A new United Nations report makes the startling assertion that disasters have resulted in $2.5 trillion in damage within the last 13 years alone. Those losses fall principally on the private sector, warned UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said at a New York City launch event for the report: “Governments bear the responsibility for disaster risk reduction. But the level of risk is also related to the where and the how of investment by the private sector, which is responsible for 70 to 85 percent of worldwide investment in new buildings, industry and critical infrastructure.”

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Post tags: ban ki-moon, Climate Change, disaster risk reduction, extreme weather, GAR, global warming, UN, UNISDR, United Nations

Read the rest of INHABITAT INTERVIEW: 8 Questions With Liz Rooks of North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park

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Post tags: "solar energy", "sustainable architecture", Daylighting, foundation, green architecture, Green Building, green design, Liz Rooks, NC, north carolina, Research Triangle Park, RTP, Sustainability, Sustainable Building, sustainable design

An open-source environmental monitoring network is now being tested in France by CKAB, a French consulting firm and innovation lab focusing on the Internet of Things. According to Hack a Day, the project, Pollux’NZ City, is the brainchild of a pair of engineers at the firm who have been working on it as a side project for a couple of years. They have just decided to make the hardware and software open-source, with details available at a GitHub repository.

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Post tags: CKAB, device, DIY, electronics, Environment, environmental, france, hackable devices, monitoring, network, open source, Pollution, polluxnz city

Excited about that stylish top from J.Crew but wish you could have it for the party tonight? Why not just 3D print it right at home? That’s the vision embodied in a Clothing Printer conceived by industrial designer Joshua Harris. Harris developed the Clothing Printer with a group of colleagues as an entry in the Electrolux Lab design competition in 2010, where it placed in the semifinals.


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Post tags: 3d printer, 3D printing, apparel, clothing printer, eco-fashion, green design, industrial design, joshua harris, Sustainable Fashion, sustainable style, Urban design

Read the rest of Designer Aaron Mickelson Shows How a Product Can Be Its Own ‘Disappearing Package’

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Post tags: aaron mickelson, disappearing package, eco design, green, green design, green packaging, Packaging Design, Sustainable, sustainable design, sustainable packaging

Nanoscribe GmbH, a German company based in Karlsruhe, has released the Photonic Professional GT, which it claims is “the world’s fastest 3D printer of micro- and nanostructures.” An announcement from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) says that the printer, based on laser lithography, can produce three-dimensional objects smaller than the diameter of a human hair, with “minimum time consumption and maximum resolution.”

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Post tags: 3d printer, 3D printing, karlsruhe, kit, micro, nano, nanoscribe, nanotechnology, photonic

German engineer and inventor Marcus Thymark is developing a filament-producing machine that allows 3D printing enthusiasts to grind up and reprocess discarded printed objects and other scrap plastic for re-use. Called the FilaMaker, Thymark’s machine is based on a powerful hand-cranked shredder that can be made from steel or stainless steel. He is working on integrating the shredder with a melter and extruder, which will allow the user to recycle scrap plastic into new filament.

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Post tags: 3D printing, DIY, filamaker, filament, gadgets, grinding, marcus thymark, plastic, recycling, reprocessing, shredder, shredding

Read the rest of Parallax Landscape Re-Imagines a Low-Carbon Future for a Coal-Dominated Australian City

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", Architecture, australia, brownfield, coal power, Competition, electrical generation, green architecture, Green Building, green design, latrobe city, parallax landscape, recovery, sustainable design, transiting cities, Urban design, victoria

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", Architecture, australia, Competition, cultured landscape transiting cities, Eco Architecture, eco design, green architecture, Green Building, green design, latrobe city, Melbourne, naau, outr, renewable energy, rmit, Solar Power, Sustainable Building, sustainable design, Urban design

A project by a student at the University of Twente (Enschede, Netherlands) has resulted in an open-source 3D-printing technology that could enable four-color printing, according to medical-device designer Joseph Flaherty, writing for Wired. Called Pwdr, the new rapid-prototyping design is the creation of Alex Budding, previously an engineering student at the University, where he produced the printer as a master’s project. Budding is now a researcher at the school.


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Post tags: 3d printer, alex budding, Netherlands, powder, Printing, pwdr, university of twente

Gael Langevin, a French sculptor and model-maker, is developing a design for an open-source humanoid robot that you can make with your own 3D printer. Langevin calls his robot InMoov, and he is making plans and digital files publicly available as portions of the design come to completion. InMoov is an ongoing project, and so far it is possible to build the robot’s arms and shoulders and to connect them with a torso unit. The body parts can be printed, but you’ll have to add mechanical and electronic components such as cables, servos, and Arduinos to make the machine work. See a video of InMoov in action after the jump!

