Members of the group Just Stop Oil (wearing t-shirts bearing the same slogan) splashed the soup onto the “Sunflowers” painting to protest the extraction and use of fossil fuels, and then glued their hands to the wall. The spectacle was so absurd, some wondered whether it was a psy-op to make climate activism look bad.

Perhaps you’ve added this recent protest to a mental list of other annoying activist actions: road blockages during the protests against racial injustice in the summer of 2020, for instance, and the vegans pouring out milk in British supermarkets. A group of activists has even started deflating tires on trucks and SUVs across the UK and United States this year to call attention to the climate crisis. These acts do not involve violence or direct harm, but they are disruptive. They’re inconvenient. They are, indeed, annoying, even for people who sympathize with the causes they champion.

But you know what’s really inconvenient? Getting killed on the streets by police because of the color of your skin. Suffering that goes unnoticed or ignored by the world at large. Altering the planet we live on enough to kill off our own species, along with thousands of other innocent species. The Earth will survive humans, but why are we so hell-bent on destroying ourselves?

Maybe it’s because collectively, we’re too distracted to see the reality of what’s happening. We’re focused on living our individual lives, consuming media, getting to work on time, receiving packages two days after we pressed a button to order them. We don’t believe it’s really true that such a terrible thing could occur — that our own children and grandchildren will suffer as a direct result of our inaction.

In this context, the actions of the Just Stop Oil activists suddenly appear gentle and tame. They chose that specific painting because it’s protected by glass, and thus easy to clean. No permanent harm occurred. The activists deflating tires aren’t slashing them, they’re temporarily immobilizing the vehicles. And nobody should be crying over a little spilt milk.

There’s no doubt that such actions will make some onlookers angry enough to turn them against the associated causes, but those people are likely a small minority. Others will (rightfully) be annoyed. But will you feel merely annoyed if your area is suddenly struck by extreme heat waves that kill vulnerable people, destroy crops, and dry up sources of drinking water? Will you be inconvenienced when climate change leads to food shortages and spurs mass migration to the few temperate areas that remain?

It’s very easy to bury our heads in the sand and ignore crises that are happening all around us. For activists and others who are vividly aware of the consequences, these are desperate acts attempting to break through that complacency.

The United Nations just announced that there’s no longer a credible pathway to the 1.5-degree Celsius goal needed to reduce carbon emissions to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and the world barely noticed. We’re frogs slowly boiling in a pot while watching Netflix and debating whether roughly half the human population should have the right to reproductive autonomy. At least the Just Stop Oil activists got us talking about climate change, even if was only for a minute.

The post The Soup-Throwing Climate Activists Succeeded in One Crucial Way first appeared on Dornob.

“Like air taking shape uniquely within our bodies, our lives, and the world around us, this installation changes shape based on real-time, region-specific data as an abstract representation of how air quality impacts us all differently,” the creators explain.

“This interactive installation encourages its audience to reflect on their personal relationship to air quality both locally and globally. It also evokes a lasting, emotional response for those living with the greatest consequences of air pollution through the shared experience of a simple act — breathing.”

The kinetic structures change shape in response to data from local sensors and global data from an open-source API. Audiences who gather to watch the installations will be instructed to follow the breathing pattern of the structure, breathing in with every expansion and out with every contraction to see what it feels like to breathe the air in a particular location.

They’ll even be able to select a region of interest to control the installation’s movements. A QR code will lead the audience to an educational website offering more information and actions to take in their daily lives to reduce global air pollution.

Atta Society aims to deploy the first edition of the “When Air Takes Shape” installation in summer 2023 at various locations within British Columbia. In the future, they plan to take the installation around the world. Their recent Kickstarter campaign raised 214 percent of their goal with the support of 95 backers. They’ve already created their preliminary designs and prototypes, and the funds raised will be used to construct the final sculptures and deploy them in public.

“Within the current climate emergency, human livelihoods are at stake,” the creators say. “Those in less developed regions are especially vulnerable to environmental crises. As far as our world is from being a collection of isolated utopias, many privileged individuals do not understand the urgency, or possess the knowledge, to act upon climate change.”

“However, our consumption demands can increase the risks of individuals dying from air pollution in other parts of the world. As an alarming example, U.S. consumption is responsible for about 100,000 deaths occurring elsewhere in the world. Of those deaths, about 50 percent occur in China, with another 20 percent occurring elsewhere in Asia. Yet, consumerism persists, paralleled with the exploitation of individuals and the environment.”

The “When Air Takes Shape” project makes air pollution feel more personal, wherever you may live in the world. To follow this project and watch for future exhibitions, follow the Atta Society on Instagram @attasociety and on Facebook.

The post Shapeshifting Sculptures Show the Harsh Reality of Air Pollution first appeared on Dornob.

Newsubstance and the Unboxed crew moved the retired oil rig from its former location in the North Sea to the Somerset coast and transformed it into a new public art installation and visitor experience this summer. It was transported by sea on a barge the size of a football field and then lifted over the seawall by crane and set onto prefabricated legs.

