'The Fayretrade Market'

On Wednesday 16th March my group carried out the final presentation of our 'Enterprise Project' in lectures. We had created 'The Fayretrade Market' where everyday, ordinary people could come along and trade homegrown produce with one another. The whole idea of this project was to create a business, a service or a product that would appeal to Post-Consumers. So we decided that creating a service where communities can come together and trade excess home grown produce would be ideal - not only would we bringing communities together, we would be encouraging people to 'grown their own' and not have to worry about the excess. 

Every 3 months we would hold one of these events in a local hall where anybody could come along and trade game, fruit and vegetables amongst one other. The entrance fee into each event would £6 but for those who know they will be attending all four events in the year they can purchase a 'Growers Card' and pay a one off fee of £18. 


Alongside this we will sell 'Grower Packs' at a one off cost of £20 which includes everything you need to get you growing. These packs will also be sold by large gardening suppliers and in stores such as B&Q. We have also included a booklet in the pack which contains the laws & regulations of game, where you can grow in urban areas, along with seasonal growing charts and information about our website.

In the first year we hope to get 'The Fayretrade Market' full established and well known in the Dundee area, in year two we plan to expand to Aberdeen and in year three to Edinburgh. Further expansions from year 5 onwards would include the trading of a wider range of products, more events and expansion to larger cities within the UK.

Our logo:

'Grower Pack':

Posters:

Website:

Lights To Inspire

This is just a quick post about a few lamps/lights I came across that I think are pretty cool and intriguing. Looking at the images below you will see they make use of everyday objects and recycle them to their optimum potential. These show that being 'Green' and Recycling can be fun, cool, modern and exciting.

Solar Cities

As part of my current project, renovating an old Victorian house in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way, we visited a demonstration house that is owned by Dundee City Council in partnership with SCARF and Solar Cities Scotland. Together they have renovated it in a way that the house maintains itself and uses renewable energies. Here we were given a tour of the house and educated about each aspect of the energy efficient equipment within it; from the solar panels to the insulation. This house provides a focus for education, advice and information about domestic scale renewable energy and sustainable construction to households and the general public in Dundee and throughout central and the north east of Scotland. The aim is to showcase technologies, materials and methods of construction that can be integrated into existing housing. One of the main points that was emphasised today was the fact that before you start remodelling and installing energy efficient technologies into any building, you need to first understand how efficient it is as it currently stands. Then from here it is easier to improve its weaknesses, harness it’s strong points and incorporate new technologies.

Solar Cities Scotland aims are to develop and promote the use of renewable energy in all of its forms ; sun, wind, water, the earth and trees; to generate energy for Dundee. They have a campaign to “make Dundee Scotland’s green energy capital city with every citizen a green citizen”. The campaign is called ‘Dundee Sun City’.

To find out more information about this campaign you can visit www.dundeesuncity.org.uk

KitKat's Killing Orang-utans

All the over the news recently, it has been reported that one of the nation's favourite chocolaty, break-time treats may have a hidden dark side. The biscuits - KitKat's - are made by Nestle in York and it is said that about 1 billion are sold in the UK every year. However, it came out in the news this week that due to the methods of obtaining certain ingredients for this product, rainforests are being destroyed and in turn many Orang-utans are losing their habitats.

According to animal campaigners, Nestle is buying palm oil, one of the main ingredients in KitKat's, from a company that clears the Indonesian rainforest, forcing Orang-utans out of their natural habitat.

Greenpeace protesters have been out in force and have taken their message to the Nestle's headquarters. They were all dressed in Orang-utan fancy dress costumes, carrying placards with the words "Give me a break" and "Killer" printed in the brand's famous red and white. They have also produced a short advert playing on KitKat's synonymous slogan "Have a break. Have a Kitkat"; Greenpeace have changed the slogan to "Have a break. Give the Orang-utan a break". The video shows an office worker opening a KitKat, then biting into what looks like a chocolate-covered ape finger, which in turn begin oozing blood as he bites into it. This advertisement is extremely smart and powerful, it really does get the message across to it's viewers quickly. I also find it quite hard hitting as the blood and the effects are so realistic looking.

Since this extreme exposure to the Greenpeace campaign Nestle have tried to have the video removed from sites such as YouTube and later released a statement to say that they had replaced the Indonesian company that they were using, Sinar Mas, as their palm oil supplier and "will continue to pressure" suppliers to eliminate sources of oil that contributes to rainforest destruction.

However, this simply goes to show that you just don't know what adverse effects are being caused by the production of such non-necessity items that we humans buy. I have to admit that I am among those 1 billion sales of KitKat's but after watching and reading about this, I have been put off the company Nestle and I feel that although they have changed their ways, it shouldn't have taken a huge display of publicity for them to clean up their act. How did they not know what effects they were causing on rainforests and Orang-utans? Did they know and just didn't care? Are they simply changing their ways to stop their customers from leaving them? Some of these answers I will never know but I can safely say that my estimations and values of such a large brand and company have been extremely lowered.

