Where’d the Enthusiasm Go? References

The resources I found useful for my previous post are as follows:

“How Solar Cells Work.” How Stuff Works. 16 Nov. 2008 <http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell8.htm>.

“The Cost of Solar Energy.” Solar Power at Home. 16 Nov. 2008 <http://www.solarpowerathome.com/cost-of-solar-energy.html>.

The Man with the Golden Gun. Dir. Guy Hamilton. Perf. Roger Moore and Christopher Lee. Film. 1974.

Watson, Gray. “Background.” Watson Solar House. 16 Nov. 2008 <http://256.com/solar/>.

Designing for Wheelchairs References

Here are the sites I used to find my information for the previous post.  I found them very informative and clear, and would suggest them to anyone who is interested in the topics discussed.

“Accessibility.” Accessibility-Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. 16 Nov. 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/accessibility.

“Building Control.” Building Control, disabled access. Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council. 16 Nov. 2008 http://www.berwick-upon-tweed.gov.uk/buildingcontrol/access.htm.

Kelly, Rachel. “Doorsteps to be swept away in new rules for builders.” The Times of London. 5 Dec. 1997. 16 Nov. 2008 http://www.concretechange.org/policy_legislative_world_britmandate_art.pdf.

S.K.

 

 

Potable Water

In the last lecture, the desalination plant in Abu Dhabi was briefly mentioned. This plant works to remove salt from water in order to expand its resource of drinkable water. Considering the current ecological state, and the insufficient supplies of potable water for the ever-growing population, this concept sounds enticing for other areas of the world. However, at the same time I have mixed feelings towards this process.

Technologies such as this may not teach us to change our current mindsets towards the current environment. As the quantities of safe drinking water have dwindled, we have also seen a rapid expansion of global awareness. People are working hard to find innovative and environmentally friendly solutions that have not been considered before. It seems to be the decreasing supply of water that has been the push force of these new design ideas.

Therefore, my concern would be that if we began to use desalination plants at a large scale, we would again lose sight of why it is so important to conserve our fresh water supplies. We need to determine ways to conserve what we do have, instead of finding more to consume.

M.H.

Personal Rapid Transit System References

Here are some great, informative sites relating the PRT system.

“Heathrow/Test Track Progress.” ULTra Advanced Transit System Inc. 30 Oct. 2008 <http://ultraport.com/heathrow.htm>.

“London Heathrow Information.” Heathrow Airport. 04 Nov. 2008 <http://www.jatlondon.com/info/transit.htm>.

“Masdar Initiative – Worlds First 100% Carbon Free Community.” Youtube. 04 Nov. 2008 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovly1dqgkh4>.

“Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) or Personal Automated Transport (PAT).” Personal Rapid Transit, costs, history, illustrations, contact information, related websites, advocacy groups, deployment experiences. University of Washington. 4 Nov. 2008 <http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/prtquick.htm>.

“Podcar City; Ithaca.” Podcar City Ithaca, 2008. Swedish Institute for Sustainable Transportation. 04 Nov. 2008 <http://podcar.org/thacaconference/>.

“What is PRT?” Personal Rapid Transit. 4 Nov. 2008 <http://www.personalrapidtransit.com>.

Stantec

The first half of our class this previous Thursday was a lecture done by an engineer from Stantec. Maybe I’m just biased towards Stantec because I work for them during summer months, but the lecture was great. The guest speaker was dynamic and he spoke about things like 10 reasons why a project might fail and clients, and it’s about time.

Don’t get me wrong, all of our lectures so far have been completely valuable and I take them seriously, but this lecture spoke about our future profession in a real world senario type way. We learnt about 10 reasons for failure, which were: lack of decision process, lack of leadership, lack of commitment, wrong stakeholders, inadequate information, wrong problem, politics, insufficient time, company culture and insufficient interest. We also learnt about Architect to client relationships and how we are ultimately working for the client.

On top of this the speaker spoke about green initiatives. Natural water treatment was one of them and it is, to put it short, using natural means to clean water. Another was low impact development, or LID which emphasizes stormwater micro management.

All in all the lecture from Stantec was interesting and very useful. It made me proud to be one of their employees.

Rotating Architecture: resources

Here is the site I first found out about the Dynamic Tower in Dubai:

http://amazing-maststuff.blogspot.com/2008/03/worlds-first-rotating-architecture.html

Here is a YouTube video showing the movement of the Dynamic Tower in Moscow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY0Uuyf8Xhw&feature=related

Here is a site of the Dynamic Tower (the rotating tower):

http://www.dynamicarchitecture.net/home.html

Exoskeleton Motorcycle: resources

Birkeley Bionics web site, the creators of the Human Exoskeleton: http://www.berkeleybionics.com/

The YouTube clip of the Human Exoskeleton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdK2y3lphmE&NR=1

An article on Jake Loniak’s Wearable Motorcycle: http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2008-08/wearable-motorcycle

The YouTube clip of the Wearable Motorcycle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmHkj6nD-DU

Manitoba Sustainable Energy Association res.

MSEA’s website: http://www.mansea.org/index.html

MSEA’s mission statement (PDF): http://www.kilarneymanitoba.com/pdfs/TMSV_Mandate_of_MSEA.pdf