Tag Archives: grass

Contemporary home in Prague incorporates a green roof, adding a speck of green to an urban dwelling

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Located in the Hlubocepy district in Prague, Czech Republic is a family home alongside a wildlife corridor. Designed by RO_AR architecture studio, the home features a concrete roof topped with grass, and is intended to be a “bridge between the urban and the natural”. The home is meant to be a “clash of two geometries” and features a rectilinear form clad in thin oak slats.

Designer: RO_AR Architecture

“Urban space surrounds the site on the south and east sides. It is a chaotic and random development, often adversely affecting the value of the terrain. We designed a building that was created by the method of land deformation. The terrain was to transition smoothly from the north-west side into an artificial ‘hill’ into which the house was to be placed,” said studio founder Szymon Rozwałka.

Reminiscent of a hill, the grass-topped structure features a ground floor with an interesting carved form to accommodate a garage and an entrance sheltered by an overhanging first floor. A paved path connects the side of the house to the garden. The front of the home has a white render finish, and a oak batten cladding to provide privacy. While the back end of the home opens into the garden via fully-glazed facades.

“The home seeks to extend the natural context into the interior of the site and into the interiors. It becomes an abstract body that, through its form and scale, corresponds to the surrounding rocks in the background,” said Rozwalka. The first floor of the home features a room that expands into a small terrace, that is hidden from the surrounding properties with the help of a concrete wall. A paved patio has been placed outside the living area, and it faces a small pond.

The roof of the home is an exposed board-marked concrete ceiling from within, dotted with large skylights wherever the curves intersect. Concrete walls within the home are contrasted with wooden ceilings, staircases, black-metal frames, furniture, and fittings. The family house is a modern concrete wonder that also manages to beautifully incorporate a speck of green, and add a bit of nature to an otherwise urban dwelling.

The post Contemporary home in Prague incorporates a green roof, adding a speck of green to an urban dwelling first appeared on Yanko Design.

This new carbon negative material made using processed grass is meant to replace traditional OSB boards

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Based in North Carolina, the firm Plantd Materials has produced a new material ‘Plantd’. Built using processed perennial grass, the material is said to be lighter and stronger as compared to traditional timber boards, but will capture more carbon. The firm says that the material is a “blend of fast-growing perennial grasses”, that they hope will be used as an alternative to traditional oriented strand board (OBS). OBS is a material similar to plywood that is used to sheath floors and walls.

Designer: Plantd Materials

Plantd Materials developed a collection of machinery that utilizes heat and pressure to press the shredded grass into panels. They can produce standard four-by-eight-foot (1.2 by 2.4 meter) panels that are created using 50 pounds (22.6 kilograms) of grass.

“During the pandemic, quality was going down, prices were going up, supply was obviously constrained and I really started thinking a lot more about sustainable materials as an opportunity. We had this frame in mind to aspire to gigaton scale carbon capture, to be able to lock something away for 100 years,” said Plantd co-founder Josh Dorfman. He believes that the material could “solve some real problems for builders”.

Plantd will definitely be a boon for land usage, as perennial grass grows faster than timber. Medium-sized OBS mills require 140 to 150,000 acres of managed timberland to function, whereas mills that utilize perennial grass need only 15 to 20,000 acres. “So it creates an opportunity to capture more carbon using less land, and because it regrows on the same land year after year to be able to do it much faster. On a per acre for a perennial grass, you will get a yield that can be roughly seven to eight times more per acre than with managed timberland,” continued Dorfman.

Besides being stronger and lighter than timber, custom machines used in the process will be energy efficient and will run completely on electricity. “Twenty-five percent of a tree is burned in the mill along with natural gas to dry out the remainder of the tree. We bypass that process in the way that we produce. And so by moving to 100 percent electric, it enables us to really get these tremendous gains in terms of carbon efficiency,” said Dorfman.  The grass panels will be treated with flame retardant using a process that is quite similar to the one used in standard energy. Plantd Materials hopes to start production of the material sometime next year.

The post This new carbon negative material made using processed grass is meant to replace traditional OSB boards first appeared on Yanko Design.

The iRobot Terra is a Roomba For Your Lawn

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I don’t know about you but I really hate mowing the lawn. I’d rather be inside in the air conditioning, relaxing. Well, it looks like iRobot has finally unveiled a robot for lawn mowing that is like the Roomba you use inside your home.

The iRobot Terra robotic lawnmower is designed to perform the chore for you. All you have to do is charge it, set up the wireless beacons around your yard, connect it to the phone app, and let it do its thing. It goes into its charging dock when it needs some juice. It likely won’t cut very thick and tall grass since it is small and just has a small electric motor, but if you already keep your lawn well maintained it will likely do the trick.

It looks pretty easy to use and the best part is that while this thing is mowing your lawn, you can be relaxing inside watching TV or reading a good book. I say reading a good book, but honestly, I’m going to get sucked into binge watching cat videos. Again.

The iRobot Terra robotic lawn mower will be available in Germany soon, and then there will be a beta program in the US later this year.

[via The Awesomer via Geekologie] ]

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ICYMI: Birds the magical flying machines

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Today on In Case You Missed It: There are three main theories of flight and it turns out, Stanford has poked holes in them by simply training a mini parrot to wear tiny safety goggles, then fly through a laser sheet. The video is more adorable t...

The Menorah Bong For A Happy Hanukkah

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There are many ways to be festive this Holiday Season, and we think the Menorah Bong is just about the most creative accessory with which to complement this year’s Hanukkah. What this is is pretty obvious and self-explanatory, but just in case you’re truly clueless, you’re looking at a water pipe with eight bowls, made to look like a Menorah. It’s a scaled down version from previous years, easily fitting on a desktop, at 14″ long by 4″ wide. The challenge, of course, is to figure out how to light all eight bowls at once without choking.

420Science has been making these for a while, but we’ really like this year’s format. We just wish it wasn’t an expensive, limited-edition (60 pieces) item, costing $600.

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[ Product Page ] VIA [ DudeIWantThat ]

Summerland Ceramic Stonerware, For The Classy Toker

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Let’s face it, it’s only a matter of time until Marijuana is legal everywhere. Already Canada has announced they will legalize the stuff for recreational use in 2016 (the first G7 country to do so), and 4 states in the USA have already done so. It stands to reason the ecosystem will blossom, and we’re not surprised to see something like the Summerland Ceramic Stoneraware on the market. They’re your good old bongs, made from “cone 5 ceramic and finished with a lead-free, foodsafe glaze.” The white finish and distinctive shape will announce to your friends that you’re a new age aficionado, a classy upper scale consumer of this fine botanical, and not some undiscerning college kid who buys rainbow hued glassware. Prices start at $75, and go way up.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Uncrate ]

iPhone Case Puts the Feeling of Green Grass In Your Hand

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Shibaful lush lawn iPhone case

Lush greens, the feeling of freshly-cut blades of grass on your feet.. what does that imagery remind you off? Whether it’s a golf course or a typical summer’s day when you get to do nothing but lie back on a hammock, it often brings back fond memories (with the exception being those who had to endlessly mow other people’s lawns, that is.)

Now you can revel in those grassy memories by getting the Shibaful lush lawn iPhone case which is exactly what its name implies it is. The case is wrapped all around in a lush field of faux grass that looks and almost feel like the real thing. It’s not the practical or most durable of cases out there, but that isn’t really the point with this case, is it?

The Shibaful phone case is available for $84.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Geek ]

 

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