Solar Floodlight

Solar Floodlight - It charges its built in rechargeable battery from the sun and works at night to keep your home or business safe. Lights your yard, deck, porch or even your garage. No electrician needed for installation. $90 and going down.

Another link.


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Keeps goin' on

In the last 20 years, assisted by mobility you bet, thousands of activities are launched around the world to step into the face of poverty. Inhabitat reports about Sergio Palleroni:

The National Design Awards were announced at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, honoring the best of American Design in ten broad categories including Architecture, Fashion, and Communication. While we applaud Patagonia, who won the Corporate Achievement Award for their environmental initiatives, we are particularly appreciative of the accolades for Sergio Palleroni, who won a Special Jury Commendation for his work at the University of Texas Center for Sustainable Development.

Palleroni runs design/build studios in disadvantaged communities worldwide, teaching participants how to best exploit locally available resources and to build long term, sustainable developments.

Professor Palleroni and the UT Sustainable Design and Development Workshop will be showcased next year as part of a 6-part series on PBS called “Architecture=e2,” to be broadcast for Earth-Day. The segment, which will be entitled, “Design Like You Give a Damn,” will center on Palleroni’s work to provide assistance in areas hit by disaster, which seems particularly appropriate given recent global events. Currently, Palleroni is working with a student team to produce 19,000 homes for single mothers in rural Yaqui, Mexico.

+ National Design Awards, Sergio Palleroni
+ University of Texas School of Architecture eNews
Via The New York Times

If you look closely at the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, you'll see a similar effort to encourage the use of locally available resources, but that's another story.

I've always thought that perhaps this would explain why Wright was held in obscurity during his career because at precisely this time in history the banking families were focused on consolidating production of raw materials for standardized (concentrated) housing methods.

Garden your next house.

Mom and Dad
plant a house
for their new baby.


Inspired by the ecocentric attitudes of such beloved American nature-lovers as Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman and Alcott, three MIT designers - Mitchell Joachim, Lara Greden and Javier Arbon - created this newfangled treehouse in which the dwelling itself merges with its environment and nourishes its inhabitants. Fab Tree Hab dissolves our conventional concept of home and establishes a new symbiosis between the house and its surrounding ecosystem.

In order to build the arboreal frame, the designers utilize "pleaching" - a gardening technique in which tree branches are woven together to form living archways. Trees such as Elm, Live Oak and Dogwood bear the heavier loads, while vines, branches and plants form a lattice for the walls and roof of the house.

The trees that form the frame and the plants that grow on the external walls are meant to provide sustenance for the inhabitants and other living creatures who interact with the structure.

via inhabitat.com, the Fab Tree Hab is one of a long list of top nominations for awards at Index:, a world design event taking place this fall in Copenhagen. Link: Fab Tree Hab (At Index:)

Microscopic Wood Anatomy

Microscopic Wood Anatomy

The Microscopic Wood Anatomy of Central European species website hosts a giant archive of high resolution images open to the public. The index is a continuation of the book by Schweingruber F.H., 1990: Microscopic Wood Anatomy; Structural variability of stems and twigs in recent and subfossil woods from Central Europe. 3rd edition 1990. Birmensdorf, Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt WSL.

via Pruned

make a structure stronger

From New Scientist, 8 October 2005:
"How do you make a structure stronger?

The answer, it seems, is to fill it with thousands of holes.

It might be seem counterintuitive, but holes can add resilience to a material by absorbing stresses or the energy of an impact. Researchers have come up with a formula for the ideal size and distribution of such cavities.

The approach is inspired by wood, a material that has evolved over millions of years to withstand the worst that weather can dish out... In 2002, a team led by Julian Vincent at the University of Bath, UK, used an electron microscope to examine the microscopic holes found in hardwoods, which measure between 10 to 150 micrometres in diameter. They found that the hole walls absorb the energy produced by stress to the trees by flexing.

