Thanks to a recent upgrade, the "World's Most Famous Office Building" will be a showcase for the world’s most advanced LED lighting system.

The Empire State Building is one of the most iconic members of the New York City skyline. It's always fun to see the massive building lit up with colorful lights celebrating key national milestones, social causes, and holidays. What most of us didn't realize is that it takes a team of workers seven hours to change the light fixtures every time the building needs to display a new combination of colors.

Thanks to a new, custom LED system created by Philips Color Kinetics, however, the façade and mast of the Empire State Building will now be able to change lighting scenes in real-time, without wasting a ton of energy.

The building's owners are working with Philips to replace the existing 400+ traditional light fixtures--old fashioned high intensity discharge bulbs—with over 1,200 state-of-the-art LED fixtures, uniquely designed for the building. Not only is the new system computerized, allowing ESB staff to customize lightings from a palette of over 16 million colors (right now, it has 10), the staff will be able to do program updates to the lights almost instantaneously.

The new lighting upgrade is part of the building's renovation and modernization initiatives and is estimated to use just ¼ of the energy that the previous lighting systems did—reducing the energy consumption by approximately 73 percent.

It's not often that you actually want wildlife nesting in your walls. But a new concept in habitat-building just might change your mind.

Brick Biotope is a series of bricks designed specifically to provide a natural living environment for birds within the urban landscape. Inspired by the disappearance of the House Sparrow in the Netherlands, Brick Biotope responds to the desire to create hand-made objects in a digital world. As part of a three-month intensive, design students Micaela Nardella and Oana Tudose devised a brick-making technique using simple molds, plaster and sand. Each unit is made by hand and totally unique but the standard rectangular form allows for easy placement within a brick wall.

Recently exhibited during Milan Design Week as part of FABRIKAAT, Brick Biotope is intended to provide all the basic needs for a wild animal's habitat. Each unit has the potential to be used as shelter, a space for vertical vegetation or water collection. Brick Biotope is a simple and easy to implement solution to a problem seen in cities across the globe.

Source: Inhabitat

The Atlanta Google data center is utilizing a "sidestream" treatment plant that uses grey water rather than potable water for cooling.

Originally built in 1997, the Google data center uses an innovative evaporative cooling process which is 50 percent more efficient than standard mechanical chillers. Initially using potable water for the data center, Google decided to greatly reduce it's impact on the environment by recycling grey water rather than wasting drinkable water. Recently local media and officials were provided a tour of the Douglas County Google treatment plant.

The Google sidestream plant uses 30 percent of the grey water that would otherwise head back to the Chattahoochee River. The plant cleans the water to a level appropriate for the cooling process. Any water that is not evaporated in the process is then sent to a second, effluent plant before being sent back to the Chattahoochee, ensuring clean and safe water is being returned to the ecosystem after being used for the cooling process.

A typical data center can use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per day as part of the evaporative cooling process. As a former resident of Atlanta, GA I'm all too familiar with the recent droughts, population growth and battles over water resources. This new approach alleviates strain on the municipal reservoir and does provide some benefits, but it should be noted that their is still an impact on the river's flow and ecosystem.

Source: Sustainable Brands

Instead of using wood to make paper, NewspaperWood upcycles newspapers to make an innovative wood-like material.

NewspaperWood products are created by Dutch design group Vij5. The concept originated from Mieke Meijer’s project at the Design Academy Eindhoven, who decided it was time to create something useful from old newspapers that no one wanted.

Once wood is turned into paper, it can continue to be recycled, but will always remain in paper form. Meijer explains, “I thought it would be nice to turn the process around and turn paper into wood again. With a roller I glued the paper and rolled it as tightly as possible. Every day I spent two hours gluing the newspaper until the first paper “tree log” originated.”

When a NewspaperWood log is cut, the layers of paper appear like lines of a wood grain or the rings of a tree. The material is dense enough that it can be cut, milled, sanded and treated like any other type of wood.

