Results 1 - 4 of 4
Project Persons Year Tags
Active Phytoremediation Wall System Skidmore,Owings, Merrill (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) 2012 hydroponics, plants, buildings, environment, energy saving, rhizome, materials, air refreshing
The Active Phytoremediation Wall System is a modular system of pods, housing hydroponic plants. Its main purpose is to encourage airflow and contribute to the quality of life through its air cleaning capacities. The project is a result of a collaborative research between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. It is a bio-mechanical hybrid system that produces ‘fresh air’ from within buildings, thereby reducing the energy consumption. Because the plants’ roots are exposed, instead of being buried in soil, the plants’ air-cleaning capacity increases by 200 to 300 percent. The pods themselves are made from vacuum-formed plastic, and the form allows the maximum amount of air to reach the root rhizomes while using the minimum amount of material. It also creates a beautiful base for the plants. The wall system can be installed in large commercial interiors, but works equally well in small settings—a four-module system in an apartment would have the impact of 800 to
Jurema Action Plant Bert van DuijnIvan Henriques (V2_) 2011 biology, environment, biodiversity, interaction, environmentalism, prototype, plant, robot
Plants are moving creatures. Their movements generally remains invisible to us, because their muscle and nerve-like systems operate at a very slow timescale and their rooting in soil confines their motion to the movement of branches and leaves. These restrictions give plants an enormous disadvantage compared to their main aggressors: animals and humans, in many instances resulting in a loss of biodiversity and even extinction. In the prototype that Ivan Henriques developed during the V2_ Summer Sessions a plant is provided with an off-the-shelf motor system. The potential of the plant to sense when it is being touched is used to set the motor in action. By doing so, the plant is able to speedily drive away in response to human touch.
Oil Compass Kasia Molga (V2_) 2011 scenarios, drone, energy, environment, ecology, Google Earth, ocean, visualitzation, interaction, Protei, oil spill, soil
"Oil Compass" explores the potential of the future effects of oil spills on oceans through the convergence of past records with present real-time data. Kasia Molga has attempted to envision possible future response for the novel oil spill cleaning technology called Protei: a swarm of autonomous sailing robots that would monitor and clean up oil spills. It is an interactive visualisation depicting “past”, “present” and possible “future” scenarios of oil spills in world's oceans; and threats which oil rigs and tankers carry while scattered all over the planet. Based on Google Earth API, it take live data visualisation of oil tankers and oil rigs and juxtaposition it together with the 10 worst spills in the history put together with data of energy consumption (and therefore need for oil) all over the world. "Oil Compass v.1" was produces in V2_ in Rotterdam as a part of Protei development - unmanned drone which can clean waters - brainchild of Cesar Harada
Searching for the Ubiquitous Genetically Engineered Machine Yashas Shetty,Mukund Thattai (ArtScienceBangalore) 2012 biology, life, living parts, soil, environment, synthetic biology, engineered products, ecology, lab, biotechnology
In Synthetic Biology, the Biobrick has been used as an abstraction or template for creating standardized functional living parts. Searching for UGEM is an alternate re-appropriations of the BioBrick by using existing BioBrick primers as random-PCR(Polymerase Chain Reaction) primers in investigating soil samples. This random PCR will provide a succinct signature of the biological diversity present in these samples. These investigations of soil lead us to ask questions about citizen’s science "performed" by non-institutional actors using accessible tools as well as gives us a glimpse into the "post-natural world" where BioBricks may end up in our environment and may very well show up as bands in a gel. By imagining a world in which the Biobrick has become the accepted standard for synthetic biology, and where these engineered products are ubiquitous in our lives and environments, the samples we archive will serve as the baseline from which the subsequent extent of human influence can be measured. These investigations are carried out in a custom built public research laboratory, the blueprints for making one are available online. These Autonomous Public Laboratories can be used as template for creating a citizen's research lab with which one can carry out "experiments"-biotechnological or otherwise.