Futuristic Building Design Concept

Though we usually concentrate our attention on interior design, every now and then we take a look at innovative ideas in architecture that could become part of tomorrow’s homes. It is for featuring these ideas we have the Futuristic Building Design Concept section on our blog.

Some of the ideas featured below are a bit far-fetched and exist only in visualizers dreams, some maybe in the making and some of the buildings may already exist now.

1. Lilypad Island

This may fall in the first category we mentioned above, but the sheer audacity in dreaming up such a project needs to be applauded. Architects like Vincent Callebaut really push imagination and creativity.


According to forecasts of the GIEC (Intergovernmental group on the evolution of the climate), the ocean level should rise from 20 to 90 cm during the 21st Century with a status quo by 50 cm (versus 10 cm in the 20th Century). Award-winning Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut visions Lilypad as a permanent refuge for those whose homes have been submerged in water due to ocean rise caused due to global warming.

The ‘Lilypad City’ can house 50,000 inhabitants and would float around the world as an independent and fully self-sutainable luxurious super home. With lakes, artificial mountains for scenery, solar panels, wind tunnels and powerstations to harness wave energy, and no roads and no cars, Lilypad looks one clean green mega city.

2. Dynamic Architecture – Rotating Tower

Bored with seeing the same scenery everytime you look out of the window? Check out the Rotating Tower by David Fischer which is a building in which each floor has the capability to rotate on its axis and face a different direction according to the resident’s preferences. 
In addition the building is able to produce its own energy from wind. Check out the video here
Okey Thats was Futuristic Building Design Concept, i will write again more Futuristic Building Design Concept for you in next post 

Source : http://www.home-designing.com/2008/10/amazing-concept-buildings
Futuristic Armor Design

Futuristic Armor Design


japan was a country that has spent most of its history at war. province against province, warlordagainst warlord. the struggle for money, land and power was an endless series of battles, allegiances and legend. armor was perfectly suited to the times, the terrain and the weaponry of the samurai. but how functional is it really? does it stand up against full contact and live weapons? keep watching as we put a taisho qualityarmor to the ultimate test.

the iconic image of the samurai, in full battle armor. often works about allowing the warrior to stand out and be recognized on the field of war. but ultimately it needed to be tough and versatile, allowing for movement and speed. often warn for weeks at a time it was hard wearing and easily repairable. unique, practical and designed to withstand weapons of battle. perfectly suited to the samurai warrior. so welcome to fanhams hall hotel. a beautiful hotel with japanese gardens over 2 acres open to the public. there is a fantastic air show today, aswell as many visitors, visiting the ground. and we're here to test the armor.

the iron mountain armory has been handcrafting samurai armor since 2005. they offer the most authentic, economical and customizable samurai armor in the world. they currently offer their armor in three separate classes. the kachi class, or foot soldier's armor is made for the samurai on a budget. the gashira class or officer's armor is crafted for the samurai who wants their armor ready for battle. the taisho class or general's armor is meticulouslyhandcrafted by the most experienced armorers, for the samurai who wants thehighest in quality. we used all 3 classes during our testing, including the tatami armour. the battles on the japanese planes made full use of samurai cavalry.

but for most samurai, the traveling and fighting was done on foot. once the army reached the mountains in the high fortresses horses becameunsuitable and the real legwork began. this meant weeks or months spent walking, running and climbing, while carrying everything they need for the battles ahead. samurai armor, therefore, needed to be comfortable and flexible to allow the wearer to be able to carry out all of those tasks without hindrance. the armor should allow the ability toclimb trees and scan the land ahead.

climb into the mountainous fortifications of enemy strongholds, all the while dressed in armour. once battle commenced theywould need to be able to move quickly and easily while fighting. if knockeddown have the ability to get up and continue the fight the armor would need to be light enough to allow for this but tough enough to withstand the treatment. the ironmountain armor was tested under all these conditions. after climbing trees, climbingmountains, rolling and fighting the armour surprisingly comfortable. it took all of the impact with easy with no bruising. which is a great success!

can you move in iron mountain armor? the answer is yes! we fight on a regular basis at muso shugyo ryu and we do not hold back. so to be given samurai armor to train in was an absolute pleasure and we took it to town! well the armor certainly took everything we threw at it. there were a few scratches and a few minor dents, but easily polished out and fixed. an absolute pleasure to fight in. muso shugyo ryu would definitely recommend iron mountain armory as the armor to wear for combat.

the taichi and katana are both swords worn by the samurai. while in armor the taichi would be hung from the waist with the blade facing down. while the katana, slightly shorter and less curved; would be worn through the belt, with cutting edge up. despite popular opinion the sword is not a main battlefield weapon, as it is ineffective against most armours. think of it as a side arm for emergency use and perfect for taking enemy heads! so how effectivewill a katana be against iron mountain armor?

we decided to test this particular taisho class suit of armor because we've trained with it for over a year, in the heat, rain and snow. making it allot like a suit of armor a samurai would had worn after a long march into battle. after all this abuse, we will see if it can still stand up to the ultimate test. so the first two strike so we gonna look atis the kabuto (helmet) and the dåœ the body. we're going to bring the sword straight down on top of the helmet . i'm not expecting it to work. the helmet should absorb the blow. we are then going to move through with a good strike to the chest or the dåœ. now this could penetrate,it'll be interesting to find out.