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Post tags: 3d printed, building, Gael Langevin, humanoid, InMoov, open source, printer, Printing, robot

Organovo Holdings, a San Diego, CA-based manufacturer of 3-dimensional human tissues, recently announced a partnership with 3D-software company Autodesk Inc. to develop the first 3D design software for bioprinting. The new software will be used to control Organovo’s NovoGen MMX Bioprinter, which produces “living human tissues that are three-dimensional, architecturally correct, and made entirely of living human cells,” according to the firm.

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Post tags: 3D, 3d printed organs, 3D printing, biological, bioprinter, Design for Health, drug, green design, human, medical, Medicine, organ, organovo, pharmaceutical, printer, sustainable design, tissue

Research in recent years has uncovered a strong connection between reductions in lead pollution and the decline in violent crime in the U.S. Writing in Mother Jones this month, Kevin Drum discusses the research of Rick Nevin, a consultant who began researching lead pollution during the 1990s for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Nevin’s research has shown that the rise and fall of atmospheric lead produced by leaded gas closely corresponds to a similar rise and fall of violent crime.

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Post tags: ADHD, agression, brain, crime, damage, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, Kevin Drum, lead, lead pollution, neurological, neurology, poisoning, Pollution, research, Rick Nevin, violence

3D Systems launched a new 3D printer at the 2013 CES, which boasts “the largest print volume in its category,” according to an announcement from the firm. Called the CubeX, the printer is able to print an object “as big as a basketball,” says the company, with 1,070 cubic inches of volume, or 10.8” x 10.45” x 9.5”. The printer is targeted at tech enthusiasts, serious hobbyists, educators, and entrepreneurs, with pricing starting at $2,499.


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Post tags: 3d printer, 3d systems, ces, CES 2013, CES show, color 3d printing, comsumer electronic show, cubex, eco design, international ces, large 3d priniting, Printing

Read the rest of Vincent Chan’s Citi.Transmitter Shows How a Modular Vehicle Could Support Sustainable Cities

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Post tags: alternative transportation, citi transmitter, city, electric car, electric vehicle, green design, green transportation, modular, personal, segway, Smart, sustainable cities, transport, Urban design, vehicle system, vincentchan

The University of Texas (UT) at Austin has withdrawn a prominent study of the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” the controversial process used for extraction of natural gas from shale formations. An investigation had revealed that the lead investigator, Charles “Chip” Groat, has financial interests in the natural gas industry, which he did not disclose in his report. In the wake of the investigation, Groat retired from his UT faculty position; Raymond Orbach, director of the Energy Institute at UT, which conducted the study, has resigned as well.


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Post tags: Climate Change, contamination, discredited, fracking, groundwater water, hydraulic fracturing, institute, Pollution, renewable energy, report, study, university texas

Dominion, a large energy company based in Virginia, and FuelCell Energy Inc. (FCE), a Connecticut manufacturer of fuel cell power plants, have announced that they will be developing the largest fuel cell power plant in North America. Located in Bridgeport, Conn., the plant will use a clean-tech process to transform natural gas into electricity. The 14.9 megawatt facility will produce enough electricity for about 15,000 homes delivered through a local micro-grid.

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Post tags: clean, connecticut, Dominion, electrical, fuel cell, FuelCell, generation, power plant, renewable, renewable energy

On Thursday, a writer named Alec Rawls posted a leaked draft version of a portion of the upcoming Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and claimed that the report acknowledges “strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing.” He claimed that the IPCC’s admission “changes everything” and that “climate alarmists can’t continue to claim that warming was almost entirely due to human activity over a period when solar warming effects, now acknowledged to be important, were at a maximum.” Rawls’s comments are based on brief excerpts in AR5 that mention a hypothetical connection between galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and some aspects of climate.

Read the rest of Leaked IPCC Report Used by Critics to Claim Global Warming Is Caused by Solar Forcing

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Post tags: Alec Rawls, AR5, Climate Change, cosmic rays, forcing, GCR, global warming, IPCC, report, solar, sun

A new free iPad app is taking an iconic vision of sustainable cities and making it accessible to millions of tablet users in an interactive format. The Harvard Graduate School of Design has released an Ecological Urbanism app that provides access to the content of its 2010 book Ecological Urbanism, edited by Mohsen Mostafavi and Gareth Doherty. The new app provides a way into not only the original content of Ecological Urbanism but also into the increasing volume of research and discourse that the book has stimulated since its publication.


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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", app, application, Architecture, Design school, eco design, ecological urbanism, green architecture, Green Building, green design, harvard, iPad, second story, Sustainable Building, sustainable cities, sustainable design, Urban design

Read the rest of Sunportal Uses Pipes to Deliver Daylighting Anywhere Within a Building

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", Architecture, daylight, Daylighting, Eco Architecture, eco design, green architecture, Green Building, green design, green lighting, green products, Light, natural, pipes, solar, solar panels, sunportal, sustainable design