen regime throughout the water column, bottom sediments have been digested
and the quality of the sediment chemistry has improved."
Todd, John, Erica J.G. Brown, and Erik Wells. "Ecological Design Applied."
Ecological Engineering: The Philosophy and Energence of Ecological
Engineering 20.5 (2003): 421-40. ScienceDirect. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857403000648>.
Personal Review
I believe that this article is more than relevant because the study of applied ecologically designed systems was executed by former Professor at the University of Vermont, Dr. John Todd, as well as one of the case studies being in South Burlington at their Waste Facility Treatment Plant. Dr. Todd created, researched and provided results for five different ecological system designs in five different locations in the United States. His studies concluded that by using waste wastewater and sunlight he was able to; create drinking water; provide remediation to a pond deemed anaerobic; create a net zero carbon and energy facility at Oberlin College; cultivate mycelium from brewers waste; grow organic hydroponic tomatoes; and lastly design a sustainable eco-park for burlington's waterfront that processes water runoff naturally before reaching the lake. Dr. Todd has been the grandfather of ecological design and living technologies and this paper only solidifies his reputation and provides optimism for waste to energy models being prevalent in the future of human society.
Sustainable Housing through Holistic Waste Stream Management and Algal Cultivation
Mission statements and calls to action through principles of how to live sustainably and holistically in a community.
William McDonough: Cradle to cradle design
Green-minded
architect and designer William McDonough asks what our buildings and products
would look like if designers took into account “all children, all species, for
all time.”
Paul Hawken, the first principle of his book is "waste equals food"
“The solutions for all three dilemmas are three fundamental principles that govern nature. First, waste equals food. In nature, detritus is constantly recycled to nourish other systems with a minimum of energy and inputs. We call ourselves consumers, but the problem is that we do not consume. Each person in America produces twice their weight per day in household, hazardous, and industrial waste, and an additional half-ton per week when gaseous wastes such as carbon dioxide are included. An ecological model of commerce would imply that all waste have value to other modes of production so that every- thing is either reclaimed, reused, or recycled. Second, nature runs off of current solar income. The only input into the closed system of the earth is the sun. Last, nature depends on diversity, thrives on differences, and perishes in the imbalance of uniformity. Healthy systems are highly varied and specific to time and place. Nature is not mass- produced.”
-Paul Hawken
US EPA’s solid waste and materials management flow chart for a localized scale
An Ecological Economic Order - The New Economics Institute
"Most modern societies are faced with the crisis of waste accumulation. The natural world is threatened by our inability to integrate our agriculture and industry within the great planetary cycles. Industrial cultures are cancerous, yet they need not be. I see the cleansing of water as one point of intervention. Sewage treatment plants, as an example, are expensive but do not purify water. When they work, which is not often enough, they kill the "bugs" and remove the solids; they do not remove nutrients or toxic materials. This need not be so if wastes are seen as resources out of place and if concepts like total resource recovery underlie the design of waste purification systems."
-John
Todd
Interview with Matt Beam
Professor of Ecological Design and Living Technologies
Designer and Research of the Aiken Center
Q: What is the connection between a sense of place and waste management or waste to energy models currently and in the future?
A: “Feeding
yourself and disposing of your waste is how you fit into an environment. We are currently not connected with where our
food comes from or getting rid of it because we hide everything; pipes,
treatment facilities being so far away, essentially out of sight out of
mind. With ecomachines and ecological
processes you cannot hide them because they need a process called daylightling
to function.”
Q: How can waste-to-energy models create resilience
in communities, populations or Countries?
A: “Care more
and watch closer.”
“Water
needs to be seen as a resource and a product.”
“Formally
people assumed that with more payment came more care, today that is not the case.”
“Getting
your energy should be a feedback loop, creating a system that is more cyclical than a straight line.
Q: What is one of the best, most holistic
waste management or waste-to-energy systems you have ever seen or possibly
built?
A: “Well, biogas
generation and methane capture are the best sources of direct energy, but
biodiesel from algal harvest from waste water sources are pretty new and might catch on.”
“Its all
context based with a heart of ecological design.”
“In a city
you already have structure and instead of manipulating a landscape we must
realize that there is enormous potential and opportunity in that existing
shape.”
(On the
topic of rural waste-to-energy models) “Aiken is not typical to Vermont”
“In all
reality composting toilets are the way to go.
Its going to take some people more time to adopt that idea but in places
where there is not adequate sanitation or bathrooms they will be psyched to
have a toilet that can also fertilize their fields.”
“Getting
control over…retaking control over what’s in sewage.”
(Organic
nutrition oppose to chemicals, hormones, pharmaceuticals, plastics)
Q: What does the phrase, “waste is just a
resource out of place,” mean to you?
(Notes that were absorbed but not transcribed to remain more engaged)
A: Today waste
is dirty, useless, a burden when it is much more than that
In the
future it will, out of necessity, be a nutrient, a resource, a fertilizer, an
energy source and a piece of consideration when designing or renovating
structures
On a
home-to-home scale ecomachines and waste-to-energy models will be harder to
create, maintain and be efficient as well as cost effective. “It will cost the same amount for an
ecological design trained professional to see a communal ecomachines that
processes local waste than it would be to see a residential home.”
Localizing
waste will not always be in your backyard but it will lessen the gap between
environmental disparities and ignorance
