Recently I attended a lecture series entitled Get Smart at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. The speaker was Dr. Mitchell Joachim the co-founder of Terreform ONE and Terrefuge. Dr. Joachim has a Phd from MIT and he specializes in ecological design and urbanism.
I thought the lecture was quite interesting and it was totally outside of anything I have heard on the subject. I am far from being a specialist in environmental design, but I could still appreciate the value of the ideas that were presented over the course of the evening.
Dr. Joachim started by talking about “end of the world talks” that we often hear from scientists in order to provoke a change in the way the human population acts on a day to day basis. The speaker prefers a more positive approach ,one that is a mix of technofix (science will find the solutions) and ecotopic (returning to our early connection with nature). Dr. Joachim believes we should work on changing the designs around us in order to adapt to our changing world.
Dr. Joachim presented some interesting car prototypes based on the idea that cars should be built around cities rather than cities being built around cars. One of them was a soft car that doesn’t go faster than 30mph and that is so soft that it would not hurt someone getting hit by it. Then there are the cars that you can stack up. They don’t take much space because they turn vertical when you get in and out. There were also some house prototypes such as a house made out of trees that are grown into specific shapes. It would take 7 to 15 years to grow these houses depending on the climate.
Dr. Joachim also talked about the importance of reducing the amount of waste humans produce. According to the presentation, New York City currently produces enough waste in an hour to fill up the Statue of Liberty! An interesting diagram actually showed us the increase in the amount of waste we produce compared to just a few decades ago. It was quite impressive to see the difference between the two eras.
There was also the question of energy consumption. I knew that New Yorkers had to use less energy than the rest of the United States but it was interesting to finally put a number on it. According to Dr. Joachim, the average American used around 63 MW per year and the average New Yorker only around 42 MW per year. Mass transit and housing stacked on top of each other (apartments) were some reasons for the efficiency.
Overall, the message was hopeful: there is a way to adapt to our changing environment and there are possibilities for making the way we design our cities more ecological. I learned a lot from the presentation and I would suggest that you attend one of Dr. Joachim’s presentations if you ever get a chance.
His website is: http://www.archinode.com/tech.html
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