The four-story, 450-tonne rig is set within a shallow pool on the beach. Its top platform hosts the garden, while a 6,000-piece kinetic installation featuring the work of Ivan Black and Trevor Lee shimmers across the front. The vegetation was chosen to stand up to the Atlantic gales and corrosive saltwater sprays. The waterfall, dubbed the “SEE MONSTER’s roar,” recirculates via the pool at the base, and the kinetic art moves along with the wind.

Lee’s installation, WindNest, was designed in collaboration with Land Art Generator initiative and consists of two rotating airborne pods that generate clean energy through wind and solar technologies, powering the irrigation systems for the “Garden Lab” on the upper platform. Black’s installation features 6,000 aluminum tiles representing the “monster’s scales,” fluttering in response to weather conditions. Three drone shows by SKYMAGIC light up the skies above the shores of the town, drawing people in to see the installation after dark.

The creators hope SEE MONSTER will inspire conversations about how our industrial history has shaped our climate (mostly for the worse), and what we can do about it.

“SEE MONSTER is a celebration of how we can use our past to shape our future,” the creators say. “Harnessing renewable energy from the great British weather, this reimagined platform will feature experiments, performances, gardens, and even waterfalls — showcasing local innovation and showing how creativity can challenge and change the status quo.”

“SEE MONSTER is being brought to life on the site of Weston’s iconic Tropicana lido by Leeds-based studio Newsubstance with support from Weston-super-Mare Town Council and North Somerset Council. Throughout the UNBOXED summer, it will stand as a vivid reminder of our shared past — and a symbol of our united journey towards a more sustainable future.”

As for Unboxed’s connection to Brexit, The New York Times explains that the $132 million festival was meant to display the best of British creativity after the nation voted to leave the European Union. It’s now being investigated as a “waste of money” by the government’s spending watchdog. The festival has attracted 238,000 visitors since it opened in March; organizers had predicted it would draw up to 66 million people from then until its closure in November.

The post An Abandoned Oil Rig Became a Massive Art Installation in England This Summer first appeared on Dornob.

One of their latest creations is “Atri,” an A-frame off-grid house with a mix of open living spaces and private rooms spread out over three levels, all connected to an open atrium shielded by a glass ceiling. Built in Sikhall, Vänersborg on the shores of Lake Vänern, the home is designed for a completely self-sufficient lifestyle with solar power, a wood-burning stove, built-in raised bed gardens to grow your own food, and connection to on-site well water and septic so no outside utilities are required. Its pointed design mimics the shape of the surrounding conifers.

The home essentially creates its own little microclimate thanks to the greenhouse effect, which can be amplified by the wood stove in harsh winter weather. Not only is that conducive to growing even heat-loving vegetables like tomatoes and peppers in winter, it also lets occupants enjoy an outdoor lifestyle year-round. Throughout the home, you have the ability to gaze out the glass A-frame roof, providing a direct connection to nature. It’s a refreshing change from architecture that can often feel in conflict with nature, working against it instead of with it. The architects intentionally kept the building site as free from intervention as possible, simply creating a gravel pad that visually connects to the neighboring sandy beach.

If there’s one caveat to such a design, it’s the question of whether the home could become uncomfortably warm in the summertime. Though it would increase the cost by a lot, perhaps the kind of glass that can change from clear to opaque on demand would help fine-tune the level of sun protection when needed. That price, by the way, is SEK 7,850,000 ($770,310 USD). The Atria home measures 1,335 square feet and has two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. Other homes by Naturvillan boast similar greenhouse-inspired designs, including the Mini, Midi, and Maxi.

Naturvillan offers a utopian vision of how such homes can be used. “With most of the outer garden only formed by nature you enter your own dream garden inside a greenhouse with a breathtaking high ceiling filled with brightness and clean air. Park the electric car and connect it to your own grid generating new power or to use for electricity in your house. Pick a couple of tomatoes along the green eco cycle wall before you go inside the dwelling. The entry hall is spacious, has easy access to next floor which contains bedroom(s), WC, balcony, and a library. Climb up to the roof terrace and breathe the air, relax, and enjoy the view.”

The post A-Frame Greenhouse Home Brings a Mediterranean Growing Climate Wherever You Want to Live first appeared on Dornob.

When machines can produce stunning masterpieces that mimic a human’s signature style, that artist’s work can suddenly seem less valuable. But a recent project by Manas Bhatia shows us one way in which artificial intelligence could enhance our creativity instead of replacing it. Envisioning what organic architecture of the future could look like, “Symbiotic Architecture” breaks through our understanding of what’s actually possible and asks us to think about our built environment a little differently.

Bhatia, an architectural designer based in India, uses the AI art generator Midjourney as a tool to overcome his own conscious and subconscious assumptions. He’s particularly interested in finding sustainable solutions that are able to withstand climate change by acting more like natural structures than artificial environments. For Symbiotic Architecture, he asked the program to combine an apartment building with Hyperion, a towering 380-foot redwood in California that’s considered the world’s tallest-known living tree. He entered combinations of words like “giant,” “hollowed,” “tree,” “stairs,” and “facade,” continuing to alter the prompts until he got the results he wanted.

