New type of nanowires, built with natural gas heating

A new simple, cost-effective approach that may open up an effective way to make other metallic/semiconducting nanomaterials.

Graphene and neurons: The best of friends

In exciting new research, a team of researchers has demonstrated how it is possible to interface graphene with neuron cells whilst maintaining the integrity of these vital cells. This work was an interdisciplinary collaboration between nanotechnologists, chemists, biophysicists and neurobiologists all playing an important role.

Old Museum Becomes a New Home

Progress and modernization does not need to be all about getting rid of the old, and the same holds true when it comes to sustainable design and renovations. While not always the case, it does sometimes make more sense to renovate a building rather than tear it down and build something else in its place. This was exactly what the Vietnamese firm a21 Studio concluded when coming up with the best way to renovate an old, abandoned museum in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).

The museum is an old-style, narrow townhouse and they have turned it into a unique multigenerational home with its own central courtyard and even a net bridge for the children to play on. The building used to be the so-called Van Duong Palace antiques museum, which had been abandoned for a while. The owners of the building wanted to turn it into a modern home and yet retain it’s historic look and feel.

The open courtyard forms the central core of the space. It features a number of small trees as well as two suspended net bridges leading from one part of the building to the other. The house rises around the courtyard, and is made up of densely packed spaces, which to an extent overlap each other. This gives the building a unique look, especially with its many small old-style alcoves and balconies. In fact, it almost looks like a city within a city, which is typical of old-world architecture in this old city.

Parts of the house were painted in bright colors to add more life and brightness to the structure. The designers also installed a screen on the outside of the building, which is covered in greenery. It provides shade and privacy, but is also suitable for climbing on.

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Entering The Age Of Autonomous Construction Equipment

Imagine walking onto a construction site to find a fleet of bulldozers, graders and excavators doing site prep without any operators behind the controls. Upon closer inspection, you notice some of the equipment is cab-less with no manual controls. The operators might be standing at a safe distance operating the machine remotely. Maybe the equipment […]

Alternative to platinum: Iron-nitrogen compounds as catalysts in graphene

A cost-effective catalyst material has been produced for fuel cells using a new preparation process which researchers analyzed in detail. It consists of iron-nitrogen complexes embedded in tiny islands of graphene only a few nanometres in diameter. It is only the FeN4 centres that provide the excellent catalytic efficiency -- approaching that of platinum. The results are interesting for solar fuels research, they say.

Gorgeous and Roomy Mobile Tiny Home

The company Esk'et Tiny House recently finished one of the most unique tiny homes we’ve seen in a while. At 280-sqaure-feet it’s larger than we’re used to seeing and the way the achieved such spaciousness is by employing a number of unique solutions. This house is called the Esk'et Sqlelten tiny house and it is the first one produced by the company.

Inside, the home is completely modern. The layout features a double height space with a kitchen in the center. There is lots of counter space, and the kitchen is equipped with a sink, stove, oven and fridge. To one side of the kitchen there is a spacious bathroom, with a good-sized shower, and a cleverly placed in-wall storage cabinet, which is tucked behind the shower.

The living area is located on the other side of the kitchen and is spacious enough for a sofa and the metallic fireplace, which is propane powered. This fireplace, coupled with excellent insulation, is enough to keep the home warm during the cold Canadian winters.

The house also features two lofts. One of them is the main sleeping area, and can be reached by unique cross between a spiraling staircase and ladder. This area is big enough for a generous sized bed, and there is also ample headroom. The second loft is accessible by a more traditional ladder. There are also large windows installed throughout the home, which let in plenty of natural light and offer great ventilation.

The generous headroom in the lofts is achieved by a very cleverly designed roof, which is curved. This also gives the home a softer appearance. The house is made primarily of wood, some of which is treated using the shou sugi ban method of wood preservation. The house rests atop a 20-foot trailer, so it can easily be transported to anywhere.

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Physicists create magnetic state in atomic layers of transition metal oxide

Physicists have created a magnetic state in a few atomic layers of artificially synthesized materials known as transition metal oxides.

Home Made From Recycled Materials

Tiny homes are sustainable to begin with, but when they are also made mostly using recycled materials they are pretty much perfect when it comes to eco-living. The home pictured above is exactly that. It was built in New Zealand by American expats Patrick and Cori and about 80% of the materials they used were recycled. It’s a mobile tiny house currently located near Christchurch.

The couple spent most of their time together traveling, so once they decided to settle down it made sense for them to do so in a very minimalist fashion, not unlike how one lives on the road. Patrick works in construction so he was able to salvage a lot of the building materials required to build their home from the sites he worked on.

