Jan. 2008: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that Britain is
going to build 10 eco-cities before 2020 and will provide tens of millions
pounds of financial support in this regard. Brown said the eco-city
projects will lead world research in reducing carbon discharge, effective
traffic and developing substitute energy. He signed a memorandum of
understanding within the China-Britain project on building the Dongtan
Eco-city in Shanghai's Chongming Island, the world's first
eco-city.
He also said that Britain is going to build 10 eco-cities before 2020
and will provide tens of millions pounds of financial support in this
regard. Brown said the eco-city projects will lead world research in
reducing carbon discharge, effective traffic and developing substitute
energy.
Listen to Malcolm
Smith, Director of Integrated Urbanism, ARUP. He
talks about Dongtan
Eco-city at our
event about the
future of Ecological Architecture
- Thursday, March 20
in Rotterdam.
LIVE
WEBCAST at www.webcastingstudio.eu
We
would like to thank our supporters Netherlands Architecture Institute,
Etikstudio and Innergy Creations.
Felix
Bopp, editor-in-chief
.The
worlds first sustainable city at Dongtan, in Shanghai, China
Aug. 2005: Arup, the global
planning, engineering and design consultancy, has signed a contract
with Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation (SIIC) to plan
the worlds first sustainable city an eco-city
at Dongtan, in Shanghai, China. [...]
Arup is responsible for the integrated master-planning of the
built environment in Dongtan. Arup is providing a full range of
services, including urban design, planning, sustainable energy
management, waste management, renewable energy process implementation,
economic and business planning, sustainable building design, architecture,
infrastructure and even the planning of communities and social
structures. The role is extremely broad and will require a long
term vision and involvement from Arup.
Dongtan is situated
in an extremely strategic position very close to Shanghai and
on the third largest island in China, situated at the mouth of
the Yangtze river. Dongtan is three quarters the size of Manhattan
and will be developed as a sustainable city to attract a whole
range of commercial and leisure investments. It will be a city
where people will be able to live and work in a high quality environment.
The intention is to evolve Arups sustainable urban design
and planning into a blueprint for the future planning of Chinese
cities.
Dongtan is currently
a large area of mostly agricultural land which has been earmarked
by the Mayor of Shanghai and the Chinese Premier as the site of
Chinas first sustainable eco city. A high quality road infrastructure
is currently being built that connects Dongtan to the Shanghai
mainland.
Feb.
2006: Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott said: ''Arups
impressive project at Dongtan is an excellent example of UK China
partnership. It shows we have a lot to gain by exchanging ideas
and technology. Dongtan shows the economic and social potential
of investing in sustainable development. The first phase is a
630 hectare site where 50,000 people are expected to live. It's
going to be an economically, and environmentally, viable city,
powered by renewable energy and as carbon-neutral as possible.
Dongtan eco-city is a wonderful opportunity for China to demonstrate
to the world how to approach ecologically-sound city design.''
BBC News - China plans eco-friendly city
China's biggest eco-community; designed by Arup:
Malcolm Smith, Director of Integrated Urbanism, ARUP
is a speaker at our event about
the
future of Ecological Architecture
- Thursday, March 20
in Rotterdam.
.Next
Event
the
future of Ecological Architecture Thursday,
March 20, 2008 Registration:
18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15 Tickets
Where:
Netherlands Architecture Institute,
Museumpark 25, 3015 CB ROTTERDAM The speakers are Malcolm Smith, Director of
Integrated Urbanism, ARUP
About the Dongtan eco-city project in Shanghai
Bill
Holdsworth, environmental, architectural and energy
engineer Design with a global impact
Thomas
Rau, Director, Rau Architects Oneplanetarchitecture
Moderated byThomas
Ugo Ermacora,
Founder and Creative Director, Etikstudio
LIVE
WEBCAST at www.webcastingstudio.eu
We
would like to thank our supporters Netherlands Architecture Institute,
Etikstudio and Innergy Creations.
the Interdependencies on Energy and Climate Security for China and
Europe project aims to
Identify the
EU and China's mutual interests,
challenges and opportunities on energy and climate security over
the next 25 years.
Generate a shared
vision for achieving the goals of both regions in order to
strengthen long-term engagement on these issues.