The final digital works of art produced by the program are nothing less than stunning, even if they seem completely impossible in the real world. Massive coastal redwoods the size of Hyperion and even larger are pierced with glass-clad dwelling units stacked on top of each other. Little sprouts of leaves pop up here and there between windows and balconies. The images give us an idea of what the world might look like if human dwellings were more like those of ants and other creatures that build their homes from the world around them. The idea is that the structures we live in breathe and potentially even grow as a part of nature instead of attempting to be separate from it.

Would we really want to insert architecture into existing groves of sensitive, slow-growing, and endangered redwoods? Definitely not, but that’s not really the point. Just because our existing construction methods, materials, and technologies aren’t capable of producing safe and durable buildings that look like this doesn’t mean we can’t develop new ones that can. Working backwards from fantastical ideas could produce amazing innovations that allow us to burst out of our minimalist architectural stagnancy. For instance, it’s not that hard to imagine something like a naturally reproducing fungus-based material growing to a desired shape and size around a framework of modular living pods with an appearance resembling these giant inhabitable trees.

“The project began as an AI-based investigation into the interactions we have all had with nature, such as appreciating a tree’s shade on a hot day, reading a newspaper in a courtyard under a tree, or simply hanging out in a park to take in the changing hues of the leaves,” Bhatia explains. “Building on these observations came the idea of a ‘utopian future’ in which buildings are not machines made of steel or concrete…Instead, the structure is alive and has the ability to grow and breathe.”

The post Symbiotic Architecture: Artificial Intelligence Envisions Living Housing Built into Redwood Trees first appeared on Dornob.

Andre Kong Studio created the bench with students at the local University Technical College of Design and Engineering as part of the London Festival of Architecture 2022. Made of reclaimed materials, it invites passersby to sit and reflect on how we’ll need to change, both individually and collectively, in order to avoid a worst-case-scenario future severely impacted by climate disaster. The taller bench soars 2.6 meters (about 8.5 feet) above the lower bench, or 9.8 feet total.

The red gradient seen on the bench’s support frame, reminiscent of a change in color caused by cumulative water level marks, highlights the increasing risk and reinforces the urgency to take action.

“The language of the bench borrows from neighboring maritime infrastructure design around the Royal Docks, using standard metal pipe connections that will allow it to be easily disassembled and re-used for a third time in UTC student projects,” the designer explains.

The bench is simple yet striking, and impossible to ignore. It might be easy for some people to say to themselves, “by the end of the century, I won’t be here, so I won’t be affected by the worst of the climate catastrophe.” But the fact that water levels could rise so high in the very near future during a storm should give all residents of London — and similar coastal cities — pause.

The theme of this year’s London Festival of Architecture, “Act,” spurred some interesting and necessary discourse around topics like how the built environment serves disabled people, how we can design cities for women, the trend of “hostile architecture” that aims to make homeless people unwelcome, and interesting new ways to incorporate waste into architectural design. Andre Kong Studio, founded in 2016 by Portuguese-born British architect Andre Sampaio Kong, is itself an LGBTQ+ led practice committed to diversifying the built environment.

“After such a long time of enforced passivity, the imperative to act is felt by so many of us, whether we are architects or not, while the pandemic has exposed so many things that need to change,” reads the London Festival of Architecture website. “How, for instance, should architecture act in the face of the climate emergency, social injustice, and the needs of a changing society? How can architects make their actions felt beyond their profession — how can they be heard more clearly, become more valued, or collaborate more meaningfully? The theme for the LFA 2022 is ‘act.’ Through the festival we’ll examine how we can act for ourselves, each other, our cities, and the environment.”

Interested in learning more about how architecture can be inclusive? Check out our articles on how hostile anti-homeless design darkens our cities, and how colorful interiors can reimagine what accessible architecture looks like. We also love MUJI’s prefab housing kit for seniors.

The post A Cautionary Benchmark: Inaccessible Public Seating Warns About Future Climate Disaster first appeared on Dornob.

Funded by a grant from the Creative Europe Initiative, LINA will offer the expertise of 28 European and Mediterranean organizations from 23 countries, including several European biennials, triennials, festivals, museums, publishing houses, universities, research networks, and laboratories.

“The LINA platform is designed as a widely diversified international network of artistic, educational, and professional institutions,” says Matevz Celik, LINA Platform Director. “It opens up insight and the possibility for young professionals as well as senior students to participate in the most current and fresh architectural production in the wider European area.”

The idea is that LINA can help facilitate a New European Bauhaus, a period of creativity and innovation based on collaboration and mentorship between established professionals and the emerging generation, who will bear the brunt of advanced climate change and environmental crises in the near future.

Over the next three years, LINA will organize conferences celebrating innovative ideas and support young architects, engineers, and designers as they research new environmentally responsible strategies and develop working prototypes. The general public will also benefit, as LINA will hold exhibitions and events to show off all the work that’s generated through the program. That will be a great way for young architects to gain wider recognition — and to drum up public support for the solutions developed through the program.

