Students from around the world calculated their class mean and standard deviations for their footprints and posted them on our world map.
Do you see differences across the globe? If so, why do you think those differences exist?
Did you use the calculator to try to reduce your footprint down to the average from a citizen of another country? What changes would you have to make to lower your footprint in this way? Are you going to try and take some of these actions in your daily life?
Student Footprints >
Distopia or utopia?
I was wondering what you think about vertical gardens. I know they could be a "replacement" for parks or woods but do you think they really do so?
It is something, yeah, but are they really so useful? Or do they just seem aesthetic?
For me a city, or even a Nation without parks or green places would be a distopia, even if there could be some vertical gardens. I think they are a distraction from the problem and aren't as effective as a forest.
When talking about this, I also think about Hundertwasser, the architect. His buildings show irregular forms, and incorporate natural features. He was very close to the nature, it was essential to him. In his museum in Vienna , for example, the floor isn't straight because he thought we (the human being) isn't made to walk on things that are totally flat because in the woods, forests and so on it isn't like that. Also his drawings used colors and figures that came from nature, he oppoosed to use a straight line and it is obvious from his works. When he died he was buried in New Zealand, under a tree (here you can find facts about his life http://www.hundertwasser.at/english/hun … raphie.php ).
When everything left were vertical gardens, would it be an utopia for you or a distopia?
for those who don't know how a vertical garden looks like, here's a photo: http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/05/54c … 924291.jpg
I think that vertical gardens are a distopia if they REPLACE a park that already exsits, but in an higly populeted area, where there isn't much space where to build a garden or a park, vertical garden are certenly the best choiche to bring a bit of green in a place where you would probably have to take the car and go a few kilometers away to even see some.
I am curious into architecture and the most intriguing trend that architects are trying to integrate nature into their designs. It’s used all over the world and China is integrating it in their country in order to fight back the pollution problem. I lived in China for two years and I can tell you that climate change is real. Pollution levels can reach up to 200 and a standard day in America would be 50. That’s a crazy, but finally China is taking action with creating a neighborhood in China with trees integrated with the buildings. This would be great to combat climate change.
However, what I saw from nickola02 regarding vertical gardens got me thinking about integrating nature with architecture. If we continue this trend of integrating nature with architecture, which is good, but what about the times we go hiking in the mountains? If we have to move trees from forests to make sure that we fight climate change then will there forests? With our growing population will there be any forests left or will forests just simply integrated with our cites?
Source: https://newatlas.com/china-forest-city-pollution/50211/