N Allesverzamelgebouw

My MSc graduation project/thesis for Wageningen University and Technical University Delft is the study and design of an allesverzamelgebouw (collect-everything-building).  It will provide decentralized infrastructure services as well as community facilities for a new neighborhood of 600-800 dwellings.  I have been working on it since January and plan on completing in July/August.

One facet of the design is processing of blackwater and kitchen waste in an anaerobic digester to produce biogas for energy, an early draft of which is shown in this process-scheme cartoon:

In the months to come I hope to create a scenario in which the quality of material and energy is saved within the neighborhood for certain urban flows.

N Another busy week

Running between Rotterdam, Delft and Wageningen, another busy week keeps on keeping on; coffee mixing with ink.

N Hong Kong

Hong Kong Inside/Outside (2009)
Michael Wolf

N Axonometric projection of cities

Bing Maps has been hosting ‘bird’s-eye-view” photographs for some time now, offering a unique service above that of Google Maps.  Well, they have recently upped the ante by weaving bird’s eye view images with satellite images into a Simcity canvas, shown in that distinctive axonometric projection.  Some very sophisticated software combines geo-imagery of many sources into a somewhat seamless tapestry.  I expect that more and more sources will be woven in soon.

I am thankful that a second party besides Google is also producing high quality, free online mapping tools.  You can explore their bird’s-eye-view projections online, but not using Google Chrome… Internet Explorer is recommended.

N Life is about organization

A fascinating article about the research of a professor who has an alternate definition about life and evolution.

The operator hypothesis by Gerard Jagers.

N Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies

Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies is an excellent illustrated manual, published in 2008 by a Swiss research institute eawag.  Download high-resolution pdf.

N Fat

We have been overeating the fat of the land in the form of fossil fuel and standing forests, and it is hurting the ecosystem.  In this way, humans are not self-sufficient, we are addicted to high-octane energy sucked from our host. 

We ought to collect energy and produce our own fat, but fat is expensive for an organism to synthesize; it means conversion and storage mechanisms, more structure.  Fat means saving from one day to the other, season to season, year to year.  Grain silos are fat. Thermal aquifers are fat. Hydrogen could be a form of fat.

Sustainability is just a change in metabolism.