Bike Culture Around the World

Bike sharing in Stockholm, Sweden. One of many wonderful bike rental services I used over the course of the summer.



Bike b keep cyclists safe on the roads of Portsmouth, England (and now Portland Oregon).
Zillions of bikes in Holland.

The Eden Project

Amazing

Summer Reading List

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond

The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler

End Game volume 1 by Derrick Jensen

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

End Game volume 2 by Derrick Jensen

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

No Logo by Naomi Klein

Lots of blogs and news websites

Lots of travel guides

New Urbanism: Poundbury, England

On our way back from the Eden Project and Stone Henge, my friend James and I drove through Poundbury, which is the new urbanist community spearheaded by Prince Charles. Maybe I'm not being totally fair because it's still not completely finished and lived in, but it seemed out of place, and overall I was really unimpressed.

Although more care was put into these houses designs than conventional modern housing, the homogeneity of style made the whole community seem stale and artificial, despite the intent to make the place feel like a pleasant place to live and work.


Interesting quotes from Prince Charles:

"It would seem, however, that the emergent climate-change agenda seems to have offered licence to another generation of architects and designers bent on further divorcing us - through random and untested building shapes and types - from our deeply-rooted connection with Nature's ordering systems which remain true to the rule of climate and season."

"Why, I must ask, does being 'green' mean building with glass and steel and concrete and then adding wind turbines, solar panels, water heaters, glass atria - all the paraphernalia of a new "green building industry" - to offset buildings that are inefficient in the first place?"

"That many of these add-ons are mere gestures, at best, is now clear, as their impacts on home energy consumption can now be measured and usually offer scant justification for the radical nature of the design."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/prince-charles-on-green-architecture.php

Its good to hear that Prince Charles has a good knowledge and good viewpoints on so called "green" architecture and the current state of greenwashing in the building secter. However, I was unimpressed by Poundbury's sustainability initiatives, which as far as I can tell amounted to good modern windows, good insulation and reasonably efficient appliances. Plopping a town down ontop of an old field could be related to erecting a solar array on top of an office building.

Conspicuous Consumption in Hong Kong (and Shanghai, and Beijing)

I NEED clean air, clean water, healthy food, and in most climates I need shelter. I don't need Nike's, souvenir chop sticks, bootleg DVDs, or $4000 bling my pet dog.

BEDZED

On Tuesday I took the train out of London to see BEDZED, which stands for Beddington Zero [fossil] Energy Development. It has about 100 homes, as well as several businesses and a community center. Luckily they had a small visitors center and a model home, so I didn't have to resort to ringing doorbells and begging for a tour.

Power comes from a tree-waste fired neighborhood cogeneration plant, as well as some photovoltaics on the roof. The homes are extra insulated and sealed, so the roof vents cycle fresh air into the homes.

Although they don't come out and say it, I get the feeling that the residents on average aren't as environmentally conscious as the designers expected. In the parking lots, despite plenty of free electric car charging ports, I only saw one electric car, but several luxury sedans and some SUVs. Now that the on site combined heat and power system and photo voltaic arrays are working properly, the community still only generates 80% of the power it needs. Also, the visitors center display admitted that recycling rates were disappointingly low; only slightly higher than the national average despite fantastic recycling bins. A lot of people do a few small things and then mentally declare themselves “eco-friendly”. Some people buy a hybrid car, or switch a few incandescent light bulbs to CFLs or LEDs. I think that many of the BEDZED residents probably fall into this mindset that just living there is doing enough good for the environment. Ultimately though, their “eco-friendly” lifestyles aren't actually good for the environment, just less bad. BEDZED is not just a step in the right direction, its a huge leap towards the future of sustainable housing.

Free electric car charging station in the BedZED parking lot.

They also have some electric car charging stations spread around London. Electric cars are immune to the now hefty congestion charges.

Garbage Warrior

Last night I went to the Barbican Theater to see a special showing of the documentary “Garbage Warrior” as a part of some London-wide architecture event. I first heard about the movie several months ago, and at the time I was so excited by the trailer that I resorted to downloading a torrent of it, because it was the only way I could see the film. Part of the reason I paid to see it on the big screen was to make up for essentially stealing it, but also because it was so inspiring I wanted to see it again.

Garbage Warrior is about rogue architect Michael Reynolds who has been pioneering radically sustainable housing and construction techniques since the 70's. He calls his buildings “earthships” and they strive to be entirely self sufficient. The houses collect and filter rainwater, treat sewage, grow food and generate electricity. They're mostly built in the deserts of New Mexico, a harsh environment where temperatures range from over a hundred to 30 below zero. The structures of the houses are largely build out of garbage, often using tires and beverage containers.

favorite part of the film is when Michael Reynolds describes the epiphany he started living in his first true earthship. Here he was, in an inhospitable desert with a home that stayed a constant 70 degrees from solar gain and thermal mass, collected and treated its own water, generated enough electricity, and grew most of the food he needed. He realized that this house had set him free. He didn't need to get up in the morning and work to pay for utilities, or packaged food. With very little effort, he could now live his life as he wanted, and do what he wanted. If he can do that in the middle of the desert, that gives me tremendous hope that we can develop similar regionally appropriate ways of living nearly anywhere.

Much of the film centers around Mike's struggle with the law to build these radical homes. Under current construction and zoning laws, most of what he was doing is illegal. Building homes in an extreme environment with no heating or AC, made from trash, with sewage being treated by living machines in the living room made by-the-books politicians very uneasy. Reynolds believes that in order to develop radical new housing, you need to be able to dream something up, and wake up the next day to build it and see if it works. He says if you can test bombs and cars, you should be able to test new types of houses. Unfortunately, our current system doesn't work like that, and so we're stuck living in essentially the same houses as 50 or 100 years ago. Likewise, utility companies have manipulated the law such that it is very difficult or impossible to start an off-grid housing development. For years, Reynolds got away with bending and breaking the laws, and built several successful earthship communities. However, a change in planning regime resulted in him losing his architectural license, and earthship development being shut down. I agree that it's good to have zoning and construction laws to protect citizens in public or commercial buildings, but if you are building your own home, the only life you're endangering is your own. I think that in a free country, we ought to be able to have the freedom to live and construct homes in the way that we see fit. Michael Reynolds is really a hero for fighting all these years to legalize his radical housing experimental test sites.

I've always dreamed of taking a few years off during my career to design and build my own home. I think thats why this movie was so inspiring to me. This group of people literally lived in tents in the desert and built incredible homes around them on a shoestring budget. I'd like to learn more about state and international construction laws to see where this sort of thing would be legal. Personally, living in such a desolate area isn't for me, but I think it would be incredible to try to build an earthship like building in an urban context. I can't find it anymore, but a few months ago I read about a couple in Philadelphia who bought a run down brick row house and were retrofitting it to be more sustainable. They had insulated the whole building with hay bales, collected rain water for the toilets and garden, and grew a significant amount of their food (including goats) in their very small back yard. They were living on almost no budget, so it wasn't pretty, but it worked. Maybe people in suburban mcmansions will start doing this sort of thing as the grim realities of peak oil set in.