Produce high
quality analysis on the priority opportunities for future
collaboration to meet our climate and energy security goals.
The project team will
identify the mutual goals of China and the EU, synthesise the research
findings and generate policy options around key issue clusters.
Photoluminescent materials accumulate light energy under ordinary
daylight conditions, which is released at the onset of darkness.
Additional signage may be integrated in floor systems since during
emergency events, people intuitively look downwards at the floor,
even without smoke development. Examples of such markings include
stripes, arrows, circles, 'foot steps', as well as floor pictogrammes,
which may remain visible under ordinary light conditions. Signage
comprises of luminescent aggregates, which can be integrated in
common floor systems like terrazzo, gravel- and mortar floor, as
well as self-levelling floors.
.International
Union for Conservation of Nature
IUCN,
the International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the
world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment
and development challenges. IUCN supports scientific research;
manages field projects all over the world; and brings governments,
non-government organizations, United Nations agencies, companies
and local communities together to develop and implement policy,
laws and best practice.
IUCN is the worlds
oldest and largest global environmental network. IUCN is a democratic
membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member
organizations, and some 10,000 volunteer scientists in more than
160 countries.
IUCNs work
is supported by 1,100 professional staff in 62 offices and hundreds
of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world.
IUCNs headquarters are located in Gland, near Geneva, in
Switzerland.
Out of many - here some examples of IUCN's activities:
23 Jan 2008 Corals:
facing the death sentence
- The future for corals does not look bright. Thats the
message from the first in-depth analysis of 2005s widespread
coral bleaching in the Caribbean
07 Mar 2008 International
Women Environmental Entrepreneurs Fair - IUCN will
use the platform offered by the World Conservation Congress to
organize the International Women Environmental Entrepreneurs Fair,
a space to make visible the economic, social and environmental
inputs that women entrepreneurs bring to their countries and the
world through their green enterprises
A showcase of outstanding and innovative work that shows that EcoDesign
needn't mean dull design
This book highlights new ways of thinking about sustainable design,
while showcasing innovative product.
It is a collection of outstanding, innovative product, graphic, fashion,
and environment designs. The thoughts of the world's leading designers
- Ezio Manzini (Italy), Ed Van Hinte (the Netherlands), Droog members
Richard Hutten (the Netherlands) and Bless (France), Tom Dixon (UK),
Jan Dranger (Sweden) and Edwin Datschefski (UK) - provide a grounding
in the materials, methods, and processes behind outstanding projects:
their work provides visual inspiration for innovative design.
Experimental EcoDesign
offers inspirational reading for anyone interested in green design
also coming with an extensive directory of sources of materials,
manufacturers, design studios, and organizations.
.Futurist
Portrait: Alvin & Heidi Toffler
"The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who
cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and
relearn."
Alvin Toffler (born October 3, 1928) is an American writer and
futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution,
communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological
singularity. A former associate editor of Fortune magazine, his
early work focused on technology and its impact (through effects
like information overload). Then he moved to examining the reaction
of and changes in society. His later focus has been on the increasing
power of 21st century military hardware, weapons and technology
proliferation, and capitalism. He is married to Heidi Toffler,
also a writer and futurist. They live in Los Angeles. They wrote
the books credited to "Alvin Toffler" together.
Accenture, the
management consultancy, has dubbed him the third most influential
voice among business leaders, after Bill Gates and Peter Drucker.
He has also been described in the Financial Times as the "world's
most famous futurologist".
Toffler explains, "Society needs people who take care of
the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest.
Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all
kinds of skill that are not just cognitive; they're emotional,
they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers
alone." Toffler also states in, Rethinking the Future,
that "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those
who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn,
and relearn."
In his book The
Third Wave Toffler describes three types of societies, based
on the concept of 'waves' - each wave pushes the older societies
and cultures aside.
First
Wave is the society after agrarian revolution and replaced
the first hunter-gatherer cultures.
Second
Wave is the society during the Industrial Revolution (ca.
late 1600s through the mid-1900s). The main components of
the Second Wave society are nuclear family, factory-type education
system and the corporation. Toffler writes: "The Second
Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass
distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media,
mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction.
You combine those things with standardization, centralization,
concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a
style of organization we call bureaucracy."
