Energy Lab at Hawaii Preparatory Academy blessed – Big Island Video News
http://www.versteegde.nl/Shop/index.html
February 1, 2010T-shirts by Antoon Versteegde for interactive projects.
Let’s talk about WORLD ARCHITECTURE FESTIVAL – Barcelona, 4 – 6 November 2009 !!
October 26, 2009
WAF Overview
WAF is the only annual international architectural event to reward excellence in a fully interactive, inclusive live format.
Through its unique entry and judging process and its cutting edge seminar and exhibition content, it is simultaneously a celebration of great architecture and an inspirational intellectual challenge to a major world profession. Put simply, it is architectural excellence, live.
Why should I attend WAF?
- FESTIVAL GALLERY – contemplate the breadth of international architectural excellence in the Gallery where all entries are exhibited together – last year saw entries from 63 different countries and over 2000 visitors.
- KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS – get inspired by the world’s greatest, which last year included Lord Norman Foster, talking about the issues facing architects today.
- THEMATIC EXHIBITION – this year’s theme is ‘Less Does More’ and feeds into the seminar programme and will show how cleverly utilised resources can create opportunities for living, working, learning and playing that would not otherwise exist.
- AWARDS CEREMONY – the festival finishes on Friday evening with a glittering awards ceremony, celebrating the winners of each category, the student competition and the ultimate awards in their section.
- STUDENT COMPETITION – watch and support architectural schools compete for the Edaw Aecom URBAN SOS prize.
- PRODUCT SHOWCASES – architects love great products and this area of WAF will help you find the latest, innovative products for your next project.
- SITDOWN – look and touch at this exhibition of high-end furniture for those particularly interested in interiors and fit out – this also doubles as a great networking area!
- MEDIA PARTNERS – from over 60 countries, giving away their magazines for you to take away!
- BARCELONA – why not hop on a tour around the city that fuses stunning modern architecture with some of world’s most classical buildings and structures? Information on accommodation and travel can be found at our one-stop-shop website.
- ARCHITECTS – over 2000 of them! Meet, share, collaborate, make friends and stay in touch using our online portals – Festival Connect, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Who will I meet at WAF?
WAF is unique, and unlike many construction events focuses solely on the needs and tastes of architects. Over 75% of the audience are architects and in 2008, they descended from over 73 countries worldwide. The other 25% of the audience consist of property developers and suppliers to the industry.
Tell me, what can I expect this November?
Last year attendees to the event got all this:
- Entry to the exhibition which featured all 722 entries
- Opportunity to watch and listen to the shortlisted candidates as they explained the challenges they faced in creating their vision
- Insights from the expert panel of judges discussing the entries
- Face to face time with their international architectural peers
- Contemplation time over the popular thematic ‘Height’ exhibition
- World-class seminar programme from the likes of Norman Foster and Robert Stern
- Upbeat, celebration of excellence in the international architectural arena
GREEN SCHOOL IS PROUD THAT HER BIGGEST BUILDING, WHICH IS THE HEART OF SCHOOL WAS SELECTED AS AWARD FINALIST IN 2 CATEGORIES :
1. LEARNING CATEGORY
2. STRUCTURAL DESIGN
BUY YOUR VISITOR PASSES ONLINE TODAY
Join us at Global Social Innovators on 01 – 03 October 2009 – Fusionopolis, Singapore
September 29, 2009Global Social Innovators Forum 2009
Collaborative Innovations: Investing in Team Earth & an Inclusive World
Fusionopolis, Singapore | 01 – 03 October 2009
Register Now for the Global Social Innovators Forum 2009! The Global Social Innovators Forum (GSIF) is a signature platform of Social Innovation Park (SIP), which seeks to bring together a highly trusted community of influential minds from the public, private and people sectors; to seek opportunities to collaborate and embrace innovations that will define business, government and society – to build a more inclusive, sustainable and better world.
The GSIF 2008 attracted over 50 speakers and more than 300 delegates from 22 countries, which provided enlightening insights, thereby forging instant bonds and collaborations. This year, the theme is on “Collaborative Innovations: Investing in Team Earth & an Inclusive World”, with focus on collaborative innovations around the 3 ‘P’s – Profits, Planet and People, in ensuring a sustainable earth where the land, air, oceans and people can thrive within the global ecosystem. It will explore sound strategies in business, social, entrepreneurship and innovation in the green to gold movement, to create social, environmental and economic returns for stakeholders.