lets see what happens. well we can see the helmet took the blow exceptionally well. it was dented and it was paint chipped. but there's more going on than meets theeye. when we turned around we see that the full force of the blow radiated to the back. and was absorbed by the laminate which exploded out words; exactly as it was designed to. while the då showed extreme touch protection. it literally got dented and scraped. thewearer in both of these strikes would

have known they'd been hit, but would have survived. so we've seen direct blows to the helmet and the body. would possibly bruised andconcussed. the sword is quite often very effective for cutting away the cords of the armor. so we are going to attempt to cut the cords to see if the khazar drop way and then weshould be attacking three targets. the shikoro. now i am expecting them to absorb the blow, but for the lacing to part and allowing it to fall away. we are then going to come through with a strike to the most solid part, the sode or shoulder guard. followed by attack to the plates themselves.

will the cord hold or will the armor bend or will the sword penetrate ? the sword cut through the cords with ease. although it may take several cuts for the armor to fall away. both the shikoro and kuzari survived well. dented, some chipping and definitely the lace was cut. but the samurai would had survived. now for me the weak part of the armor has always been the arm and the wrist. we have quite solid armor on the forearm and just chainmail on the upper arm. i think we will probably be ok.

possible broken arm, but not penetration. but i really think the sword will cut through this chainmail. well i wasn't surprised that the strike to the lower part of the arm didn't penetrate. the metal spines would had absorbed the blow. but the big surprise for me was the chain mail strike. not only did hold, but the sword did not penetrate. a broken arm possibly but again we would a samurai who would had survived. so let's look at the face mask or "menpo" of the samurai it was worn during battle to protect the cheeks.

the nose it detachable, because it did often become a hindrance. interestingly the longer the moustache the older and more valiant the warrior was. we are now going to test it, with a good strike to the cheek. and i am going to attempt to attack the throat, cut the cords; so that it falls away. giving me a perfect strike to the throat the menpo took very minor damage. i am sure the warrior would of had a broken jaw. the cords were very easy to cut. exposing the throat for a secondary cut later. i'm really interested in this next strike. we are going to attack the padding under the shoulders.

now this has lovely little hexagon patterns. but within that are small metal disks, to help protect the wearer. will the sword penetrate? well the small metal disks in the padding certainly did their job. the sword could not penetrate. the ryu-jin sword certainly had a test of its own today. before we attacked the armor, we test cut against a dry bamboo mat. one of the toughest things to cut cleanly. and it went through like butta.

and after battering the armor mercilessly. i fully expected it to be blunted, with lots of chips, damage and possible bending. but the sword itself survived perfectly. it is straight with a few minor chips which can be polished out. but can it still cut? well we found out. we cut again, with some dry bamboo matting and it went through with ease. ryu-jin swords have proven to be swords of quality. the spear or yari were characterized by a straight blade

that could be anywhere, from several inches to more than 3 feet in length. the blades where often made of the same steal the japanese swords were forged with and where very durrable. the yari is perfect for thrusting andslashing and slamming enemy samurai to the ground. all samurai would be expected to trainregularly no matter what rank they were. how will the iron mountain armor standup to the thrusts, slashes and strikes of a yari spear? the yari was the primary weapon of the samurai on foot and also on horse. we're gonna to look at two classic strikes.

yoko shabaki or "temple strike" followed by a thrust to the body. and this spear is designed to penetrate. let's see what happens. the yoko shabaki strikes proved to be ineffective against the armor, even though it had already been struck hard by the sword. while the thrusts didn't actually penetrate, they showed it is very easy to knock a warrior down. there was some severe denting and two of the seams had burst. but the då is still fully wearable and functional.

the iron mountain armory crafts their armor traditionally using laminated plating. each plate its design to flex and absorb the impact. it's versatile, it's flexible, it'srepairable. the yumi bow is exceptionally tall. standing over two meters in heightand unique in design and use. able to be shot from horseback, from foot, from low ground positions, the yumi was a great long distance weapon. but needed years of skill to master. the arrows are longer than their western counterparts and could be fitted with a wide range of arrowheads to devastating effect.

japanese armor had to be able to resist the arrows from penetrating the body. how will the iron mountain armor fare against the yumi bow and arrow? now the japanese yumi bow is unique in all of the world perfect shooting from horseback and from low on foot. at muso shugyo ryu we practice battle field archery. and i've shot many targets but this is the first time i've shot into armor. the arrow definitely did not penetrate. but it was purely a target arrow. i can't help but wonder what an arrowhead would actually do this armor.

and i've decided to find out next. what a difference a arrow head makes. i must admit on a glass-fiber arrow it did throw the aim off slightly to the left. but we had penetration. from 35 feet, we saw it went in about a 1/4 of an inch. not killing the samurai from 25 feet, we managed to get a penetration of about a 1/2 of an inch. but once we moved closer to 15 feet, it penetrated a lot deeper. but as you can see, the samurai would of had a nick

and not a kill. because, it would need to go through at least three inches to finish him off. once again the samurai has survived. but one thing with me, the armor has survived so well so far. i'd like to give it one more test. the tanto was often worn with armor and used very in close and personal lets see what it does to japanese armor. well we certainly bent the tanto. but the armor is absolutely fine.

