Dubai has a Wind-Powered Rotating Skyscraper.  Tokyo is building a Sky Tree. The two are tall. The similarities stop there though Tokyo definitely sounds like it is doing something earth friendly. The Tokyo Sky Tree is expected to be a major tourist draw at 610 meters when it is completed in 2012. Tokyo hopes 5.4 million people will take a look in the first year and 2.7 million/year for the subsequent 30 years.

The Tokyo Sky Tree is designed for terrestrial digital broadcasting and to take the place of the current analog broadcasting format by 2011. It will also aid in anti-disaster measurements. There will be observation decks at 350 and 450 meters.  The surrounding area - commercial facilities, offices and colleges. The cost Y65B ($600 million).

Read about the debate surrounding the construction here. (subscription may be required.)  Suffice it to say that in the debate, nobody is talking about how friendly or not the new tower will be to the Tokyo environment.

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I’m a Tony Blair Fan. The man has scruples, faith. He is no dummy for sure. If former PM Blair thinks highly of someone, that person is likely to get my vote as well. Tony Blair gave another former PM, Shinzo Abe of Japan the “Globe Award” for showing international leadership in global environmental issues.

The award was presented at a global warming forum attended by some 100+ legislators from the Group of Eight nations and emerging economies. The ceremony was held in Tokyo.

Who do you think is an international leader in global environmental issues? And, please don’t way Al Gore.

I was pretty sure that shop-till-you-droppers couldn’t hurt the environment or themselves as long as the hoofed it everywhere they went. Of course, retailers have to keep the lights on, heat and cool facilities at all ungodly hours so that shoppers could get the ‘unique shopping experience.’ Until now. Shoppers don’t even have to do the walk, get exercise, kick off their high heels anymore. In Shanghai there is a mini-metro train that runs INSIDE the mall. Exhausted ladies can hop a ride and be dropped off at Coldstone Ice Cream. Not only that, the train can go anywhere inside the 6-story home furnishing mall.

Yeah, I want to see how this train goes up and down the stairs, too. Feeling guilty? (I doubt this) But, the mall has designed the interior of the building to include many trees and water landscapes. Isn’t that nice? Shoppers can feel like they are being kind to the environment while they use up even more energy to get around.

Something tells me that malls like this are going backwards when it comes to being ‘green.’ I think malls ought to be open only during the daytime when it’s cool out and only at night when it’s hot. But, don’t tell my wife I said that.

source

Although bamboo is not a modern material for structures, often considered to be poor man’s timber, it is one of the most flexible and light materials to build houses. Though there are sophisticated materials available on the market, bamboo isby far the best that would be able to withstand an earthquake.

Around 70-percent of the people in Bangladesh live in bamboo houses because they are easy to build and because the simple structure plays a vital role in safeguarding people’s lives in case of natural calamities.

Studies have shown that only 60-70 bamboo trees are required to build 1,000 houses whereas nearly 600 trees would have been destroyed to build the same houses using timber. Bamboo provides pillars, walls, window frames, rafters, room separators, ceilings and roofs.

Because of its light weight and rubber like properties, the bamboo houses can withstand 7+ ((Richter scale) magnitude earthquakes. The 30 houses that survived the earthquake in Costa Rica (7.6) stand as evidence. People in the Yunnan Province in China still prefer to live in bamboo houses since the officials encouraged them to built such infrastructures and homes.

Bamboo could play a vital role in the future civil engineering. It could be the future steel which could safeguard anyone from the natural calamities such as earthquakes.

Source via Treehugger

With just a hand full of birdseed every Venice tourist in the historic St. Mark’s Square is able to gather around an avalanche of pigeons.

photo by Dimitry B

Vendors in the area used to sell corn to visitors which enjoyed what seemed to be the most entertaining activities in the plaza. They are now out of jobs, because a municipal ordinance have put a ban on selling and distributing food for the pigeons, from May 1st. Fines for ignoring this decision start from 50 Euro ($77).

One of the vendors, obviously furious about the decission said that this may put an end to a century old tradition and this would be like “removing Rialto or the Bridge of Sighs.” There is truth in his words, but the ban has real motives. The pigeons are eating away at the city’s marble statues, the buildings and the delicate mosaics on the façade of St. Mark’s Basilica, by pecking at small gaps to reach for scraps of food that were blown inside. Cleaning and restoring these monuments is not cheap and a study estimated that each Venetian taxpayer is paying up to 275 euros for the repairs.

In the meanwhile, tourists continued to feed the birds, and if birdseeds where not available, they used potato chips and bread sticks. “Word is” that pigeons really enjoyed changing their diet, in fact they really enjoyed it.

There are over 130,000 pigeons in Venice’s historic center and Sergio Lafisca, the Venice health expert responsible for the Department of Prevention said this led to a 40 times higher rate than the optimal concentration per square kilometer. “Even locusts are cute on their own, but then read what the Bible says about invasions,” he said.

Here is a small picture gallery of St Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco) with Basilica di San Marc and the pigeons.

Image copyright : 1, 2, 3

photo by juanpg

The newest museum in Madrid, CaixaForum, got a vertical garden on one of the exterior walls. Designed by Swiss architects Herzog & Meuron, there are 15,000 plants from more than 250 different species that are now covering a 1899 converted former power station.

They managed to get a “very unusual encounter between the rough and the natural” with a high contrast between the restored building that has a rusted iron top and the beautiful green plants.

photo by Funksturm

CaixaForum is a sociocultural center was inaugurated in the very heart of Madrid on February 2008 and serves as museum, auditorium, art gallery and bookshop.

The creator of the vertical garden is Patrick Blanc, already known for its work in France (the Quai Branley Office Wing) is expected to install the next one in China or probably in the UK. Actually he said that such gardens could be created anywhere, even in “those difficult spaces where you don’t expect to see greenery”. His experience comes from studying rainforests and you can see the results. - via - TreeHugger

The new Municipal Pool Cover Soto del Real in Madrid is not just a pool.It’s actually a fully green structure built on about 8,000 sqm in Soto del Real, that uses more than 6,000 million tons of organic waste the area produces each year as energy source. In fact this is why they built the pool, to neutralize all these residues.But let’s get back to why the pool is very innovative. It collects rainwater and uses it to water the gardens nearby, the roof was designed to permit sun rays to come inside and heat up the space during winters, while on summers it gets “blocked” by solar panels to produce electricity and to heat the water. At the same time a basement boiler uses biomass as fuel.

As you can probably see this is more like an eco-system, a man-made green eco-system.

Designed by Lorenzo Alonso Architects it was built by Ortiz in 11 month and the cost went up to 4.7 million Euros. The financing was secured by the Community of Madrid. I congratulate them for putting this up.

Source via EcoFuss