Waste = Food (Cradle to Cradle)

Below is an inspiring documentary on the Cradle to Cradle design concept of the chemist Michael Braungart and the architect William McDonough:

 

Summary of the C2C approach:

“Rather than seeing materials as a waste management problem, as in the cradle-to-grave system, cradle-to-cradle design is based on the closed-loop nutrient cycles of nature, in which there is no waste. Just like nature, the cradle-to-cradle design seeks, from the start, to create buildings, communities and systems that generate wholly positive effects on human and environmental health. Not less waste and fewer negative effects, but more positive effects of regeneration, seed, growth, plant, product, “upcycle” and/or seed, growth, plant, product etc etc. One organism’s waste is food for another, and nutrients and energy flow perpetually in closed-loop cycles of growth, decay and rebirth. Waste equals food.

This is not just wishful thinking or “concept” design. The cradle-to-cradle philosophy is driving a growing movement devoted to developing safe materials, products, supply chains and manufacturing processes throughout architecture and industry. It is being adopted by some of the world’s most influential corporations, including Ford Motor Group, Nike and Herman Miller Furniture. Even densely populated China is looking at development and the impact of the rapidly growing population on housing development.”

via designindustry

Above: Nike Considered Design, made respecting the C2C protocol

Above: Herman Miller Mira Chair based on the C2C protocol

Above: The Ford Model U and its compostable body parts. Made respecting the C2C protocol

Above: Ford Motor Company River Rouge production plant (Michigan, USA)

Above:  Ferrer Research & Development Center, Barcelona; a.k.a. “The Butterfly Building” by William McDonough + Partners

Above Cradle to Cradle certification

Above: William McDonough (Architect) and Michael Braungart (Chemist)

More on Cradle to Cradle:
-Link to the book: Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
-Wikipedia article
-Cradle to Cradle Community
-Cradle to Cradle Facebook Page
-Interview of McDonough

For more documentaries, go to http://documentaryheaven.com/
via Rory O’Grady from A Beautiful Planet

Re-connecting Urbanites with their Food / Nature

The Fin’s Labyrinth is a project by Stewart HICKS and Allison NEWMEYER from Design with Company which just won Suckerpunchdaily‘s competition to imagine a Center for Urban Farming.

This theoretical project titled “Fin’s Labyrinth” encourages inhabitants of a city to “play with their food”. According to the authors, it acts “both as working fish farm and a new form of public (civic) amenity. It uses the infrastructure for raising fish as a backdrop to a wide range of activities designed to entertain you while getting you acquainted with your next meal. It reintroduces the production of food into the daily lives of city dwellers, making a more concrete connection between what we put in our mouths and the environment required to generate it.”

A few months ago, Mark Zuckerberg, the famous co-founder of Facebook declared that he will “only eat meat that he killed.”  He justified this personal challenge by saying “I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat [...] so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have.” Under the tutelage of a chef, Zuckerberg visits local farms and cut the throat of animals with a knife, which is “the most kind way to do it”.

The Fin’s labyrinth and Zuckerberg’s latest “challenge” reveals a growing discomfort for what cannot be seen in the city while being inherent to its functioning: An intense violence was necessary to kill the animal yet one can buy its pieces packaged from the supermarket just like cereals. This imbalance could be solved in myriads of Architectural proposals. One could imagine a supermarket where you can hunt for food, with forests entering the white cold aisles. Who knows, maybe this might help reducing crime by helping people release their inner violence hence killing two bird with one stone. [:)] 

Toby and I would like to encourage these “closed-loop” or “self-reliant” systems where very little is needed from the outside to make the program work…

Below are several projects from Design with Company on this topic:

The Fin’s Labyrinth

Farmland World

Printing Food

Fast Company has published an article on printing food which talks about the Cornell Machines Lab‘s work and more specifically Jeffrey Lipton‘s group.  The latter looks at how Solid Free Form Technology (SFF) will “fundamentally change the ways we produce and experience food”. They have published a paper called “Hydrocolloid Printing: A Novel Platform for Customized Food Production” explaining the main advantages of this technique which are mainly artistic, allowing experimental Chefs to create new dishes which could not have been done before. Laypeople could print these new creations from home too.

CNN Money‘s website shows one of these machines used by the French Culinary Institute.

The Printing Food Project is part of larger group, the Fab@Home which aims to make 3D printers and other new fabrication technology affordable to everyone.

The Printer with two different eatable ink

A printer in action as shown on the CNN video at the French Culinary Institute