Bamboo Bicycles!

The most inspiring Idea of heard of lately came to me from good ole' public radio. I was in my car, at a stoplight, not on my bike, when I heard this amazing idea bamboo bicycles. I think if the technologies are perfected this could be a great alternative to the traditionally steel or aluminum frame bikes. The whole bikes arent't made of bamboo, but the frames are, and thats a great use of material. The low impact, and resource efficiency of a bamboo frame is exciting to me, and I really hope this idea continues to grow.

Check out the story here at NPR:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121628758

Here is a non profit doing work with bamboo bikes: www.bamboosero.com

Thats all for now! Talk to you soon!

Possibilities wtih the College of the Environment at UW

Today Sarah Harrington from UW's College of the Environment came into the Sustainable Seattle office. Sarah let the office know where the program is at, how its growing and what it's goals are. I think there could be some exiciting collaboration in near future. This could be a partnership between the Dream a Sound Future competition with dreamers at the College of the Environment as well as students from other colleges. This could be a powerful format where students with common dreams could colloborate and be supported in developing their dreams for our region into something tangible and executable. I think the possibilities are amazing and expect to be surprised. I can even see something where students are competeting across the country and are bringing their ideas together in a format like a film festival, WOW! This could be awesome.

While Sarah was here she mentioned this video that some students from College of the Environment produced. Its a crazy cool idea on how we can use air pressure for practical things.....like crushing a can.



Back down to earth, we are continuing to develop the K-12 portion of the Dream a Sound Future competition. We are also looking for a volunteer to take a leading position on the K-12 portion of the competition. This could be a great opportunity for an aspiring teacher to make positive connections and gain valuable experience. We are connecting with interested teachers, as well as looking at the potential of partering with the seattle parks department.

In other news, we think we have the judges nailed down, and we are super excited about that and will unvail the judges soon.

We are also close to making an official press release to invite the community at large to participate in the competition.

Thanks for reading, we'll catch you soon!

Dream a Sound Future Competition: Updates from the Inside

Hi Kurt Harjo here, volunteer on the Dream a Sound Future Competition.

I'm excited to be working on the program. I'm helping plan, organize and otherwise iron out the details of Format, including structuring how judging will work and gathering prizes.

We know that we will be providing venues for entrants. After people tell us what kind of entry project they'll be submitting we'll find the spaces. We will find public display areas like cafes, library's, universities and other public buildings. Most of the places either have cases, or available wall spaces. If the entry requires a performance type venue, we have ideas for stage settings as well. We look forward to being able to facilitate this for entrants.

This type of display also allows for entries to be on display for a longer period of time. I think having these dreams available for sharing will be inspiring and motivational the region at large.

I love new ideas and I’m excited about what dreams will come alive through this competition. I believe the right now the Puget Sound region is loaded with Dreams that just need a place to be expressed. We will be provide the format for expression and help bring these dreams into the public. These entries will inspire & motive us, and I'm excited for the new possibilities that will come from this, and what they'll mean for our region and for our planet.

I've also heard talk of potential funding how top rated entrants could be given funding towards incubating good ideas into something effective on a larger scale.

Living Architecture in Portland, Oregon

Giving a face lift to drab concrete architecture, the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland will have a new look as part of a $135 million stimulus package. A fantastic idea but not without challenges for rain fed irrigation in the Mediterranean climate! Read more here.

Your Imagination is Limitless!

 

This impressive project from Vincent Callebaut Architects is meant to navigate through the rivers in Europe in order to clean water and make it drinkable. Its name comes from “Physalia physalis”, meaning “water bubble”. It is a project whose idea came from a major global issue which is the fact that one billion people nowadays don’t have access to drinking water.


The giant bubble will actually be a floating garden, completely independent in terms of energy. It is said that the prototype will even make more energy than that consumed. Solar cells and a double pneumatic membrane will form the roof of the construction and similar technologies will be used in order to reach its energy goal. Inside there will be four amazing gardens called “Water”, “Earth”, “Fire” and “Air”. The giant Eco gadget, once built, will be present on the waters of Seine, Thames, Volga, Danube, Escaut. We do not know when this incredible looking structure will be let lose, however we are looking forward to it.

For other amazing projects look here for inspiration for the future!

Welcome 2010, Year of the Tiger!

Phew! A flurry of activity marked the end of 2009 for the Dream a Sound Future competition. We have been pushing forward on creating a strong marketing strategy to reach out to the residents of the Puget Sound region. We had the opportunity to meet with some great marketing people from Co-Collage and Muse Marketing! Both meetings were very exciting and it was heartening to hear so much interest and enthusiasm in sustainable and green issues. It reaffirms to me that the competition will present a fascinating array of ideas and plans for the near future that could really influence and add to the already fantastic array of  projects and missions taking place here. Muse Marketing helped us distinguish strong networks to increase exposure for the competition and Co-Collage's digital technology will directly reach into Seattle's coffee shop communities (coming soon - watch this space!). We say a huge THANK YOU to them both and look forward to seeing the effects!!