Discussion Leader:
Urooj Malik, Director, Asia Development Bank, Chairman, Hineleban Foundation, Philippines, umalik@adb.org
Mr. Urooj Malik commands 25 years of experience in socioeconomic development in the Asia Pacific region. During the last 10 years, Mr. Malik has been in ADB’s management stream, first as Country Director for Cambodia, then as Director for Mekong Infrastructure, and finally as Director, Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources, Southeast Asia. Mr. Malik is currently on special leave from ADB and working as Chairman, Hineleban Foundation for the sustainable development of Mindanao, Philippines. He has pioneered work in numerous regional programs, including the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) and Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). Mr. Malik served as co-chair of ADB-wide Environment Community of Practice, chair of CTI Task Force and co-chair of GMS working groups. He has written extensively on topical themes relating to sustainable development and spoken at numerous international forums. Mr. Malik holds graduate and post graduate degrees in Natural Resources Management (Wisconsin) and Mineral/Resource Economics (Arizona), respectively, and completed the Management Development Program (Cornell).
John Hardy, Founder, Green School, Indonesia and Canada, john@johnbali.com
John Hardy is a Canadian who has been living in Bali for most of the last 30 years. Having built and sold the Jewellery business that bears his name, he turned his attention to the planet and its problems. He realised that living sustainably was critical for our collective future. John is a man who addresses problems from many different perspectives. In the past few years he has started the Green School in Bali to deliver a sustainable education for young people, launched the Meranggi foundation to encourage farmers to plant bamboo, created PT Bambu as a design hotbed & production facility for bamboo buildings and furniture and opened Bambu Indah, a hotel based on sustainability. Along the way, he built what is currently the world’s biggest bamboo building.
Why Attend GSIF 2009?
Jet Li, SIP Distinguished Fellow
“GSIF gives aspiring social entrepreneurs opportunities to learn and share on social enterprise and innovation with people from all sectors. It challenges everyone to create positive social change in their community. Only through a collective effort can we achieve the social impact required to create a better world for the current and future generations.”
Lim Chu Chong, Managing Director, DBS Enterprise Banking
“DBS has been a strategic partner of GSIF since 2007. We are encouraged to see significant progress in social entrepreneurship and feel privileged to be part of the SE eco-system to make a positive difference in society.”
Read more of why attend GSIIF 2009, the speakers, and find out more about GSIF here
Green Kampong – Inspiring a greener today
September 28, 2009With Green Kampong, I hope to build a like-minded community that not only shares and learns together but also becomes an informative platform to build awareness and education on conservation. Together, we can make a much better place for ourselves and our children.
Let us know your thoughts: feedback@greenkampong.com
Technology does not always mean progress. We all share this little village. In fact, if we all went back to the simpler, kampong life (that we have been striving to leave behind), we would have a brighter future to look forward to.
What does being “green” mean to you?
Being “green” means that I try to think past today and that the choices I make are ones that my children will appreciate in the VERY NEAR future. The statistics on how quickly our planet’s resources are being depleted are very overwhelming and frightening to me. How can we not be thoughtful and considerate?
It’s not the world we are trying to save, but the human race’s ability to survive on this shared earth. Improvement needs to happen NOW or we’ll be too late.
What can the average person do to be green?
Get educated on the facts of conservation! Mobilize friends, family, community on making it a way of life. It’s the little things such as using recycled shopping bags that cumulatively make the biggest difference. Moreover, we must understand that our choices now affect future generations. With our current path, the damage to the planet may be irreversible.
What are some of the biggest challenges to being eco-friendly?
There is a misconception that being eco-friendly costs a lot of money and that one person does not really make a difference in the big picture. Both are untrue.
ABOUT NADYA HUTAGALUNG
Nadya is an eco-activist, eco-centric jewellery designer and well known personality in Singapore and Asia.
Voted one of Singapore¹s stylish and most beautiful women, there are few stars in Asia who have generated so much interest than Nadya Hutagalung. Well loved as one of the pioneering VJs of MTV, her work brought her incredible success, celebrity and accolades, entertaining over 70 million households across Asia.
But so much more than her amazing start in the entertainment world, Nadya has sustained all her hard work and has risen to become one of the most sought after, multi-faceted, accomplished women in Asia.
She was voted one of Asia¹s Leading Trendmakers by Asiaweek magazine, alongside the Dalai Lama, Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fatt, for her special ability to inspire and fascinate. In this same year, she was also voted Showtime Personality of the Year by Singapore¹s The New Paper, and Singapore¹s Most Gorgeous Woman by Female magazine readers. Nadya was also named as one of the top ten ³Shining Stars² on Indonesian Television by the Indonesian publication, Bintang.
