Urban Jungle (Gym): April 2011

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Eden Project Research

Image Reference: http://www.eden-project.net/eden-project.jpg

Built on a reclaimed clay pit, The Eden Project is the largest greenhouse in the world, consisting of artificial biomes that house many different species of plants collected from around the world. It is located in Cornwall in the United Kingdom. The Eden Project consists of three enclosures, each emulating different natural biomes to represent three distinct climates found around the world. Biomes are eco systems that are characterised by distinctive plants and animals that share a certain climatic condition. The largest biome in the Eden Project emulates a tropical climate while the second one emulates a Mediterranean climate and the third is a roofless dome, which is an open area with varied plant life from the temperate Cornwall area as well as plants from similar climates. There is a computer controlled environmental control system that regulates the temperature and humidity of each dome. The domes are self supporting and require no internal support due its the geodesic structure. The geodesic structures are made from steel.

The panels are made from EthylTetraFluoroEthylene (ETFE), a hi-tech transparent foil. ETFE foil is a perfect covering for a greenhouse because it is strong, transparent and lightweight. A piece of ETFE weighs less than 1 percent of a piece of glass with the same volume. It is also a better insulator than glass, and it is much more resistant to the weathering effects of sunlight.

Image Reference: http://www.ecosalon.com/data/fe/image/Eden%20Project%202.jpg

References:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/conservationists/eden.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=8H2q0KUZeOsC&pg=PA107&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Concept idea_ inflatable protection

What will you do if there has a big earthquake happen and you are inside a buliding or the buliding beside is about to collapse?? When the earthquake happening you never know what will happen inside a buliding: ceiling falling down, glass flying to you, floor collapse........anything can be happen, and of couse people will find somewhere or something that can protect themselves, but it only works if staff that close to the person. Time is really important when that happening.

so my idea is to create a life jacket that when some bad thing happeing like earthquake, tsunami, explosion...... that you pull the trigger or handle the rounded airbag will cover the whole body in very short time. Well that is something it can be make easily, the main forcus point is the material for the airbag in the future. I want this material can be intergrate when two airbag contact each other, like it can communicate and merge each other, also it needs to be hard and flexible. The reason I want the material can be merge together, because when there is another airbag it can be join togeter to create another communication space for people, and turning the emotion from fear to fun and happy situation.

Hovding_ air bag helmet

jamie had show me this picture, which i think it has a interesting shapes and it can also become
a fashion. I went and do some research on this, i found it is design by Swedes Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin. Hovding is a collar for bicyclists, worn around the neck. The collar contains a folded up airbag that you'll only see if you hapen to have an accident. the airbag is shaped lik a hood, sourrounding and protecting the bicyclist's head. The triggr mechanism is controlled by sensors which pick up the abnormal movements of a bicyclist in an accident.
The youtube link it show how dose Hovding works LINK

http://www.hovding.com/

Inflatable protection

i been look at waht are the inflatable protection is already exist and how they works.... i looked at car's air-bag and life jacket, which i found they both are using different material to pump up the bag. With car's air-bag they use some chemincal called sodium azide to make explosion inside the bag and inflate it in a very short time. it will happen or controlled by the crash sensor, which hiden in the steering wheel.

www.lanl.gov/quarterly/q_wum03/airbags.shtml

with the lift jacket i found that they were using CO2 cylinder for the inflation.

Automatic life jackets activate when detecting water. Upon detection of water, a firing mechanism will active and pierce a CO2 cylindr. The air coming out of the cylinder will inflate the bladder of the life jacket and creat buoyancy. Manual-only lifejacket are activated by the user by pulling on a toggle or handel to release the air.

Most life jackets use CO2 cylinders as CO2 has proven to be adequate because of its properties of being non-toxic, non-inflammable, and because it can be stored in small disposable cylinders.

www.sailingproshop.com/lifejacket.aspx

Vacant buildings in Wellington April 2011

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Protecting Wellington from a tsunami

Currently there are many places around the world that utilise tsunami walls but in reality as seen in the recent Japan quake, these tsunami walls just weren't enough. Even the 9 metre walls that dominated the landscape of Ryoishi were to short.

http://www.pakistangeonews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/hancocks_image_cnn_640x480.jpg

To have walls tall enough to stop a 10metre tsunami surrounding Wellington would be extremely intrusive and unattractive. My concept is to install 30metre inflatable walls around along the coastline. These walls would be hidden deflated underground waiting to be triggered at a moments notice. Since a tsunami triggered by a quake in the Cook Strait would only take a few minutes to hit the shore, the walls would have to inflate very quickly. To do this systems similar to those of air bags, and evacuation slides on aircraft on much larger scale could be used to inflate the walls in seconds.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGu30dzlDESMzthtIEZcuDatHdZJuBKiv_0XcDntuN_KpiwYq8lZtvoNEv5u6awKzSg1UQynXyu2n6W6_l0WG72OgH6Y8QgkhiMBo8UPRgkq1OEdpY4RtHYSqrj0DdrlDI0uj59Pf4VPg/s320/225px-Emergency_exit_slide.jpg

Wellington's tsunami risk

If a tsunami similar in size to that which struck Japan only weeks ago, hit Wellington, much of the low lying areas would be left in ruins.

A depiction of potential impact of a 10m tsunami hitting central Wellington.

http://static2.stuff.co.nz/1300440822/641/4786641.jpg

An animation of what parts of Wellington would be effected by a Tsunami

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4786645/Wellingtons-tsunami-risk

Development of the 2040 inter-building bridge.

To fulfil our goal of changing the Central Business District into a Central Recreational District we need to open up pathways between the downtown high-rise buildings on multiple levels. This will open up these buildings and allow them to be used for new recreation and living activities. These bridges will create a flow between buildings allowing people to move freely between them without having to enter and exit buildings through ground floor only.

This is the current concept for the 2040 version of inter-building bridge. It is

based on the wing of a cicada with root like structures connecting the bridge to buildings.

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilcreek/2177868406/sizes/o/in/photostream/

These bridges will be composed of entirely natural materials that will be mostly if not fully grown rather than constructed. This minimises the impact theses structures will have on the environment during and at the end of their useful life. Just as a cicada wing will be broken down and return to the earth at the end of the cicadas life these bridges will be fully biodegradable.

Just Wrap it up!

How do you protect Wellington from the threat of earthquakes?

You wrap it up in bubble wrap. This experiment shows, in a playful manor, how Urban Jungle (Gym) believes inflatable architecture and inflate able safety systems can protect Wellington in the event of an earthquake.

Inflatable Tsunami Wall

If there was to be a large earthquake in the Cook strait, there is a good chance it would create a tsunami that could devistate the low lying areas Wellington. This model show how a inflatable tsunami wall could be hidden under ground but when triggered by a large earthquake would inflate and create a barrier to stop the wave.

Smile Study

Xanthe and I decided to observe the happiness levels of Cuba Street and Lambton Quay and compare the atmospheres of both areas. On a Wednesday afternoon during the lunch rush at around 12:30pm, I was stationed on Cuba Street, while Xanthe at Lambton Quay, where we both simultaneously observed passers-by and their smile levels. For ethical reasons, we are unable to publish the actual photos of the passers-by, but instead we have abstracted them and made this video which displays the average smile level on Cuba and Lambton. As you can see from the video, the smile levels on Cuba are much happier than the smile levels on Lambton, where the average is a frown.