Brad Pitt Rebuilds New Orleans

Something few people know about Brad Pitt is that he is an ardent follower of Architecture. Though formally educated as a journalist, his interest has driven him as far as taking an informal internship at Frank Gehry's Los Angeles office.

But why is it that I talk about it now? It is because today he is involved in one of the most important reconstruction projects in the world, that of New Orleans, affected by the furious Hurricane Katrina in mid 2005.
In Dec. 2006, Pitt and a group of experts, explored the possibility of building green, affordable houses for the displaced residents.

A competition was organized, to develop ideas on rebuilding this community in a sustainable manner.
The result of this is the Make It Right (MIR) Project.
The goal of this project is to build 150 homes in the Lower 9th ward, which was one of the worst hit by the hurricane.
Brad Pitt commissioned 13 architectural firms, that includes the 2005 Pritzker Winner Thom Mayne's firm Morphosis, MVRDV and Shigeru Ban, to create a 1,200-square-foot house for about $150,000.
The MIR team created a set of guide lines for the designers such that important goals of the organisation were met.
The four main guiding principle for the designs were

• Safety
• Affordability
• Sustainability
• High design quality

Last week Brid Pitt made public the 13 architects designs. Some of the visually interesting designs were that of

Adjaye Architects  London, England



Concordia



Morphosis



Trahan



MVRDV
Wah?!! Is that before or after Katrina? I guess that was the idea.


One of the concerns that the residents raised was that many of the designs are on stilts. The stilts are provided for obvious reasons, but it also drives the cost of the building up by a lot, making it, lets say, not so affordable. But then hey, you dont get to rebuild a town everyday, make it good when you have the chance. "Make it RIght". So long as its done quickly.
Right now as I right this blog, 27 of the 150 houses have been sponsered for.

Comic of the Day: The arch.Maaik Network

The arch.Maaik Network

BlobWall

This is Blob Wall. A modular wall system made of lightweight honeycomb material, designed by architect Greg Lynn. Its a free standing wall that has Interior/Exterior applications.


Blob Wall, made by Panelite was initially designed for Greg Lynn's home. The material is a low-density, impact resistant polymer. The weird shape was achieved with the use of a CNC machine. A machine which has a 6 axis Robot arm!

Each piece fits into each other like a jigsaw blocks, to achieve a whole range of 3d configurations.



Grey Lynn with Robot arm(behind) of Machineous.


Bolb Wall as seen in MOCA Skin + Bones Exhibition, now travels to Miami. It will be on display at the T-Concepts showroom at Design Miami, through the 6th to 9th Dec, '07.

Algae the New Bio Fuel

With the depletion of fossil fuels and the search for a alternative, Hydrogen was hailed as the savior. Abundant in nature as water. The only issue is that the scientists haven't figured a way of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen in a relatively cheap manner.
Its turns out, a primitive life form, seems to have succeeded in doing just that. The solution it seems lies with Algae. Yes algae. Primitive chlorophyll-containing mainly aquatic eukaryotic organisms lacking true stems and roots and leaves.

This is a project originally intended for a design competition. It calls itself Icelandic New Energy.

The designers say :
It has long been known that algae produce small amounts of hydrogen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. In 1999, researchers in Berkeley observed that algae alternate between hydrogen production and normal photosynthesis depending on the chemical environment. Depriving algae of oxygen and sulfur, the researchers greatly increased the hydrogen production and triggered the algae to produce hydrogen for an extended period of time. Another research group also discovered that algae will sustain simultaneous production of hydrogen and oxygen from water by illuminating the algae and depriving it of carbon dioxide and oxygen. Researchers estimate that a small pond (1.5 acre or 10 meter diameter) will produce enough hydrogen on a weekly basis to fuel 12 cars.


You can find out more about this project on the still under construction site of the 202 Collaborative

BusinessWeek recently ran an article that seconds this view point. Algae can potentially deliver 10 to 100 times the energy as current energy crop, it says. As it grows, it sops up green house gases and leaves behind small globules of fat, that can be used as oil.

At the Think Tomorrow Today conference held this year, GreenFuel CFO Guillermo Espiga says that algae grows rapidly and grows constantly, which means that algae ponds can produce more oil per hectare in a year than traditional plant crops. He gave some figures that where quite amazing - A hectare pond filled with algae can produce 15,000 to 80,000 liters of vegetable oil a year. Only about 6,000 liters of palm oil can be squeezed out of a hectare a year. Corn is only good for 120 liters per hectares of oil a year.

Some of the companies that have started up algae business units include - Boeing, Chevron and Honeywell.
There are also companies that are working to genetically engineer algae for much better productivity.
Green Future indeed.