iron mountain armory, samurai armor for the modern warrior. as you can see the samurai armor crafted by the iron mountain armory, holds up to the test. everything that we put thearmor through, through grappling, fighting, sparring, climbing trees, scalingmountains, it stood up to the test. it held its own and still the armor worksas designed to. its versatile, its flexible, it's repairable. the iron mountain armory and ryu-jin swords are crafted traditionally. they are the most authentic,economical armor and sword on the market today.

of all the questions we are ever asked themost common; "is it really wearable?" "can you move in it?" "is it comfortable?" "is it strong enough for martial arts training?" don't just take our word for it. you've seen it for yourself. the answer is yes. iron mountain armory,traditional armor for the modern warrior. iron mountain armorytraditional armor for the modern warrior.

Futuristic Architecture Design Concepts


[throughout this series we've looked at lots of ways of protecting and improving our environment transitioning to clean renewable sourcesof energy is the greatest challenge we face] in recent programs we visitedtowns, cities and villages across europe to meet people who no longer want to bepassive consumers of energy. towns like sonderborg and cities like copenhagenare well on the journey to a transition away from fossil fuel. and they're demonstrating this is possible while improving living standards and prosperity. we've seen whole cities and towns breakawayand challenge the fossil fuel industry

and push for energy independence. a clear lesson i've learned, is that community collaboration is central to making this transition possible. today we're going to look at how we might we re-imagine what an energy community can be. and i think you're going to be very surprised with some of the answers. [no doubt ireland is a sporting nation, 1.7 million people are members of over 12,000 clubs in sixty four differenttypes of sports. hundreds of thousands of people volunteered their time and effort in making

team sports the largest communities in the country.] dubs like the hotdogs! dubs love the hotdogs and kerry? kerrymen eat the burgers! [the pride of the nation is the gaa. with over half a million members across the country. every year 1.5 million loyal fans traveled to themodern amphitheatre of the sport. croke park! [many have no idea of the journey, croke park have pursued over the past 8 years

to transform the stadium into one of the most energy efficient, sports arenas in the world. ] [i'm here on the biggest sporting day of the year.. the all-ireland football final.] [i got pitch side with croke park's director; peter mckenna to find out why sustainability is so important to croke park? we said to ourselves 'listen, we can make a difference, we can make a difference which will communicate that difference to everybody else'. change habits, it's about everyone taking a little step to make one big step for everybody together. in the main, we buy our electricity from green sources.

we also use of natural gas herewhich is on the pitch. the pitch is fully integrated, first in europe to be a fully integrated pitch. right and if you look long term, obviously we have to get off all fossil fuels including gas. what are the solutions to it downstream with renewable energy? absolutely fossil fuels have to be now.. we haveto wean ourselves off it. i think we've become slaves to it for many, many decades but gradually people are, i think cottoning on that this is not sustainable and we needto really push ourselves forward. and it's not just in a croke park context, it's right across all gaa clubs

that we need to have this wider consciousness. [ i asked facilties manager; edward brennan how they're achieving all this?] we set objectives and goals and each year wetry to meet those and develop further and further to be a sustainable as wepossibly can. we've saved over 10 million kw/h of electricity, over 4million in gas and even over 100,000 cubic litres of water. [the final savings are staggering: since 2007

croke park has saved enough electricity to power a town the size of clonakilty and enough gas to heat nearly 300 homes for a year! just imagine what the financial savings must be too. is there a lesson that we can learn from what you are doing here in croke park? we're just very proud that we've managed to establish here aculture of sustainability and really that's what you're trying to engagepeople in. get involved in the end the culture of sustainability rather thansomething which is driven by rules and regulations.

this year for example;we'll have 700 tonnes of rubbish and not one ounce will go to landfill. right! we're mighty pleased with that. so that all gets recycled? all gets recycled. none going to landfill? none going to landfill. so how do we leverage those lessons, that learning back into a local environment?

so people can say ya, 'a really big monolith like croke park can have zero to landfill' so let's try and replicate that across thecountry. so applying that to local communities around ireland, especially the 2000 clubs that you've around ireland, can you make that same ethos applyright across those small communities? i think on the the matter of sustainabilitywe have to! i mean it's such an important issue for ourselves as a country or even for us as a as a race. i mean..

we will not survive if we keep doing what we're doing with fossil fuels, using up a natural resources as we are. so this is imperative and.. but we need to do that away which is very verycollaborative and is friendly and is encouraging! running one of the largest stadiums in europe isan enormous challenge in itself but but doing this by transforming to the mostenergy-efficient stadium in the world is a massive achievement! with it's unique place in irish life,

croke park and the gaa are well placed to drive a cultural of change, that's already happening withsmaller clubs across the country. already over 100 gaa clubs across thecountry are retrofitting their buildings and reducing their energy demands. the concept of what defines a community is constantly evolving in cork city's harbour, where the implications ofclimate change and rising sea levels are becoming very apparent. awareness of energy issues are at an all time high. the navy, ucc nmci and the corkinstitute of technology have joined forces

to form imerc. the irish maritime and energy resourcecluster.. to collaborate on developing new energy technologies in the marine sector. so how did this collaboration between the two universities and yourself happen? you have.. professional mariners in the irish naval service being trained byprofessional mariners through cit. and you had the research community within ucc all cohabiting in this small area in lower cork harbour so eventually, the penny had todrop.

