Consumer waste as pop art!!

Great interview on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central last night. The guest was photographer, Chris Jordan. His exhibit, "Running the Numbers," focuses on social issues such as consumerism and social welfare programs. The video of the interview can be found below (Video 1). One note about the video; it is hosted on the Comedy Central website because they want people to sit through a commercial before viewing it. They had all their content removed from YouTube for that purpose, I imagine.

Video 1. Chris Jordan on the Colbert Report.
Link:http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=111474&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=/shows/the_colbert_report/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true


The most striking example of consumer waste, in my opinion, was the George Seurat representation of Sunday in the Park in aluminum cans! Awesome! Pointillisme in the form of aluminum cans! Brilliant!! A little background In Figures 1-3, we zoom in on the piece.

Figures 1-3. Sunday in the Park in aluminum cans! Brilliant!
Source: http://www.chrisjordan.com/






As stated in his interview, Jordan tries to visualize the scale of American consumption and waste. In the aluminum can example, Jordan states that every 30 seconds, the US consumes over 100,000 aluminum cans (the exact figure is stated in the Colbert Report interview), only half of which is recycled. The visual representation of this appeared to stun the audience. But as Jordan explained, the waste stream of the US is divided into many smaller streams such that the total extent of consumption of a given product is virtually hidden or unknown.


The extent of US consumption is monitored by a myriad of government agencies. For example, the US Department of Energy (DOE) keeps statistics on energy consumption as well as forecasts (Figure 4). I imagine every industry monitors its own consumption or has a government regulatory agency that oversees it. But tracking the habits of individual consumers may be difficult to definitively ascertain. I was not able to determine the source of Jordan's statistics but I would regard them as credible.


Figure 4. Energy consumption statistics.
Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumption/index.html



In addition to the appearance on the Colbert Report, I found a piece done on the Bill Moyers program (Video 2). It is an even better piece than that found on the Colbert Report. It goes into how he started and the process by which he photographs his subjects.


Video 2. Bill Moyers appearance (no picture available)
Link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09212007/watch3.html

Jordan also has a website to show his work and give information about exhibitions around the country. In addition to his "Running the Numbers" exhibit, Jordan also has previous exhibits along the same theme of consumer waste (Figures 5 and 6).


Figure 5. Intolerable Beauty.
Source: http://www.chrisjordan.com/



Figure 6. In Katrina's Wake.
Source: http://www.chrisjordan.com/



Lastly, I found more video about Jordan's work on YouTube (Video 3): "Depicts the staggering numbers involved in American consumption as Americans consume 25% of the world's resources and produce 25% of the environmental destruction/pollution. "


Video 3. YouTube video featuring the work of Chris Jordan.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apwvV1fMNso

Amphibious houses!!

Due to the incoming storm and dreary weather, I stayed home and watched an interesting program on the History Channel about the Katrina disaster and impending failure of the California levee system in the Sacramento area (Figure 1). Among the levee and dike innovations is the residential adaptation to potential structural failures. And, thus, we get the amphibious home.

Figure 1. Modern Marvels: Levees.
Source: http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=191834

"Amphibious house?" you incredulously say. Yes, an amphibious house. "Well, how's that different from a houseboat? (Figure 2)" Well, amphibious is the operative word here. It is essentially a house that sits on a foundation that can float. Imagine a house built on stilts. Now those stilts are really pilings driven deep into the ground. Next, the house can move vertically up or down, contained by those pilings. Lastly, the house usually sits on dry land until the flood comes.

Figure 2. Houseboat.
Source: http://www.kvh.com/mediasupport/marine/images/houseboat_300.jpg

"Oh...well, why don't you just build a house on stilts, like you see in Florida (Figure 3)?" To that, I have no response. Perhaps, it's too inconvenient for people to live in elevated houses. "Well, what about connections to utilities, like electricity, gas, sewage, etc?" I imagine there must be some arrangement similar to that of houseboats or houses on stilts. In any case, amphibious houses appear to be another alternative to people living in flood-prone areas.