Intergenerational collaboration is key to the platform’s potential. As a student or brand new professional, it’s not always easy to get your ideas out into the world, taken seriously, or refined by people and organizations that have more experience. If we’re going to survive as a species and reduce suffering as climate change advances, we need wild and crazy innovation, but those ideas also have to be realistically achievable. Wouldn’t it be nice to see something like this developed in Asia and North America, too?

“The central philosophy of the platform will be to increase the environmental orientation of architectural activity through young professionals’ projects,” says Celik. “The project offers a new working model in architecture where young professionals will be able to participate in education, research, production, and dissemination of their ideas to adapt architecture to the circular economy and environmental challenges.”

This year’s LINA conference, kicking off the launch of the platform, will take place in Ljubljana, Slovenia in the fall. Then, in 2023, LINA will participate in the World Capital of Architecture program with a conference in Copenhagen. In 2024, LINA will contribute to the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the transformation of the city for the Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo. If the platform is successful, it will be renewed until 2029.

The post LINA Fosters Sustainable Architecture Solutions by Giving a Voice to Europe’s Youth first appeared on Dornob.

For us, that has mostly been a good thing, but the convenience has come with a lot of downsides — especially for other species. A new exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in Germany examines our fascination with artificial light and the negative effects associated with its permanent and excessive use. Entitled “Power! Light!,” the exhibition features over 80 works of light art by 60 internationally renowned artists, each one offering enlightenment about issues like light pollution, environmental side effects, and even the ways in which light can be used politically.

Curators Andreas Beitin and Holger Broeker and junior curators Elena Engelbrechter and Regine Epp have brought together works that address how light is used to offer social space and protection or showcase people and objects, but also to monitor, manipulate, exclude, and even destroy. Light has also enabled incredible global economic and cultural development, and led to the destruction of nature.

The museum’s official website explains: “Current issues surrounding ecology are addressed in works of light art such as Nana Petzet’s “Light Trap Hamburg” (2015/2018), which focuses on the mass decline of insect populations. With the help of an algorithm, Daniel Canogar’s “Troposphere” (2017) translates data of global environmental phenomena and natural disasters into abstract color animations. The extent to which we are all trained and manipulated by advertising is demonstrated by Monica Bonvicini’s aesthetic and yet forbidding neon sign “NOT FOR YOU” (2006), as well as by Daniel Pflumm’s light boxes, in which it is unmistakable, even without the company lettering, which firm is behind the brightly colored message.”

“Questions regarding romanticism, happiness, and utopias arise in Lori Hersberger’s “Sunset 164” (2006), in which colorful neon arches feign an eternal sunset — a state that is neither day nor night and quickly ends in the beauty of mere superficial appearance. And do you remember the last time you looked up at a clear, star-filled sky? Siegrun Appelt’s installation, created especially for the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, draws attention to the widespread light pollution by allowing light to be physically experienced in an extremely concentrated form.”

Other works include Gregor Schneider’s “High Security and Isolation Cell No.2” (2005), an interactive experience referencing permanent exposure to a light source as a form of torture, and Warren Neidich’s neon installation “Pizzagate Neon” (2016), addressing the politically motivated fake news scandal in which conspiracy theorists accused Hillary Clinton and other democrats of running a child sex trafficking ring out of the non-existent basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor. Artists displaying works also include Olafur Eliasson, Maja Bajevic, Damien Hirst, Lori Hersberger, Tatsuo Miyajima, and more.

Power! Light! will be on display through July 10th, 2022. Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg is a contemporary art museum and cultural center established in 1994 known for its extensive collections, beautiful glass-roofed space, and Japanese garden.

The post Light Art Gets Political at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg’s New 60-Artist Exhibition in Germany first appeared on Dornob.

“One of the major future crises of the world is rising sea levels, which could pose a serious threat to human survival,” says Navidi of his design. “… We need a system that can adapt to sea level conditions. Nature always has the best answer for us.”

He used the lake village of Ganvie in Africa’s Benin region as an example of a place where his idea might have great benefits. The people there build their houses right on the water, but with constant exposure to the elements, they get easily worn out and destroyed over time. Residents live under constant threat of collapsing homes and potential loss of life from this unpredictable occurrence.

Navidi’s creative solution to the problem began by looking to the survival skills of that area’s native animal populations. With many varieties of pufferfish in the nearby Lake Nokoué, the architect studied their biomimetic structure and the way they escape enemies by means of water or air inflation.

The scheme of the resulting Puffer Village is comprised of individual dwelling pods that can rise to the water’s surface when the tide is high or as the level rises gradually over time. It can also deflate and hunker down during stormy conditions, protecting the homes from floating away or being damaged.

The process involves balloon skins integrated on the roof and under the water that can fill with air or water according to climate conditions. In stable water and weather periods, the skins are closed and collapsed, giving the roofs of the houses a flat appearance. When the sea level rises, a sensor is triggered that activates the air fan under the house, inflating the balloon skins and causing the structure to rise to the surface of the water. During storms or times of rough seas, a separate water wave sensor tells the base pores to let in water, making the houses heavier and better able to withstand the wind and breaking surf.

