The Greenest Building in the Southern Hemisphere

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SSIC: The super energy efficient SSIC building

THE Vodafone Site Solution Innovation Centre (SSIC) is said to be the greenest building in the southern hemisphere. It houses techies who are working on solutions for the future in the fields of construction, design, electrical and mechanical engineering and wet services. The SSIC is the first 6 Star Green Star SA accredited building in South Africa.

The aesthetic principle was to create a harmonious and seamless integration between the physical building and the surrounding landscape. The SSIC is a sustainable living building envisaged as a functioning showcase for innovative techniques and design.

The Greenest Building in the Southern Hemisphere

The SSIC is said to be the greenest building in the southern hemisphere and houses techies who are working on solutions for the future (image: http://www.glh.co.za)

The design has a narrow floor plate surrounding a central open air courtyard with a rainwater pond and wetland. The building maximises the use of daylight using performance glass and motorised blinds.

Fresh air is cooled via a gabion or thermal rock store constructed below the building before it is released into the office space through vents. This functions as a natural air-conditioner. A solar absorption chiller provides radiant cooling or warming through water pumped through a thermally activated slab. The chiller also provides cooled air to the office space, so no water-based heat rejection systems are used.

Installed on the roof are 292 photovoltaic panels delivering 230kWh of solar energy to the building – twice the amount of energy required. The balance is fed back into the Vodacom campus, creating a zero-rated energy building. Motion light detection sensors are used to minimise energy use.

For efficient water consumption, grey water is treated through the constructed wetland and then reused for irrigation and toilet flushing. Rainwater (harvested from the roof) is stored in the pond in the courtyard and in tanks below the building.

The structural elements of the building have been constructed using material excavated from the building site. The structural columns are a combination of steel and eucalyptus gumpoles while the roof structure is an exposed timber beam system. The structural elements are designed for disassembly and 90% of all the steel used has an average post-consumer recycled content of 60%.

The Vodafone Site Solution Innovation Centre and its landscaped garden is a great example of green and sustainable living. It also illustrates how big corporations such as Vodacom can operate in such an eco-friendly manner. The SSIC will be open to visitors and demonstrates the innovative techniques and systems utilised to create a low energy and sustainable construction solution.

• Visit the SSIC website to learn more about it and view the gallery.

loltastic T-shirt designs

HAPPY FRIDAY: These T-shirt designs are awesome

Enough said.

Awesome T-shirt Designs

Anyone know where we can order any of these awesome t-shirt designs from? I want the sans sheriff one!

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The Botany of Desire – Part 2

BOTANY: The tulip, marijuana and human desire

** Read the first part of this article here **

Cannabis
MARIJUANA gratifies the human desire to experience an altered state of consciousness. We are all born with an innate drive to experience other mind states periodically, whether this manifests into singing, dancing, experimenting with substances or jumping out of an aeroplane.

The genius of marijuana is to appeal to this human desire and it has mastered the art of biochemistry. Through it we have discovered a wealth of information regarding how memory, emotion and consciousness all work.

Marijuana’s world domination strategy involved producing more of the chemical (THC) that appeals to the human creature in order to be spread its genes and be given more habitat in which to thrive. Anthropologists posit that the only human culture never to have been influenced by this plant were the Inuit.

Most cultures have historically used cannabis to relieve pain. In Western culture marijuana was the driving force behind the jazz era and set alight the social revolution of the sixties.

The banning of marijuana in the United States led people to splice the genes of Mexican­ and Indian marijuana to produce a short, resilient and fast-growing plant that could be produced indoors. This has resulted in an almost entirely new species of plant, which now largely lives a cushy existence removed entirely from the foothills of Mongolia and China where it originated.

The Tulip
The tulip, like many flowers, has evolved to gratify our desire for a certain kind of beauty. Flowers have been flaunting their beauty for more than 100 million years since the rise of the angiosperms. These plants form fruit and seed and have male and female types, which allows for the mixing of genes. This creates greater variety, which means greater adaptability and ability to survive.

When the tulip caught our attention and began to be cultivated, this plant underwent some startling changes. Its new forms bewitched the sultan of the Ottoman Empire and engulfed the Dutch in “tulip mania” during the 17th century. The tulip fast became one of the most valuable commodities in the world and spurred one of the biggest investment bubbles in human history.

The tulip came to denote wealth and status and it became fashionable for the prosperous to grow flower gardens. One tulip variety, the Semper Augustus, fetched as much as R70 000 in today’s money. Soon there was more money outstanding on tulip bulbs than there was in circulation, which caused economic collapse. It was later discovered that the most sought-after tulip varieties were actually infected by a plant virus. Today, more than 19 million tulips leave Holland for flower shops around the world.

In a nutshell, plants are pretty amazing. The central lesson we can take from these four species is that we need to stop trying to control nature­ and rather learn to work with it.

• Video footage, interviews with Michael Pollan and more about The Botany of Desire can be explored online at www.pbs.org

The Botany of Desire

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PLANTS: The apple and potato of desire

THE banana plant can ‘walk’ up to 40 centimeters in its lifetime. Many herbal plants can warn each other chemically when predatory herbivores are nearby. The sunflower is able to extract radioactivity from water.

Plants really aren’t appreciated enough in our hi-tech, modernised world. Many humans like to believe that we somehow exist outside the web of nature rather than living within it. From an evolutionary point of view, plants are just as advanced as humans. Time and time again nature proves that it is stronger than any of our designs as we constantly try to control it.

A friend of mine who has just come back from the United States told me about a fantastic book by bestselling author, Michael Pollan, called The Botany­ of Desire. The book tells the story­ of human desire and is about the domestication of four specific plants from the plants’ perspectives (metaphorically speaking). The apple, tulip, cannabis and the potato have all been integral to the human tale and have influenced history, economics, politics, religion and technology and raised debate over genetically modified food.

