Penn State environmental sustainability effort receives $400,000 NSF grant
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
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University Park, Pa. -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Penn State a three-year, $400,000 grant for integrating sustainability in the curriculum.

The grant will fund "Teaching Sustainability in Engineering Through Public Scholarship." The principal investigators on the grant are David Riley, associate professor of architectural engineering and director of the Center for Sustainability, and Carol Colbeck, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education.

Riley stated that the grant will help foster project-based learning and service to the environment and communities.

"Many universities are looking at how to integrate sustainability in the curriculum." Riley said. "This project will explore how projects in green design and sustainability can make a difference to both students and communities."

The project will focus on existing project-based courses and ways to help faculty introduce environmental context, foster the notion of service and develop action skills.

Riley added that the grant would be used to develop a tool to help faculty integrate and demonstrate sustainability to their courses. The basis for the project was formed through the American Indian Housing Initiative, a research program and popular course series in which Penn State students help to design and build green buildings on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.



Story found here.

Some times you get a hankering for some wild and crazy, fringey type readings. Here's the place to scratch that itch.

Radical Urban Theory is run by Mike Davis:

He is a co-editor of The Year Left: An American Socialist Yearbook and author of Prisoners of the American Dream (Verso 1986) and the brilliant City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (Verso 1990), in which he recounts the story of Los Angeles with passion, wit and an acute eye for the absurd, the unjust and the dangerous. Davis' City of Quartz points to a future in which the sublime and the dreadfull are inextricable; a future which does not belong to Southern California alone, but terrifyingly seems to belong to all of us

A great lecture in Sharonville on the Tuesday Oct, 19th.

Green Community Design Workshop

Hometown giant P&G takes a lot a crap from the uber-progressive (a.k.a. slightly crazy) camp especially the animal rights folks but they've been getting international noteriety for thier commitment to sustainability. As noted here they've been at the top of their industry in the Dow Jones Sustainability index for the last 7 years. Pretty impressive.

Can anyone imagine Cincinnati's downtown with out these guys? If they ever leave I think I'll have to leave with them... and go to Detroit, because at that point Detroit will be better off than the Queen City.

For those who missed it... The 59th Annual UN NGO Conference held at UC.

The 10th International Architecture Exhibition is on in Vienna. Taking up such topics as trying to design cities in developing countries which are buckling under the pressure of incredible an influx of people while other cities are trying to deal with a scarcity of resources as population is lost to the slurbs. The session is called Cities, Architecture and Society and seems to have its work cut out for it.

One set of rad ideas comes from curator Armand Gruntuch:

The show's 36 projects reflect his priorities, exploring living concepts customized to meet contemporary needs in what can be called a "non-invasive" fashion.

The 'Badeschiff': A welcome addition to the city
One of them is Berlin's landmark "Badeschiff," or swimming ship. The pool anchored in the River Spree was originally conceived as an art project about urban regeneration, but fast become a fashionable haunt for aspiring beach bums in the land-locked capital. It's proven so popular that in winter it will be given a plastic roof to ensure uninterrupted bathing for the Berlin public.



Another entry is called "Rooftop Football," a red carpet on the roof of the historic building in which the pavilion is housed. It's equally illustrative of the curators' principles, combining the modern idea of the garden on the roof with the concept of conversion and new uses for old structures.

"Instead of tearing down buildings we don't like or don't need anymore, conversion provides a way out of the throwaway mentality," said Almut

What a great idea! Anyone game for putting a soccer field on a roof in OTR? How 'bout at the Shoe?