The best of Target Women

The great thing about living in a 1,000 channel universe is the increased likelihood that there will be something worth watching on TV.  Most auspicious for us is the coming together of both a 1,000 channel universe and the internet age, meaning that in order to watch said "good TV", you don't really need a TV at all.

As evidence, I present you the best of "Target Women", a regular segment on infomania,  where comedian Sarah Haskins considers the often ridiculous way marketers and the media more generally "reach out" to women. Smart, sad and funny all at the same time.

Overcoming the tyranny of common sense

Sir Robinson is charming, insightful man who has now given two fabulous talks about creativity and learning. So he's basically one of my growing lists of nerd-heros.

He's calling for a revolution in education - one that is personalized and creates the conditions for meaningful and passionate learning.

More cool recycling ideas from Montreal coffee shops...

I love glass walls - but they are so blinking expensive. Unless, of course you run a coffee shop with an alcohol licence and a clientele that has a taste for Moosehead. Check out this great glass wall at Le Caffè Mariani (4450 Notre-Dame ouest - in St. Henri)

The two sides of the glass wall - stacked Moosehead bottles, stuck together and encased in a thick welded metal frame.

EcoBooth design facilitation follow-up.

Photo from M. Bernier

In February, I was fortunate enough to act as the facilitator for a green building charette at École Polytechnique de Montréal.  Clearly the students got busy shortly thereafter - because by the end of the semester, they had a completed building on their campus. Defying at least part of the cardinal law of real estate development - thou shall double your budget and timeline in half the time planned - they put this little gem together in no time (e.g. about two months from our meeting in February). No word on the budget - but there appear to be many sponsors for the whole project, so I hope that means this little project won't be haunting departmental budgetary meetings for too long.  

The challenge was to design, develop and build a booth for a parking lot attendant that a) does not have to be connected to an energy grid; b) must be thermally comfortable for the occupant; c) while not occupied the internal temperature must stay between 0 and 40°C; and all while being d) collapsible and transportable. No small feat, for a little building. 

What they developed is called S.P.A.R.K. - or Solar Powered Autonomous Renewable Energy Kabin - if you want to get all technical. Engineering students and their clever branding! As you can see from the picture, the booth is powered by three 210w Kyocera solar panels, which have been paired with 6 batteries, to allow for energy storage. The wee building will produce 645 kWh annual and is able to store 8.3 kWh.

The students investigated three separate envelop designs and compared their cycle of life impacts on the environment, before choosing to compose the walls of Roxul R22, Enermax pannels and MDF, the ceiling of Pare-air Tyvek, Celfort 300, MDF, and the floor of fibre cement board. The generous fenestration is triple glazed, and allows for substantial solar gains.  

What an awesome project! Congrats to Prof. Bernier for offering his students this practical learning experience and here is hoping they have many green buildings in their futures. 

Oh hello blog. It's you again.

Yep, like most bloggers on occasion... I fell off the bandwagon in terms of writing. I'm fine with it. Life's like that. I've been playing a crazy amount of derby in other cities and have been loving every moment of it - something has got to give, and it's not going to be work or derby.

Besides writing another thing I haven't been doing very much of is reading for pleasure. However, I did manage to pick up a copy of Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future while wondering JFK a few weeks ago, and plowed through it on the flight home. I like a writer that theorizes and then gives you the opportunity to put some ideas to practice, and Pink does just that by providing the reader with a goodly number of exercises that one can undertake in order to better get in touch with the creative brain. One such exercise is to maintain a design journal, where you can note (in writing or in images) both good and bad design - in an effort to encourage a higher level of design consciousness within the practitioner. While I would suggest I'm often excited by good design, I must honestly say that I spend more time being critical of bad design and now I have an excuse to compile the two and see if I can learn something in the process. Or at least have a good coffee in the process - which is what happened today:

L'Emporte-Pièce is a new restaurant in the Plateau. It's tiny, really cute and the gentleman behind the counter can make a mean soy-latte. You should go and check it out. And pay attention to the chairs - if you are a fan of the STM you may recognize them - they are old bus seats. The guy behind the counter, presumably the owner (or one thereof), said he bought them from the STM for a steal and refashioned them into seats of the shop. Clever man. They are super durable and look great in the eclectic design of the shop, which seems to be heavily reliant of the clever re-use of a old objects and materials. The coffee appears to be all new though, so don't worry about that.  

Awesome re-use of STM chairs at L'Emporte-Pièce.