Every Corner Counts: How Much Space Do you Really Need?

This weeks Y.E.O.W takes a look at maximizing space through design. This house in Austria is very small but once you step inside you would be amazed. Sometimes, just enough is all you need. Take a look at this cozy space in this article by Lara Lopes of Interesting Engineering.

http://interestingengineering.com/dont-think-you-could-live-here-take-a-look-inside/



We featured the Uvogel house (the name is a combination of UFO and Vogel – bird in German) in our recent article on the most unique and unusual small homes. Designed by Peter Jungmann, the 45 square meter house is found in the Austrian Alps and is available to rent all year round. But, looking from the outside you struggle to imagine that such a small house can offer much comfort and space.




That’s until you take a look inside. Its multi-functional design means you have a dining area, a kitchen unit, a nice and cozy window seat, separate bedroom area for parents and kids, WC and designer shower. Designed inside and out in wood, it offers the residents a sense of warmth bringing nature indoors to you.





Large panoramic windows offer breathtaking views of the Lienz Dolomites whilst also letting in a surplus of stunning natural light. The wood fire stove can heat up the home to keep the winter cold out and if that’s not enough, there is also floor heating. The design is very minimalistic but with views like that, why would you want clutter lying around.






The house is available all year round so if you fancy a unique holiday in such wondrous nature, head on over to their website.
- See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/dont-think-you-could-live-here-take-a-look-inside/#sthash.VO9tB3mE.dpuf

Crowdfunding Bike Repair Kiosks in Atlanta

This week's Y.E.O.W takes a look at crowdfunding as an approach to developing public transit projects. The following article by Julie Sneider appeared on the website "Progressive Railroading."

Atlanta residents increasingly are taking to the streets on bicycles — so much so that city leaders have set a goal to make Atlanta one of the nation's Top 10 most "bike-friendly" cities by 2016. As part of the effort, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is doing what it can to make it easier for cycling enthusiasts to take their bikes with them when they use the public transit system.

One example: Last month, the agency turned to a crowd-sourcing platform to raise more than $4,000 to help fund three bike-repair kiosks that will be installed at MARTA rail stations.

The kiosks will contain the equipment necessary to make basic repairs such as fixing a flat tire or adjusting loose handlebars, says Saba Long, a MARTA spokeswoman.

Pictured (left to right) is the MARTA team behind the crowd-funding project: Shannon Kroll, Mark Eatman, Lyle Harris, Saba Long, Ryan VanSickle and Nicholas Gowens.
Source: MARTA 

"Cycling is becoming quite popular in our service area and around Georgia in general," she says. "MARTA is making it convenient to bring your bike on the MARTA system and, with this project, fix it at the station if you need to."

The kiosk idea came from agency staffers who were brainstorming ways to attract more Atlanta cyclists to use public transit. Their conversation was and is part of a broader discussion underway in Atlanta about how to reduce the auto vehicle traffic congestion that the metro region is famous for. Tapping into the millennial generation's strong interest in cycling is one way to help do that, MARTA officials say.

"Lots of millennials who are coming into Atlanta and moving to in-town neighborhoods are looking for options other than driving," says MARTA spokesman Lyle Harris. "So, bicycling and transit go hand-in-glove."

To find the dollars for the kiosk project, MARTA staff decided to test the concept of crowd-funding, the practice of funding a project or venture by raising small amounts of money from lots of people via the Internet.

To get its venture started, MARTA turned to IOBY, a nonprofit organization that offers what its website describes as a "crowd-resourcing" platform for citizen-led projects aimed at improving local neighborhoods. In addition to raising funds, the organization helps pull together other resources necessary to make improvements.

IOBY stands for "In Our Back Yard" and is designed to dispel the "NIMBY" — not in my backyard — attitude toward community projects such as public transportation, Long says.

Earlier this fall, IOBY and the nonprofit TransitCenter in New York City launched "Trick Out My Trip," a program that provides up to $4,000 in matching funds for small neighborhood projects intended to make public transit easier, safer and more fun to use. Project examples include mini libraries at bus stops and community gardens at train stations.

"For the most part, investment in transit comes in billions of dollars," IOBY Executive Director Erin Barnes explained in a recent edition of Next City blog. "Our focus has always been on small projects. We want to see solutions led by riders and people who actually use the services, rather than municipalities."

MARTA's first attempt at crowd-funding was a challenge in part because the window to raise the money was so short: It launched Oct. 21 and wrapped up Oct. 23, Long says. Still, the agency not only met its fund-raising goal of $4,000, it exceeded it. The final sum raised was $4,542, which qualified the project to receive $4,000 in matching dollars from the TransitCenter. Donors to MARTA's fundraiser included the agency's board members and executive-level staff.