Even better, each pod is meant to be self-sustaining in its energy needs. A tidal energy system will generate electricity from sea waves, while flexible photovoltaic panes on the roof will produce additional power from solar radiation. An aquaponic system will support food production by supplying fresh water to the plants growing vertically on the houses’ wooden walls.

Each home is secured to a concrete column in the sea floor, and Navidi envisions placing pillars all over the region to allow for generational village expansion.

Navidi’s unique Puffer Village proposal was a top ten finalist (out of 2,000 entrants) in the 2021 Jacques Rougerie Foundation competition, an annual contest promoting innovative ideas for living on the sea or in space.

Photos of Navidi’s inflatable village and his other works can be found on his Instagram page.

The post Inflatable “Puffer Village” Concept Protects Homes from Rising Sea Levels first appeared on Dornob.

“Since Aspen Snowmass first opened in 1946-47, Aspen, Colorado’s average temperature has warmed by three degrees Fahrenheit,” explains Aspen Skiing Company, who commissioned the project. “In total, Aspen Snowmass has lost 30 days of winter since 1980 alone. This season, as part of our 75th anniversary, we’ve installed The Melted Gondola art installation at the top of Aspen Mountain to get people thinking about the next 75 years – and to draw attention to the urgent need to aggressively address climate change.”

Launched in partnership with the nonprofit Protect Our Winters (POW), the campaign takes inspiration from a piece by James Dive and The Glue Society called “Hot with the Chance of a Late Storm”, a similarly melting ice cream truck installed on the beach in Sydney, Australia. Protect Our Winters is a community of athletes, scientists, creatives, and business leaders working to advance non-partisan climate policies. “We need a movement to create large-scale policy change on climate,” says Auden Schendler, Aspen Skiing Company’s SVP of Sustainability. “POW is that movement, mobilizing the outdoor industry as a political force.”

POW and Aspen Skiing Company hope the sculpture will provoke an emotional reaction in onlookers as they arrive on the mountain. Many visitors look forward to their mountain excursion all year, and shorter snow seasons can be highly disappointing. With Aspen warming by about 0.4 degrees per decade, a future in which skiing is no longer possible may be within sight. The groups hope anyone moved by the installation will write to their senators, pressure their favorite businesses to use their voices and influence in Washington, or work to affect small changes like clean energy standards in their own towns.

The installation is rendered even more poignant by the dramatic juxtaposition of two recent events in Colorado: a rare winter wildfire that killed at least four people and destroyed nearly 1,000 homes in the Boulder area, and the 10 inches of snow that extinguished it. On the day the fire started, the area was experiencing unusually high winds after months of drought. The fires blazed across an urban area once thought to be much safer than forested areas in terms of fire risk, burning down a Target and a hotel.

“The record warm temperatures we’ve had in Colorado definitely played a role in this,” says Jennifer Balch, fire scientist and the director of the Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, in an interview with Colorado Public Radio. “Our temperatures across the Front Range between June and December were the warmest on record going back to the early 1960s. Climate change is essentially keeping our fuels drier longer. These grasses that we’re burning during this event, they’ve been baked, essentially, all fall and all winter. And then, on top of that, we didn’t get a lick of moisture.”

The post Melted Gondola Atop Aspen Mountain Delivers a Dire Climate Change Warning first appeared on Dornob.

The exhibit, featuring works from 27 artists, is now open to the public at the historic Cliff House, a former restaurant and ballroom built in the mid-19th century that looks upon the former Sutro Baths and the Pacific Ocean. Presented in conjunction with the National Park Service, which now owns the neoclassical building, Land’s End features works from big-name artists and designers like Andy Goldsworthy and Iris van Herpen, emphasizing just how much we are affecting the health of our planet and how dire the situation truly is.

“On the Horizon” by Ana Teresa Fernández brings an installation of 16 transparent cylindrical pillars to the beach outside, each measuring six feet tall and filled with water from the Pacific to demonstrate how much sea levels are expected to rise in the next century.

For his 2008 film “migration (empire),” artist Doug Aitken created a series of surreal vignettes in which North American migratory animals take up residence in vacant motel rooms, exploring the relationship between wilderness and the sprawling built environment. He explains: “Filmed across the United States in roadside motels — ubiquitous structures that present powerful allegories of transience, mobility, and the westward expansion that has dramatically displaced and reduced animal populations in North America — migration (empire) asks us to consider our own infringement on the natural world.”

A series of sculptures and videos by Finnish artist Tuula Närhinen transform plastic trash that has washed ashore into strange aquatic specimens, mimicking organic sea life with the substance that threatens its existence. “For better or for worse,” the artist says, “plasticity is a testament to life’s metamorphic capability.”

“Geophagia” by Andy Goldsworthy features Cliff House’s former restaurant tables spread with white clay, producing cracked and fissured surfaces that call to mind the historic drought now ravaging California. The FOR-SITE Foundation’s website describes his “barren tables and dried earth” as “serv[ing] a poignant reminder of land degradation and increasing water and food scarcity.”

