coffee shop shading

I was looking at arch daily and saw this coffee shop + shade design by ateliermob architects

the reason i bring it to attention is because of the photos shown of how the circular holes in the shading roof were created. I think that should my sheds green roof be designed in concrete then its defiantly a project to keep in mind for the construction and details of the roof in relation to holes and different depth sections.

but im very wary of the use of concrete in such an organic environment so....

http://www.archdaily.com/40851/coffee-shop-shading-surface-ateliermob/

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Greenest UK City

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/19/forum-for-the-future-award-newcastle

This article on guardian website I found uplifting that an industrial city such as newcastle has made such staggering green progress 8th place in year 2007, 4th place last year and now NUMERO UNO...

However I got a little irritated when the praise for the cities development and promotion of electric cars came up. "The city has also become the electric car capital in a government-backed experiment, which will see 1,000 charging points installed in Newcastle and Gateshead over the next two years."

While reducing CO2 direct emissions through the use of cars is commendable in this apparently large-scale project, are electric cars not simply displacing CO2 emissions to the source of the electricity needed to power these cars? Creating a system that promotes the use of bicycles is much better for the environment though with the Uk weather I can understand that bicycle use is not a year round practical programs. But maybe with the redesign of a sort of carriage that could be powered by one or maybe more of the new bicycles that can reach high speeds on minimal turns is where money should be put!

ok going back to the ice once again

Was going through my hard-drive and came across my own photos of ice/ cracked and melting quite like them and thought'd i'd share as im planning keep the natural pattern of ice that i've drawn on cad for my roof garden

yeah had a few more but i think you get the basic idea

Greenwich Green Party Drinks...

Last week went to a pub in Greenwich, which was rather nice and cosy- as well as having popped up a few times since passing through it, to join in with Green Drinks. Kind of a failure, didnt find any members there, just book club people. So I'm trying to find another group to join that interests me... more on that later when i find something exciting

Guggenheim Design It Shelter Competition

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/sackler-center/design-it-shelter/winners

Just thought i'd post a link to this competition by Guggenhiem, where participants had to design a shelter. They had to work using google sketch up and earth, and it could be placed anywhere in the world. The winning design is out of cork which acts as a noise and heat insulator, i think the shelter has a rather interesting design and it certainly seems to have been made to appreciate the landscape of the site. With our shed design's soon coming to a close think its interesting to look at these shelters. A lot of them were actually created by the students and lived in for a short period before submission. Anyways off to look through the rest of the submissions
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/sackler-center/design-it-shelter/winners

Patterns that you can't deny: Pingo and more

So after a conversation with my cousin Dre about patterns he pointed me onto the path of some rather cool things.

Ever heard of a pingo? i cant remember if that was also the name of that penguin kids show (completely unrelated)
http://www.doodlecat.com/uploaded_images/pingo1-769397.jpg
Perhaps not the best picture
but the process of how pingo is made is the iced water forms in a pond covered with earth. These pingos only occur in rather cold places, or permafrost environments. Anyways so as a result of the climate getting water the ice has melted causing the ground to form craters. Now that was my rather basic explanation of pingos here's a more correct link to clarify things : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo

Also brought to my attention was Irelands The Giant's Causeway
http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/Ireland-s-First-World-Heritage-Site-A1011

Ice Wedge Polygons http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/taxa/landscape/ground/nwt.html

Lake Uyuni, Bolivia - naturally formed hexagons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfravn/2219305734/

ooo and monguls which form from the forces of skiers on slopes and the paths that they just seem to follow

More Patterns that didn't make tha cut

So I think i definately spent 99% of the time I was looking at patterns on the natural ones... far more intriguing. But here are some i didnt really think made the cut

Thought this was Amazing, its a curl underwater. The colour of the water is a little bit unreal, so i really hope this wasn't photoshoped. here's link to website http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1760-6410

hmmm what else did i look at.... ooo ripples in water, really loving the black and white quality of this photo. and the interlinking of the circular ripples. Was really trying to find and overhead view of circular ripples but didnt have much luck, they looked fake and CGId...

http://www.free-background-wallpaper.com/images/Wallpapers1280/black-white-backgrounds/circular-ripples-wallpaper.jpg - oppps unfortunately can't see it oh well :/

and this website had a lot of images of snowflakes, be that individuals or multiple fallen and welding snowflakes: http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/natures-spectacular-geometry-of-snowflakes-frost-and-ice/weird-science

here's a cool water splash... i didnt use this at all but have completly lost the website of the splash that i did use and thought this one was pretty cool as well:
http://www.thelda.org/assets/images/waterdrip.jpg

OK going to leave it at this now i think... but there's soo many pictures i looked at and loved, but yeah dont want to continue boring you

PATTERNS : Long Overdue Post

Personally I've found ice, in forms of cracked ice, crystals and snowflakes, to be most interesting in terms of what they are and the opportunities they offer for pattern development. I think this is because in the case of the cracked ice, the visual forms can be interpreted in multiple ways. But enough about that, I've also looked at water ripples, actually I also looked at frozen water ripples.

Nature is rather interesting i must say. So I've been looking at natural patterns, mainly, and I thought I'd share a few online. Mainly I've looked at images to do with ice, in the forms of crackes ice, frozen wave ripples snowflakes, and crystals. Seem to have an ice obsession, gosh not sure thats the best thing to admit to, in an ecological blog, but at least everything I've looked at has been naturally formed.

I've also looked at some water ripples, sandunes, and a lot more that I've unfortunately forgotten because i could figure out how to post a picture on here. But that's just because I'm too impatient to spend 10 mins looking at a screen so that it makes sense to me.

Frozen Wave Ripples on a river bed

Ice Crystal On a Window

WILL POST MORE IMAGES LATER

First Post

going to add some actual posts in future