Designer : Sait Alanyali

The key material that was used to form the Ocean Rescue is a special kind of metal with high thermal conductivity that can boil sea water and separate the salt and the distilled water from it. The chamber where the distilled water is stored is made of transparent and durable plastic. The bottom of the metal has positive and negative plates, and is being used for generating electricity through a chemical reaction with the electrolyte of salty sea water.

Designer : Seol-Hee Son, Cheol-yeon Jo, and Seung-hyun Yoon

During its filtering process, the water goes through different steps :
- The rushes are planted in sand which filters larger particles. The root system of the rushes contain various bacterias which break down these particles for absorption by the plant.
- The reeds are planted next to the rushes as they have the ability to filter the heavy metals from the water.
- The floating water hyacinths draw through their roots some of the water borne particles which are still present in the water.
- The lemnas, which are also aquatic plants, bind to the remaining aquatic micro-organisms to complete the filtering process.
- Finally, a carbon filter stops the remaining micro-particles.

Designer : Jun Yasumoto

Designer : Dave Strydom

How it works :
The Rez-Q kayak is opened by a quick release lever in the back of the boat. Once this lever is pulled, the kayak opens by pneumatic cylinders. An elastic urethane fabric stretches out of the main hull to give the kayak an extra three feet of length. This light-weight urethane is highly UV stable, abrasion resistant and energy absorbing.

Once opened, the Rez-Q has an outrigger float that provides extra stability as well as a stretcher for the injured. It also features a sail that can be tilted forward when not in use or opened up to become an on-water shelter that protects both passengers from rain or sun.

Designer : Jacob Ballard

Designer : Jenny Lundgren

Massimo says :
Electronics should be user-friendly and eco-friendly, cheap and standard. Some products will have only 2 dimensions. If you want 3rd dimension is possible use packaging technology (boxes) or glued printed electronics sheets or print directly on surfaces of 3d objects. Philosophy of product designer is going to be more near to fashion designers or graphic designers: products think as dress, using ribbons and sheets.

Transparent and thin means not only invisible electronics but you can also customize it with your creativity. Help and tutorial “how use it” are visible on the products’ surface. With “artificial muscles” inside is possible move, vibrate or open printed sheets. Using surface’s treatment like gecko’s paws is possible shape or attach devices everywhere. Solar nano-cells recharge devices by sun or infrared rays. Without wires for electric energy is possible use it everywhere. Neither fall nor water can damage our precious electronic friend.

Designer : Massimo Marrazzo

[Press Release]
MVRDV wins Gwanggyo City Centre Competition, near Seoul, South Korea

The Daewoo Consortium and the municipality of Gwanggyo announced the MVRDV concept design for a dense city centre winner of the developer’s competition for the future new town of Gwanggyo, located 35km south of the Korean capital Seoul. The plan consists of a series of overgrown hill shaped buildings with great programmatic diversity, aiming for high urban density and encouragement of further developments around this so-called ‘Power Centre’, one of the envisioned two centre’s of the future new town.

Since the beginning of the millennium local nodes with a high density concentration of mixed program are used in Korean town planning. These nodes consist of a mix of public, retail, culture, housing, offices and leisure generating life in new metropolitan areas and encouraging further developments around them: the Power Centre strategy. The Gwanggyo Power Centre will consist of 200,000m2 housing, 48,000m2 offices, 200,000m2 mix of culture, retail, leisure and education and 200,000m2 parking.

This diverse program has different needs for phasing, positioning and size. To facilitate this all elements are designed as rings. By pushing these rings outwards, every part of the program receives a terrace for outdoor life. Plantations around the terraces with a floor to floor circulation system store water and irrigate the plants. The roofs of these hills and the terraces are planted with box hedges creating a strong, recognizable, cohesive park. This vertical park will improve the climate and ventilation, reduce energy and water usage. As a result a series of overgrown green ‘hills’ appear in the landscape.

The site is surrounded by a beautiful lake and forested hills, the design aims to create a landscape on top of the new program that enlarges the green qualities and that links the surrounding parks by turning the site into a park.

The shifting of the floors causes as a counter effect hollow cores that form large atriums. They serve as lobbies for the housing and offices, plazas for the shopping center and halls for the museum and leisure functions. In each tower a number of voids connect to the atrium providing for light and ventilation and creating semi-public spaces. On the lower floors the atriums are connected through a series of public spaces on various levels linking the towers and serving the outdoor facilities of the culture, retail and leisure program. The Power Centre creates a dense urban program with a green regard.

