Oct 15, 08

From The Book

Stuff: Introduction

Our things define us.

What we buy, what we use, what we keep and throw away, what we waste, and what we save: the stuff that surrounds us and flows through our lives is a key indicator of the kinds of lives we're living. To be an affluent twenty-first-century person is to float on a sea of material objects - each with its own history and future.

They may be hidden from our eyes, but in practical global terms, those histories and futures tend to be the most important aspects of the stuff we own.

image from sarah rich

Stuff

Locavore Valley: The Next Big Boom?

In difficult economic times, it helps to learn from those who have been through hardship and found a way to recover. Perhaps that's why this story about Hardwick, Vermont, published in last week's New York Times, resonates particularly strongly. As...

Shelter

What's in a Name?

Think you can tell the difference between a think tank with a straightforward name and one that's misleading? Nonprofit organization Consumer Reports lets you test your ability to see through green murketing with their new report and interactive quiz...

Community

Life Inside Skeleton Dwellings

The excuse for my visit to Paris was SmartCity, a conference organized in the frame of the festival Emergences. Emergences is an 'international festival of electronic cultures and new art forms'. However, one must accept that in a city like...


Urban Revival, Suburban Form and Divergent Innovation

A thought's been bugging me lately, seeping up through the subconscious and nagging at me, and recently, as I do my horizon-scanning, I think I've started to figure out what it is: I think we're beginning to see a...

Stuff

U.S. Fish Farms Tap Former Coal Mines for Water

In the Appalachian mountains of the United States, growing numbers of fish farmers are raising trout, catfish, and even salmon throughout the valleys of the state of West Virginia. What they'd rather not tell you, however, is that the...

Stuff

Preview: Curry Stone's Five Finalists in Humanitarian Design

Here's a handful of innovative, human-oriented solutions to start off your weekend. The Curry Stone Design Prize, a competition debuted this year by the University of Kentucky College of Design, will unveil its 2008 finalists tomorrow at this week's 11th...

Community

When local profit based social ventures date international non profits

Last week I wrote about the American Express Members Project and a project to develop sustainable weaving cooperatives that (full disclosure) my organization, Architecture for Humanity, is involved in. This project, spearheaded by Lulan Artisans, is part of a growing...

Stuff

Paper from Wheat, not Wood

By WorldChanging Canada writer Rod Edwards. There's an interesting development lurking in your magazine rack (provided you subscribe to Canadian Geographic): paper made from wheat straw—the stem & stalk waste product of grain farming. Indistinguishable from regular wood-pulp paper...

Cities

Plug In and Drive

Shai Agassi says his electric cars can save the world. People are listening. There’s a lot to chew over in Wired’s profile of Shai Agassi, the entrepreneur engaged in an audacious experiment to electrify an entire nation’s transportation system, and...


Architectural Gem of the Day: Casa Tolo, Portugal

I came across this gorgeous design for a vacation home in northern Portugal this morning, and was absolutely inspired by its display of creativity, efficiency and relative affordability: The structure, designed by architect Alvaro Leite Size Vieira, is certainly luxurious...

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