It explains why woods such as beech, oak and willow are particularly strong, even though their density is no greater than that of many other woods. Softwoods have fewer, smaller holes."

Buckminster Fuller re-do

In August, mainstream media attention focused on the plight of thousands of Americans living in domes - most notably New Orleans' Superdome and the Houston Astrodome - after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. For those looking to read a vastly more positive story about dome-dwelling, here it is: Cape Town-based N'Kozi Homes.

N'Kozi Homes' motto is "doing more with less" - they manufacture and sell geodesic domes (think Buckminster Fuller) as low-income housing. What N'Kozi does is build geodesic dome houses out of locally-sourced low-cost, energy efficient materials. The dome design is, in itself, incredibly efficient: by enclosing the largest volume of interior space with the least amount of surface area, they save on materials and cost. N'Kozi has taken it further - its basic introductory model measures 33 meters square, and could be erected with all solar panelling, lighting and plumbing included for around US$10,000 for a ready-to-live house.

Sound like an off-beat idea? The Age of Innovation and Sustainability Awards doesn't think so - they just gave N'Kozi Homes and founder Joseph Feigelson its Grand Prize. N'Kozi is looking to ramp up, franchising its technology and approaches to other parts of South Africa and throughout the developing world.

via NextBillion

One energy future

If the available residential and commercial rooftops in this country were to be coated with solar cell thin films, they could furnish an estimated 710,000 megawatts of electricity across the United States, which is more than three-quarters of all the electricity that this country is currently able to generate. Because of its favorable sunlight levels, California is considered a prime candidate.

Tree tent

via bookofjoe
Dutch designer Dré Wapenaar created this singular construction in 1998 for British activists so they could sleep among the branches of trees they were trying to save.

Made of steel, canvas and plywood, a Treetent measures 15 feet high by nearly 9 feet in diameter and is large enough for a family.

A Dutch campground now rents the tents.

You can see a Treetent at the just–opened show "SAFE: Design Takes On Risk" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

cables on the surface

*Patented "Pattern Wave Conductor" technology is designed and implemented for specific applications, optimum signal integrity, and the highest picture quality. *With over six times the surface area of equivalent round cables, the "skin-effect" performance is unmatched at high frequencies. *Ultra-thin "invisible" design allows for the easy installation and concealment of cables on the surface of walls, floors, and ceilings.

New Coax Design is finishing development.
Currently there is no Coax for sale.

Sheets make Shelters

Buckminster Fuller lives on and on.

World Shelters designs, produces, and delivers temporary and permanent structures for both emergency response and long-term humanitarian needs.

Our low-cost, durable structures can be easily assembled in a variety of configurations to support the needs of afflicted communities and relief organizations world-wide.

"SHEETING BECOMES SHELTER":

After disasters the UN and USAID distribute massive quantities of woven laminated sheeting. It is tough, flame-retardant and UV-resistant, but has no structure.

With our "Shelter Frame Kits" this material is converted on-site into self-supporting structures.

The SPHERE initiative was launched in 1997 by humanitarian NGOs, and the International Societies of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent to set minimum standards to be attained for disaster assistance. OTHER CONFIGURATIONS INCLUDE: Family Housing Units, Group Kitchen, Barracks and Latrines.

Help for Coping

Use your electric jigsaw for Easy, Safe, and Perfect copes - first time, every time!

Easy Coper is a durable tool designed by a professional carpenter to simplify coping crown molding.

Cope perfect inside corners.

Lamello Simplex

Lamello 'Simplex' is a detachable biscuit.

The equipment isn't cheap, yet Lamello products are ingenious and likely can save money, make profits, and increase quality.

There's a lot to explore on the [unsteady] Lamello home page and at its distributor, Colonial Saw, although these sites do a poor job illustrating the advantages. (And when web publishing can also be so effective too.)

I've posted Lamello items before. In two years, they haven't made much progress in the USA market.

