Local River, home storage unit for fish and greens
The Locavores appeared in San Francisco in 2005 and define themselves as ‘a group of culinary adventurers who eat foods produced in a radius of 100 miles (160 km) around their city’. By doing so they aim to reduce impact on the environment inherent to the transport of foodstuffs, while ensuring their traceability.
Local River anticipates the growing influence of this group (the word ‘locavore’ made its first appearance in an American dictionary in 2007) by proposing a home storage unit for live freshwater fish combined with a mini vegetable patch. This DIY fish-farm-cum-kitchen-garden is based on the principle of aquaponics coupled with the exchange and interdependence of two living organisms - plants and fish.
The plants extract nutrients from the nitrate-rich dejecta of the fish. In doing so they act as a natural filter that purifies the water and maintains a vital balance for the eco-system in which the fish live. The same technique is used on large-scale pioneer aquaponics/fish-farms, which raise tilapia (a food fish from the Far East) and lettuce planted in trays floating on the surface of ponds.
Local River responds to everyday needs for fresh food that is 100% traceable. It bets on a return to favour of farm-raised freshwater fish (trout, eel, perch, carp, etc…), given the dwindling supplies of many saltwater species due to over-fishing. It also demonstrates the capacity of fish-farmers to deliver their stock live to a private consumer as a guarantee of optimum freshness - impossible in the case of saltwater fish that has been netted.
Local River aims to replace the decorative ‘TV aquarium’ by an equally decorative but also functional ‘refrigerator-aquarium’. In this scenario, fish and greens cohabit for a short time in a home storage unit before being eaten by their keepers, the end-players in an exchange cycle within a controlled ecosystem.
he Aquaduct is pedal powered vehicle that transports, filters, and stores water for the developing world. A peristaltic pump attached to the pedal crank draws water from a large tank, through a filter, to a smaller clean tank. The clean tank is removable and closed for contamination-free home storage and use. A clutch engages and disengages the drive belt from the pedal crank, enabling the rider to filter the water while traveling or while stationary.
The Aquaduct is the winning entry in the Innovate or Die contest put on by Google and Specialized. The contest challenge was to build a pedal powered machine that has environmental impact.
Eco-cook is an object that helps to save water, energy and time. Everyday, everyone, has to cook pasta, rice or various vegetable. Therefore different pots are needed. In a unique pot, the eco-cook enables to divide 2 or 3 space and to boil different food at the same time. Thereby, water and gas or electricity is saved. Moreover when food is taken out the eco-cook, it will automatically drain out, allowing to win precious time.
Each sheet of paper is printed with an identical image of a tree, creating an ghostly tree pattern on the surface of the vases.The project explores how paper - a product made from trees - can be returned to its original state and carved as if it were wood. Libertiny also designed the Honeycomb Vases, which are made by bees inside a hive.
Man and Humanity masters graduate, the design academy Eindhoven, Matthijs Vogels has developed a beautiful but extreme way to eliminate food waste by turning it into plates and bowls. Vogels exhibited a concept restaurant in which all food waste would be recycled into sensual tableware as well as gas fuel for the cooking. Vegetable, fruit, tea, coffee and packaging waste is churned up, moulded under pressure and formed into any shape.
In the conceptual restaurant “Sprout” vegetables are grown and consumed in a greenhouse. The vegetable parts that are not suitable for consumption which are normally thrown away in the kitchen, are used now as resource for products like plates and bowls. This is achieved by shredding, drying and moulding the vegetable fibres with a hand press. In order to make the products hygienic and moisture resistant a transparant sheet of biodegradable plastic (PLA) is laminated in the inside. The outside is left uncovered, in order to reveal the material by smell, touch and sight. Since the menu is based on seasonally grown crops, the material of the products changes accordingly, and are therefore intended to be used only once. After use, the dirty plates and bowls are fed together with foodleftovers to a biodigester to create biogas for cooking. The residue from this process is a nutrient rich fertilizer to grow new crops from in the greenhouse.
