House powered by spinach

Picture & internal links at:
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/

Seattle architecture/design firm Mithun won first
place in the C2C Home Competition with their design
for a house powered by spinach. The house will be
built this summer in Roanoke, Virginia, along with
other contest winners.

The competition asked designers to work on work on
cradle-to-cradle design principles and create objects
and processes that replenish communities, using
materials that can be recycled indefinitely.

Mithun's house takes energy from the sun and uses
spinach protein to generate electricity for
neighbouring homes and street lighting infrastructure.

The house's skylight brings in the sun's rays, and the
heat sink stabilizes temperatures, while a highly
conductive material produces photosynthetic energy
generated from the protein in spinach. The spinach
proteins are sandwiched between the core's glass
walls; their chlorophyll converts the sun's rays to
fuel the home. Besides, a vegetated roof system
collects and filters stormwater into the building core


Info re: book on c2c design:
http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm

In Cradle to Cradle, McDonough and Braungart argue
that the conflict between industry and the environment
is not an indictment of commerce but an outgrowth of
purely opportunistic design. The design of products
and manufacturing systems growing out of the
Industrial Revolution reflected the spirit of the
day-and yielded a host of unintended yet tragic
consequences.

Today, with our growing knowledge of the living earth,
design can reflect a new spirit. In fact, the authors
write, when designers employ the intelligence of
natural systems?the effectiveness of nutrient cycling,
the abundance of the sun's energy ?they can create
products, industrial systems, buildings, even regional
plans that allow nature and commerce to fruitfully
co-exist.

Bad Whistle!

Makes me think Popeye was right.

I yam what I yam!