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I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Technology” category
Showing results 21 - 25 of 87 for the category: Technology.
9 May 2011
Receiving my certificate from Brian Harper, one of three Gasketeers who travelled to the Tagore Festival...
On Saturday I did a talk at the Tagore Festival which I hope to get a film of up soon. Instead of using powerpoint, I told the story of Transition using different objects which different initiatives had sent me. It went really well, and was a really enjoyable way of doing it. One of the most substantial ‘props’ was a fully functioning Victorian gas lamp which the Malvern Gasketeers had brought all the way from Malvern that morning. My thinking had been that the crescendo of my talk would be to invite them onstage and that they would light the lamp for all to see. However, while setting up we were told that in order to light it we would have needed a licence from the local Council, so it remained unlit, albeit rather beautiful nonetheless.
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11 Apr 2011
We are now in editing mode for ‘The Transition Companion’ (out in September). The draft is way too long, so some bits are being cut. The following piece has been cut way down, so I wanted to post it in full here, as I rather liked it (!). First there is the piece from the book, and then the interview I did with Justin Bere, in full, a riot of delights for passivhaus/local building materials fans out there….
The 'Larch House' in Ebbw Vale, Wales.
The ‘holy grail’ in terms of the construction of new sustainable buildings is homes that reach the highest level of energy efficiency, whilst also using as high a proportion of locally sourced materials as possible, what we might call ‘The Local Passivhaus’. Two buildings, recently completed in Ebbw Vale, known as ‘The Lime House’ and ‘The Larch House’ have moved this concept forward significantly.
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6 Apr 2011
Here’s a short piece about exciting developments in Lewes….
Despite George Osborne’s best efforts, the UK will soon be facing huge hikes in the cost of energy supply as falling global production, political unrest in the Arab world, increased demand from India and China and new nervousness about nuclear cause oil prices to soar. Part of the solution to this problem has been obvious for a long time: localise energy supply. In Lewes, East Sussex, the energy services company Ovesco 1 is teaming up with Harveys, the local brewery, to install the country’s first community-owned solar power station on the roof of Harveys’ warehouse. Ovesco, a non-profit IPS, 2 hopes to raise 100% of the £307,000 installation cost from local investment.
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4 Apr 2011
In 2010 Transition Linlithgow (TL) began ambitious bulk buying project for solar thermal heating systems (STH). The project involved selecting a manufacturer and installer, and negotiating a discount to encourage participation. When selecting the hardware we have looked at all aspects of manufacturing and environment (green manufacturing process with minimum waste), manufactured locally (no large carbon footprint due to shipping from somewhere in the world to Scotland). Other key criteria are performance, lifespan (guarantees) as well as ethical business approach.
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9 Nov 2010
Here is a section from my recently completed thesis, which is available here, which looks at the potential of local building materials in the relocalisation process.
“The process of building with bales includes the possibility of making a profound change in the fabric of human societies around the world. In fact this vision is not exclusively a matter of straw bales: the questions we are trying to pose…. are basic: how do we build, and how does that process occur in relation to the community and to the life around us? Straw bales happen to be the material that has inspired many to look at the process of building in a different light”. (Steen et al.1994: xvi).
In the same way the local food movement shifts its focus from out-of-season, long supply chain, high embodied energy foods towards more locally sourced, low impact foods rooted in the local region or ‘foodshed’ (Kloppenberg et al. 1996), an emerging branch of architecture and construction examine similar transitions with building materials.
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