Airtight, sustainable, and quick to assemble, Sweden’s carbon-sequestering Kajstaden tower is a beacon for sustainable construction.
Cross-laminated timber (CLT) (a sub-category of engineered wood[1]) is a wood panel product made from gluing together layers of solid-sawn lumber, i.e., lumber cut from a single log. Each layer of boards is usually oriented perpendicular to adjacent layers and glued on the wide faces of each board, usually in a symmetric way so that the outer...
After years of creating machines to 3D print rubber, recycled plastics, clay, and geopolymers, the Italian start-up WASP created a 3D-Printer capable of printing a home for the marginal cost (which, they say, leans to 0) of the dirt., In 2018, the team printed their first home in 10 days using local earth (30% clay, 40% silt, 30% sand), 40% chopped rice straw, 25% rice husk, and 10% lime. “Gaia” cost 900 euros (1,000 dollars) in materials for 30 meters of wall. The round-shaped structure relied on a wooden roof and beams for support., Three years later, WASP printed an all-earth two-domed home dubbed TECLA (Technology + Clay) using two synchronized printing arms, which were programmed to pick, mix and pump materials into layers. At their headquarters in Massa Lombarda, Italy, it took 200 hours, 7000 machine codes, and 6kw of energy to print the 350 layers of clay., WASP (World's Advanced Saving Project) is the brainchild of father-daughter team Massimo and Francesca Moretti. Launched in 2011 when Francesca, a designer, began tinkering with early 3D printers and introduced her electronic technician father to the tech., Massimo, inspired by nature - and specifically the mason wasp which builds its own nest with material recovered from the surrounding environment - began designing a 3D printer capable of building houses with local, natural materials “at a cost tending to zero”., In late 2021, WASP worked with fashion house Dior to print a pop-up store in Dubai covered in their signature Cannage motif (3D printed using clay, sand, and raw fibers). The same year, they used the Crane 3D printer to create the “livable sculpture” titled “House of Dust”; it took 50 hours of 3D printing, 500 G-codes, 165 15mm-layers, 15 kilometers of extrusion, and eight cubic meters of material to print the 16-square-meter habitable structure in Wiesbaden, Germany., https://www.3dwasp.com/en/, On *faircompanies: https://faircompanies.com/videos/wasp-3d-prints-round-eco-homes-from-any-local-raw-earth/
farmOS is a free and open source web-based application for farm management, planning, and record keeping.
Our current model of energy production is not the optimal arrangement – it is simplythe product of a series of decisions made over a long period. Vijay Vaitheeswaran, in his investigation into the history and prospects for renewable energy, identifies a precise moment back in 1884 when we unwittingly locked ourselves into the modern, centralised, grid-based electricity system. He explains that early experiments in electrification in the US, led by Thomas Edison, centred on standalone ‘micropower’ plants in homes and offices around New York City. A fight for investment between Edison and his rival Nikola Tesla, which Edison eventually lost, meant that grid electrification based on AC technology became the backbone of the electricity network.As this story illustrates, the energy system we have is not the only way of doing things. A return to Edison’s micropower vision – updated, of course, with the renewable technologies we now have at our disposal – offers one route to solving the energy crisis and climate change.
The Royal Society has launched a project on digital technologies and the planet to identify actions the UK can take to play a leading role in data-enabled innovation.
<p>It’s not about Americans being dumb sheep, but about how billionaires manipulate us into trusting them, how the reckless pursuit of profit can have catastrophic consequences, and the need to come together to fight those who prevent us from solving our problems. </p>
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