Through intensive material research designer Anna Bullus has invented a new material called Gumnetic. It is a biodegradable composite made from recycled chewed chewing gum and bio resin. Varying ratios of the mixture result in different textures. Making it a versatile material. For instance for the”Gumnetic”; a street side refuse designed for the disposal of gum and is made from recycled chewing gum. The product offers a unique and practical solution to a widespread problem housed within an innovative sustainable process; the bin itself collects raw material in the form of discarded chewing gum from which to produce new bins. Anna has gone on to make other products that explore both the application of this unique material and the sustainability education opportunities it provokes.
Foam polystyrene is a major environmental concern. It is used as a protective packaging for all sorts of products, but it is not biodegradable. Various manufacturers have experimented in making it more environmentally friendly, for example by incorporating cellulose and starch which microbes can break down, or by adding light-sensitive polymers that degrade in sunlight.
But Shanpu Ya and colleagues at the Polymer Science & Engineering College of Quingdao University of Science & Technology in China say these methods all have serious disadvantages. In particular, it takes too long time for polymers to break down in these ways, they claim.
Instead, they have developed a new approach that involves embedding water-absorbing resin particles about 5 micrometres in diameter throughout a chemical like styrene before it is polymerised to form a polystyrene-like material.
When the resulting solid comes into contact with water, the resin particles expand, reducing the polymer structure to a powder that should then biodegrade. The team says the rate of disintegration can even be controlled by altering the ratio of ingredients.
But a crucial factor, says the team, is that the resulting foamed polystyrene is cheaper than conventional materials and should therefore be readily adopted by cost-conscious companies that also want to be environmentally responsible.
Sony today announced the development of a bio battery1 that generates electricity from carbohydrates (sugar) utilizing enzymes as its catalyst, through the application of power generation principles found in living organisms.
Test cells of this bio battery have achieved power output of 50 mW, currently the world's highest level2 for passive-type3 bio batteries. The output of these test cells is sufficient to power music play back on a memory-type Walkman.
n order to realize the world's highest power output, Sony developed a system of breaking down sugar to generate electricity that involves efficiently immobilizing enzymes and the mediator (electronic conduction materials) while retaining the activity of the enzymes at the anode. Sony also developed a new cathode structure which efficiently supplies oxygen to the electrode while ensuring that the appropriate water content is maintained. Optimizing the electrolyte for these two technologies has enabled these power output levels to be reached.
Sugar is a naturally occurring energy source produced by plants through photosynthesis. It is therefore regenerative, and can be found in most areas of the earth, underlining the potential for sugar-based bio batteries as an ecologically-friendly energy device of the future.
Sony will continue its development of immobilization systems, electrode composition and other technologies in order to further enhance power output and durability, with the aim of realizing practical applications for these bio batteries in the future.
It's one thing to design a car that runs solely on biofuels; it's another thing entirely to design one that is also made out of biomass. Yet that appears to be exactly what Dr. Kerry Kirwan, a researcher at Warwick University's Warwick Manufacturing Group, has achieved with the revolutionary Eco One sports car he and Ben Wood, his student and collaborator on the project, unveiled a few days ago.
Boasting tyres made of potatoes, brake pads made of ground cashew shells and a body built from hemp and rapeseed oil, this speedy racer — which can attain a top speed of 150 mph — runs on a special biofuel made entirely from sugar beet and fermented wheat. Besides for the car's steering-wheel, seat and electrics — which are all made from conventional materials — only the car's chassis is made from a non plant-based material: steel. As a result, Eco One is 95% biodegradable.
Kirwan and Wood built the Eco One over the period of two months at a cost of £20,000 (or roughly $40,000). "If we can build a high-performance car that can virtually be grown from seed, just imagine what's possible for the average family car," said Ben Wood, who noted that it could do 0 - 62 mph in under 4 seconds flat thanks to a Triumph Daytona motorcycle engine.
The next step will be getting this car and the underlying technologies out into the mainstream car market. Kirwan and Wood have already been approached by several officials in the motor sports industry keen on supporting their efforts.