Now MARTA's facilities team is working with the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition — a nonprofit organization that supports safe cycling as a mode of transportation — to determine the best kiosk product to buy and, once purchased, where the kiosks should be installed.

"At this time, we're considering two rail stations and one bus shelter. Ideally, the kiosks will be near existing or planned high-capacity bicycle facilities, such as a two-way cycle track located near our Midtown station and the Atlanta BeltLine," says Long.

Now that MARTA has tasted success in its first attempt at crowd-funding, the agency might consider it for future projects such as raising community support for art installations at MARTA stations. In a broader sense, the crowd-funding concept fits nicely with MARTA General Manager and Chief Executive Officer Keith Parker's desire to promote a stronger sense of community ownership of Atlanta's transit system, says Harris.

"We believe in the wisdom of the crowd," he adds.

New Source of Electricity for Architecture

Scientists Turn Cigarette Butts Into Electrical Storage

By burning them. No, really.

                 

The electrical power of the future just might be waiting in ashtrays across the world. Researchers in South Korea discovered that, with a one-step conversion process, cigarette filters turn into great supercapacitors.

 

 

Supercapacitors are an electrical storage alternative to batteries. In batteries, energy is stored in chemical reactants, while in supercapacitors, it's stored as an electrical field between materials. Batteries are slow to charge and heavy, but they're also compact and store great amounts of energy, which means they've long held an advantage in consumer products. But supercapacitors work where space constraints matter less: Braking in a car generates a lot of electricity, and in some cars supercapacitors capture that energy and then release it to get the car going again. Unlike batteries, supercapacitors can release bursts of power more quickly, making them useful in electronics like defibrillators. Think of it like static electricity from wearing wool socks on carpet - the charge builds up quickly and is then released all at once in a spark.

 

Well it turns out that the collections of fibers in cigarette filters have a lot to offer a supercapacitor. Here's how the scientists described the process:

 

Used cigarette filters are composed largely of cellulose acetate. They are disposable, non-biodegradable, toxic and are a threat to the environment after usage. However, it has been reported that cellulose acetate can be directly utilized in the production of carbon materials containing a meso-/micropore structure by only a carbonization process [14]. That is, used cigarette filters could be used as a proper carbon source for supercapacitors. Importantly, carbonizing used cigarette filters in a nitrogen-containing atmosphere could provide the nitrogen doping on the carbon structure with the formation of such unique pore structures in a one-step process.

 

In essence, the scientists burned the filters in a nitrogen-rich environment, and this made the filter fibers grow pores, further increasing their surface area. According to their results, published in the journal Nanotechnology, these burnt-in-nitrogen fibers stored more energy than materials previously used in supercapacitors. With further research, this could be great news for both electrical storage and ashtrays everywhere.

Cigarette butts transformed into high-performance supercapacitor component

 

                        

 

Research from the Seoul National University suggests that discarded cigarette butts could be used as a high-performance energy storage material

 

Billions of cigarette butts are discarded around the world each year and, even when disposed of properly, pose a threat to the environment by leaching arsenic, lead and other nasty chemicals into land and waterways. New research shows these butts could be set for a new lease on life, with a team of Korean scientists demonstrating that used cigarette filters could actually double as a highly-effective energy storage material.

 

Scientists from Seoul National University found that through a process called pyrolysis, the cellulose acetate fibers that make up the filter of a cigarette could be transformed into a carbon-based material that can be used as a high-performing component for supercapacitors; long-lasting, fast-charging devices capable of storing huge amounts of energy. The pyrolysis process involves a one-step burning technique that creates tiny holes of varying size in the material to increase its total surface area.

 

 

 

“A high-performing supercapacitor material should have a large surface area, which can be achieved by incorporating a large number of small pores into the material,” says Professor Jongheop Yi, one of the study's authors. “A combination of different pore sizes ensures that the material has high power densities, which is an essential property in a supercapacitor for the fast charging and discharging."

The team put its new material to the test by attaching it to an electrode and observed it in a three-electrode system, taking note of the material's ability to absorb and then discharge electrolyte ions. They found it stored a higher amount of electrical energy than graphene, carbon nanotubes and carbon, a material popular for use in conventional supercapacitors.

 

 

 

 

The scientists are hopeful that by coating the supercapacitor's electrode in the new carbon-based material, it could lead to better energy storage for electric vehicles, wind turbines and mobile devices.

 

Click on link below for more information:

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/scientists-turn-cigarette-butts-electrical-storage