these three communities had to come together and say 'this is our common goal'. we have the maritime as our primary domain why don't we all pool our resources and take what we can from it. so how does the naval service benefit by opening their doors to you as an energy community? well, i suppose its all about collaboration and the opportunities that presents. so instead of working in isolation, when you come together in partnership as we have done here in imerc we have an opportunity to realise things together that no one partner could achieve on their own and that includes the naval service. so by opening its doors to this community andthis energy community in particular

here in ringaskiddy, the naval service is able to access research, training, knowledge entrepreneurs, new ways of thinking andnew ways of doing business. and the ships can be used as testbed platforms forstartup companies but not just the startup companies, also for the researchcommunity like the very significant marine, renewable energy researchcommunity that's here in this beafort building focusing on offshore wind, waveand tidal energy which is a big opportunity for ireland. to find out about some of the challengesthat they are facing i met up with lieutenant commander cã­an o'mearain.

so what are your operational challenges? people will be aware, we have ships in the mediterranean dealing with rescuing people who are migrating from africa and through africa. and this ship and the 'eithne' over here were both involved in that and the 'samuel beckett' is currently there. and that has been a new departure for us, its required us to go further from home, further from base, stay on operations for longer periods of time. so if you take all of your energy now in the navy yes

what percentage of it, is fuelingthese 8 ships, that you've got? when we started this process we very quickly came to the realisation that 95% of the energy, the navy uses, it uses on ships. one thing that put it starkly in mind for me.. when i was on the sister ship of this. we were transiting the mediterranean, cruising at 17 knots and we were using27,000 litres of oil a day! twenty seven thousand litres! thats 27 tonnes! (of oil a day)

the entire amount of homeheating oil, you will use for the life of your mortgage in one day. and that very quickly put it in my mind that we are burning a lot of energy, we have to, to do the things we do but we have to be careful about how we do it. so if we take then, the situation here you're trying to get your energy down and you're trying to be clever about it, smart about it. how do you do it?

we concentrate on educating the people who drive the ship about speed. you can get to the same place at a few knots slower and you will save an awful lot of energy. there's a cubic relationship between speed and power on a ship a cubic relationship? it's not a double, it's a cubic relationship. so every extra knot comes with a tripling of extra energy. and a ship that's like this, 15 years old.

how does that compare to say, state of the art, modern ships now? what we're finding: we built a newer class of ship based on this design. they have slightly larger engines but they're achieving slightly better efficiency because we've added an electric drive. which allows us to shut down the main engines at times and save energy that way. it's like a hybrid like a hybrid car same as, ya? very similar but a few important differences but

it's an either/ or scenario. this has saved €10 million in energy spend and 39,000 tonnes of co2 emissions. however, meeting new challenges, like the mediterranean refugee crisis, has broughtnew demands on the naval service. these new types of objectives are amplifyingtheir operational demands for energy to help address the energy challengesthe navy's turned to technology through their partnerships with the tyndall institute, seai, ucc, cork institute of technology and skysails. they're developing the 'aeolus' (project)

a power-generating kite a modern take on harnessing the wind, the oldest form of maritime power. [what we hope to achieve with that and it's a long-term project, to actually pull the ship it will either pull it in its entirety or reduce the load on the engine, saving fuel. that technology exists and we wouldlike to incorporate that but as we've looked at it we found we can do better than that, we can we can also use that

as a system that generates electricity. if you don't need propulsion it can pay out and pull in and generate electricity. the third benefit but we can do even better on this is use it as a sensor platform. we can get the sail to hover in a figure of 8 above the ship, with zero thrust. and we can look out instead of covering 150 square miles with our sensors, we can now cover 1,500 square miles. ten times more ten times the area

the area of water that must be a huge advantage its a huge advantage in that, we dont have to if we don't have to drive to all these places to see it. we can sit still and see as much as we would have, driving around at high speed. so that allows us to then decide where we want to go. innovations, efficiencies andcollaboration are all being deployed to make the future of the naval services and all the defence forces, more sustainable.

i can see how a large, well resourced, organised community like the gaa or the irish naval service might succeed but i couldn't helpwonder how this might work for smaller communities country wide. on my way back to dublin, i stopped bycamphill community in ballytobin, co. kilkenny. i was inspired by the community spirit when i visited here 12 years ago camphill is a charity for people with special needs live and work together on a farm with volunteer co-workers. the ballytobin community consists of 75 people, all living in 6 shared homes on theestate.