Operation Blessing, a non-profit committed to “breaking the cycle of suffering” has taken the age-old technique of harnessing the sun’s heat to cook food, and turned it into a viable design for off-the-grid, minimal-resource third-world demographics. In the Gansu Province of China, and soon in Darfur camps, the sun-powered parabolic solar oven allows the suffering and hungry to cleanly cook and boil water and without firewood, using only that always-renewable energy source: the sun. The oven’s design is also a great example of using ancient technologies in modern ways to address social problems.
The ovens are made of concrete and resemble a television satellite dish covered with reflective mirrors. They are easily pointed at the sun and the mirrors focus the energy on a cooking platform. It only takes minutes to achieve a cooking temperature, which will ignite a piece of paper held in front after only a few seconds. These ovens are easy and inexpensive to manufacture and can be used to cook and dehydrate foods for later consumption, and also to sanitize drinking water and medical equipment. Because the ovens use solar energy, there is no cost to operate them.
The technology is certainly nothing new- dating back to the ancient Greek philosopher Diocles, who invented the parabolic mirror (200 B.C.). In 1515, inventor/artist Leonardo da Vinci improved on the concept and invented a parabolic mirror device to concentrate heat and boil water for industrial use.
But the application is certainly ground-breaking. “In Gansu, like in many other poverty-stricken regions around the world, firewood is as precious as water,” said Operation Blessing president Bill Horan. “There are virtually no trees here, and so little rain, that the only bath most people take in their whole life is on their wedding day. These solar ovens are based on ancient technology and they are eco-friendly - a totally renewable energy source.”
This is fascinating: making an airship's surface contract and expand so as to enable it to "swim" through the atmosphere. These artificial muscles are made of polymers which deform when subjected to an electrical field.
Conventional propeller driven airships have their disadvantages. They are inefficient, and thereby wasteful of energy, and they are noisy too. Empa scientists are looking to solve both these problems by using a technology which is simultaneously very advanced and yet simple in concept – their design lets an airship “swim” through the air like a fish moving through water. That this idea could become reality thanks to the development of electroactive polymers (EAPs) is demonstrated by the first flight trials as well as computer simulations. The EAPs need further development, however, and their reliability and useful lifetime must be improved.
If the patented idea of Empa researcher Silvain Michel and his team becomes established, then the airship of the future will be a non-rigid airship (blimp) that glides through the air as silently and using the same means of propulsion as a trout swimming in a brook – by bending its body in one direction and simultaneously moving its tail in the opposite way. The technically simplified version of this trout-like motion, using three rigid, interconnected body segments, is known in scientific jargon as the “bending-rotation-stroke”, says Michel.
“This technique can be transferred directly from water to air”, he explains further. “A blimp moving through the air is, in terms of the physics involved, exactly the same as a fish moving through water. In both cases a body is moving through a fluid and is subject to the same laws of fluid dynamics.” The new propulsion technique, combine with a sleeker, trout-like shape, doubles the efficiency of the blimp design from an aerodynamic point of view.
Nice to hear this sweet news from Greetje. On the RCA summer show: Design Products graduate Greetje van Helmond has created a range of jewellery using sugar crystals, which she “grows” directly onto cord suspended in sugary solution. Called Unsustainable, the project deals with issues of durability and resource consumption, deliberately using a basic material to create precious, but extremely fragile, objects.
Below is van Helmond’s statement about the project:
"In present day life we can say that we consume a lot. Durable materials are often used for the production of goods that are typically replaced or thrown away quickly.
Contrary to this I use everyday, basic materials to create products that appear valuable and sustainable. Because of the materials I use, the products won’t last long, but long enough to stay “new”.
In one project, I create jewellery out of sugar. Sugar has the quality of growing into crystals under special circumstances. By controlling the process I allow crystals to grow around strings to form accessories.
In a second project I create a set of accessories from quilted paper. With a lot of time and effort I believe one can make apparently banal and cheap materials into something beautiful."
The "Living Systems" installation is the result of a series of experiments with organic plastics developed by Seymour and is now for display at the vitra design museum. Seymour began the experiments some time ago in his home town of Berlin, and the latest products of his researches are now on display.