Among such recycled and repurposed items are a repainted locker they use for storage, crates that they turned into an entertainment center, a cable spool that is now a shelf, a discarded suitcase they fashioned into a bathroom cabinet, and a foldaway dining table stored underneath the kitchen counter.

The home has metal siding, which is reminiscent of a shipping container home, though this is not what they used. A cleverly placed, large roof window lets in plenty of daylight. Heat is provided via a small wood-burning stove. Instead of a bedroom, they decided to place the main storage area into a lofted space. The bed, on the other hand, is hidden away under a raised platform in the main area of the house.

Their home is currently located on a friend’s plot of land and hooked up to his water line. But the couple are planning on making the home completely off-the-grid in the near future. They have already installed solar panels, and creating their own, DIY greywater filtration system, which is not quite enough to take care of all their water needs.

All told, they only spent $10,000 on building this home, which is quite a feat, and goes to show just how little it costs to build your own home when you repurpose, recycle and think outside the box.

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Sustainable Local Community Garden Architecture

A team of architecture students from the California State Polytechnic University have designed a sustainable community garden, which will be constructed using a combination of recycled shipping containers and rammed earth. It will also run entirely on solar power. They are currently raising funds through a KickStarter campaign to begin making this innovative plan a reality.

The project is called the Huerta del Valle Community Garden and it will serve low and middle income people in the Ontario, Los Angeles area. Here, residents can currently pay $10 per year to rent a their own plot of land on which they can grow vegetables and fruit. These plots measure 20 x 10 ft (6 x 3 m), while there is also a larger, communal section. The produce grown on the latter is sold and this money is then used to keep the garden going.

The students have designed a series of new additions to the community garden namely an amphitheater, library and classroom, as well as a kitchen and playhouse, which would be made out of a used shipping container. Before, all meetings and get-togethers in the garden would take place outdoors. Now, the amphitheater will be used for weekly meetings. To build it, they will first have to excavate the site, then they plan to use car tires used to retain the soil and create seating space. The excavated soil will then be used to make the rammed earth walls of the library and classroom, both of which will be covered by a green roof. The earth wall will contain about 10% cement to make it sturdier.

They will also build a shaded structure for storing tools and materials. This structure will be topped by a solar panel array, which will produce enough power to keep the garden running, while the extra electricity will be fed back into the grid.

The rest of the project will go ahead regardless of the funding campaign, but they are currently raising funds to help build the kitchen and playhouse. They plan to use two shipping containers, which will be used to make two semi-outdoor spaces. To protect the spaces from sun and rain, they will use heavy canvas curtains, which will make the structures useable in all conditions and seasons.

They hope to raise $17,000 through the KickStarter campaign.

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It's a 3-D printer, but not as we know it

3-D printing techniques have quickly become some of the most widely used tools to rapidly design and build new components. A team of engineers has developed a new type of 3-D printing that can print composite materials, which are used in many high performance products such as tennis rackets, golf clubs and airplanes. This technology will soon enable a much greater range of things to be 3-D printed at home and at low cost.

Unique Lamps Made From Recycled Coffee Filters

While a lot of thought (and advertising) goes into alerting buyers where the coffee they drink comes from, not a whole lot is said about the coffee filters used to brew it. Vilma Farrell, a Brazilian journalist living in New York City has come up with an ingenious and unique way to recycle, or upcycle these filters. She makes lampshades out of used coffee filters.

To get the materials, Farrell collects used coffee filters from the local Starbucks in her neighborhood. She likes to work with Starbucks filters, because they use larger, industrial sized ones. These are already stained by the coffee, though she also uses water-based paints to create a more colorful final product. She applies these colors by hand.

Next, she cuts the filters into strips, and weaves these into a pre-made cut wire frame. Each lampshade she makes is a one-of–a-kind handcrafted piece, and it takes her about 11 days to make a single one. But once the switch is turned on, and one sees the gorgeous interplay of subtly colored lights filtering through the shade, most would call the effort worth it. The lamps resemble traditional stained glass pendant lamps, while at the same time retaining a more rustic, homemade look.

Her company is called Lampada, and she started making these lampshades back in 2011 as a creative hobby. Today, her lamps can be seen in restaurants and homes across the US.

This is definitely one of the more unique and aesthetic ideas for recycling materials, which are abundant yet don’t have an immediate secondary use. With the amount of waste we produce, it’s always nice to see people finding creative ways of turning trash into treasure.

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