central to the ethos of the camphill communities is tobe self-sufficient and ecologically sustainable in food and their energyneeds. for camphill, money saved on resources can be ploughed back into where it's really needed. i asked mark dwan, how they're making this work? i think there was a will for it, peoplereally interesting this way of working and i think people saw the necessity ofit and the necessity was that, well there's vulnerable people here, that we supportand that brings that culture about. the realization that you know you getfurther by supporting one another and by working collaboratively and being acommunity and i think, that social cause

or that social ideal was the first thingthat was founded here. and then once you had established that, once you create thatsocial foundation, well then you could put templates of energy, collaborative,working with or creating our own energy. collaborative ways of working to createour own economy, our own food production those things could come quite easilythen, once you establish that, that kind of social foundation of mutual support. so how important is food and energy to you, in terms of self-sufficiency? well in the farm herein ballytobin we produce

probably around eighty percent of our own food, wehave our own cattle, we have sheep, we have milk and dairy production, we have abakery where we make our own bread and we have extensive vegetable gardens and polytunnels and that's an environment for work opportunities for people but italso produces quite a lot of food to the tune of eighty percent of our needs. eighty percent that's incredible. it must keep an awful lot of money circulating in your own little, small economy here. so how are you actually achieving that sense ofcollaboration in your renewable energy and sustainable energy projects here?

we started to explore it using district heating systems and we started to lookinto other alternative sources of energy apart from wood burning, the biogasoption was a very good one and when we looked at the whole district heatingsystem principle, we found out that with one boiler we could heat the entirecommunity rather than several boilers so already on the infrastructure you weremaking savings and then with the energy supply next door to you, being food wasteand farm slurry, that also made enormous efficiencies and huge savings. with the support of the seai community program

camphill have upgraded most of their buildingsto near zero energy. they've installed 6 solar panels for hot water and an ad plant thatproduces biogas from local farm slurry. our main energy source duncan, is this anaerobic digestor that we have here. so we taking in food, waste material from around the country and we have farmslurry, we've got our neighboring farmers who supply us with the slurry on a dailybasis and that goes that's fed into the digester as well and there's a bacterial processgoing on there and they the methagens produce the methane gas and thenthat surfaces to the

gas storage at the top of these reactors,that supplies then our boilers that heats the distribution system thatsupplies heat to all the houses and buildings. and when the material is fullydigested and treated, then we take it back to the farmer and for him that's a very good nutrient product with very reduced pathogen content. right, so that really works well. its a whole closed cycle in fact, very much the circlulareconomy working here. there is yeah, yeah. it's a little miniature ecosystem here. you've a boiler that feeds into the district heating scheme, do you have a combined heat and power plant here?

yes, we just installed a combined heatingand power system this year and that's going to supply the local grid, all the houses are collectively in on one grid for the heating supply but they're also onone grid for the electrical power supply and the chp is connected intothat, so when we have a surplus of gas beyond the heating needs, its it feedsinto the chp unit and produces power for the community. right, so really power coming from cattle slurry, cow shite basically. yeah yeah, that's the main source of your power here.

yes. and how much of your energy issupplied by this? for example all your heating for all of the 70 people here? yeah, a hundred percent of our heating demand is met by the biogas plant and we're hoping to meet, well we're hoping to meet 70, we're starting with 70% of ourelectrical needs but hopefully will achieve 100% there too. [the savings that camphill make on energyenables them to keep money circulating

in their own community while also improvingthe comfort for all the residents. the camphill ethos, successfully demonstrates how acommunity can flourish and achieve great things in a sustainable, meaningful and inclusive manner. a dozen more camphill communities across thecountry are now on the same path to sustainable energy.] so how do you get all the people of ireland toengage in this concept. well i think because it's a kind of a socialfoundation i, i think we begin with the social process of building the socialfoundation. the other things i think follow-on more easily after that so it'sabout getting conversations going perhaps. there is a spirit ofcollaboration, there is a sense for community.

just have to pick it up again awaken something that's, that's dormantbut it is there. i think it's, it's latently there [i can't help but think that a strongsocial foundation will always be undermined by social inequality. the poorest people in ireland typically live in very badly insulated houses where400,000 households struggle to keep even parts of their home warm, dry andhealthy in the winter. a strong social foundation with community collaboration can play a huge part

in tackling the growing problem of fuel poverty. energy action is a community group that provides training courses for the long-term unemployed and specialises in insulating the homes of people in fuel poverty.] gary, what are you doing here at energy action? well, energy action is it's a charity thats involved in delivering a free insulation service for the most vulnerable in ireland. because they live in cold, damp homes. there's over 500,000 living in fuel poverty.

500,000 people in ireland in fuel poverty, my god! we do that by training long-term unemployed people and preparing them for the work place that they can get jobs that are creative, sustainable and ecologically sound. right, so you are taking people that are unemployed, your up-skilling them, training them in this whole area of energy retrofit and then at the same time, your solving, trying to solve this huge problem of fuel poverty. yes, so we're combining both. right

so how many houses have you done now to date? we've done 34,000 houses to date 34,000, done! and how many people would you have trained? i would say, we've trained over 3,000 peopleincluding all the community-based organisations. when they finish their training here and doing the work with you out in retrofits through this program, whathappens to them afterwards? our whole objective for energy action is to get full time employment for our long-term unemployed. in 2014 for example, we had 92% of sucess for community employment.

