Today’s class was quite the mixture of topics. It opened up with a lecture on ground water and how it plays into design and the world. David Toop, a hydro geologist, came in and explained to us the various ways water, and ground water, is connected to the water cycle. He also explained what water tables, aquitards, and aquifers are and how they affect infrastructure. The water table plays a huge part in out of town infrastructure, as digging a well is more accessible and cheaper than putting water pipes in to reach out of town areas. There are two main types of wells (Bored/Dug and Drilled). Ground water touches into so many aspects of life, such as landslides, flooding, water quality, for example, that it is impossible for us, as designers to ignore.

Image

 Next came the seminar. The seminar was based on unconventional building materials. For example, I learned that…

 1. Materials are compared to diamonds when industry assess them for hardness

2. Spider silk fibres are very strong and have a protein that can be harvested. You can’t farm the spiders because they will kill each other, so the protein is extracted and injected into goats. When the goats produce milk, the protein can be extracted and spun into a strong, yet flexible, natural fiber.

3. Adding coconut into materials, such as wood, makes it biodegradable

4. The lightest solid ever made, Seagel, can be lifted by static electricity, is biodegradable, and edible

5. Plastic and metal particles that can restore skin to it’s normal condition could be used a building material that can heal itself. For example, you’re roof could heal itself after hail damage occurs

 The second and last lecture was on two things, the education understandings for teaching ecology to design disciplines, and the nine tenets of the transformation of commerce through a dialogue between business and ecology. There are four teachings; Focus on the underlying processes that shape place, Learn how to observe, Make visible the processes that sustain life, and understand the Concepts of Process. The nine Tenets for business and ecology are; design in concert with natural principles, partner with nature is productive regenerative capacity, partner with succession, address a range of temporal and spatial scales, embrace ecological economics, address hierarchal levels of decision making, implement integrated management, integrate with life cycle flows, and pursue eco balance. 

 

Image: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthgwaquifer.html