Environment

A new online multi-player game has been launched by the Future Institute in Menlo Park (Silicon Valley) called SuperStruct:

….the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. By playing the game, you’ll help us chronicle the world of 2019–and imagine how we might solve the problems we’ll face. Because this is about more than just envisioning the future. It’s about making the future, inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential.

By getting involved in a massive social networking experiment through blogs, forums, videos, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools, the games aims to get you involved in the chronicling and shaping of the world of 2019.  game starts with a doomsday premise:

The Global Extinction Awareness System, a supercomputer that accurately predicted the extinction of red squirrels several years ago, has run the numbers for our own species through the computer, and our odds of survival aren’t good. According to GEAS, Homo sapiens may go extinct by the year 2042.

According to Discover magazine this isn’t just a chance for gamers to flirt with the dark edge of disaster; they’ll also be participating in a cutting-edge experiment that tries to harness the wisdom of crowds for a higher purpose. Superstruct is what the Future institute calls the world’s first “massively multiplayer forecasting game.” The Institute for the Future doesn’t like to put it this way, but it’s essentially trying to use crowdsourcing to predict the future….visit SuperStruct.

If you are a designer, inventor or environmental genius and have never heard about the “Live Edge” award then it may just change your life. This competiion offers an award of $100,000 and “to enter, your design must be original and innovative, use electric and/or electronic components, and positively impact the environment, such as by increasing energy efficiency or reducing carbon emissions.” The submission for this year’s awards start on 1 October - to find out more visit Live Edge.

One of India’s true green architects Manit Rastogi of MD Morphogenesis has just been profiled in the London Guardian newspaper. Rastogi’s work - which includes the hull shaped headquarters for Ernst & Young in Gurgaon - has been recognized for being “cool” in more ways than one…

In a sizzling property market, architect Manit Rastogi at MD Morphogenesis has created some of India’s coolest buildings, using recycled water, wells, wind tunnels and sun screens to chill work places and slash energy costs.
Thanks to his designs, students in a Jaipur fashion school mill around classrooms cooled to around 25 degrees Celsius (77 F) without air conditioners, while the desert bakes at nearly double that temperature outside.
And guests at the Swabhumi Hotel in Kolkata feel a breeze as they step out of a building resembling sliced mushrooms fused together, and inspired by the way trees trap wind.

And then according to the man himself…

“In India’s booming real estate market, there are not enough professionals. And because mediocrity sells, it’s easier to do that,” Rastogi said in an interview in Hong Kong. “Architects are just doing what developers want. If you start taking them down the sustainable route, people start getting nervous,” he said. “They see it as wasted expense.”….
“When they move away from the standard box, we have to tell them it’s more efficient,” Rastogi said. “Many say fine, you’ve convinced us, but how do we convince the market?”

He seems to have overcome these challenges well…read the full article here