[seai are one of the main funders ofenergy action they provide support for communities of all shapes and sizesthroughout the country, who wish to make the transition to energy efficiency.] so how serious is the whole issue of energy poverty in ireland? i think it's a big issue duncan and you'retalking about people here, who don't have enough money to heat their homes to acomfortable level and we need to think about how we can support them best. atthe moment there are fuel allowances for a lot of people who are here on lowincomes, which help them with their winter fuel bills, i think that's apositive thing but that's probably not a

permanent solution. what the advantage you get with in terms of insulating their homes and making them more energy-efficient, is you make them more affordable to run and you make them warmer. so i think this is more of a long-term solution, so the more we can get into homes and the work like, that is being undertaken by energy action and, and similar agencies the supports from government through our better energy, warmer home scheme are all going to it sort of a more permanent solution to the problemof reducing energy demand and helping these people have a warmer home, that;s more affordable to run. i think thats a long term solution it's probably amatter of ramping up and doing a lot

more homes every year. the cost of doing these retrofits to a deeper level is going to be huge for householders, obviously. but are there good benefits by doing it? duncan, there are huge benefitsto doing it. for a start there are the traditional benefits like energy savingthat we've always talked about. but there are a whole range of otherbenefits, that i think are motivating people to take these kind of investments, even more so than the energy savings.

people are really out there looking for a more comfortable and warmer home some people want to reduce mold and drafts in their home and end up with a healthier home for theirkids or for the elderly. the challenges we face are having them to unlock the finance they need to do it and also making people aware and getting engagedon energy efficiency and such as they make it a priority for themselves maybe before they do the kitchen or buy the new car, they think about doing an installation upgrade on the home inorder to get all of those, those range of benefits that i just mentioned forthemselves.

so the benefits now to local communities by engaging like this, in this challenge? i think there are huge benefits at the community level. i'm from australia originally andone of the things i noticed when i came here is that, that grassroots communityspirit in terms of getting things done. previous examples of that in thiscountry like tidy towns, created a real ground swell around reducing litter intowns, we got rid of plastic bags. people are now all smoking outside. we are recycling all of our waste into a number of different bins, the next one reallyneeds to be eliminating energy waste and we can do that at the community level

120,000 fuel poor homesacross the country to date, have been upgraded with support from seai. eliminating energy waste can go a long way in ireland's transition to to energy independence and help us live up to the responsibilities enshrined in the recent paris agreement. throughout this series, we've looked at the hugechallenges that climate change presents for all societies. we've also seen new technologies, economic models and policies that can help us play our part in living up to our responsibilities. we've seen communities at home andabroad

embrace the challenge head on and demonstrate that this transition is not only possible but can also bring multiple benefits. but the challenge we face is so greatthat it needs to be met by every part of society. we only have one planet and we share acommon atmosphere. we all have a part to play in shaping its future.

Futuristic Aircraft Design


like to be able to see into the futurethat is an intriguing question that has been contemplated time and time againthroughout human history famous stories from the oracle of delphiall the way to the hysteria around the mayan calendar in modern towns have insome way dealt with the idea of humans seen into the future this idea has shaped popular culture andour science fiction with that one tantalizing idea of what f in the realworld the answer to the question of can we seeinto the future has been answered with a resounding now in our ever-evolvingsociety the trend today is to look

toward the future by relying onpredictive modeling to best predict the probability of an outcome but we allknow that even these well-thought-out predictions based on data often turn outto be not so predictable although it's clear that future eventsremain virtually unknowable there is one group within nasa that comes as close asyou can to seeing into the future throughout nasa's field centers membersof the fixed wing project team are peering into the future every day andcoming up with concepts that they believe will be on the next generationof aircraft because it takes years to plan and develop these concepts thehardware and theories that are being

tested today will be key components thatenable the next generation of aircraft to take flight on this episode of nasa ads follow usaround the country as we visit members of the fundamental aeronautics programsfixed wing project who are developing the framework that will shape howaircraft of the future will fly take a look behind the gates of nasa to seewhat some of these new ideas look like and how the engineers of nasa are pavingthe way for the ideas that will change the future of flight the untrained eye

most of the aircraft of today look verysimilar this is because over the past century of flight aeronautical engineershave worked hard to optimize passenger aircraft to the point where they are isefficient and safe as possible as a result the basic two men win shapehas been configured and examined from every possible angle making it the mostefficient design possible today although aircraft have left basicallythe same over the past few decades if you look closely you can see some of themajor design changes things that will once swept back more dramatically noware less so because of advances in aerodynamic shaping engines that spewedemissions by about time are now much

more efficient materials that will onceso heavy that they significantly way down a craft are now much lighter andstronger with all this improvement and efficiency it is fair to ask if there isanything else that can be done to make flight even better the answer is ofcourse yet behind the gates of nasa there are scores of researchers you knowthat we can still make aircraft better because they are working toward theselong-term goals everyday some of these researchers from the sixth win projectare working on so-called in plus three configurations and gold in mathematical terms the letter in iswhere you start now in plus one is the

next step in plus two is just beyondthat and so on here in the fixed wing project in + 3gquaids two aircraft that will be flying around the 2030 2035 timeframe for thisteam everything is on the table includingengines fuels wings and fuselage shapes will have to remember the first a nasaaeronautics national aeronautics and space administration aeronautics is tofeel research for the airplanes fly were research and experimented with inmany years ago so we're trying to continue that tradition important work that we have done for thenation on the wall for twenty years from

now 61 use another research firm activities to try to prove the air but iwouldn't be playing the future to try to make them less noisy better for theenvironment would try to make them they will use less fuel the research weredoing is important because air travel is such an important part of your lifepeople travel even if you don't travel cargo jets carried every single day toyou something every single day that gets carried by an aircraft part of our wayof life these days and it often gets taken for granted their challengesthough so pleased are focused on developing technologies and concepts toprove the energy efficiency and

