The Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize is a biennial international award to recognise individuals and organisations that have made outstanding contributions to the creation of vibrant, liveable and sustainable urban communities around the world. It seeks to recognise individuals and organisations responsible for urban initiatives that display foresight, good governance or innovation in tackling the many urban challenges faced by cities. These urban initiatives can include (but are not limited to) urban planning projects, urban policies and programmes, urban management, as well as applied technology in urban solutions.

These urban initiatives should incorporate principles of sustainable development and demonstrate an ability to bring social, economic and environmental benefits in a holistic way to communities around the world. The Prize will also place an emphasis on practical and cost effective solutions and ideas that can be easily replicated across cities.

Through this prize, Singapore hopes to facilitate the sharing of best practices in urban solutions among cities and spur further innovation in the area of sustainable urban development.

The Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize Laureate will be presented with an award certificate, a gold medallion and a cash prize of S$300,000, sponsored by Keppel Corporation.

The Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize is named after Singapore’s first Prime Minister, who currently holds the position of Minister Mentor. Mr Lee is instrumental in developing Singapore into a distinctive, clean and green garden city in a short span of a few decades. Under his leadership, the adoption of strategic land use, transport and environmental policies and programmes have helped Singapore to develop into a liveable city with a high quality living environment, in tandem with rapid economic growth.  READ MORE »

NEW YORK, Jan 13, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- On January 12, MIT fellow Neri Oxman was named winner of the first The Earth Awards. TED Prize winner Cameron Sinclair and Datin Azrene Abdullah presented the award to Oxman in recognition of her groundbreaking project FAB.REcology, which combines principals of biomimicking with the design and construction of built environments. Master of ceremonies Charlie Rose interviewed all ten finalists in Philip Johnson's iconic Four Seasons Restaurant before the winner was named. The event united some of the world's most influential environmentalists, architects and media to form an elite Selection Committee who chose Oxman. Committee members present included Paola Antonelli, Adam Bly, David Buckland, Antonio de la Rua, Scott Hahn, Peter Head, Graham Hill, Michael McDonough, Barry Malebuff, Sergio Palleroni, John Picard, Suzanne Trocme, Dilys Williams and Kenneth Yeang. Organizers conducted a global search for products and concepts that are sustainable, innovative and essential to improving basic quality of life. The winner and finalists will meet with joint venture companies in the hopes of generating commercial opportunities. The Earth Awards are an initiative of ecoStyle Project established by the Malaysian Government, whose support underpins the government's focus on sustainability in its national policy and development plans. The event was jointly produced by NYC Inc., kontentreal, and IMG Fashion, and sponsored by Tourism Malaysia. Representing Malaysia were daughter of the Prime Minister Datin Azrene Abdullah, Princess Myra Madihah, Ambassador Hamidon & Counsel General Zamruni. Prime Minister Dato' Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi noted, ‘It's an honor to be part of this event, and I applaud The Earth Awards for fostering a critical dialogue and spirit of innovation in response to the global energy crisis.’ Finalist projects Engaged Offsets, Iluma, and Open Blue Sea Farms were recognized with honorable mention. The top ten also included 12 Climate Entrepreneurs, Earth Markets, Folded Bamboo + Paper Houses, R3, ROSS, and Warning Bulb.

Via: materialecology

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The good news -- we’re acquiring the right technology.

The bad news -- we’re still doing it for the wrong reasons.

Bottom line: life support systems are critical.

Bucky had it right. “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Thats why The Buckminster Fuller Institute is awarding a $100,000 prize each year for comprehensive solutions that radically advance human well being and ecosystem health.

STEP UP TO THE BUCKMINSTER FULLER CHALLENGE.

JOIN THE VANGUARD OF THE DESIGN SCIENCE REVOLUTION.

SEE THE MOVIE

Learn more at www.bfi.org

The OmniOculi designed by artist Tom Shanon will be presented to John Todd, the winner of the first Buckminster Fuller Challenge along with a check for $100,000 on June 23rd, 2008 at the Center for Architecture, New York City.