Fashion designer Iris Van Herpen, known for her innovative futuristic experimentations with textiles, also adds her “Blue Marble Dress” into the mix. Its hand-cut spheres are gradient-dyed from aquatic blue to white, layered and hand-stitched to create an optical illusion of floating. These spheres are made from Parley Ocean Plastic, itself sourced from upcycled marine debris in collaboration with Parley from the Oceans.

Cliff House proves to be a resonant fit with the works on display, and not just because the crashing ocean waves outside the windows are impossible to ignore. The installation was delayed in October due to record-setting rainstorms, and the roof springing a leak. The building itself is at risk of being claimed by the shifting geology of the setting.

“This is not a tranquil site,” says FOR-SITE founder Cheryl Haines. “You do feel quite raw and exposed on this precipice. I really felt beleaguered [during the installation] and it made me even more conscious of the fragility and violence that exist in nature and how important it is for us to respect that and do our small part to not aggravate it further.”

Land’s End is free to the public with timed entries for COVID safety, 11am to 5pm Thursday through Sunday until March 27th, 2022 at 1090 Point Lobos Ave., San Francisco. If you can’t visit in person, check out the virtual tour on the FOR-SITE website.

The post “Land’s End” Installation Brings the Urgency of Climate Change to SF’s Cliff House first appeared on Dornob.

Each of the 49 trees in the installation was brought up to New York from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, a site where the impacts of climate change have already come to fruition. This real world ghost forest was inundated by salt water from a nearby estuarine river after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, causing each tree to start rotting from the inside. The standing dead forest looks a lot like others around the country, like the beetle-kill forest near Lin’s family’s summer vacation destination in southwestern Colorado, which helped inspire the project.

Stretching 40 feet into the air, the bare crowns of the cedars remain the same as the living landscape transforms around them. Their placement has been carefully choreographed, with Lin considering each one as its own individual character. The soundtrack of bird and animal calls, created by Lin using the Macaulay Library sound archive of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, adds an extra layer of mournfulness to the installation. All of these species were once common on Mannahatta (Manhattan Island), the ancestral homeland of the Lenape-Delaware people, more than 500 years ago. None are still present in the area due to urbanization and human activity, and many of the remaining species could be lost in the decades to come. Scientists project that by 2100, 50 percent of all currently living species on the planet could go extinct.

“Each tree is a monument to climate change,” Lin writes on ArtForum. “The project has an advocacy component, which we are using to talk about farming, forestry, degradation, and development. I’m also matching the amount of carbon used in installing the forest by planting a thousand trees around the city. Over ten years, we will actually offset what it took to create the 5.3-ton piece by a factor of ten. Global warming is one of the gravest threats we face, and as an artist and an activist I don’t want to just make you aware of its dire consequences; I want to offer real solutions.”

“Our kickoff public event was a panel discussion on nature-based strategies to combat climate change, and we will continue to explore these issues in other programs throughout the project. Reforming our agricultural, ranching, and forestry practices and increasing protection of both our land and waters could offset between 50 and 90 percent of our current emissions, as well as protect and restore our biodiversity. After the horrific actions of the last administration, we simply don’t have another four years to waste.”

Lin describes the trees as “sentinels,” bearing witness as the park transitions from spring to summer to fall. By the time the installation ends on November 14th, they’ll blend in to the dormant trees around them. After they’re removed, they’ll be recycled into building materials and tree mulch. If you can’t visit in person, check out the audio tour of “Ghost Forest” and listen to the full soundtrack at the Madison Square Park Conservancy website.

The post Ghost Forest: NYC Installation by Maya Lin Makes a Startling Statement on Climate Change first appeared on Dornob.

“The goal of the project was to build a resilient, sustainable residence that responded to the needs of the environment but didn’t sacrifice the comforts of modern living,” says principal architect and owner Adam Wiesehan. “Building and living on water has been an incredible experience. Architecture on water has a more immediate need to be in tune with natural surroundings, and I’m grateful that this project has put me in closer touch with the local environment.”

Wiesehan, an architect with Rekstur, and his wife Margaret Day, a librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library, both grew up coastside (in Texas and Massachusetts, respectively). After they met and married five years ago, they decided to build a home that would bring them back to the sea. “The [coastal] culture is fairly infectious. We wanted to do something ourselves that mixed in my background of architecture with our shared love of the water,” said Wisehan in an interview with Architectural Digest.

The resulting two-story “Kairu House” was constructed from two 40-foot-tall cube containers that were sliced in half diagonally and stacked on top of each other. The structure rests atop a welded-together platform of two 11-foot by 30-foot steel sectional barges. The couple describes the 470-square-foot dwelling as an “upside-down house,” with the bedroom, bathroom, and living space on the first floor, and the kitchen, dining room, and two decks on the second.

In lieu of traditional windows, the couple recycled old doors into fold-out awning-style ones. They also hired a local metalworker to provide a custom oversized front door.