environmental compatibility is transportaircraft with this mandate to significantly lower noise and emissionsand increase performance for subsonic aircraft there will be a need to addressvirtually every aspect of the current aircraft configuration includingdeveloping new materials and engines testing alternative fuels and evenchanging the fundamental shape of the aircraft all across the country fixed wing researchers are doing justthat major advancements are being made into the understanding of how futureaircraft will fly because there are so many areas of study let's first look atsomething that has the potential to be

used today as well as in the twentythirty timeframe alternative fuels on this beautiful morning at nasadriving in california's high desert a test called access for the alternativefuel effects on contrails and crews emissions test was performed to studythe effects of alternate biofuel on engine performance emissions andaircraft generated contrails at altitude for this test two aircraft will float intandem the first is nasa's dec 8 which will be burning and alternative fuel the second aircraft is nasa's docketthat will fly directly behind the dcaa 82 measure and characterize theemissions coming out of the engines from

the alternative fuels nasa's bruce anderson to explain hisrole is in assessing the combustion characteristics of alternative fuels aswell as determining how these deals with that performance and emissions fromaircraft to understand how aircraft climate we need to make measurements aresult so the focus of access or alternatively 60 contrails and crewsemissions whereas to fly behind the dca in flight and look at its ambition andcontrol characteristics as we changed from standard jet fuel to a fuel thatwas the end of a deal that was made from camelina oil and and also added fiftypercent of a day to that there are some

other groups out there tyson foods is making a bio bio jet fuelfrom chicken processing plant so there's a number of different ways of makingthese alternative fuels all of them resulted in a fairly clean kerosene that doesn't havenearly the containment providers fundamental thing is the aircraft has toretain its performance characteristics when you feel you can't have any drop inpower to fuel also has to have similar characteristics in terms of volume tocarefully so what we're looking at is drop-in fuels a lot of the fuel systemtold the aircraft were designed to rely

on the aromatics fossil fuels to swellthe seals to make a bleak type so one might fly an alternative fuel we have tomix it with standard fuel to retain those problems otherwise the fuel andthen the second thing we're looking at is just the emission characteristics bythat i mean the amount of pollution generated per kilogram of your book after the first few flights it was shownthat using these types of alternative fuels could significantly reduceemissions at cruising altitudes particularly suited missions workcontinues to better understand how to use these fuels and how to make themeven more efficient for future aircraft

the idea that aircraft today here looking at this unique designbecause designers have included a clever design has the potential to operatecloser to advances in battery technology but those are happening throughout theworld independent station history and we'retrying to leverage that you like ours which is built into our airplaneseventually the challenges to take those batteries have no energy or powercontent and have been be lightweight where we are today i think is we're atthe dawn of the age where we could start see electric propulsion hybrid electricpropulsion and if you see it on small

aircraft first before you see it on thelarge commercial transports that's what we're working towards that's good for cleanliness that's goodfor noise energy efficiency has its challenges that's why we're working on it that'swhy it's not being done today the idea behind this vehicle is to have its twinengines burn fuel and great powers needed like it take off when the craftis in a crease configuration ass which can be made over to a battery-electricto supplement or even replace power to the engines if successful this couldreduce the amount of fuel burn by up to

70% another concept called turboelectric propulsion is being studied here at the nasa glenn research center jerry brown to explain there's not beenelected airplanes and attracting very small size and the reason is theelectric motors and generators tend to be too heavy for white we're hoping tochange that and we're hoping to get a bit frustrating process thehydroelectric we're talking about the various electric propulsion we're goingto keep the termination because it's really good cars lot of power smallpower player and then we're going to use its power to drive the generator sendelectricity to motors drive fans

this concept will look very differentfrom vehicles of today as well potential designs include two largeturbine engines on the wing tips that will drive to large generators insidethe body the generators will in turn power a number of fans providing thepropulsion the aircraft needs to fly what we want to do here is want to beable to great determination from the fans gives the aircraft is another oneof freedom itself had just engine and trans don't have to turn the same speedfans and that's what we're really looking for a reg baby 1500 just enteryou might to keep just too big engines because this idea is intriguing but bigchanges need to be made to make it

viable when major challenges the need toreduce the size of the generators because the generators of today are waytoo big to fit on an aircraft one idea that the nasa team is looking at is away to remove the current type of copper windings in the generator and replace itwith superconducting material this change would allow the generators toshrink making them liable to bid on future aircraft new aircraft is the potential to greatlyimprove efficiency another these revolutionary design has come out of ajoint mit and metastatic this unique design is called the double bubble andhas the potential to reduce fuel burn by

up to 70% as well mit eight double bubble design somethingthat working with working with a number of years on that idea there is to takesome of the lift that you would normally get from the wings in trying to movethat to know the thing that's done to enable laminar flow on this vehicle isto reduce the sweet but the wings it is easier to maintain laminar flow thewings instead of being swept back like a lot of commercial transports are moreserve perpendicular to the side of the bodies of land another aspect of thedeviated prudently discusses something you can see in these pictures behind youcan see the picture on the right