Artist’s Statement:

“Bucky loved to enlighten. His talks and writings overflow with original connections between math and nature. Nature as the model for his conceptions. He proposed a comprehensive view of the universe as an integrated whole. Then asked to conceive a sculpture to represent the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, I knew I wanted it to be as loaded with Fuller’s thinking as possible. The sculpture formed rapidly in my mind. Shape, spherical, because Bucky elucidated spheres perhaps more than anyone; geodesic patterning, because that’s the special geometry with which he meant to emulate nature’s behavior.

Bucky liked to remind us that on all scales there are always an inside and an outside co-existing. It came to me to highly perforate the surface of the sphere so one could see the inside at the same time as the outside. The perforations would be located at the vertices of a high order geodesic dome. The vertices would be open viewports like the fly’s eye domes. I then thought it would be revealing if select vertex holes could be of particular sizes to represent the vertices of as many of the regular polyhedrons as possible, such as the five platonics, the archimedians and in particular the sixty carbon atoms of the buckminsterfullerene molecule, all neatly circumscribed and superimposed on the same geodesic pattern.

Bucky made original discoveries about the transformability of one elemental shape into another as manifest in his jitterbug’ model. I asked Joe Clinton, who is a master of geometry in general and geodesics in particular, if he could design such a complex pattern. What seemed like only a day later he had built a virtual prototype on his computer. Rapidly the pattern evolved into a beautiful flowing, slightly pinwheeling geodesic array comprised of sixteen graduated hole sizes marking the many circumscribed polyhedrons. Joe’s twist to the geodesic pattern makes allusions to patterns of nature from micro radiolaria through flowers to spiral galaxies.

This sculpture is also an interactive optical instrument. The concave inside is mirror-polished so it produces in its center a hovering aerial real image while it infinitely re-reflects the incoming light. The outside surface is also mirror reflective so it is omni-directionally visually alive with its changing surroundings. To hold the geodesic sphere in the air I chose a mirror-polished sphere exactly one half its diameter. That means the surface area of the large sphere is exactly four times the surface of the small sphere and the volume is of the large sphere holds the volume of eight of the small spheres. Surface increases by the square, volume by the cube. This doubling relationship Bucky observed has a subtle connection to Newton’s inverse square law of gravity: halving the distance increases the attraction four times.

The geodesic sphere is held by a hidden shaft seated in ball-bearings inset in the smaller sphere. This enables the geodesic sphere to be rotated or spun. The top half of the geodesic sphere is held in place by magnets so it can be removed occasionally for dusting the internal mirror.”

Title: OmniOculi
Material: 2024 aluminum (w/magnets and ball bearings)
Dimensions: 8 inch diameter sphere above 4 inch diameter sphere
Sculpture concept and design: Tom Shannon, tomshannon.com
Geodesic concept design: Joseph Clinton
Engineering, machining: Bluechip Engineering
Computer Rendering: Jonah Tobias, 1Q.com

Agro Housing

Knafo Klimor Architects of Israel - Winners of the 2nd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing. China 2007

Conceptual Approach
According to a UN report, in 2010 about 50% of the Chinese population will reside in cities. This huge migration from rural regions to new urban megalopolises will create a dramatic cultural and social crisis, a loss of existing traditions and considerable unemployment. Massive urbanization will form random communities, severely deplete natural resources, exhaust urban infrastructures and transportation systems, and will increase air and soil pollution.
The concept of Agro-Housing is a new urban and social vision that will address problems of chaotic urbanization by creating a new order in the city and more specifically, in the housing environment.
Agro-Housing is a program that combines a high-rise apartment complex with a vertical greenhouse within the same building.
The idea behind Agro-Housing is to create a close to home space where families can produce their own food supply according to their abilities and choices. This will allow the citizens more independence, freedom, and additional income.  READ MORE »