Glue dries quick

From Tool Maker Insider at Woodworker's Journal, a look at 'electronic welders' that virtually eliminate clamps while they set glue joints in a matter of seconds.

"Wouldn’t it be great if someone came up with a handheld gizmo that instantly cured any common woodworking glue so that you didn’t have to clamp and then wait for the glue to set? You know, sort of like a welder for wood, but one that works with white glue, hide glue, Titebond®; in fact, any waterbased glue.

"If there is one drawback, and it certainly is the only one I can see, it is the price. Technology combined with quality does not come cheap. Their Model 3000 goes for $3,600, and the larger Model 4000 is $4,200. To be fair, though, I guess one could save an incalculable amount of time and space with such a tool, and if it really kept working for 50 years, that comes out to less than $1.50 per week. Maybe it is cheaper than it seems.

Workrite is a family owned business started in 1908 by Vernon Meyer, the grandfather of the current owner, Bob Meyer. At first, they made radios and automotive parts. The family sold the radio business just before the Depression, but got it back a short time later when the buyer defaulted. During World War II, they also made wooden toys, but these days, they only make the wood welder.

The theory of Dielectric Heating is based on the fact that disturbed water molecules cause friction, and therefore, create HEAT.The disturbance is caused by very high frequency cycle change (twenty seven million times per second), which moves the water molecules of glue at such a tempo that the friction generates heat, and the glue bond is complete.

The WorkRite Welder will work with any water-based glue on today's market. Because of the heat generated in the glue line, we recommend pre-catalyzed glue, which achieves faster and stronger results (i.e. Kor Lok, Titebond II, and Wonderbond). When you see steam in the glue joint or approximately 5 seconds (never more than 10 seconds) has elapsed, move on.

Win bag

This is what they call a win bag.

Perhaps we should learn to use these.

Stash them in the yard and fill with gas when gas is cheap.

When rolled up, the entire system can be towed safely on public roads by a pickup or SUV.

Only then will we get away from the Fire Marshall...!!

Building Houses, Building Hope

"When I saw the Carters helping lift those walls in the style of a hearty Amish barn raising, I wanted to jump in. I loved the idea of breaking away from my computer keyboard to do something more tangible. So when I learned that Habitat was looking for volunteers to spend a week working in Mississippi, I signed up and coaxed my 13-year-old son Gabe to join me.

"We've learned that a house isn't just shelter, it is a place where a family can learn, grow, and love one another. It is a place that inspires traditions and encourages dignity.

NewToolNews

Bionic Wrench

2005 National Hardware Show
New Tool Favorite

Out of all of the new hand tools we tried out at the 2005 National Hardware Show, this one was our favorite. It is basically an adjustable wrench that conforms to a variety of nuts and bolts, and evenly distributes force on all of the work surfaces. It measures 8 inches long and weighs under one pound, and does the work of 16 US and metric wrenches... significantly lightening the toolbox! We found it extremely easy to use... it would make the perfect all-around household wrench for people of all levels of tool experience. When the handle is squeezed, six hardened steel jaws converge and firmly grab a nut or bolt on all sides. It's even great at removing fasteners damaged by other tools. And it's made right here in the USA.

One 8-inch Bionic Wrench™ covers 6 SAE sizes, 7/16, 1/2, 9/16, 5/8, 11/16, 3/4 inch, and 10 Metric sizes, 11,12,13,14,15,16,17, 18,19,20mm.

The $28.95 Bionic Wrench made by loggerhead

via NewToolNews

New nail puller

The patented design allows the jaws to stay parallel and automatically increase gripping force as greater resistance is encountered. Once the extraction has been initiated, only a prying action is necessary; the handles no longer need to be squeezed.

Pulls finish nails on-through the wood. (recommended)

Grips and removes slender body pneumatic fasteners without shearing.

Removes nails damaged by the use of conventional tools: hammer, pry bar, etc.

Extracts long staples and nails in a single motion.

Works in hard to reach areas that other tools cannot.

$22.00