The plastic is produced by extracting the starch from potato, mixing it with milk and heating it to make it liquid. The material, which is biodegradable, hardens on a bed of sand and forms the material base for a range of furnishings. When dyed with food colouring the material can be turned into children's chairs or daybeds, which look as if they have been cast in brightly coloured icing.
However, what at first looks like a playful experiment is based on a very serious idea. How is it possible today for people to live an autonomous life and take care of their own needs? Seymour, who grew up in Canada, looks for answers at a design level. After many years of experience as a designer of objects in plastic, which were partly produced with complex moulds, Seymour, who clearly attaches a great deal of importance to freedom, asked himself the question of how designers can free themselves from the restrictions imposed by production. With his do-it-yourself experiments he has released himself from production processes which are becoming ever more complex and opaque, reflecting afterwards on the design autonomy which this provides.
Food for Design as we may speak. We did some more research and bumped into the following recipe/process.
Recipe : -1900 g Potato or potato skins -6000 g water -580 g milk -1400 g (potato) starch -140 g whey protein
The potato skins are dry chopped to 1 mm pieces in an industrial blender. The heated water/milk blend (heated to 65 DEG C) is then added to the potato skins and blended in the industrial blender. The potato starch is mixed in to the water/milk/skins solution. Finally, the whey protein concentrate is added to the mix and thoroughly blended in the blender.
Behold BoxFish, Mercedes’ bionic concept car. Despite its boxy, cube-shaped body, this tropical fish is in fact outstandingly streamlined and therefore represents an aerodynamic ideal. With an accurately constructed model of the boxfish the engineers in Stuttgart were able to achieve a wind drag coefficient of just 0.06 in the wind tunnel.
In addition to superb aerodynamics and a lightweight construction concept derived from nature, the 103 kW/140-hp diesel engine and innovative SCR technology greatly contribute to fuel economy and a further reduction in exhaust emissions.
"AdBlue" is an aqueous urea solution which is sprayed into the exhaust system in precisely metered quantities, depending on the engine operating status. This converts the nitrogen oxides into harmless nitrogen and water. The reservoir for this service fluid is located in the spare wheel recess of the concept car, and its capacity is sufficient for a mileage corresponding to the service interval for a current Mercedes diesel model.
The boxfish is also a prime example of rigidity and light weight. Its skin consists of numerous hexagonal, bony plates which provide maximum strength with minimal weight and effectively protect the animal from injury.
With a Little Help of the Bees by Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny of Studio Libertiny is part of Droog’s Smart Deco 2 show.
Libertiny made a vase-shaped hive that the bees then colonised, building a hexagon comb around it. The wax sheets used to make the hive were embossed with a honeycomb pattern to help the bees on their way.
Libertiny calls the process “slow prototyping” - it took 40,000 bees a week to make the vase. Since the bees get aggressive when they are interrupted, Libertiny had to guess when it was time to remove the vase.
A weed that turns red when it grows near land mines could help clear dangerous fields in war-torn countries such as Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The genetically modified Thales cress is sensitive to nitrogen dioxide, a byproduct of mines, and changes from green to red when the gas is present in soil.
Currently, mines can be detected only by human or canine probing. Scientists hope the plant will show where the land mines are so they can be removed safely, greatly reducing fatalities and injuries among those who hunt for mines and the unsuspecting public.
Danish biotechnology company Aresa Biodetection, which is creating the genetically altered plant, hopes to start selling it within a few years, after researchers complete field tests on its effectiveness.
Lab results so far look promising, says Simon Oestergaard, chief executive of Aresa. He envisions that the plant will be used mostly to clear fields suitable for farming. "The main target of this product is soil that will be used for different agricultural activities," he says.
One concern, however, is that the weed is shallow-rooted, so it would not be able to detect deeply planted mines. But most mines are found closer to the surface, says Geir Bjoersvik of the mine action unit at Norwegian Peoples Aid in Oslo.
Field tests, scheduled to start in Denmark this spring and in other countries soon after, will determine how sensitive the plant is to nitrogen dioxide and how much of the gas is required to make it turn red. So far, the plant has shown signs of being oversensitive. "It's better to have a red spot and check it and find there isn't a mine than miss one that's there," Dr. Meier says.
