Housing Commissions Lessons to be learnt

The Age has reported the housing commissions in Fitzroy, Prahran and Richmond will be reworked to better integrate them with their surroundings. Lessons from the 60's need to be learnt, lest we repeat the same mistakes from the past. A few thoughts:

1. The cheapest solution is not always the best.
2. Architects and engineers should offer work probono, or at least at a discount. Governments can chip by offerring incentives.
3. At least one member from each discipline of the design team should visit the existing housing commissions. Interviews should be done with existing tenants to find out problems first hand, from which responses to each should be made, and reasons given for not fixing identified problems.
4. Holistic design integrating support services on site need to be considered. (A police station, centrelink, mental health services on site)
5. Government offices need to meet a 5 star greenstar rating, what minimum star rating should housing commissions meet?
6. New metrics need to be created. How do we design "hope"? What makes sites inspiring?
7. What minimum tools do we need to provide and design into the site that will help people get out. Is ownership or the lack of it, something that needs be conveyed?
8. How do we utilize modular prefabricated housing to reduce costs, and increase the speed these developments are constructed?
9. A lifecycle costing needs to be provided as well as a cost per unit at the beggining of the design phase. Outcomes at the end of a familiy's/person's stay need to be factored into the costs somehow.

Odour masking clothing?

Surprise surprise another Australian innovation, this time from King Gee. King Gee have combined with CSIRO to develop an odour masking clothing using nanotechnology. Full article here. So what does this mean for water consumption? Can it be now acceptable for people to take less showers? Possibly not, for health reasons. But it does mean people can ride and walk to work more often without worrying too much about bad body odour. Let's hope this technology matures quickly and integrated into everyday clothing.

Ipads as tiles

Melbourne architectural firm ClarkeHopkinsClarke has come up with a novel way to use ipads, as mosaic walls! While the energy efficiency of the wall concept is questionable expanding this concept to a single tile in bathrooms and laundries could pave the way for water and energy efficiency improvements.

Could a mosaic ipad tile be used in the bathroom to calculate and CONTROL our water usage? Could a mosaic ipad tile be used in the laundry to show us the weather forecast, and prevent us from using the dyer?

Information or the lack of it is very important in controlling our behaviours. Let's get more information out there & make a personal difference.

Would you like a paper reciept?

That's going to be the catch cry for future supermarket checkout chicks, if indeed in the future there will be checkout chicks (self service machines are slowly taking over). Besides the obvious environmental (less trees chopped down) and economic benefits (reduced inventory costs), going electronic will actually improve the customer service experience. "Tracking" mark my words is the next big thing in the supermarket customer service experience. Customers googling their spending habits. Now it's going to be so much easier.

So how will it work? There are several possibilities.
1) Online. Once your transaction is finished, your scan your loyalty card and the reciept is automatically delivered in pdf/other format to your online supermarket account. Should you decide to print it out, you can also do that. In the future, if you lose your reciept it won't necessarily be gone forever. No more picking through dirty laundry to track down those buggers!

2) Via email. Don't have a loyalty card? Give them your email, and the cash register will send it directly to your email account.

3) Via Mobile phone. Don't trust the checkout chick to get it right? Send it to your mobile phone for instant review.

Two issues that will be the key to get this right is privacy and protecting the integrity of the data. Woolies, Coles, who'll take the lead?

RFID is the future for Apple portable products

Forget video recording & FM playback, the next innovation that will drive the uptake of portable consumer devices is Radio Frequency Identity (RFID). An innovation that will hopefully spur better sustainable or social choices from the consumer.

Goleman's new book Ecological Intelligence discusses how the lack of information from manufacturers, lead to sub-optimal choices. As a consumer we don't know the CO2 trail of products, we don't know if child labour is used to make a certain product. RFID could be the missing link.

As Dara O'Rouke from Good Guide explains, products could be embedded with an electronic tag that transmits radio signals which can automatically alert your mobile phone to display a green or red colour.

I figure, whether it displays red or green could be according to the user defined rules that you input into your ipod, iphone, or other mobile device. Say we want a product that is produced with the least amount of CO2 emissions. Our phone after recieving the radio frequency can automatically look up a database and respond with an easy to intrepret colour choice. As an encouragement/punishment to manufacturers, products that don't include these tags, could automatically display red.

