Wednesday, August 10, 2005
the fourth R
It’s the new literacy – and it’s sorely neededfor the 21st century. Everyone should understand something about sustainability, insists Sara Parkin, programme director of Forum for the Future
awareness
“A musician needs to know enough about sustainability to check whether their violin has been made by forced child labour.”
To what degree do we need to be aware within the construction, fm and built environment...
To what degree do we need to be aware within the construction, fm and built environment...
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
purple sky
I read two accounts of self cleaning buildings recently – the development of smart building materials which clean themselves and fight smog (see below).
Brilliant – we can see and experience the effects of smog, so we deal with it. However consider - if such emissions were any colour other than clear – lets say purple - then we would have a distinctly purple coloured sky, rather than blue. And with a sky changing from blue to purple we would perhaps address the issues of carbon emissions in a more urgent manner.
From Sense Worldwide http://www.senseworldwide.net/index.php
July 22, 2005
New weapon in fight against smog
The fight against big-city smog has taken to new direction - scientists are developing "smart" building materials designed to clean the air with a little help from the elements. Using technology already available for self-cleaning windows and bathroom tiles, scientists hope to paint up cities with materials that dissolve and wash away pollutants when exposed to sun and rain. Swedish construction company, Skanska, is part of a $1.7 million Swedish-Finnish project to develop catalytic cement and concrete products coated with titanium dioxide, a compound often used in white paint and toothpaste that can become highly reactive when exposed to ultraviolet light. It works when UV rays hitting the titanium dioxide trigger a catalytic reaction that destroys the molecules of pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, which are emitted in the burning of fossil fuels and create smog when combined with volatile organic compounds. A range of self-cleaning products coated with titanium dioxide, including windows and ceramic tiles, are already on the market but the focus has mostly been on their practical value rather than the environmental impact.
And a very similar article on the RIBS site
http://www.rics.org/RICSWEB/getpage.aspx?p=4HLWC5FPCUm9yLky93__SA
Brilliant – we can see and experience the effects of smog, so we deal with it. However consider - if such emissions were any colour other than clear – lets say purple - then we would have a distinctly purple coloured sky, rather than blue. And with a sky changing from blue to purple we would perhaps address the issues of carbon emissions in a more urgent manner.
From Sense Worldwide http://www.senseworldwide.net/index.php
July 22, 2005
New weapon in fight against smog
The fight against big-city smog has taken to new direction - scientists are developing "smart" building materials designed to clean the air with a little help from the elements. Using technology already available for self-cleaning windows and bathroom tiles, scientists hope to paint up cities with materials that dissolve and wash away pollutants when exposed to sun and rain. Swedish construction company, Skanska, is part of a $1.7 million Swedish-Finnish project to develop catalytic cement and concrete products coated with titanium dioxide, a compound often used in white paint and toothpaste that can become highly reactive when exposed to ultraviolet light. It works when UV rays hitting the titanium dioxide trigger a catalytic reaction that destroys the molecules of pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, which are emitted in the burning of fossil fuels and create smog when combined with volatile organic compounds. A range of self-cleaning products coated with titanium dioxide, including windows and ceramic tiles, are already on the market but the focus has mostly been on their practical value rather than the environmental impact.
And a very similar article on the RIBS site
http://www.rics.org/RICSWEB/getpage.aspx?p=4HLWC5FPCUm9yLky93__SA
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)