Sustainable Renovation Project

After completing the sustainable book project it was time to get my new project brief. My current project is to renovate and refurbish an old, ruined house. It is situated in Dundee on Seafield Road, currently surrounded by rows of old Victorian buildings. The house front is extremely old fashioned but has an attractive quality to it, however, the rest of the building is very uninspiring.

39 Seafield Road (The Building to Renovate)

We have also been given a client to aim this build in a certain direction. Our client Emma, is currently a book conservator working for the University of Dundee but is also part of a private practise. She has a nine to five job working with books, her weekends are free and she enjoys quite a lot of hobbies including snowboarding, yoga and Thai Chi. She had also told us that she spends a lot of her time outside of work entertaining friends and family including cooking dinner for everyone and having dinner parties.

This is only her social aspect of things, the studio also has quite a lot of items that need to be incorporated and a number of problems that need to be resolved. Certain areas will need to be created to make this environment practical and the large equipment that Emma works with also needs to be integrated within the design.

All in all, it is needless to say that she has a very long list of requirements for her building come studio. However, not only do I want to meet all her studio and personal needs; I want to create an exciting and inspiring design. I don’t want it to be plain old straight walls everywhere and ordinary. The other thing that needs to be thought carefully about near the end of the design process is Sustainability. Our final design has to not only be sustainable and as energy efficient as possible.

I currently feel quite bogged down with a lot of information, research and ideas and as this is our first major interiors project, it is daunting but I am also excited by this. In some aspects I am quite nervous as this is something I would love to pursue when I finish my years at university and this is kind of a sink or swim situation. But here’s hoping I’ll be swimming by the end of it!

US Orders New Nuclear Power Plants

Yesterday, Barak Obama announced that $8 billion will be spent on building the countries first new nuclear power plants for 30 years, in Georgia. Obama has said that they are needed to meet energy needs and reduce the dependence on foreign oil. He has also stated that the programme is "only the beginning" of efforts to develop "safe, clean," energy efficient technologies. Energy has served as a major part of the president's agenda, but his focus on building a green energy economy has broadened in the past month to include nuclear power, offshore oil drilling and the development of clean-coal technology.

When I read this news headline “US Orders New Nuclear Power Plants”, the first thing that came to mind was, “seriously?” and then the total awe at the fact that this was even what I was reading. I straight away clicked on the link to the article and read in anticipation to read what exactly Obama had planned for his country. I was in total shock and annoyance at the fact that these 2 nuclear power stations are even being built. I can totally understand the fact that he is trying to keep up his promises and is trying to be ‘greener’ and point his country in the right direction but is building 2 nuclear power stations really doing that?

Although they are going to reduce the dependence on foreign oil, therefore reducing the strain between American and the Middle East, these plants are producing extremely high amounts of radioactive waste that is also highly dangerous. This is hardly “safe” or “clean”.

In my eyes these power plants are not the route to go down. They are a way of boosting economy and money but once again nature and the environment has been given the back seat. I just cannot say that these are a way of building a green economy, when they clearly are not.

I feel quite strongly about making our future greener and helping to save our planet. In my eyes this could be maybe do more damage than good.

Eco-Design

Back to uni and into the thick of projects again. The first project I was given was to research a topic to do with sustainability and give a PowerPoint presentation on Tuesday 26th January. We were all split into groups of 4 or 5 to do this, as there is so much information out there for each topic. My group was given 'Eco-Design'. To be honest I knew it was to do with sustainability but apart from that I didn't really have a clue what it was about.

Eco-Design, like Environmental Design, Green Design and so on is to do with sustainability but the one thing that sets it apart from everything else is the fact it is to do with removing anything environmentally detrimental from a product/design, at every stage of its lifecycle. This ensures that the product/design is as environmentally friendly as it possibly can be and at the end of its life it can also have another use (i.e. be recycled or re-used) rather than just being discarded.

So while all four of us were researching into Eco-Design we were all given a separate sub-category to look into as well, mine being 'Eco-Interiors and Furniture'. The title is pretty much self-explanatory but after completing my research I discovered that hundreds of companies are jumping on the sustainability eco wagon and are producing more and more eco friendly products. It also revealed that it's really easy to make your home more 'Eco-Friendly'. . . from your light bulbs to your floors! Simply buying energy saving light bulbs (CFL's) will save up to 75% less energy than ordinary light bulbs and will last ten times longer.

Despite this, kitting your home out with all these Eco-friendly products will cost you an arm and a leg but in the long term, money will be saved.

 Made from recycled plastic bottle felt. Sewn together with 100% cotton threads. Filled with recycled plastic bottles with an organic cotton.

4 plastic bottles = 1 cushion cover

6 plastic bottles = Filling for 1 cushion