Figure 3. House on stilts.
Source: http://www.valuevacationrentals.com/images/property/prop5543_22659.jpg

I always thought that houseboats were cool, more affordable than conventional housing anyway. In addition, I imagine it would suffer less damage in an earthquake. But I also thought there must be significant disadvantages. For example, it could be a long walk from one's car to the houseboat, especially in the rain. Also, the odor at low tide can be compelling.

But back to amphibious housing. It seems like the cutting-edge of amphibious home design is, not surprisingly, abroad, the Netherlands to be exact. I was never certain what the distinction was between the Netherlands and Holland. However, if the information on Wikipedia can be trusted, I learn that "Holland is a region in the central-western part of the Netherlands [1]." In any case, the area is famous for being below sea level (Figure 4), among other things. So to combat the likelihood of flooding, they are exploring the use of amphibious homes.

Figure 4. The Netherlands is largely below sea level.

Source: http://www.fragilecologies.com/img/netherlands.gif

I found an interview online, on inhabit.com, of an architect specializing in amphibious homes. I think he was the same person on the History channel program. He is Koen Olthuis of WaterStudio.nl. Reading over the interview, it looks like amphibious homes have yet to reach widespread adoption. Some of what has been design and built are pretty much still houseboats but with that European modern-design asthetic (I'm not sure what to call it, exactly). Anyway, the pictures are intriguing and the article is worth looking at. I've attached some of the designs below (Figures 4 and 5).

Figure 4 and 5. Amphibious homes.

Source: http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/08/29/interview-koen-olthius-of-waterstudionl/

The full interview with Koen Olthuis is found on the inhabit.com website (there are also other related articles and resources):

http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/08/29/interview-koen-olthius-of-waterstudionl/

I found another interesting article online:

Dutch Answer to Flooding: Build Houses that Swim
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,377050,00.html

[1] "Holland," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland

I want a mobile home!

Thinking about housing made me think of mobile homes. Other forms of housing have significant drawbacks. For example, construction of dwelling units (single family homes, condos, apartments) are far more expensive and generate a great deal of waste. Manufactured housing is a way to decrease those adverse characteristics but that are, nonetheless, unavoidable. Attached housing, such as apartments and townhomes, have shared walls which conduct sound and increases the likelihood of spreading vermin or pests. As clean as an apartment may be, if the neighbor has roaches, you have roaches. Also, the poor health habits of one's neighbors can transmit across the walls through ductwork. For example, smoking or drug use. Or even worse, drug manufacture (Figure 1). The manufacture of methamphetamines is dangerous to one's health and extremely explosive. I recall a commercial where a young girl playing in her room in an apartment was above an apartment where methamphetamines were being manufactured. As the old saying goes, "you can't pick your neighbors."

Figure 1. Drug bust in residential home.
Source: http://starbulletin.com/2007/01/31/news/artcops.jpg


Though I can agree with high density housing as it decreases the building footprint per resident, for health and noise considerations, I would prefer to live in a mobile home. I think mobile homes are built with less waste as they are built in factories as opposed to conventional on-site construction. In addition, mobile homes have the possibility of being less invasive on the environment. Now the mobile home parks I have been through generally have paved the entire place with asphalt (Figure 2). But, it may be possible to employ permeable pavement (Video 1), bioswales, or something.


Figure 2. Mobile home park.
Source: http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/mobile_home_park_key_west_small.jpg



Video 1. Permeable pavement construction and demonstration.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CjHk5FhAdI


The building standards of mobile homes are historically inferior to that of conventional housing. However, strides have been made in mobile home construction that approach or nearly equal the quality of conventional housing. This has increased costs of mobile home construction but not nearly to the level of conventional housing. But then, of course, conventional housing is generally much larger, in terms of square footage, in addition to other costs such as those associated with building foundations. But who needs that much space? As an indicator of social position, wealthy people sometimes purchase large luxury homes. Ridiculously large homes that appear to serve nothing more than one's vanity. It reminds me of Coleridge's Kubla Khan, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree..." (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Xanadu.
Source: http://www.alysion.org/poems2/xanadu.jpg