The concept plan is currently at the Gyeonggi provincial authority’s Urban Innovation Corporation for further development and feasibility study, the entire new town will be a self sufficient city of 77,000 inhabitants. The estimated budget and timeframe are still in the process of being established, completion is envisioned for 2011. A consortium lead by Daewoo develops the project with local firm DA Group, which commissioned MVRDV to design the scheme. British firm Arup is involved as engineer.

Designer : MVRDV via IGreenSpot via WordArchitectureNews

Text from Chris :
Over the last few years it has become more apparent just how susceptible our country is to the ever changing climate. Throughout each of the eastern states of Australia we have seen continual diminishing rainfalls which have in turn brought on increasing water restrictions with the thinning water storage levels. The consequences of these climate changes are only just beginning to be felt by the general public. One of these areas is grass roots level sporting communities. This research/design based project explores the challenges these sporting communities face and how certain strategies may be used to combat these climate changes. The aim of this project was to further develop water conservation strategies within the sporting environment and design a device and system that would be used in the collection and storage of rain water.

The Watree concept is for urban sporting grounds, and based around the idea that almost all of these reserves have buffer zones around them. A buffer zone is more common around ovals due to their shape, but can be found around tennis clubs and soccer pitches as well.

A buffer zone is essentially an area of land around these sporting reserves, unused. Often they are just grassed areas or areas dotted with a few unsightly shrubs, sometimes used as car parks. These buffer zones do not provide any particular use to these sporting organizations and when rain falls, its seeps straight into the ground. I propose using these buffer areas as location points for open air rain water collection.

The Watree concept is to have a number of these points around an oval, with the collection unit to be in the centre of these buffer zone areas. The idea is for these devices to open up when it rains and create a large surface area that would then collect and funnel the rain either into storage directly beneath it, or along a pipeline to a central tank storage for the ground. The water would pass through a filter accessible from outside of the Watree structure on its way to storage. This water, previously wasted, would be stored and used during summer periods to keep the sports surface in a playable condition. Combined with a playing surface converted to warm season grasses, a large storage tank would be a suitable amount of storage for weekly watering of the field over summer. In the case of a tennis club for example, smaller tanks and water collection would be required dependent on the number of grassed and clay courts.

The watering system to be utilized is KISSS (http://www.kisss.com.au/). KISSS has been developed, and is manufactured by, an Australian company called Irrigation & Water Technologies Pty Ltd (IWT) at Rouse Hill, NSW. There are parts of the project still to be refined as well as the development of a community water donation system. Currently I’m assessing the project and the possibility of Government grants from the Smart Water Fund (http://www.smartwaterfund.com.au) for further development.

Designer : Chris Buerckner

Junji explanations :
I have come to realize that people’s interest in marine leisure is at all time high. More and more people are enjoying snorkeling, diving, and boating. They are many concepts and fully functional personal submersibles. Hotels such as in Dubai provide underwater experience. However, I felt that there is a disconnection between the underwater realm and water surface activity. The concept was the result of my approach to balance the physical and emotional aspects that encompass marine activities: (i)the love, enthusiasm, and curiosity of people for marine experience on water and underwater, (ii)safety of all life form underwater which includes people, (iii)nostalgia for the great spinning wheel of steam boats and aspiration for something new. The way it submerges or re-surfaces is simple: ballast tank in the hull is filled to submerged or emptied to re-surface. Buoyancy is controlled by partially releasing the water in the ballast tank.

When on surface, Ammonoq is just like any other boat except that it has a glass top. During the submersible mode, oxygen is made available from the re-breather unit housed under the seat. It provides up to three passengers. Each seat has a compartment where the regulator is stowed and is readily accessible to each passenger. There are also dive tank storages in the rear of the cabin for scuba diving. Therefore, the concept can also be for rescue mission underwater for coast guards.

There are two fin-wheels and each is driven by an electric motor. The fin-wheel is made out of the same materials as scuba dive fins and can rotate in the same direction to propel forward or backward. The long fins are used to propel forward and there are also wedge-shape parts on the fins that push against water to reverse. Since the fins are flexible, there is much lesser risk of injuries unlike propellers.

The traveling speed is expected to be about 50-60km/h on water, and of course, much slower underwater. Maneuver is also possible by one wheel rotating at a faster rate then the other or one wheel at a still. The steering utilizes electro-servo control that senses at what rate to turn from how much the driver tilts the handles.

The control console provides information such as speed, rpm, depth, oxygen level, as well as location by Sonar and GPS. One thing that I did not show is the remote key transmitter which allows the rider to control Ammonoq outside of the cabin. This gives freedom to the driver to enjoy diving while Ammonoq ‘tag’ along side.

Designer : Junji Kawabe