comes from cfd what we call in thepotted configuration spotted separately off to the side the ideas we hope to gethere stream that's relatively painted by what's happening over the airplane ofpressures to go into infantry or propulsion image in themiddle on the other hand have been moved inside that tight lil configuration andby doing that we actually get some benefits if you can use the engines torefill that area did here behind the plane you have a chance at being moreefficient in terms of propulsion for that vehicle given a certain amount ofyou for trying to push the envelope see what is the maximum benefit that couldbe obtained by this time the

configuration to understand what'sreally possible wonders if you'll see 18 much of the work is improvedcomputational fluid dynamics and wind tunnel testing right here in thisbuilding we have played a supercomputer which is one of the largestsupercomputers in the usa in the world it has 200,000 processors working on theproblem if you use the home machine on one problem so it's a very large machineand we need that very large machine tools we need to do very big problem nota research director who were using it for his try and simulate the flow overthe simplest reconfigurations so in order to capture all the details you seeon the vehicle like this

including what's going on inside thecombustors of the engines and things like that you need to have a lot of gridpoints to resolve all the food motion inside those engines over there playingand having that many good points to resolve all that physics in threedimensions creates very large computational grids require very bigmachine means to advance the cover the motion toget these cfd computational fluid dynamics solutions that we used to makeourself aerodynamicists of today are able to model ideas on computers whichallows them to test many different configurations before a window modelsever built

once a design is agreed upon a windtunnel model can then be fabricated and tested this process was used for thedouble-double as well but the wind tunnel tests showed surprising resultswere good news is that we've just completed the first test of thisconfiguration in the langley 14 by 22 wind tunnel at langley it showed even more a greater reductionor he will efficiency benefits of this technology than we had predicted onpaper with our are low so we're trying to digest the experimental data thatshow this nice benefit in fuel efficiency from this configuration atthe same time we're also using the

supercomputer here at that scene playeda supercomputer to do computational fluid dynamics cfd runs ofthe same configuration and see if we can confirm that benefit on thecomputational side as well as team will continue on the double bubble and if theresults hold you may see this type of aircraft in an airport near you in thefuture when testing aircraft many different stages of her we have alreadymentioned cfd and wind tunnel testing but another tool in testing futuredesigns is to build a flying skill model although cfd and window modeling is themainstay often test flights of these small scaled-downversions of an aircraft offer some of

the most dramatic results forresearchers that is the case with this aircraft called the x 56 aircraft is being used as a test bed tounderstand how different configurations work and how a unique idea called activecontrol may be used in the future holds beyond their trip is long known thatvery long wingspan goal is more efficient than short wings vehicleproblem is when you get very long wingspan you start to get into issueswith modern modes start to creep into the vehicle the wing will go on stable and inextreme cases will rip off the vehicle

to get around that problem you can useflight controls to suppress those remote control as you put things like excelrumors with him a wing and it soon as you sense the wind is starting to getinto these modes use the control surfaces behind the way to be out thereare plenty of the flyers continually fighting these people mostly straightthen you can build a lighter long-term goal is more efficient this be a call bythe airport through the filter of a multi-utility technology they call itfrom what i heard and open to a lot of different kind of testing but we are removed all the input on aplain white wing you could do it joined

wing configuration learned quite a bitfrom kathleen this kind of vehicle right now the focus is on flexible wing andactivex control of rebel wins but in the future there are many experimentsvehicle the research on the control oflightweight flexible wins being performed today on the x 56 is key toenabling the long low drag and low weight wings of tomorrow's in plus threeconfigurations much is going into understanding what itwill take to improve the already incredibly efficient aircraft of today into ultra efficient vehicles of thefuture although we don't have all the

answers yet it's clear that nafta andit's brilliant engineers and researchers are helping to lead the way to a saferand more efficient way to travel we are no where near done we can get outof this industry there is a lot of work to do that's what my team is doingthat's what we're doing with it and i cannot wait for the future

Futuristic Architecture At Vertical Park – Coyoacan


In a metropolis like Mexico City where becoming less green space because of steel and concrete constructions, architect Jorge Hernandez de la Garza design this stunning project – Vertical Park- in 2009 as a sustainable response to the potential demands of the city, its main purpose being to revive the calcification of modernity. 

The Vertical Park is a modular skyscraper made up of a series of stacking units which affords not only spaces for living and working but for urban farming, water reclamation, and solar energy collection. Photos: © Jorge Hernandez de la Garza.

futuristic graphic design inspiration

The 21st century buildings are an undisputed evidence of that: innovative concepts, stunning iconic designs, incredible facilities, latest construction technologies.  They all are designed with an increased emphasis on minimizing the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, and development space. Thus, it’s no surprise that they differ greatly from the ones designed in 20 century.



Futuristic Architecture Design Concepts

Spaceport America – New Mexico, USA

The world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport, as it was described, the construction of the Spaceport America in the State of New Mexico writes a new chapter in space transformation. The international competition to build it was won by the Foster + Partners international studio for architecture who worked in partnership with URS Corporation during 2006-2011. 

The striking iconic design together with unique geographic benefits and the tradition of New Mexico space leadership are coming to create a new way to travel into space. The sinuous shape of the building in the landscape and its interior spaces seek to capture the drama and mystery of space flight itself, articulating the thrill of space travel for the first space tourists. Photos: ©
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