Transforming Rio's Slums to ...stripey rainbows?!

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A splash of colour and design can go a long way toward beautifying a grey, ugly space, as Carspaze and Style-your-garage have already shown. Now aiming to do something similar for the slums of Rio de Janeiro through large, community-driven murals, the Favela Painting project also goes several steps further by incorporating training and employment for local residents. The brainchild of Dutch artist duo Haas&Hahn, Favela Painting has already completed two community painting projects in Vila Cruzeiro—Rio's most notorious slum—along with the first portion of O Morro, its current effort to paint an entire hillside slum. Some 34 houses and 7,000 square meters of Praça Cantão in Santa Marta have already been transformed through paint, and the project hopes to return later this year to paint even more of the hillside. In each of its projects, Favela has focused on recruiting local residents to do much of the painting, including training and paying them. In this latest one, local inhabitants were trained through a partnership with Brazilian paint company TintasCoral on everything from different types of paint to safety measures while working on scaffolding. Dre Urhahn, one of the Favela Painting artists, explains: “This work of art can make a colorful difference in the lives of local individuals, the community and the city of Rio. It has the potential of working as a catalyst in the processes of social renewal and change.” Favela Painting is supported by Firmeza Foundation, and recently the decorative paint division of Dutch AkzoNobel—which is also conducting a community campaign of its own—signed on as a partner as well. There are all too many grim, unadorned spaces throughout the urban world. Paint brands around the globe: time to sponsor some community action near you! Website: www.favelapainting.com Contact: info@favelapainting.com

My fave landscape architecture sites and blogs

http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/ We believe there is a great need for debate – about how garden and landscape design can make our planet more beautiful, more habitable and more sustainable. To explore these possibilities, we discuss things seen and points about how they were made. (PW: this is an extremely useful site - run by Tom Turner at Greenwich Uni, who teaches Landscape Architecture there) http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/
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An ongoing series of reflections on the city, the landscape and the fields that manipulate them from the perspective of urban design, landscape architecture, Toronto and Canada. http://pruned.blogspot.com/ On landscape architecture and related fields. By Alexander Trevi. http://www.iwanttobealandscapearchitect.com/ ‘I want to be a landscape architect’, the careers website for the profession that combines art and science, design and the environment.

Seesaw Power

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We've already written about the use of playground equipment as a means of pumping fresh water for African villages, and now a British student at Coventry University has come up with a way to use see-saws to generate power. Daniel Sheridan, a student in consumer product design, won three separate awards amounting to GBP 5,500 earlier this year for his see-saw design, which can create enough electricity to power a classroom by capturing the energy generated when children play on it. It would take just five to 10 minutes of play on the see-saw to light a classroom for a few hours, BBC News reported, though the energy gets transferred to an electrical storage unit via underground cable, so it would be up to the school to decide how the power is used. Sheridan was inspired by a volunteer project he worked on in Kenya last summer that included building a school. "The current need for electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa is staggering," he explains. "Without power, development is extremely difficult. The potential market for this product is huge and the design could be of benefit to numerous communities in Africa and beyond." Sheridan's plan includes recruiting the local community to build part of the device and also install it, thereby creating involvement and reducing logistical costs. Late last month he reportedly left for a village near Jinja, Uganda, to test and finalize the prototype using locally derived parts. Alternative energy entrepreneurs: what are you waiting for? This one's for you! ;-) (Related: Playing for water and Hippo water roller.) Found on Springwise: http://www.springwise.com/nonprofit_social_cause/seesaw_power_for_schools/

A vertical garden or living wall

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63D2UkkTtBQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&] Of course, how long they last or how easy they are to maintain is another option. But there's no reason we shouldn't be trying them for growing food..