Nadya is now in the midst of building a green home and is the ambassador for the World Wildlife Funds Earth Hour in Singapore, championing the green cause to make this truly a better world for everyone.
Her keen eye for colour and style led her on to painting, in part encouraged by her artist mother. A recent exhibition of her artwork helped raise much needed money for the Tsunami Relief Fund, which enabled her to match another passion, that of helping others.
Her creative and impeccable style in both life and fashion has propelled her to a league of her own and was the incentive for her to launch her own sustainable jewelry line called OSEL meaning ŒClear Light¹ in Tibetan. The name says it all and with Nadya¹s unique eye she has managed to create timeless pieces that simply take your breath away. They are pieces to treasure.
Passion for life has given Nadya the drive to offer help where and when it is needed; therefore her charity work has taken a front seat too. She divides whatever free time she has between championing the preservation of endangered species, lending her voice to raise awareness for women¹s issues, painting for charitable art exhibitions for causes such as the Tsunami Relief Fund and volunteering both physical and fundraising aid (for both the Bali bombings and the jogakarta quake victims).
Nadya is constantly seeking new ways to expand herself both personally and professionally, and has proven herself in the past as having an overwhelming commitment to anything she undertakes. And as for what the future holds?
We have only just skimmed the surface.
Read more here
Qi – Brilliant people doing EXTRAORDINARY things
September 28, 2009Thursday the 8th of October, 2009 from 18:00 to 23:00
BRILLIANT PEOPLE DOING EXTRAORDINARY THINGS
The opening conference will feature brilliant people, beautifully designed products and stunning art to inspire us to think differently about living in a way that is consistent with a healthy planet.
THE SPEAKERS
The people who strive through their thoughts, their writings, their design and actions for a more sustainable world. Who are these movers & shakers?
Willie Smits, Chairman of the Masarang Foundation
An eye opening talk about reforesting devastated land, increasing the well-being of communities, reducing temperatures and conserving wildlife in the process
Singgih S Kartono, Designer and Founder of Magno Design
A member of the Jury at International Young Creative Entrepreneur award 2009: “How do you make a successful business based sustainable principles?”
John Hardy, Jewellery designer and founder at the Green School in Bali
A maverick that moved from the world of fashion & luxury design to build a holistic education for children in a sustainable environment and starting a the first bamboo building company in Bali
Singh Intrachooto, Design Principal, Osisu, Thailand
Recipient of Thailand’s Emergent Designer of the Year Award, Elle Décor’s Designer of the Year as well as Top Environmentalist 2008 Award from Thailand’s Department of Environment
Kenneth Cobonpue, Industrial Designer
Kenneth has won global recognition for embodying the ideals of Asian design. Through innovation of production and materials, he seeks an alternative to the Western definition of modern design
Lone Droscher Nielsen, Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Project, Borneo
The star of BBC and Discovery Channel who leads the largest primate rescue project in the world, with more than 600 orangutans in its care.
THE PRODUCT
During the event people can talk with designers and get to grips with beautiful products with Qi provenance. Attendees can learn about the production values and brand ethos and actually buy the products without needing to trawl the internet and wait for delivery. Many of the products are shown in Asia for the first time and sourced in partnership with Eco-Age, London.
THE PROGRAM
WELCOME
18:00-18:50 welcome cocktail with product showcase.
Qi PART ONE
19:00-19:10 Opening remarks
19:10-19:30 Willie Smits “re-foresting rainforests”
19:35-19:55 Singgih S Kartono “a successful sustainable business”
20:00-20:20 John Hardy “the green school: the future of education”
20:25-20:35 Introduction to the art, food and products
20:35-21:25 Main canapés and rainforest raffle sales.
Qi PART TWO
21:35-21:55 Singh Intrachooto “innovating design thinking”
22:00-22:20 Lone Dröscher Nielsen “a win-win future”
22:25-22:30 Closing remarks
22:30-23:00 Dessert & coffee/tea.
23:00 Raffle results
24:00 End
THE VENUE
National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road, Singapore 178897
REGISTER NOW!
More info and registration, please click here
Clean energy? Some disturbing facts and figures – by The Green Asia Group
September 23, 2009Solar panels …
A factory in China must burn more than 40kg of coal to produce a solar panel – one metre by 1.5 metres.