“Unlike a lot of New York residences, it’s very much an indoor-outdoor home,” Day notes. “We have these big awning windows that we open up, the big front door, the big patio doors on the second floor, and in the warm weather, which is when we’re here the most, it so fits our love of nature and our desire to be outside.”

All that easy access to the outside also eliminates the need for an HVAC system. The couple stresses that they “don’t use air conditioners. We have no need for that in the summer because we get such a wonderful breeze through the house.”

The freight boxes inside were transformed into a fully-fledged home with the help of sapele hardwood floors and maple walls. Special accents include a kitchen backsplash of handmade turquoise tiles and a distinctive stone sink in the bathroom.

“We selected fixtures and finishes that reference our bohemian inspiration,” explains Wiesehan. To be extra sustainable, the design also features a composting toilet and plans to expand the existing DC power with solar panels.

Perhaps most exciting of all is the Kairu House’s potential for adapting to global warming. With its ability to move with rising sea levels along the coast, the design could mark the start of an affordable and resilient trend for future living.

The post Couple Turns Reclaimed Shipping Containers Into Floating NYC Summer House first appeared on Dornob.

After seven years of experimenting with over 100 different chemicals, researchers discovered that adding a high concentration of barium sulfate – a UV-reflecting substance already widely used in things like cosmetics and x-rays – was effective in pushing away almost all the sun’s rays, including the ultraviolet wavelengths that typically cause surfaces to warm up.

“It’s very counterintuitive for a surface in direct sunlight to be cooler than the temperature your local weather station reports for that area, but we’ve shown this to be possible,” says Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering and a co-author of the team’s article in the ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces journal.

By brushing their ultra-reflective white paint onto the roof of one of the campus buildings in West Lafayette, Indiana, outdoor surfaces were kept eight degrees cooler than their surroundings in direct midday sunlight. At night, the roof was a whopping 19 degrees cooler than the neighboring ambient temperatures.

“Our paint only absorbs 1.9 percent of the sunlight, whereas commercial paint absorbs 10 to 20 percent of sunlight,” Ruan explains, adding that “commercial white paints are cooler than the other, darker-colored paints, but they are still warmer than the ambient or surrounding temperature.”

“Our paint can lose heat by its own emission – it emits heat to deep space. With such little absorption from the sun, our paint loses more heat than it absorbs. This is really exciting for us. Under the sun, it cools below the ambient temperature, and that’s hard to achieve.”

When put under infrared light, a photo of the paint on a brick wall reveals the temperature to be much lower than both the paper it’s on and the wall behind it.

By expelling infrared heat away from its surfaces, the new ultra-white paint can provide the equivalent of 113 watts per square meter of cooling power. That means a 1,000 square-foot roof covered in the stuff would have about 10 kilowatts of cooling power, making it more powerful than most residential central air conditioners.

Not only does the paint’s power reduce the need for inside air control, but it also solves the “urban heat island” problems often created by those units.

“Air conditioners can cool your house, but they move the heat from inside the house to outside – the heat is still in the city, it’s still on the Earth, in our air,” Ruan says. “So even if you don’t care about the power bills you pay, it’s going to warm up the Earth anyway. Our paint doesn’t use any power but, more importantly, it sends the heat to space. The heat doesn’t stay on the Earth, so that really helps the Earth to cool down and can stop the warming trend.”

“We’re not moving heat from the surface to the atmosphere,” adds Xiangyu Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who worked on this project as a Ph.D. student in the Perdue lab. “We’re just dumping it all out into the universe, which is an infinite heat sink.”

With the help of statistical models, the team estimated that hot cities like Phoenix and Reno could use as much as 70-percent less air conditioning if all buildings were painted in the new white tint, which would mean a huge reduction in greenhouse gases. And if somehow they could cover roughly one percent of the Earth’s surface in the reflective hue, it would be enough to stop the current global warming shift altogether.

The research team remains hopeful that the paint will cost no more than traditional formulas and is working to get it commercially available to the public soon.

The post Is This Ultra-White Paint the Key to Ending Global Warming? first appeared on Dornob.

As part of the Florida Climate Crisis crusade, the CLEO Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to “building climate literacy and spurring climate action,” enlisted the help of ad agency Zubi, mixed media production company 1stAveMachine, and award-winning artist and inventor Bob Partington to create three wax constructions that would liquefy over the course of three to five days to reveal hidden messages about the Earth’s environmental emergency.

Florida experienced its fifth-hottest summer on record in 2020, in addition to an overactive hurricane season. “We are experiencing increased temperatures and increased sea level as well,” Yoca Arditi-Rocha, Executive Director of The CLEO Institute, told CNN. “For us, the climate crisis is very relevant, and it’s impacting Floridians in so many ways.”

Partington, of The History Channel’s Thingamabob fame, was tasked with finding ways to illustrate the dangerous effects those increased temperatures and sea levels would have on the state’s residents.

“Florida is such a visually enthralling state,” he said in a press release. “…The Zubi team asked us to hone-in on three icons that represent what Floridians and the world stand to lose — forever — if action is not taken now.”

