urban agriculture

Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray – have set out to start a window farms craze in NYC. We are creating several different designs for suspended, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield light-augmented window farms using low-impact or recycled local materials. These prototype window farms, to be located in high-profile windows throughout the city, are intended to inspire other New Yorkers to design and implement their own window farms. Signs in the windowfarms will challenge New Yorker to create their own and direct them to a website where we can all share photos, plans, designs, and information. Together, we will derive viable methods for growing food under the local conditions of our own homes in a way that is efficient enough for New Yorkers’ lives.

In February 2009, through a residency at Eyebeam, we began working with participants to build and test prototypes. Growing food inside NY apartments is a challenge, but within reach. The foundational knowledge base is emerging through working with agricultural, architectural and other specialists, collecting sensor data, and reinterpreting hydroponics research conducted by NASA scientists and marijuana farmers.

This project fits within a larger context of our collaborative work: crowdsourced R&Diy solutions for environmental issues. Our inspiration for community involvement derives from concepts of local production (think of the coming network of 3D multi-material printers), mass customization, and crowdsourcing. We envision the DIY aspect, not as a nostalgia-inducing hobby or a compromise during hard financial times, but as a futuristic infrastructure-light alternative to big R&D. Instead of waiting for products and services to be developed by industry, local social networks develop solutions for themselves by dividing scientists’ breakthrough findings into actionable local steps.

For more information, or to take part in the project, contact us at bray.rebecca [at] gmail [dot] com. Learn more about other projects here.
http://windowfarms.org/

nyc area residents who leave the house, meet the transportation alternative

below is an article i found online from new york city’s newspaper, the villager. it introduces you to an organization that advocates for better policies benefiting any thing that commutes our city’s streets and sidewalks.

get involved for safer adventures, errand running, and simply commuting to work.

Villager photo by Jefferson Siegel

At Delancey St. and Bowery on Friday, Caroline Samponaro, right, in Statue of Liberty crown, of Transportation Alternatives, held a petition for cyclists to sign. The petition asks for a protected bike lane on Delancey St., the main conduit for bicycle traffic to and from the Williamsburg Bridge.

Cyclists: Bridge is a dream; Delancey’s a nightmare

By Jefferson Siegel

Every day, thousands of bicyclists commute to and from Manhattan via the Williamsburg Bridge. Getting to the bridge, though, is a hazardous journey. The feeder route to the bridge, Delancey St., is a busy, traffic-filled thoroughfare that makes cyclists run a daily obstacle course just to get to work or home.

Transportation Alternatives, the Chelsea-based advocacy group for bicycling, walking and public transit, has devised a creative way to raise the issue of safe cycling on this Lower East Side street. Last Friday, dozens of cyclists gathered on the corner of Delancey St. and Bowery to sign an oversized “Adopt A Bike Lane” petition.

“The idea is building community support,” said Caroline Samponaro, Transportation Alternative’s director of bicycling advocacy, as she held up the oversized document for cyclists to sign. “Here’s a route people want to ride on that we know is dangerous.”

The petition, addressed to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, notes that bike commuting on the bridge has increased 95 percent since the mayor’s green initiatives have taken root. However, there is still no bike lane on Delancey St. for the thousands of cyclists who share the busy, cross-town artery with cohorts of combustion-engine trucks and cars.

The petition urges Bloomberg to create a protected bike lane in time for next spring, when cycling traffic will increase with the temperatures.

Chris Hunt commutes to his Midtown job from Bedford-Stuyvesant.

“The bridge itself is great, the bike lane [on the bridge] is fantastic,” Hunt enthused. “But the entrance and exit on Manhattan is awful. It dumps you right onto Delancey. Every so often, you get an aggressive driver. Merging with the traffic is always problematic.”

T.A. has postcards addressed to the mayor that individuals can fill out and send to request a Delancey St. bike lane.

“Delancey St. is so critical to biking in this city,” observed Wiley Norvell, T.A. communications director. “We can do better than that.”

Norvell then joined a group of cyclists wearing bright orange vests in reading “Share the Road.” They pedaled east on Delancey St., across the bridge on its protected bike path and on to a party in Williamsburg.

Bike lanes generally fall into three categories: physically buffered, painted stripes on the street and posted signs. Bike lanes have blossomed throughout the city the past few years. A physically buffered lane along Ninth Ave. in Chelsea has won raves from the cycling community. Lanes painted green to alert drivers to their presence also have been rolled out on streets like Prince and Norfolk.

Another well-traveled cycle route — the nation’s most heavily used, in fact — is the Hudson River bikeway, running mostly physically protected and mostly uninterrupted from Lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side.

bicyle tour de pizza slice

WHAT: EXPLORE BROOKLYN/MANHATTAN PIZZERIAS BY BICYCLE

WHEN: SUNDAY NOV. 2, 2008 RALLY AT 1PM AND RIDE UNTIL WHEN WE ARE SERIOUSLY EXHAUSTED OR SATIATED

WHERE: RALLY POINT WILL BE AT 1PM – BROOKLYN CENTRAL LIBRARY, Grand Army
Plaza Brooklyn, NY 11238 – WE WILL TOUR BROOKLYN AND MANHATTAN PIZZERIAS

WHO: WE THE AWESOME BICYCLIST. YOU, YOUR FRIENDS, AND FRIENDS OF FRIENDS

WHY: PASSION FOR ADVENTURE CYCLILNG AND PIZZA SLICES

HOW: REALLY, WE WILL DO THIS. LAYER UP, FORCAST CALLS FOR SUNSHINE AND MILD
MID 50 TEMPERATURES (THERE WILL BE A LIMITED ROAMING COAT CHECK SPACE
AVAILABLE) GLOVES MIGHT BE WINNERS

MISSED US AT THE RALLY POINT, CALL JAY JAY ON HIS MOBILE  513-720-9455 TO
CORDINATE rendezvous

CANT MAKE THE RIDE, THEN MAKE A PIZZERIA SUGGESTION LIVE VIA SPEAKER PHONE
513-720-9455

THANK YOU ALL FOR ENTHUSIASM, AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

–
maybe it is ~ maybe it is not
http://aLittleDisplay.com

copy n’paste

free tibet & free’em all now.