Third
Wave is the post-industrial society. Toffler would also
add that since late 1950s most countries are moving away from
a Second Wave Society into what he would call a Third Wave
Society. He coined lots of words to describe it and mentions
names invented by him (super-industrial society) and other
people (like the Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Era,
Global Village, technetronic age, scientific-technological
revolution), which to various degrees predicted demassification,
diversity, knowledge-based production, and the acceleration
of change (one of Tofflers key maxims is "change
is non-linear and can go backwards, forwards and sideways").
In this post-industrial
society, there is a lot of diversity in lifestyles ("subcults").
Adhocracies (fluid organizations) adapt quickly to changes. Information
can substitute most of the material resources and becomes the
main material for workers (cognitarians instead of proletarians),
who are loosely affiliated. Mass customization offers the possibility
of cheap, personalized, production catering to small niches (see
Just In Time production). The gap between producer and consumer
is bridged by technology using a so called configuration system.
"Prosumers" can fill their own needs. This was the notion
that new technologies are enabling the radical fusion of the producer
and consumer into the prosumer. In some cases prosuming
entails a third job where the corporation outsources
its labor not to other countries, but to the unpaid consumer,
such as when we do our own banking through an ATM instead of a
teller that the bank must employ, or trace our own postal packages
on the internet instead of relying on a paid clerk.
Aging societies
will be using new (medical) technologies from self-diagnosis
to instant toilet urinalysis to self-administered therapies
delivered by nanotechnology to do for themselves what doctors
used to do. This will change the way the whole health industry
works.
Since the 1960s,
people have been trying to make sense out of the impact of new
technologies and social change. Toffler's writings have been
influential beyond the confines of scientific, economic and
public policy discussions. Techno music pioneer Juan Atkins
cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" in Future
Shock as inspiring him to use the word "techno"
to describe the musical style he helped to create.
Toffler's works
and ideas have been subject to various criticisms, usually with
the same argumentation used against futurology: that foreseeing
the future is nigh impossible. In the 1990s, his ideas were
publicly lauded by Newt Gingrich.
In 1996 Alvin and
Heidi Toffler founded Toffler
Associates, an executive advisory firm committed
to helping commercial firms and government agencies adjust to
the changes described in the Tofflers' works.
The development
Toffler believes may go down as this era's greatest turning
point is the creation of wealth in outer space. Wealth today,
he argues, is created everywhere (globalisation), nowhere (cyberspace),
and out there (outer space). Global positioning satellites are
key to synchronising precision time and data streams for everything
from cellphone calls to ATM withdrawals. They allow Just In
Time productivity because of precise tracking. GPS is also becoming
central to air-traffic control. And satellites increase agricultural
productivity through tracking weather, enabling more accurate
forecasts.
Two major predictions
of Toffler's - the paperless office and human cloning - have
yet to be realized, not due to technological barriers but to
sociological and politico-religious conditions.
Alvin Toffler co-wrote
his books with his wife Heidi. A few of their well-known
works are:Future
Shock
(1970), The Eco-Spasm Report (1975), The Third Wave
(1980), Previews & Premises (1983), Powershift:
Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century
(1990), War and Anti-War (1995), Revolutionary Wealth
(2006)
Alvin and Heidi
Toffler
This is a little known documentary based on the book Future
Shock by Alvin Toffler.
The movie "Future Shock" came out in 1972 and
features Orson Welles as the narrator. I was most amused by the
high amount of paranoia in regards to the future... some of the
segments (like people choosing their own skin color) are downright
hilarious. Worth a look - at the very least for its historical
value.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Sources: wikipedia, youtube
.Agenda
The
Season Events are on Thursdays
Registration: 18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15
the
future of Money
Location: Museum
de Burcht van Berlage, Henri Polaklaan 9, 1018 CP Amsterdam [near
Artis Zoo]
May
29
18:30 - 21:15
the
future of Children Learning to Play
Location:
Waag Society, Nieuwmarkt 4, 1012 CR Amsterdam [Center of the Nieuwmarkt]
June
26
18:30 -
Taste
of Diversity
.Club
of Amsterdam Open Business Club
Club
of Amsterdam Open Business Club
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.Contact
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comments, ideas, articles are welcome!
Please write to Felix Bopp, Editor-in-Chief: editor@clubofamsterdam.com