I think coupling this technology with Apple's mainstream appeal, could see the technology really take off, and start influencing product manufacturers to jump on board. Having more information can ultimately influence our choice on goods, and help promote positive changes in terms of the environment and social justice.

So if you want to see this change, talk to apple, and the major mobile phone manufacturers. Let's make this technology happen, and enact a positive change!

Is the Royal Melbourne Show still relevant?

$65 for a family to enter to buy show bags of goods made in china, crap fast food and play the same old amusement parlour games from 50 years ago. Sure there are the animals shows and community events but is this enough of an incentive to keep people coming? Has the Royal Melbourne show become a crass money making event for show bag and fast food vendors?

For me, it seems the Royal Melbourne Show needs a new direction to make it relevant for families and the local community again. Let's bring back some local content. Let's make the showbags more sustainable. Should show organizers impose a minimum local content in show bags? Should the content be more ecologically sustainable, instead of the throw in rubbish made in china crap that usually litters these show bags? Should "green bags"be used instead of the cheap plastic bags as standard. Can we involve local designers to design the show bags?All relevant questions, and something the community should be demanding.

Another issue that needs addressing is the cost of entry? Has it become prohibatively high for the majority of struggling families? I would like to see the organizers justify the cost of the show. Let an accountant in and show where costs are going. If the price is justified, then so be it, but organizers need to look at more ways to get struggling families in. Get struggling families involved in the preparation and then offer them discounts for their help.

That's not to say the Melbourne Show is complete crap. It's a Melbourne institution and it's involvement of the wider community is to be commended. But like all thing it can be improved with our input. Get involved people!

Answers to Resource Smart Quiz!

Enter to win a $10K sustainable home makeover + educate yourself on sustainability.

Quiz can be taken here: http://www.resourcesmart.vic.gov.au/index.html

1) What temperature should you set your thermostat in winter?
Answer 18 -20 degrees C

Why? The lower the temperature the less energy used to heat your house. Less black balloons. Better for environment.

2) When buying an air conditioner you should look for models with:

Answer: a 4.5 Star energy rating.

Why? The higher the number of stars the more energy efficient.

3) What does one black balloon represent?

Answer: 50g of green house gas.

Blackballoons are way we can visualise our harm to the environment.

4) What percentage of materials are recovered for recycling or reused by Byteback drop off points?

Answer: 97%

Byteback dropoff points are places where you can drop off old computers. Lets get these things recycled rather than sending them to the tip.

5) How much longer do energy saving globes last than regular globes?

Answer: 8 times longer.

Yes, they are more expensive, but they pay for themselves in running cost and running life. Easy way to save energy.

6) Power sourced from renewable energy like the sun, wind, water and waste is called what?

Answer: green energy

Talk to your energy, water retailer for more info on how to source green energy. A few extra dollars can make a huge difference.

7) How many plastic checkout bags are used in Victoria every year?

Answer: Around 1 billion

Do we need a plastic bag for small non food items? Green bags are an alternative people.

8) What is one benefit of installing a solar hot water system?

Answer: You could save 75% of your water bill.

The actual amount varies depending on your location, but there is a defined pay back period, after which you can pocket yearly savings.

9) How many litres of water per person per day should we be using to help us preserve out water storage?

Answer: Target 155

4 minute showers. Wash clothes when washing machine is full. Dual flush toilets. water saving taps. That's how you can save.

10) How many litres does a single flush toilet use up?

Answer: 11

Renovating a home? Consider a dual flush toilet to save water!

Sustainable Streets Initiative

By now, everybody should know the game of "monopoly". A game where players try to collect as much realestate as possible, build homes and hopefully a hotel. It's a game that both adults and children alike enjoy.

The Sustainable Streets Initiative is about taking this concept, and modifying it to suit the sustainbility cause. It's a grass roots movement amongst neighbours whereby, residents in a street "collect" sustainable items such as rainwater tanks, solar PV panels, and other sustainable features. These items would attract points, and once enough points are collected, would allow streets to be awarded special "sustainability street" signs by the council. (No doubt this will increase land values on the street.)

The goal is not about keeping up with the Jones' as such, although that would be a great outcome for the environment, rather it's hoped that this would encourage neighbours to talk to each other and see what part each can do. We've seen great initiatives in the past whereby residents have grouped together to increase their purchasing parity when buying PV panels. Let's hope more of these outcomes come about because of this.

Local councils, it's time to create the rules and get people on board!