World Architecture Review Earth Issue 2010: 2010

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Clarabelle Pong was born on July 19^th, 1986 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. When she was young, she followed her parents back to Asia. She was raised in Hong Kong- a busy, energetic, metropolitan city in Asia. Having live in the urban setting for half of her life, she spent most of the time between the concrete blocks and seldom have chance to get emerged into nature. Because of this reason, she always enjoys going travel to places where she can have a close touch with the greenery. She loves learning languages and different cultures as well. Therefore after her high school education in Hong Kong, she went to Homberg/Efze, Germany for a year as a cultural exchange student. Her year in Germany was fantastic, as she finally had chance to live in the countryside, explore to forest and feel the harmonious of nature. Following by this exciting year in nature, she continued to pursue her study in California, USA. In 2009, she received her bachelor degree in architecture from University of California at Berkeley. Throughout her experience as an architecture student, she developed a strong interest in sustainable design and green building. And her interest finally leads her to intern with the nature's architect- Dr. Eugene Tsui. Her goal is to be an architect and design buildings good to our Earth.

Mick's Bio

Mick Kyle Tan is a 17 year old high school student attending Berkeley High school. Born in Vallejo, growing up in Richmond, and going to school in Berkeley has given him a broad understanding of the bay area and an open minded attitude towards all the diverse cultures in the area. His experiences within the Community Partnerships Academy, a small school within Berkeley high, have added to his sense of community and social justice. Growing up within the diversity of bay area school Mick has developed his leadership and interpersonal skills making him an outgoing, responsible, goal oriented person. As well as going to school full time, he is training to be an EMT and participates in internships to explore career opportunities and learn about different career fields. He is in his senior year of high school thinking of pursuing careers in the medical or engineering fields.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Derick's bio

I was born October 25th, 1988 and was raised in San Leandro, California in the US for the foundational years of my life. San Leandro being a smaller city in the San Francisco metropolitan area, the small scale retreat in compliment to the large city exposure has given me a balanced and cultured lifestyle of societal citizenship. Enveloped in a urban environment with such a diverse social structure, my upbringing became a personal development in social empathy and interrelatedness of all people. My formal education is derived from California Polytechnic University as a student of architecture, as well as Virginia Polytechnic Institute satellite program in Washington DC. As a student of architecture, I've developed a duty to merge the powerful intent of design with my natural enthusiasm for social development into a greater picture of holistic consideration of the individual, the collective and our home, Earth.

As one urban nomad from San Francisco states: "I don't like being called homeless because even with a nice car, fancy wardrobe and a million dollar home some people are still not at home with their own hearts."

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Back to the Future: A Way of Life to Survive the Future

a) Use less water: When you shower, wash you casual clothes with soap and water, in the shower and hang them out to dry. Climate permitting, they'll be dry by the morning. Permanent Press cotton clothes perform the best in these circumstances. If you consider it, by washing your clothes daily, or every other day, you will save a tremendous amount of water that is normally used in the washing machine In temperate climates, perhaps reduce your bathing to once every other day. Drink less water. Drink only what your body really needs-not what you think or have been told you ought to drink. Experiment and find out how little water your body actually requires.

b) Find ways not to drive a car; walk, run, bicycle or take the subway train. There is very little pollution involved and it is healthy for maintaining your physique, muscles, respiratory, balance and blood circulation systems; reducing the onset of obesity and sickness. You may install a shower and changing room at your office to encourage more active participation.

c) Eat every other day: Extensive research has shown that there are numerous, very good reasons to change your eating habits to accommodate this. 1) With animals, under laboratory conditions, such a calorie restrictive diet has proven to significantly reduce and/or eliminate diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer. 3) You will reduce your consumption of natural resources by 50%. 4) Your organic waste is reduced by 50% to 65%. 5) By not spending time buying food, cooking food, or being served food, you can save more than 1100 hours a year. 6) You are much less likely to become sick and / or obese. Find out how little food your body actually needs.

d) Grow your own food and eat it: Every person should know how to grow a vegetable and fruits garden and teach others how to do it and exchange information to improve its ways and means for countless generations. To grow one's own food is to survive at the most basic level and requires little financial means. There is always a place to grow food: the roofs of buildings, abandoned sites, an apartment window box, the abandoned field or forgotten backyard, an abused or neglected area of a park, as long as you have seed, soil and water, something edible can grow.

e) Design and make your own clothes: If you design and make your own clothes you are much less likely to throw away your clothing and this saves a huge amount of wasted fabric, buttons and clothing materials that can be well used. It also allows other people to want to get to know you and your ideas about what you are wearing. Clothing becomes a socially active device for interaction. Globally, everything we buy is thrown away in six months. For clothing it is as little as one week.

f) Learn how to design and build everything you use: This allows you to use your creative imagination, ingenuity and practically to minimize consumption of mass-produced goods, of buying into the "planned obsolescence" blindness of consumer spending, falling into buying what you don't need. Self-reliance encourages creative and imaginative growth and character/personality development.