The plant is self-pollinating. Researchers also removed the gene for an important growth hormone, which eliminates the risk of spreading pollen to unmodified plants because the new weed neither germinates nor sets seeds unless a specific fertilizer is used.
By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?
The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.
A refrigerator is one of the biggest electricity consumers at home. It works with refrigerant-generally Freon gas. When the refrigerant is liquid condition, it sucks heat so that the fridge does cooling. But it emits heat when gas condition. While refrigerant repeats gas-liquid condition, the compressor and condenser(long and thin copper/aluminum pipes at back of fridges) are heated up because gas has to evaporate this heat. To blow this heat, a refrigerator has to be placed 5-10 cm apart from the wall in the kitchen.
The idea of Hot Fridge is based on an experimental use of waste heat from a refrigerator and is inspired by Gudul (Ondol), the traditional under-floor Korean heating system.
By having its structure and condenser redesigned, the fridge is able to store not only cold food but also warm food. The condenser is on top of the fridge so that you can put and keep left-over food warm until next meal. Plastic shelves in door are changed to fabric net pocket bags that help cool air circulation and allow easy storing. Hot Fridge is easy to move so you can pull it to bring warm dishes on the dinner table. If you cannot finish all your pizza at lunch, put the pizza plate up on the fridge. The afternnon bite will be warm!
FogQuest is an innovative, international, non-governmental, non-profit organization, which implements and promotes the environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable use of fog, rain and dew as sustainable water resources for people in arid regions of developing countries. FogQuest plans and implements water projects for rural communities in developing countries. They utilize innovative fog collectors as well as effective rainfall collectors to make optimum use of natural atmospheric sources of water.
Until now, accurately measuring the amount of water to be boiled in your kettle has been all but impossible. The result? It is estimated that, on average, we boil twice the volume of water needed every time. Which means twice as much energy, twice as much time.With a 3kW kettle that’s the same as wasting the energy of around 50 light bulbs! Your new ECO Kettle is different: the internal reservoir holds a full capacity of water ready for use, while the measuring button allows any quantity – from a single cupful to full capacity – to be released into the separate chamber for boiling. The result? Exactly the right amount of water every time you boil –and no more waste.
Food for design wants to be an open source for design, food and science cross-over. We are not interested in creating hypes, but in long term co-operations, where everyone benefits. Promoting quality and collective creativity are the things that count... So please take a seat and have a bite! Best view [res: 1024 x 768] x [browser: firefox]
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_m[eat]ing 003
17.03.2007::MATERIALS ::
Food for design was invited by the Meat & Fresh expo and will install a creative food laboratory at the rambla during the fair,
where people can find inspiration towards form and taste.
[+ more]
_m[eat]ing 002
18.11.2006::MATERIALS ::
A feast of surfaces, textures, colors and other sensorial elements, using a large palette of food materials.
The objective is to inspire new uses for food materials and provoke new applications within a design context.
[+ more]
_seminar
20.09.2006::MG SEMINAR IN BELGIUM ::
This seminar [ 20 november 2006 ] is organised by the innovation and knowledge centre of food for every one who is interested in food science, technology and cooking processes. This can be chefs, scientists, recipe developers, foodies,...
The guest speakers tell and demonstrate how food science and technology can inspire gastronomy...
[+ english][+ dutch]
_manifesto 001
03.02.2006::FOOD for design::
The first aim of this project is to explore and understand the physicochemical properties of materials / ingredients and apply this under-standing when designing.
_manifesto 002
28.01.2006::food for DESIGN::
A different way of thinking : abandoning the role of "creator" and "descending" to the role of a participant playing within the rules of an experimental process.
All experiments come into being as a result of self-formation processes.
_manifesto 001
22.01.2006::food FOR design::
In exploring the materials the main focus lays on the food as in exploring the structure the primary focus lays on the process.
The goal of this cross-fertilisation project is to add more senses / experience to design, it is a way of sustainable, random, natural thinking to in-spire others, giving food for the future.
![[+ picture]](http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/07/recipe250707_800x448.jpg){kind=link}