i like it with the border =)

no border

photoshop rendering

Now, I am not a pro in photoshop, so feel free to be critical!

grey water recycling videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eJYJPAR2L0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akrEncD4V50

Snow melting methods and collection

As far as winter irrigation in the greenhouse goes, melting snow in big barrels is the next best thing to a really long hose, a well and an electric pump. Fill ‘em up, cover with clear plastic, wait a day (even on a dull, cloudy day, it gets up to 60°F in the hoophouse). Repeat a couple of times, and you have 50 gallons of rainwater in a barrel! The alternative is dragging 200? of hose through deep snow from the barn to the greenhouse, then reeling it in and draining it, every couple of days. The weather has put the kibosh on the early-March, barely heated greenhouse plan, the happy prospect until March actually came around. (veggiegardeninfo.com/?cat=6)

I think this is one pretty easy, reasonable and affordable method. What can be possibly derived from this method, Kelly (since you are doing water collection), is maybe a combination of solar heated barrels and drainage/collection of melted snow that will flow into the main cistern.

Also, there is a number of existing systems that are used in the cities in order to melt snow on the roads. They are based on embedding heating cables into the pavement or concrete slabs that eventually get heated and thus melt the snow. Such systems can also be powered by solar power and then a water collection system can be applied.

Solar composting toilets!

Passive solar composting toilet:
http://www.longbrancheec.org/pubs/composting_toilet.html

Commercial composting toilets:
http://weblife.org/humanure/chapter6_5.html

Check this out, too:
http://www.swsloo.com/

A great website on wastewater treatment with images and good descriptions:
http://www.vsb.cape.com/~nature/greencenter/tb/tb006.htm

Rendering samples

taken from earthship.net

Earthship

Check this out! Taken from: http://motherwit.wordpress.com/2007/03/
Afterwards, check the "Earthship" further at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship#Water
And mos def, their website: http://www.earthship.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23

"The other day I noticed that one of my tires had a slow leak. I took it to a place called M&M Tires, where it was expertly repaired within a few minutes by owner Bonifacio Martinez. While he worked, we chatted, and he remarked that, had he been unable to fix it, he might have donated the worn-out tire to the Earthship community, a few miles outside of Taos. I was fascinated by what he told me and decided to visit.

The Earthship community is a collection of unusual homes that look, at first glance, like something from a strange dream. They are organic in shape, studded with bottles, and partly buried in the ground. These are Earthships — passive solar structures that do not use any conventional power or water source, thanks to a combination of ingenious design, recycling, and solar and wind power. Water comes from snow melt or rain collection, and is used four times before it is finally discharged in a conventional septic system. The houses are amazingly pretty inside, airy and not at all dark.

The walls are made of recycled tires, aluminum cans, bottles (sometimes placed so as to let light in), and adobe, which is then oiled on the inside surfaces to make it darker, the better for absorbing sun and maintaining heat. Here’s a cutaway view of a wall:

Sloped windows on the southern side collect sun and also nourish the gardens that provide food, purify water, and beautify the space. When the sun is too intense, or to retain heat after dark, the windows can be covered:

The houses are wired with conventional electric outlets and the appliances are ordinary, albeit energy-saving models. They are priced competitively: a 1,200-square-foot home in this community might cost $200,000 (this includes all labor, the most expensive part of building an Earthship). Members of the Earthship Foundation have built them all over the world, and also are available to teach others. They have also published the building plans in several books."

Rainwater collection diagrams

Drainage basin = Root system

Above is an image of a drainage basin that acts like a funnel, collecting all the water within the area covered by the basin and channeling it into a waterway. Each drainage basin is separated topographically from adjacent basins by a geographical barrier such as a ridge, hill or mountain, which is known as a water divide. Other terms that are used to describe the a drainage basin are catchment, catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, water basin and watershed.

Drainage basins are important elements to consider also in ecology. As water flows over the ground and along rivers it can pick up nutrients, sediment, and pollutants. Like the water, they get transported towards the outlet of the basin, and can affect the ecological processes along the way as well as in the receiving water source. (As a note, may be there is a way of designing an underground drainage basin piping system with its own filtration system...???)

Modern usage of artificial fertilizers, containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, has affected the mouths of watersheds. The minerals will be carried by the watershed to the mouth and accumulate there, disturbing the natural mineral balance. (back to my red note?)

Because drainage basins are coherent entities in a hydrological sense, it has become common to manage water resources on the basis of individual basins. In the U.S. state of Minnesota, governmental entities that perform this function are called watershed districts. In New Zealand, they are called catchment boards. Comparable community groups based in Ontario, Canada, are called conservation authorities.

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Here's an idea:

Underground drainage basin / reservoir. Basically, all the wastewater from homes and businesses from the neighbourhood drains down to one big underground reservoir (where all water gets stored). On its way, it gets its preliminary treatment, i.e. some nutrients/minerals/chemicals go back to the soil, the rest remain in the water. Then, it gets further filtered (possibly above ground, using any or all of the proposed filtration systems) and after that it then gets distributed to homes.

