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Kiirunavaara is the world’s largest iron-ore mine. Nowadays it’s not only used for iron mining. Since 1988 when this part of the mine was closed, it’s been empty and unused. This changed a few years ago.
It all began with a visit to Japan for one of the former miners. That visit opened his eyes for cultivation of shiitake. Why not use the empty mine for growing shiitake mushrooms? The Japanese growers had their shiitakes growing in basements, so why not use the giant “basement” back home in Sweden? The climate down in the mine happened to be perfect for this purpose.
That is the story of how the shiitake mushrooms started to grow in Kiirunavaara. Today they are grown 540m below the ground surface on shaving from alder and harvest take place 7 days after planting. The mine-grown Shiitake is of excellent quality and is delivered to restaurants and food stores all over Sweden.
The High Line in New York was constructed in 1929 and served the city until 1980 when the last train ran on it. It spans for 22 blocks and is 1.45 miles long.
In 1999 a group of people called the friends of The High Line was formed. This group started to work for the High Line's preservation and re-use. The historic High Line rail structure offers New Yorkers the opportunity to create a one-of-a-kind recreational amenity: a grand, public promenade that can be enjoyed by all residents and visitors in New York City.
t’s a 1.45 miles long walkway over the most fashionable neighbourhoods in New York, working like a green lung in the city. When the High Line is converted to public open space, you will be able to rise up from the streets and step into a place apart, tranquil and green.
The design of the High Line is made by the landscape architects Field Operation and the architects Diller Scofido + Renfro that won the contest in 2004. Yet, the park is not open. The first phase of construction to transform the High Line railway into a public park by took place in spring 2008. To be continued…
Pictures taken by Joel Sternfeld and Friends of the highline.
For more info, visit:
www.thehighline.org
Duisburg-Nord Country Park was from the beginning an industrial wasteland, measuring 200 hectares. This was the remaining facilities from Thyssen blast furnace work that came to an end in 1985.
The vision of a new kind of natural and cultural Country Park incorporating industrial features first emerged in 1989.This wasteland has been transformed over a period of more than ten years into a multifunctional park. The centre of the park is the old steelwork with it´s old industrial facilities which are today being put to a variety of different uses.
The former factory buildings have been converted to accommodate cultural and corporate functions; an old gasholder has become an artificial diving centre; alpine climbing gardens have been created in the former ore storage bunkers, and an former blast furnace has been developed into a panoramic tower.
The factory buildings are integrated with the natural vegetation, growing alongside the designed green spaces and gardens. All on a ground base shaped by the industrial past.
For more information, visit:
www.landschaftspark.de
In Chicago the first organic restaurant with its own roof top farm have opened. It consists of 2,500 square foot cultivable surface on the roof. The mission is to deliver organic produce for the downstairs restaurant and to use the garden to teach adult volunteers and children how to grow food organically in an urban, roof-top environment.
Before the building of the roof-top farm started, the roof was just a plain roof without anything on it. It was an example of expensive city land used for nothing, a so called urban wasteland. The owners of the restaurant came up with the idea of having a farm on the roof with the aim to bring farming into the city areas where consumers are concentrated.
On the roof there are 28 raised bed planter boxes that hold a total of 640 square feet of organic soil (nearly 6 tons). The planter boxes rest on top of a deck that is made entirely out of a recycled plastic and wood composite material, making it durable to the daily duties of farming.
Instead of having an unused roof they now can enjoy their first roof cultivated harvest consisting of arugula, beans, beets, collard greens, cucumbers, peas, peppers, pumpkins, tomatoes and watermelon.
More info please visit:
www.uncommonground.org
High up on roofs in the very heart of Tokyo you can also find farms. As Japan’s capital city struggles with problems from food safety to global warming to unemployment, a growing number of people in the famously crowded metropolis are becoming city farmers.
Beeing a city farmer means planting crops on top of tall buildings or deep underground. This is a good solution to both unemployed people and local food production. City farming also offers a solution for another problem in Tokyo and other major cities — the so called urban heat island effect. Cities’ temperatures rise in the summer due to the urban environment of heatabsorbing concrete buildings, roads and pavements. In a vicious cycle, the heat boosts the use of air conditioning, raising carbon emissions blamed for global warming.