The first symbol the creative team chose was a lifeguard hut. Unveiled on September 9th at the Philip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami, the sculpture’s buttery side rails and teal siding gradually softened into mush until a sign reading “More Heat, Less Beach” was uncovered. Zubi Executive Creative Director Ivan Calle said he hoped people would connect the dots between sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and the strength of Florida’s tourism-driven economy.

The second piece, installed on September 18th at ZooTampa, depicted a vibrant Florida panther cub and its mother. After the heat took its toll on the creatures, a buried warning read “More Heat, Less Wildlife.” “Real panthers don’t actually melt,” Calle admitted, “but we wanted to artfully show how extreme heat and other effects of the climate crisis, like rising seas, are a threat to their continued existence, and that’s something all Floridians want to prevent.”

The final composition began its run in the sun on September 24th in front of Orlando’s City Hall, featuring a grandfather and his granddaughter sitting on a park bench, enjoying a day of leisure in the Sunshine State. As the brilliant colors faded and the figure’s wax ice cream cone dissolved, passersby could see the words “More Heat, Less Health.”

“The climate crisis is a threat to our health. From respiratory and cardiovascular disease, to mental health and infectious diseases, we must do more to lower our global warming pollution,” Yoca Arditi-Rocha emphasizes.

Even the fact that the original beauty of the sculptures can now only be remembered in photographs points to the fleeting nature of Florida’s beach culture, thriving (pre-COVID-19) tourism industry, and diverse wildlife. The CLEO Institute and the collaborating designers hope the dramatic artworks will motivate residents to join in their environmental battle cry.

“Our passion to save our way of living here in Florida is widely shared among so many of us,” Arditi-Rocha notes. “We know this is a topic that has been tremendously politicized, but everyone wants to protect our beautiful beaches, our biodiversity, and our way of living.”

The post These Melting Florida Sculptures Unearth Ominous Climate Change Warnings first appeared on Dornob.

Canadian startup Flash Forest expects to change the world’s landscape quite literally, using reforestation flyers that can replant trees faster and more effectively than humans can.

In 2018, mankind released 34 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, according to the International Panel on Climate Change — a trend that it says leaves humanity just 10 years to avert calamitous, irreversible climate effects. A major part of the CO2 problem is the destruction of the world’s natural forests, coupled with a shortage of replanting.

“There are a lot of different attempts to tackle reforestation,” says Flash Forest co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Angelique Ahlstrom. “But despite all of them, they’re still failing, with a net loss of 7 billion trees every year.”

The new firm hopes to make real progress in that domain. “We started Flash Forest with the goal of offsetting carbon emissions enough to have a significant and measurable impact on climate change within the next decade,” the company website explains. “Instead of humans on the ground, we transfer the hard labor to drones at 10 times the speed. Living in the age of technology, we can effectively harness this to restore entire ecosystems, scaling the global quest for carbon neutrality.”

Flash Forest intends to plant at least 1 billion new trees by the end of 2028. Most recently, the organization sent its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over wildfire-burned land north of Toronto, where they injected 40,000 pine and spruce tree offspring into the earth.

The process begins by sending out software-enabled drones to map an area, locating prime spots for new growth. Then, armed with the appropriate seed inventory, a flotilla of flyers heads out to drop them perfectly on target. In more rugged terrain where simply releasing the pods is not enough, the UAVs make use of pneumatic firing machines to shoot the future saplings into the soil.

“Depending on the project, we’ll go back two months after, and then a year or two after, and then three to five years after” to make sure the pods are sprouting as anticipated, Ahlstrom says. “If we fall under a threshold plant goal of a certain number of trees, we’ll go back and ensure that we are hitting our goal.”

Flash Forest uses a proprietary mix to encase the seeds that allows them to store enough moisture to survive for months with no outside water source. It also helps them germinate several weeks before they would normally, increasing their chances of growth and endurance.

The company also strives to use several different varieties in each sowing region, currently using at least four types at once. “We very much prioritize biodiversity, so we try to plant species that are native to the land as opposed to monocultures,” Ahlstrom explains, adding that they “work with local seed banks and also take into account the different changes that climate change brings with temperature rise, anticipating what the climate will be like in five to eight years when these trees are much older and have grown to a more mature stage, and how that will affect them.”

Because Flash Forest uses native vegetation seeds, the saplings shouldn’t require human effort to stay alive. Plus, by planting so many seeds, the company is ensuring that even if some die off, enough will survive to grow into maturity and repopulate the area.

With their current fleet of UAVs, the startup can embed up to 20,000 pods a day. Compared with the 1,500 trees that Ahlstrom says can be planted by hand in a day, Flash Forest’s efforts could quickly transform whole swaths of country to soak up more carbon emissions. The company looks forward to technology updates that could allow its drone force to sow up to 100,000 seeds each day.

Following their reforestation project in the Toronto area, the business will move on to a 300,000 tree-planting venture in Hawaii. There are also plans in the works to establish new drone-seeded groves in Australia, Colombia, and Malaysia.

The post Flash Forest’s Smart Drones Take to the Skies to Curb Climate Change first appeared on Dornob.