Chin’s least efficient coal-fired power plant would generate 130 kilowatt-hours of electricity burning that amount – enough power to keep a 22 watt LED lightbulb beaming 12 hours a day for 30 years. A solar panel is designed to last just 20 years.
It is estimated it takes 10kg of polysilicon to produce a solar panel with a capacity of one kilowatt – just enough to generate the energy !o keep a fridge cool for a day.
Many consumers, as well as corporations, in developed countries are buying mainland made solar panels in the belief that using them will help slow the pace of global warming. Demand for solar panels has risen rapidly in the past few years, creating a US$100-billion a year market for panels and related industrial materials.
Five years ago, China’s mainland production of polysilicon – the key component of solar panels was negligible. Last year it churned out 4,000 tonnes. By 2011 it will reach a jaw-dropping 150,000 tonnes.
The chemical chlorine is used at almost every stage of the manufacturing process.
Extracting pure silicon is done by putting hydrogen, chlorine and raw silicon in an over and heating them up until they vaporized, and the process is repeated until the purest silicon is produced. 30 million tonnes of coal will be needed to keep the ovens of all the polysilicon plants hot to produce enough to cater for demand.
Read the whole article on www.silobreaker.com/dirty-reality-behind-solar-power
Or Liquid natural gas?
Although natural gas burns 40% cleaner than coal in terms of GHG emissions, it is necessary to look at Lifecycle Emissions.
While taking into account the emissions released from extraction, the energy consumed during the freezing process (natural gas is frozen to -260 degrees to become a liquid), and the fossil fuels burned in the process of transporting LNG on giant tankers at least 3 football fields in length, using maritime diesel fuel, around the world, the greenhouse gas emissions from liquefied natural gas are similar to, if not equivalent to those of coal.
The processing cycle of LNG emits 40% more emissions than Natural Gas.
Read more about the dangers of LNG here
STRANGER IN PARADISE FOR OCT’ 09
September 18, 2009
Just when you thought it was safe to send your children to Norway
“Green is the new Black” trumpeted the ridiculous Singapore Straits Times recently, just as uptight architects across the region started cladding their buildings’ walls with ground covers.
“Lean and Green” went out the cry at last year’s South Asia Architects’ Conference in Sri Lanka; sloppy hack David Robson (of “Beyond Bawa” fame) lead scores of villa designers up and down the Galle coast in search of the Green Grail. They all came back ‘refreshed’, I believe, but nearly all continued designing aquarium tank-like homes.
And my opinion on Bali’s stampede towards mindless modernism do not need repeating.
So what’s the upshot?
In Bali I am daily invited, via Facebook, to join some green initiative against Balinese plastic/stray dogs, or ozone-depleting beggar-women. I don’t join because I have always felt that by employing 200 or so gardeners, and by championing artful-natural garden design for 35 years ……is enough ‘green initiative’.
Well it’s not. It’s a cop-out. I need to do more.
Let it now be known that Bali, with all its environmental problems—most the result of inadequate education and unchecked urban sprawl, and the, now, imploding infrastructure—has two green warriors amongst the expatriate hill-tribes of Sayan, Ubud. Their example must be followed: they have shown us dilettante designers the light!
Jewellery czar and czarina John and Cynthia Hardy, the Bill and Melinda Gates of Banjar Baung, Sayan Kelod, have shown us―with their all-bamboo Green School, their own-gnome home and their hostelry the Villas Bamboo Indah―that they are the best news on the Bali environmental design scene since Empu Kuturan invented spring-fed bathhouses in the 12th century.
Adobe is to altruism what stainless steel is to hedonism.
Now read on:
21st August 2008: A spirit-lifting epiphany in the heart of Hippydom
I am invited to superstar N.Y. design guru Stefan Sagmeister’s Sayan Swansong at the Villas Bamboo Indah. I have heard of the beauty of the villas through my good buddy Tim Street-Porter―whose photographs of the Hardy’s Bali and New York spreads have graced the pages of the venerable Architectural Digest―but I have only tonight made the pilgrimage, out of respect for my Bamboo Queen, Linda Garland (in Bali one can only be in one ‘Bamboozled’ camp at a time).
I arrive at dusk to find a field of Californian Fried Buddhists—the inner circle of the hill tribe expatriate breeders―in all their glory. They are all milling and frothing―about their recent land acquisition and villa projects―all in the midst of the most stunning piece of environmental design I have ever seen!!