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Bioremedification+

Another natural filtration system I just came across that can potentially use the so-called 'mycelium':

Mycelium (plural mycelia) is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. The mass of hyphae is sometimes called shiro, especially within the fairy ring fungi. Fungal colonies composed of mycelia are found in soil and on or in many other substrates. Typically a single spore germinates into a monokaryotic mycelium which cannot reproduce sexually; when two compatible monokaryotic mycelia join and form a dikaryotic mycelium, that mycelium may form fruiting bodies such as mushrooms. A mycelium may be minute, forming a colony that is too small to see, or it may be extensive:

It is through the mycelium that a fungus absorbs nutrients from its environment. It does this in a two stage process. Firstly the hyphae secrete enzymes onto the food source, which breaks down polymers into monomers. These monomers are then absorbed into the mycelium by facilitated diffusion and active transport.

Mycelium is vital in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems for its role in the decomposition of plant material. It contributes to the organic fraction of soil and its growth releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. The mycelium of mycorrhizal fungi increases the efficiency of water and nutrient absorption of most plants and confers resistance to some plant pathogens. Mycelium is an important food source for many soil invertebrates.

One of the primary roles of fungi in an ecosystem is to decompose organic compounds. Petroleum products and pesticides that can be contaminants of soil are organic molecules. Fungi therefore should have potential to remove such pollutants from the soil environment, a process known as bioremediation.

Mycelial mats have been suggested (see Paul Stamets) as having potential as biological filters, removing chemicals and microorganisms from soil and water. The use of fungal mycelia to accomplish this has been termed "mycofiltration", although there is no reason to suspect that the process is any different from that of bioremediation using fungi.

Some Mycelium has symbiotic property with many plants. This opens the door to soil supplementation to improve crop yields.

Mycelium, spread on logging roads acts as a binder holding new soil in place and preventing washouts until woody plants can be established.

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- Basically, what I gather from this research is that it is practically possible to create a biological (natural) water filtration system that can be incorporated into our solution.

- Also, these kinds of natural filtration systems has been long in use by many people around the world. They are real and possible to implement and incorporate into our project. There are specialists who can provide us with a number of such solutions for homes. Only I do not think that for this particular exercise we actually need such detailed research. I am sure that it is already enough to just know that such natural systems are available.

Scenario exercise

Resident


Every month I used to get a hydro bill. I no longer have to thanks to the solution provided by a group of four brilliant students from OCAD, who were working on “INTERVENTION” project in their class called “Socially Responsible Design Practices” taught by Martin Liefhebber. Thanks to their solution I no longer have to worry about where my water is coming from. I also don’t have to stress out about our planet and that I somehow impact global warming that the whole world is so concerned about. I like living my life knowing that my actions do not harness our environment. I also like to be a part of nature’s own natural processes. It is good to know that I can contribute to our environment. Thanks to the solution, the extra minerals go back to nature and contribute to plant and wild life in my community. Now I can even have my own garden and not worry about water and mineral supply because I know it comes directly from my household. During warmer seasons we collect water from rainfalls. When its winter the snow melts and gets treated through this special process and then we use that water for our needs. We even have enough excess water that we use to take ‘to go’ when we leave house so we no longer need to buy bottled water. Also, the excellent filtration system that apparently is based on a filtration system used in our plants, allows us to have clean and safe water for drinking, cooking, and washing ourselves. Also, the group developed the system where all excess of water that has not been used gets stored somewhere outside so in case any of my neighbors runs out of water, they can have it from our communal cistern that is available 24 hours. Overall, the solution provided by this group affected my lifestyle in an extremely positive and environmentally-friendly driven way.

Some background info!

Hey guys,

I'm still trying to figure out the site.. but since I've done a similar project I figured right off the bat I'd contribute with some background. So here are a few diagrams that demonstrate how this process actually functions throughout and inside the plant..

I'm hoping this can give us some inspiration and possibly fuel (hahah pun intended) our design process...

This diagram illustrates a current system for water filtration. Basically, toxins and pollutants are pulled out of the water in 3 stages (phases, whatever). The water is strained through a ceramic filter, followed by high density activated carbon (pretty much filters gas) and lastly a heavy metal reducing media. I think our plants will likely have to filter water in stages much like this system.. of course they will be more efficient and sufficient.

This is pretty much just how a plant pulls the water up FROM its roots into the leaves (the roots get the water through osmosis). The water is transported through the xylem (think veins but plant cells), it does so by using a CAPILLARY action ~ this is where it gets a bit tricky. Capillary action is another word for opposites attract; water moves up into the roots and through the capillaries because its molecules are attracted to those in the inner walls of the plants cells (causing suction pressure).

If you're still unsure, Wikipedia gives the best description: "Capillary action is primarily responsible for water transport in plants. Water is drawn up into the plant via the roots. A network of fine tubes, collectively called the xylem, attracts water up the stem or trunk due to the adhesive forces between the water molecules and the cellulose molecules in the xylem walls. The effect of capillary action is limited by the pull of gravity"

Water Filtration System

INTERVENTION: "WHAT IF"

OBJECTIVES

- Speculate on how a neighbourhood could evolve in the event of limited or zero supply of affordable fossil fuel
- Agree on a thesis of how the residents and retailers might respond to this dramatic change and how this vision translates into opportunity
- Focus on one aspect in detail
- Aspect: WATER

FOCUS AREA