Nature
Design: Myfanwy MacLeod
Client: Vancouver’s Olympic Village
Date: 2010
Photo: Karin Bubas
“My work for the Olympic Village tries to infuse the ordinary and commonplace sparrow with a touch of the ridiculous and the sublime. Locating this artwork in an urban plaza not only highlights what has become the ‘natural’ environment of the sparrow, it also reinforces the ‘small’ problem of introducing a foreign species and the subsequent havoc wreaked upon our ecosystems.”
- Myfanwy MacLeod
August 16th, 2010
Design: Azul Amuchastegui Bari
Client: Concept
Date: 2009
August 16th, 2010
Design: Dieter Johnson
Client:
Date: 2009
August 10th, 2010
Design: Lydia Ellen Cambron
Client:
Date: 2009
A conceptual project designed with B.C. Children’s Hospital and Design for Development, these hospital objects are a serious departure from the way that hospital equipment is typically designed. Obviously the real issues of sterilization, disposabilty, and costs are essential, but Cambron goes a step further. Use biometric feedback, like a wilting plant needing water, she designed the objects to broadcast their function and use. Cambron explains “We all understand the vocabulary of plant life and living organisms. Perhaps the medical devices that support our lives should behave in a way we can all understand”.
-Todd Falkowsky
June 4th, 2010
Design:
Client:
Date:
One can almost walk by this without noticing as it is so elegantly camouflaged. Adorned with greenery and pastel hydrangeas, this Vancouver street-side utility cabinet is a pleasure to behold amid the urban landscape. It’s striking how a simple splash of design can be so uplifting, as if someone cares about the everyday experience of walking down a neighbourhood street.
-Hannah Wise
April 23rd, 2010
Design: Dr. John Todd and New Alchemy Institute
Client: self-initiated
Production: Living Machine Inc. and others
Date: 1980s
"Living Machine" located at Findhorn Ecovillage, Scotland – L. Schnadt Wikimedia Commons
Dr. Käthe Seidel first explored the use of swamps, marshes and other wetlands to filter and purify wastewater in the early 1950s. In the 1970s, Dr. John Todd and his collaborators at the New Alchemy Institute, applyed these concepts in the self-sustaining bioshelters they called Arks (One of their first clients was the Government of Canada, which contracted the PEI Ark in 1976). The lessons learned from these ambitious designs later served as the basis for a sewage treatment system that combined technology and biology to mimic natural mechanisms – Todd’s famous “Living Machine”.
In essence, living machines are a series of tanks, each containing different organic filters, bacteria, algae, micro-organisms, plants, trees, snails, and even fish, housed inside a green house to support the plant life. As wastewater passes through the micro-ecosystem of each tank, different organisms feed on the contaminants, cleaning the water without the chemicals, massive energy consumption and toxic sludge, associated with traditional sewage treatment.
One of the strengths of the living machine concept is flexibility; components may be added or removed to accommodate different forms of waste and other unique requirements. Today, Lining Machine Inc. (which Todd sold in 1999) produces “Next Generation Living Machines”, which utilize a more naturalized wetland system, generally eliminating the need for greenhouses and greatly reducing maintenance. Other variations of Todd’s design (under various names) have been employed at various scales, all over the world.
-Michael Erdmann
April 22nd, 2010
Design:
Client:
Date:
This beautiful and wild looking dog was virtually on the edge of extinction when Bill Carpenter and his Yellowknife based Eskimo Dog Research Foundation brought the breed back from the brink. The Canadian Eskimo dog are direct descendants of the polar wolf, tamed and trained to be used for packing, hunting and as sled dogs by the locals. This breed is Canada’s oldest, with genetic roots stretching as far back as 2000 years ago.
December 17th, 2009
Design:
Client: Toronto?
Date: 2009
Cutting into what must be at least a thousand layers of paper, the guerrilla artists made a perfect little pocket for some greenery. Evidence of what was probably a nighttime adventure, is left on the concrete below.
Via the wonderful KITKA design toronto.
October 9th, 2009
Design: Lawrie McIntosh
Client: Massey Harris Ltd.
Date: 1953
Now known as Massey Ferguson, Massey Harris produced this popular model of Hay Baler for many years. Self-powered for producing and tying bales, it was nevertheless pulled, but not powered, by a tractor. The hay lying in a field was collected by a rotary pickup and transferred across to the square baling chamber (on the left side of the machine) where it was compressed into discrete rectilinear bales, tied with twine, and ejected out the back. Most bales today are a large and cylindrical shape, but the smaller rectangular bales we typically see used for seating and decoration are still the old square bales made from a machine such as No.3.
-Greg Ball
July 17th, 2009
Design: Posterchild
Client:
Date: 2009
The newly-transformed planter box is illustrative of the point that forgotten pieces of urban furniture may be used to beautify the streets of the city with very little effort.
-Olivia Chen
Via the excellent Inhabitat.
July 8th, 2009
Design:
Client:
Date:
“BC Bud is a generic term for several varieties of potent cannabis grown in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The term has almost become a brand name, especially in California, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho and Washington, to where most of the province’s cannabis is exported”.
Via Wikipedia
June 22nd, 2009
Design: Keith Downey and Baldur R. Stefansson
Client: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Saskatoon, SK
Date: 1970s
Paraflyer
Developed in the early 1970s through old fashioned plant hybridization, Canola oil has quickly become a staple oil for industrial and personal uses. Modified from rapeseed, which has a large erucic acid concentration found to be carcinogenic in high quantities, Canola was developed to lower levels of this acid to make a cheap healthy oil source.
Originally dubbed as LEAR (Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed), this did not have the appropriate connotations to become a beloved household brand. Thus Canola oil was born, derived from the words CANadian Oil Low Acid, and a new oil entered our lives.
Canola oil is high in unsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids, which we’re told are good for us. However, there is an increasing amount of evidence that Canola may actually be harmful in some cases, especially from the industrial processing associated with extracting the oil. Read more here…
-Graig Sutherland
Sources:
- Sally Fallon & Mary G Enig (2002). “The Great Con-ola”. WestonAPrice.org. Retrieved on 2009-06-10
- “Richard Kieth Downey: Genetics“. science.ca. 2007. Retrieved on 2009-06-10
- Storgaard, AK (2008). “Stefansson, Baldur Rosmand“. CanadianEncyclopedia.ca. Retrieved on 2009-06-10
June 11th, 2009
Design:
Client: Canadian Sport Horse Association
Date:
June 11th, 2009
Design: Jeremy Hatch
Client: Biomimicry Guild and Kohler
Date: 2008
These remarkable ceramic recreations of natural objects were created for the popular Biomimicry Guild. The Guild is advocating the understanding and application of natural systems as design strategy and uses these replica’s to teach companies how to incorporate sustainable solutions. The replica’s are eerily accurate, it is almost impossible to pick out the natural elements. With waves of novelty ceramics being produced today, it is refreshing to see the practice applied in such a useful and needed way.
-Todd Falkowsky
April 28th, 2009
Design:
Client:
Date: 2008
Photo: Doug Pete
April 23rd, 2009
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