Category Archives: design
Illustrating Waste Management Techniques & Options
I’m working on completing a full illustration of Portland’s waste treatment plant and how it works for a series of posters I’m making about the past, present and the very hopeful future for waste management. If you’re interested in non-cartesian representations of physical processes drop me a line, I need all the advice I can [...]
New Monitoring System: easier, wireless, more reliable
Now we’re getting somewhere! My previous networked temperature monitoring systems were a little buggy. My first temperature monitor had its cable chewed up by a rodent and needed to be reset frequently. My second prototype failed on restart, making it problematic in low-power situations (a known issue for the Arduino’s Ethernet Shield), and eventually the [...]
Compost Pile, Modified
We eliminated the inner bin our our compost about eight weeks ago. The air gap between the thick wire and mesh bin channeled too much heat out. Now we have just a 4′ diameter mesh pile full of wood chips, with a 24″ column of vegetable compost in the middle, and temperatures pushing 60ºC in [...]
Opening May 21 at AT1 Projects, LA
Things have been quiet here on our blog, because we’ve been preparing an exhibition. An essay/text and prototypes of ours will be featured in the Super/Prime Pavilion at Volume, AT1 Projects opening show. Super/Prime is curating a collection of works about transformations in process. We’re excited, but won’t be able to make the opening. If [...]
Public Urinals of the July Monarchy
Happy May Day! I’ll be at Washington High School Park after 6. These public urinals were built between 1833 to 1848 by Rambuteau, Préfet of Paris, for his anti-miasma “water, air, shade” campaign. Although he is now more famous for his fountains, in Rambuteau’s Paris these urinals were christened with name. A wonderful article [more [...]
Towards ubiquitous public urinals
We got started on waterless urinal development through talking to Carol McCreary of PHLUSH at Recode’s Greywater celebration and revised our plans through discussions with Carol, Jeff, Barbara, and everyone in PHLUSH. I gave a talk on this subject over at Research Club Sunday, 4/10 at the Tribute Gallery. Special thanks to Tribute director Brian [...]
The Rest Saving The West
I have a special loathing for “Design for the Third World,” or pretty much any situation where people assume that just because they are well off, they know know something about what it takes to be well off. So I was delighted to see Dx1W, “Third World Designers solving First World Problems”. Via Bruce Sterling [...]
New Temperature Monitor
I’ve re-made the compost temp sensors to conform to our original design of stabbing probes. I was having difficulty choosing a non-conductive housing for the probes that could give accurate measurements along its length, until I remembered that my favorite plastic, polyethylene, is mostly transparent to infrared. Duh, that’s why I make solar balloons out [...]
New Composter Completed
Behold the new rat proof aerobic composter!
Monitoring Compost, pt.1 (what we’ve got)
There is no substitute for the complexity of human senses. Quantitative data is cannot stand in for direct experience with compost. But it does provide a means of directly comparing processes and feedstock mixes, as well as real-time feedback for control. Lacking grad students or interns we have only robots to exploit (for now…). To [...]
