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Victoria Thornton of Open City interviews Ed Vaizey MP on architecture policy
youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXFEdbNRq2I&hl=en_US&fs=1&
Spotted on Springwise: the Green school
There are plenty of schools out there with green practices among their goals, but a new school opening this fall in Bali will be entrepreneurially green from top to bottom.
The Green School, which will offer preschool through year eight, aims to provide a place where students can become more curious and more passionate about their education and the planet. The school's eight-hectare campus in Sibang Kaja is divided by the Ayung River, on whose western bank are the school's classrooms, libraries, laboratories and kitchens. Aquaculture ponds, organic vegetable gardens, edible mazes and permacultural gardens are interspersed throughout the vast campus, which is built entirely of low-impact and environmentally conscious materials such as bamboo, alang-alang grass and traditional Balinese mud walls. For energy supplies, the school is experimenting with micro-hydro power generation as well as producing methane from cow manure to fuel stoves and developing a gasification unit that will use rice husks and other organic materials to produce electricity. A working organic chocolate factory, large sports fields, gymnasium, high ropes course and a network of bicycle paths are also part of the campus.
The Green School's curriculum, meanwhile, combines demanding academic content taught through a holistic approach that aims to inspire and enhance all of a child’s capacities. The school's Learning Village, for example, gives students a chance to apply lessons to specific disciplines and real business situations, making abstract ideas come to practical life. Students are involved in everything from manufacturing their own chocolate to helping manage the organic fields, bamboo plantations and rice paddies that are integral to the campus. The Green School is open to children from all over the world, with boarding available starting next year for those in seventh grade and up. Villas are available for international families whose children attend the school. Tuition ranges from roughly USD 4,000 to USD 9,000 per year, depending on grade.
It doesn't get much more eco-iconic than a thoroughly green school, and eco-minded consumers with the means to afford it will surely find the Green School compelling. Of course, the concept seems like one that could also work in other parts of the world. One to watch!
Website: www.greenschool.org
Contact: info@greenschool.org
Found on http://www.springwise.com/education/index.php?page=8
Natural swimming pools - I want one
I'd like a natural swimming pool in my future eco-house. My dad has tried to transform a set of ponds into swimming poinds, up in Yorkshire, but it's very murky and there's only about 1 day each year when you might consider swimming in it... these ones look a lot nicer:
http://www.theswimmingpondcompany.co.uk/about.html
and a video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTjHbXzvG6M&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Fun with my stamp collection
I've never purposefully collected stamps but somehow I seem to have ended up with a collection of thousands. There's no way I'm going to sort through them, though they all seem fascinating, from hundreds of different countries, some very old. Who knows what their value is. Collections are worth much more when they're displayed properly. So, I sorted them into colours and I have started to make my own displays, see below. But it's not just the aesthetics that please me, it's what they represent...
Global Saliva
Hundreds of tiny pieces of paper and ink passing through thousands of hands into mine..Doesn't it make you think? How many people? How many lives? Each stamp has journeyed through time and space to be here now...How far, where from, how old? Where were you made? By whom? The stories we'll never know - the contents of a letter long ago - lost now. A collection of ghost fingerprints and global saliva... I am their keeper. From Russia, Vietnam, the Congo, you name it. From professors, and perhaps lovers daughters and friends and colleagues. Collected for me by my family, also long gone. Mama, and Zizzie, and Ronnie Grandpa, me here now. Digging them out of an attic to jumble and reassemble and examine and stare and appreciate and feel ...and touch the people, once important. Found, lost, found, lost, remembered, forgotten
This is me. This is humanity, actually.
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Lofty Visions
I thought, maybe I could have a lovely light and airy loft one day, with painted white floorboards and lots of old furniture - it could be my art studio / office.
Garden - before and after!
The BEFORE pic, but believe me it was worse than it looks because all this overgrowth hides the fact that there was 2 skiploads of junk just strewn around the garden. The back wall had fallen down - probably Mr Skipyard man, whose skipyard is behind the wall, leaning his really heavy equipment on my wall for 30 years.
[gallery]
Basically, everything had to be gutted.
AFTER:
Visit the other posts for more garden pics
Bathroom - before and after
I borrowed a small 4th bedroom to make the bathroom into big luxurious one. Black and white and a bit of blue from the victorian tiles my mother collected, which I've put above the basin. And some green from the old Victorian poison / medicine bottles.
NEEDS MORE PHOTOS ON A SUNNY DAY!
BEFORE:
[gallery]AFTER:
Front of house - before and after
Still waiting for bamboo to grow at the front so more photos to come.
My kitchen - before and after
The third kitchen I've done. Nightmare with nasty builders. A slightly dark north facing room. Put in double doors onto garden but had to retain other door as well for light. Meant that I couldn't have eating area at back near double doors unfortunately.The painting of the units was such a huge task that I left the kitchen unfinished for 2 years unable to make up my mind what I wanted. But however nice the wood looks, I'm afraid I've decided to paint it... sorry.
BEFORE:
[gallery]
AFTER:
TO BE REPLACED WITH MORE TIDY ONE?
Room size: 5 metres by 3 metres
Floor : solid distressed limed French oak
Kitchen units: unfinished Broadoak sanded (ready for painting)
Table and chairs: old family passed down probably from junk shop?
Fridge: an 80cm wide Fischer and Paykel fridge freezer - more eco-friendly than american side-by-side fridge freezer.
My stained glass window
I found some an old front door glass panel with painted victorian glass in it in a junk shop, so gave it to the local stained glass man in my street, and we designed it into a couple of window panels for my front door. Tried to keep it traditional, and I wanted lots of red. It was an interesting process to design, much harder than I expected.
OLD DOOR - yuk! NEW DOOR - phew!
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