The Waterpod is a a certified public vessel, a vegetable and chicken farm, a hodge-podge of sustainable systems (solar panels, rainwater collection, bicyle-produced electricity) and a recycled, floating home for six artists.  They’ve lived there since Saturday and call it “a floating sculptural living structure designed as a new habitat for the global warming epoch.” 

Try as we might, it’s hard *not* to be a consumer.  GoodGuide is a tool for being as responsible as possible while shopping: it’s a consumer resource app that lets you scan bar codes with your iPhone’s camera and then receive information about a product that evaluates it along dimensions of health, environmental, and social performance. 

Looks like Saul Griffith’s ideas are catching on.  A recent study by Carnegie Institution and California State University, the first ever in high altitude wind power, says the jet streams 30,000 feet in the air, where the wind blows on average 10 times stronger than it does close to ground, could satisfy the  world’s energy needs. 

It’s a common belief that access to green space in our everyday lives is crucial for the well-being of humans, especially the majority who live in urban environments.  Studies have shown that greenery and green space makes us happier and physically healthier, and reduces crime rates. 

We had a great time co-hosting Tuesday night’s panel discussion on public art with the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI).  All of the panelists make exciting and engaging work, and they had a lot to say about the ways in which financing, permissions and public interaction have played into their work (or the work they curate). 

No need to be indoors to see art this summer.  Here’s a list of New York City parks playing host to a whole variety of art installations.  Pictured above is DDP 2.0 (Digital Dirt Processor) by Ethan Long, on exhibit at Rockaway Beach at 32nd Street until November 1. 

Last Saturday’s downpour didn’t faze the hardy group of about 30 that came out to hear Robin Nagle’s talk on top of North Mound at the Freshkills Park site.  Our coming together “not in protest but in appreciation” for what was buried beneath our feet, in spite of the rain, was strong foundation for Robin’s claim that we can love a landfill. 

The generous folks at Nikon cut us a sweet deal on a few pairs of their new Ecobins binoculars. They’re manufactured with lead- and arsenic-free glass and built with non-chloride rubber that uses no harmful inks or dyes.  The straps and carrying bags are produced from sustainable eucalyptus and manufactured with minimal waste. 

Urban Omnibus interviews designers Margie Ruddick, Sandro Marpillero and Linda Pollak about the Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project.  Some good discussion about the potential of the urban park, salvaging industrial history in the making of green spaces and the question of “How can something hard, urban and harsh operate ecologically?” 

CityLAB, part of UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design, is conducting an open design competition, WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture, calling for “innovative, implementable proposals to place infrastructure at the heart of rebuilding our cities during this next era of metropolitan recovery.”

Steve Cohen’s Consilience editorial on New York City waste management offers some good examples of how other cities deal with their garbage and offers some alternative proposals for our current system, with a focus on composting.  He calls out the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which we’ve mentioned before, for its efforts to reduce the 47% of landfill waste that could otherwise be composted in New York City.

One of the panelists at next Tuesday evening’s panel discussion on public art, The Challenges and Channels of Public Art Production, is Mierle Ukeles, who is the Department of Sanitation’s Artist-in-Residence and contributed to the Freshkills Park master planning process as a Percent for Art artist. 

Monday evening, we’ll be holding a public hearing on the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) for the roads system that is to connect across Freshkills Park.  The Supplemental EIS is a document that analyzes the potential environmental impacts of the proposed road alignment, construction and phasing, particularly in the East Park section of Freshkills Park, as well as the impacts of alternatives to the proposed alignment.  

Ballistic Architecture Machine’s (BAM) concept for a green roof installation, called Biornis Aesthetope, is an aviary for migrating birds proposed for the 70,000 sq ft rooftop of Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan.  Ornithologists at Harvard and Cornell Universities provided BAM guidance on the resting and nutritional needs for 12 species of birds, including diurnal raptors, songbirds and owls, whose migration paths along the Atlantic Coast Flyway bring them through New York City regularly.

With the opening of the West Harlem Piers Park at the end of May, the Hudson-flanking edge of Manhattan became an unbroken strip of public park space.  Designed by W and Archipelago (with initial support, like Freshkills Park, from the New York Department of State Office of Coastal, Local Government & Community Sustainability under Title 11 of the Environmental Protection Fund) the completed West Harlem Piers Park represents a decade of engagement among various community groups and individuals. 

The upcoming week is a busy one for us.  Three terrific public events focused on different aspects of the Freshkills Park site: waste, art and ecology.  They’re all free, and we hope to see you at one or more of them. 

The Hugo Neu Metals Recycling Facility, in the Hunt’s Point area of the Bronx, is getting a stormwater management makeover. The Gaia Institute’s new system for the 6.5-acre facility recycles stormwater that would otherwise run off into the Bronx River Estuary.

Andy Lubershane’s weekly series Earthly Comics works to unpack environmental topics that can be difficult to understand: walkability; pervious concrete; cellulosic ethanol.  Not the stuff of Marmaduke, but it does break some complicated ideas down into digestible chunks, and it’s pretty lighthearted.

Free Bike Fridays continue at Governors Island this summer.  Friday visitors can borrow a free bike from Bike and Roll for up to an hour (beyond that timespan, we’re talking rentals); you can also bring your own bike.  The entire two-mile waterfront promenade of the island is open, contributing to a total of five miles of car-free cycling.

Photographer Willie Chu took some gorgeous images of the Freshkills Park site during our incredibly foggy, early morning photographers tour in early May.  We hope we can exhibit these eventually.  We’d like to do another photographers tour in the late summer or early fall–if you’re a professional photographer who would like to participate, please let us know.