Vij5 knows and acknowledges that NewspaperWood cannot logistically serve as a large scale alternative to wood. The goal of the project is to upcycle and change a surplus of discarded material into something more valuable. Vij5 has transformed newspaper into a more robust, versatile building material that can be use for countless applications.

Nowadays printing techniques for newspapers are very efficient and keep scrap material to a minimum. However, yesterday’s newspapers are always available, which is what makes them a great source of local material.

Vij5 uses water based glue that is free of solvents and plasticizers to layer the newspapers. Their decision to use an eco-friendly glue makes NewspaperWood 100% recyclable. So, should one of their products become damaged or unusable, consumers can discard them with the rest of their recycling.

Below is a cabinet designed by Vij5 and made from NewspaperWood that was exhibited last April at part of Salone de Mobile, or international design week, in Milan. Want to see more? Visit Vij5’s website.

Sources: Design Milk & Vij5

A Brooklyn-based design firm has built a low-cost shelter, using 100 discarded shipping pallets, ideal for refugee camps.

Live Oak has brought you news about the many possibilities for discarded wood pallets over the past year, from adirondack chairs to vertical gardens.

Now, Brooklyn-based firm I-Beam is taking the concept of reuse a bit further. Made from repurposed shipping pallets, these 250-square-foot shelters are a superb solution for emergency or aid situations. Supplies, including food and medicine, can be shipped to locations using wood pallets which can then be repurposed into homes.

Assembly of the shelters takes less than a week with a five-person team and requires only basic hand tools. Various materials, such as tarps or corrugated roofing can be used as temporary barriers until more permanent and locally sourced options are available to thoroughly cover the walls. According to I-Beam, 84 percent of the world's refugees could be housed with just a year's worth of recycled pallets from the United States.

In addition to an aesthetic appeal, more importantly these shelters are much sturdier and more permanent than the tent and tarp structures most commonly used in refugee camps. On average displaced individuals will live at a refugee camp for seven years, so long term living solutions are much needed.

I-Beam has built prototypes across the US and Europe. They are currently working on housing for camps in Haiti and Pakistan. These homes are also a great solution for anyone looking to downsize to a "tiny house" or possibly as a long-term solution for Occupy Wall Street camps.

Source: FastCo.Design

Valcent has revolutionized vertical farming with their hydroponic VertiCrop growing system. VertiCrop is a series of four-meter-high stacks of growing trays assembled on motorized conveyors. The conveyors move the plants through commercial greenhouses for maximum sun exposure.

The system also makes it easy to harvest. Like other hydroponic systems, VertiCrop is incredibly efficient, providing up to 20 times the yield of field agriculture and using less than a tenth of the water.

The upcoming Vancouver greenhouse will produce hydroponically the equivalent of about 16 acres of California field agriculture and can grow up to 20 different varieties of lettuces. Construction is planned to launch in January 2012 with the first crop harvest projected for April 2012.

Vancouver is striving to become the greenest city in the world by 2020. Utilizing an underused space in the city and growing food locally are important steps to creating a more sustainable city. A bicycle-based food delivery company is being discussed as a market option for the upcoming greenhouse product.

Source: Vancouver Sun
Image Credits: marketwise

Although not the most feasible of concepts, the Ginger Group's proposal to cover the Eiffel Tower in 600,000 plants provides an inspirational starting point to encourage sustainable solutions for Paris. Increasing levels of air pollution in the city was the impetus for this imaginative proposal.

The Ginger Group proposes attaching to the structure thousands of soil-filled hemp or cloth bags, creating a 300 meter tall, multi-faced living wall. In theory this expansive vertical garden could provide urban habitats for many insects and birds and improve air quality.

Currently, the Paris City Hall has not officially endorsed the project and there are no specific plans for the project to move forward. But we can dream, right?

Sources: The Atlantic Cities and Reuters