The Apple of Desire
Apples have evolved to gratify our desire for sweetness — an innate, hardwired desire that is simply a part of our biology. From an early age we learn that bitter plants are often poisonous while sweet ones are calorie-rich and therefore good for us.

The apple first sprouted into existence in Kazakhstan. To migrate to all four corners of the globe and spread its genes, it had to appeal to mammals as a sweet food source. This brought the apple to the New World.

However, what was unknown to the early pioneers is that every apple seed within an apple contains different genetic material and will produce a completely different variety of apple if planted from seed. These tend to be very bitter and New World apples were primarily used to make hard cider, which put rural America into a great binge.

Today there are thousands of apple­ varieties and it is still arguably the universal fruit. It even influenced artists of the Renaissance to imagine the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden as being an apple.

The Potato of Desire
The potato represents our desire to control nature and cultivate a staple food source. It led to the rise of the Incan Empire and helped fuel the Industrial Revolution. It changed the course of European­ history and led to a huge population­ boom. For civilisations in and around Europe potato crops freed more people from tilling the fields and allowed them to focus their attention on other pursuits.

The potato was also a godsend for the Irish who were unable to grow much of anything. This was until a fungus caused the great potato famine in the 19th century — killing over a million people.

The potato has taught us a valuable lesson in biodiversity and illustrated the risk of monocultures. Growing just one species of an edible plant makes entire crops vulnerable to disease and infection. However, the demand today for a certain kind of McDonald’s potato chip has resulted in farmers once again growing mostly just one kind of elongated potato.

Attempts to prevent another potato famine has led several farmers to genetically modify potatoes. Splicing a gene from a bacterium that lives in the soil with the potato leaf kills insects, but has also led to huge consumer uprisings against genetically modified foods.

• Read The Botany of Desire Part 2 here

Related articles

• The Botany of Desire
• Wild versus Cultivated
• Michael Pollan : Cannabis Forgetting and the Botany of Desire

Embracing Change

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THE world is changing pretty fast – exponentially in many cases, particularly in the technology and online industries. It’s natural for anyone, regardless of age or creed, to feel overwhelmed by the library­ of choice. Laptops, iPads, notebooks, Kindles, iPhones, netbooks, iPods and gaming consoles are all on offer under different brands and with varying specifications. This is failing to mention the infinite range of smartphones.

The wearisome part is that most of these devices are able to do the same things – some better than others. They can all really be thought of as portable computers. Buying new gadgets­ is fun and exciting but can be stressful and daunting at the same time. Having them all is impractical, and once they are outdated, they will likely become useless junk a few years down the line.

The important things to ask oneself when considering getting that new device everyone is talking about are “do I need this device in my life?” or “how will this gadget add value to my life or improve the things I currently enjoy doing?”

Online Shopping

Some go as far as ordering their clothing and groceries online. Most would agree that these are things that we want to touch and see before purchase. Electronics, on the other hand, are certainly worth buying online.

Consider that when you shop in a computer or electronics store, salespeople are arguably hired to try to sell you the most expensive version of what you’re looking for. The products will have a store mark-up; stores need to pay to have the goods ordered, packaged and advertised. This all adds to the price of most electronics.

Online stores are able to cut out most of these extra costs. Online shopping websites, such as takealot.com and kalahari.net, often offer­ free shipping to your door for orders over certain amounts. We are able to read consumer or peer reviews and assess the ratings fellow consumers have given specific products. Other websites offer comparisons of similar products. And, with a bit of Googling, we can even find video reviews and unbiased write-ups to aid our decision-making.

Online Banking

There is really very little need these days to stand in a bank queue again. The transference of funds can all be done online via online banking and PayPal. If there are still banks that do not offer these services they won’t be around for long. The only thing to be cautious of is phishing – receiving a scam e-mail, for example, asking you to supply or “update” your banking details. A reputable bank will never ask such things of you via e-mail.

Social Networking

Then there is the plethora of social networking sites and services – Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Google Wave, blogs, forums and the lot. Social networking sites are in a constant state of flux and new ones will emerge while others may wither and die.

The world of social networking should not be feared, but rather embraced for all its potential. This is now largely how people communicate worldwide, how companies recruit new employees, how business contacts are formed and how we consume our news and media.

The best bet is to stick with the tried and tested. With any free social networking site or service, we may have to deal with copious amounts of advertising, but this is a fairly small price to pay. Social networks are inevitably under the watchful eyes of their users. If any social networking site were to seriously violate any human right, or start charging users unfair amounts, they would soon be replaced.

Obviously one needs to be careful with what information you decide to provide on social networking websites, and this does not only pertain to profile information. “Liking” or becoming a fan of a particular brand or product might see you receiving related ads or promotions for a long time to come.

Embrace the change: online shopping and social networking

It is also advisable to never defame someone on a social network. This can come back to haunt you. Jobs have been lost and relationships have been broken as a result. Understand that whatever you do online effectively creates an ongoing online record of yourself.

But again, the inevitable growth of the Internet and development of technology should not be feared. There will always be those who will try to take advantage and scam us. In fact, nearly two thirds of our beloved Internet is comprised of spam. But the more you practice being a savvy online user, the better equipped you will be to filter out the bad and make the most of the good.

The Consumer Protection Act guards us, and I can say with confidence that the greater good will always prevail online. There is much to learn and discover as the Internet continues to bring our world closer together. It is of my opinion that its fast-changing pace is both exciting and full of great potential. Embrace and work with it, and it will ultimately enrich your life.