Encouraged by environment- conscious Tokyo governor Shintaro shihara, a number of building owners in the capital have introduced roof- top gardening as a way to prevent overheating. The best crop for this purpose is the sweet potato. The plants are particularly good for roof- tops because their wide leaves can cover the whole surface and are efficient at transpiration which means evaporating water — and that has a cooling effect.
All in all there are 6 roof-top farms in the city. Here they grow rice, roses and different vegetables such as tomatoes, pumpkins and potatoes. It’s not only the roofs that has become farms; you can also find them underground. What was once a bank’s underground vault has now been transformed into a subterranean world of greenery with warm, moist air. The farm carefully adjusts temperatures, humidity and lighting so that vegetables can grow underground. The farms was created by Tokyo- based temporary staffing agency Pasona Group Inc in order to create new jobs for young people and also to increase the interest for agriculture.
Sweet potato harvest in Tokyo.
Source of information:
www.cityfarmer.info
A stream runs through the center of Seoul, dividing the city into North and South, but for three decades it was totally buried beneath a busy downtown highway.
In 2003, as part of a vast urban renewal project, the highway was removed and the stream was recovered and turned into a beautiful 5.8 km urban park. Demolishing roads in favor of urban parks is is a development project we can really get behind.
The Cheonggyecheon stream was formed during the Joseon Dynasty in order to provide drainage for the city. It lasted for hundreds of years until the 1940s, when the city became so populated that a shanty town popped up around the stream and began polluting the area. The stream was gradually covered over with concrete, and by 1976 a 5.6 km elevated highway was built on top of it.
Considered an example of ‘successful industrialization and modernization’, the highway remained there until 2003, when city planners tore it down to revitalize the area and help Seoul remake itself as a modern environmentally friendly city.
The Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project took two years and cost around $281 million, but it has created a thriving stretch of green public space in the middle of the city. What was once a dividing line between the north and south parts of the city has been recreated as an urban park that bridges the gap and brings people together. Over 75% of the material torn down from the old highway was reused to construct the park and rehabilitate the stream.
Now fish, bird and insects have made their way back into the urban river, and the area surrounding the park is about 3.6 deg C cooler than other parts of the city. In addition to the restoration project, Seoul has also implemented transportation planning, rerouting traffic through other corridors and adding more public transportation. As a result there has been a decrease in the number of vehicles entering the city and bus and subway use has increased.
Even though the city took away one of the major thoroughfares, they were able to redirect and decrease traffic through efficient planning and expanded public transportation. Sounds like an amazing renewal project with many, many benefits.
Before...
...after
Via: www.inhabitat.com
Of all the materials that have been used to make batteries, algae seems the most uncommon, but scientists at Uppsala University in Sweden have created a lightweight, flexible battery from algae that blooms globally.
Studying Cladophora algae’s potential use as a thickening agent for pharmaceutical uses, they accidentally discovered that the unique nanostructure made it ideal for energy storage. They coated algae cellulose with a conducting polymer to achieve a decent charge time and storage capacity. The algae-based batteries hold up to 200% more charge than regular paper-based cellulose batteries, and they can recharge in as little as 11 seconds. The researchers believe that the work can revolutionize energy storage with inexpensive and environmentally friendly batteries.
Article via: www.ecofriend.org
Nature is an old source of inspiration for many different fields. Arts, music, medicine, technology, the list is very long. This time it is the lotus flower nelumbo nucifera that has been studied. The aim with the studies has been to develop a housepaint with the same system that the flower uses for self-cleaning.
In Asia the lotus flower has for a very long time been a big religious symbol. The Lotus is a type of water lily, which rises from muddy waters to blossom, making it a symbol of purity of the soul within the material world, and an emblem of resurrection. The reason for this is due to its ability to always look shiny and new. This is because it has a very well functioning self-cleaning system.
This system does not only occur in the lotus flower, but in other plants too. The effect of self-cleaning plants has been studied by the German botanist W Barthlott. The mystery why it is always looking so clean is now thanks to him no longer a mystery.
The leaves of the lotus are gifted with a water refusing surface layer that makes all liquids and dirt flow of them. This is called a hydrophobic surface. How is this layer constructed and what use can we do of that? The surface layer consists of wax particles placed very close together forming a very irregular surface. This makes it very hard for dirt and other particles to stuck, since it has so little solid surface to cling on to.
Source: Illusterad vetenskap no5/2000, p19
When a drop of water hits the lotus surface, it’s easier for the particles to cling to that rather than the rough surface of the lotus. This is why everything flows off and follows the water drops of the flower. The result is a bright and shiny new looking flower without a single trace of dirt.
