Sustainable city rises in Arabian desert
& the tale of a new city
There you go the fourth article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/arts/design/26masdar.html
which is by far the most interesting. A sustainable city rises amidst the Arabian desert. The architect and developer of this project mentioned on how he reflected on past civilisations and their way of life and drew inspiration from how simple yet sustainable the living conditions are for people at that time, and decided to mold it to fit our 21st century context, which I thought is something really ingenious. It is really interesting in the end, how humans tend to draw inspiration from history or the past for future development, which is really ironic if you think about it. Doesn't this cycle or pattern say something about the development of civilisation over the past hundreds of years? That sometimes we should just be contented with our current situation and not embark on projects which are out of our boundaries i.e compromising the other aspects such as the environment and society for pure economic growth.
Nevertheless, this city is really amazing, but it also got me to think: Does this dude make a city like that for pure concerns for the environment or is he just out to have fame and attention which he now successfully gets? The line is always blur in the middle but whatever his motives are, I just hope all works fine in the end. That during the process of construction, raw materials were not used excessively, that no unnecessary and excessively huge amount of money would be spend to maintain such an expensive and classy city. All in the name for sustainability and growing green?
There are indeed a lot of people who are willing to label their products "green"for the sake of greater profits and marketing benefits. While it might seem like a win-win situation, the ethical aspect is definitely compromised. How then again, do we really measure, what is "green"? Is there a need to have a more focused and concise definition of "environmentally-friendly" ?
There you go the fourth article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/arts/design/26masdar.html
which is by far the most interesting. A sustainable city rises amidst the Arabian desert. The architect and developer of this project mentioned on how he reflected on past civilisations and their way of life and drew inspiration from how simple yet sustainable the living conditions are for people at that time, and decided to mold it to fit our 21st century context, which I thought is something really ingenious. It is really interesting in the end, how humans tend to draw inspiration from history or the past for future development, which is really ironic if you think about it. Doesn't this cycle or pattern say something about the development of civilisation over the past hundreds of years? That sometimes we should just be contented with our current situation and not embark on projects which are out of our boundaries i.e compromising the other aspects such as the environment and society for pure economic growth.
Nevertheless, this city is really amazing, but it also got me to think: Does this dude make a city like that for pure concerns for the environment or is he just out to have fame and attention which he now successfully gets? The line is always blur in the middle but whatever his motives are, I just hope all works fine in the end. That during the process of construction, raw materials were not used excessively, that no unnecessary and excessively huge amount of money would be spend to maintain such an expensive and classy city. All in the name for sustainability and growing green?
There are indeed a lot of people who are willing to label their products "green"for the sake of greater profits and marketing benefits. While it might seem like a win-win situation, the ethical aspect is definitely compromised. How then again, do we really measure, what is "green"? Is there a need to have a more focused and concise definition of "environmentally-friendly" ?
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