Welded-columns of giant bamboo land like elephant’s feet on exquisitely crafted packed-mud floors. A Sumatran long house garden ‘folly’ rises from a field of corn like the bow of the Mayfair. Everywhere rice field-water bubbles through boulders, and teenagers from the Green School—full of gait and armpit hair—gambol and frolic.
Beer is served by reformed beggar-women in bamboo tumblers. Quaint Javanese limasan huts—the compound’s pricey accommodation―sit in paddocks of chilli peppers and spring onions, which extend to the rice-fields below, and beyond, leading to an extraordinary Ayung River valley view.
At the centre of all of this rustic-romantic, pastoral-poetic beauty John Hardy holds court with numerous nubile housemaids in attendance. In this regards he has taken a page out of book of General Qadaffi’s: one can’t be too obnoxious or have too many female security guards.
Nearby, Stefan Sagmeister braids the hair of a blind acupuncturist with his feet.
As the island’s most noxious Garden Design Poobah, I am humbled to find such a pocket of loveliness, and such sustainability.
I now want to mulch all the Tropical Cotswolde acres I have created in the name of beauty and burn my shoes and return to my Hippie Roots!
19th August 2009: Mass Norwegian-Balinese Wedding in the Mountain
Hill tribe impresario Ketut Sadru has worked for me for over twenty-five years as a gardener, driver, tour guide and eventually as manager of the planting works at the hugely successful Four Seasons Hotel project in Jimbaran, 1996-97. His two daughters—sweet village girls—went to Denpasar Nurse Academy and upon graduation went to Norway to work. They each soon found big Norwegians to marry and today they have brought them home to their mountain village on Batur Lake for a glittering ceremony. The nuptials are held in the village temple and a reception is planned afterwards in Sadru’s ‘holiday home’ on the road to Tampaksiring.
As the girls’ godfather I knew nothing of these big Norwegians or the ‘holiday home’, for that matter, until yesterday.
But this is the Balinese way: serve big surprises piping hot!
I arrive at the village temple to find the grooms in full Balinese drag and make up: with their good bones and fine features and well defined lips they look like extras in one of Greta Garbo’s Nordic romance films. They girls are glowing with joy, as are Sadru and his wife.
With a household of Norwegians to feed its like all their Santa Clauses have come at once!
Over the morning, I have many earnest discussions with my goddaughters future family, and then I return south feeling very proud and normal-sized.
The last word on the beggar women
For hundreds of years the women of the far-flung East Bali mountain villages have come to South Bali in search of work and sustenance during the dry seasons.
The very healthy beggar women with Heinz babies at by-pass intersections are from these villages. A group of concerned humanitarian groups lead by Daniel Elber including Yayasan Masa Depan Untuk Anak―which is represented by Anak Agung Bagus Soerio Mataram from Ubud, and President, Asri Kerthyasa and Honorary Swiss Consul Jon Zurcher from Denpasar as founding member―is working together with Foundation Future for Children, Switzerland (as fundraiser), with Yayasan Dian Desa from Yogyakarta (as project manager), together with the Balinese and Karangasem Government, the University Udayana from Denpasar, the Rotary Club of Bali, Ubud and with the Members of the Bali Hotel Association.
They are all now working to dig 35 wells in these far-flung villages to hopefully stem the problem at its source.
Bravo!
25th August 2009: A diplomatic ‘Divertissement’ dilemma
“Malaysia must not use our Pendet Dance,” screams the banner headline on today’s Bali Post.
Many of my student friends are up in arms too. “Malaysia maling Asia,” they all chant: (“Malaysia, the thieves of Asia”).
I can’t really understand it: for years the mighty Malaysian Tourism Board has been running a highly successful ‘Truly Asia’ ad campaign full of images such as the Balinese Pendet Dance and the Javanese Reog Dance and Balinese resort architecture and such …… and no one has ever commented. We all know that Malaysia is just a beautiful place for ugly people.
In 1960s Indonesian President Soekarno wanted to chop it into little pieces.
Why can’t students and the Bali Post raise fists against the truly deplorable conditions tourists face at the international airport, or the fast disappearing ‘green belt’ on the new Eastern Distributor, or Australians drinking in the street of Kuta and Sanur during this Holy Month of Ramadan.
With its depleted culture, Malaysia gets around 20 million tourists a year while Bali, widely considered the world’s most gorgeous culture, gets only 2 million.
Perhaps some introspection is called for rather than beating a dead horse like the Tari Pendet, which any scholar knows is just a modern creation loosely inspired by the salubrious Malay Serampang 69.
That’s what I reckon!