The lotus effect has been transferred into exterior coating. After painting with it, it leaves a rough surface hard for dirt to cling on to. The dirt instead goes of with the water. Materials that have been painted with this kind of paint are much more environmental friendly than other. This due to its ability to self-cleaning and not being in need of cleansers containing chemicals. Water is enough, the surface does the rest. This is a splendid example of a situation where nature has been the source of inspiration, knowing the right answer.
RedDetect is the name of a biosensor used for detection of unexploded landmines and polluted soil in areas that can be used for agricultural cultivation.
This invention is developed by the Danish company Aresa.
The biosensor in this case is a genetically modified GM plant called Arabidopsis thaliana. This plant can in the presence of specific compounds in soil change color from green to red within three to five weeks of growth when growing on or close to landmines.
This is because the explosive inside of the landmine contains material that releases NO2 (Nitrogen dioxide) when it has been in the ground for a period of time. The NO2 is absorbed by the soil and continues in to the plants where a chemical reaction takes place.
The result of this reaction is that the plant starts the production of a red compound that makes the leaves of the plant turn red. Depending on how close to the landmine the plant is growing, the red colour is shown in different nuances.
The plants can also be used to indicate areas with polluted soil containing heavy metals that needs to be removed. This is a very efficient way of finding landmines and heavy metals in areas that needs to be decontaminated.
By using this natural indicator, the decontamination can take place in an efficient way by following the red areas shown on the ground.
When planting the seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana a so called hydroseeder is used. This machine uses a technique where the seeds are spread by water. (hydro = water). During one working day an area of 5000 m² can be planted.
So far, the GM plant has only been used in tests. Hopefully the invention will improve and make the decontamination much easier in areas where agricultural cultivation is possible.
This is one way to use GM plants in the future, for good purposes. Both humanitarian and environmental.
To read more about BioSensor, visit http://www.aresa.dk/
Red plants growing in soil containing explosives. Green plants growing in soil free from explosives
Pictures taken from http://www.aresa.dk/
Source: www.aresa.dk
Lack of space in Japanese refrigerators made clever farmers think. The farmers from Zentsuji solved the problem by growing fruits in square wooden boxes with clear sides.
By placing the young fruit in a box, it develops a square shape until it’s ready to be picked. The first fruit to hit the market was the space-saving square watermelon. If you can´t fit a round melon in your fridge, hopefully it will be easier to store a square one.
The square boxes are the exact dimensions of Japanese refrigerators, allowing full-grown watermelons to fit conveniently and precisely onto refrigerator shelves.
The cubic melons are quite expensive since they are really individually looked after by their farmer. Today the watermelons are hand-picked and shipped all over Japan.
The cheapest and easiest way to get hold of a square melon is simple to grow it yourself. Put it in a box when little, place it in the sun, water it and wait for the payoff…
Source: BBC News 15 June 2001, Daily Mail 3rd August 2006, CNN.com 15 June 2001
Deep in the permafrost inside a mountain on Norwegian Spitsbergen, The Svalbard International Seed Vault is situated.The permafrost close to the North Pole makes this an ideal secure depository for seeds from gene banks around the globe.
The vault house about 3 million seeds from all known varieties of food crops. The aim with the so called “Doomsday” vault is to safeguard the world’s agriculture from catastrophes in the future, such as nuclear war, asteroid strikes and climate change or simply lack of resources.
The new seed vault is also important in order to ensure that the genetic diversity of the world’s cultivated plants is maintained.
Drawing: Global Crop Diversity Trust
The location for the vault was chosen after close investigations including studies of the areas geological structure and modelled climate changes 200 years in the future. The site is assured to stay over the water level in the future after possible ice melting at the North and South Poles and Greenland.
By building the vault 120 m into the mountain, the surrounding permafrost will provide natural refrigeration even if the mechanical system supporting the vault would fail. Inside the vault the seeds will be stored at -18°C. Some species can maintain their ability to germinate for a very long time, supposed that they are kept in a frozen state. Other species such as peas can only survive 20-30 years.
All the seeds have been collected by the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
To read more visit the Norwegian ministry of agriculture and food »
Photo: Mari Tefre/Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Source: BBC News, Illustrerad vetenskap nr9 2007, Norwegian ministry of agriculture and food.