Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award Ceremony...open to the public!

Join BFI on Nov. 18th at Cooper Union To Celebrate! RSVP for the 2013 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award Ceremony Below | The Buckminster Fuller Institute

Welcome | The Buckminster Fuller Challenge

The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) will award and celebrate the winning entry to the 2013Buckminster Fuller Challenge in an evening ceremony November 18th, 2013 at 7:00 pm hosted by the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design.

The ceremony will include a Keynote talk by architect and world-renowned sustainability expert John Picard in conversation with BFI Board Chair David McConville. The $100,000 prize will be awarded to this year's winner, Ecovative, and new in 2013, Dan Hendrix, CEO of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge's first corporate sponsor, Interface Inc., will award additional support to Waterbank Schools! Join BFI, CUISD and Interface for this exciting opportunity to hear about leading edge design solutions from around the globe and to celebrate their incredible work. Please RSVP at bfi.org/2013-ceremony.

Each year a distinguished jury awards a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.

Inspired by Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller's prolific life of exploration, discovery, invention and teaching was driven by his intention “to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone.”

Fuller coupled this intention with a pioneering approach aimed at solving complex problems. This approach, which he called “comprehensive anticipatory design science”, combined an emphasis on individual initiative and integrity with whole systems thinking, scientific rigor and faithful reliance on nature's underlying principles. The designs he is best known for (the geodesic dome, the Dymaxion house, car, and map, and the global electric grid) were part of a visionary strategy to redesign the inter-related systems of shelter, transportation and energy.

After decades of tracking world resources, innovations in science and technology, and human needs, Fuller asserted that options exist to successfully surmount the crises of unprecedented scope and complexity facing all humanity – he issued an urgent call for a design science revolution to make the world work for all.

Answering this call is what the Buckminster Fuller Challenge is all about.

Can ordinary residents help resolve flooding caused by Jersey City’s aging combined sewer system?

Yes they can! Just like it took all the Whos in Whoville singing for Horton to hear them, if enough residents of Jersey City say they want beautiful trees and plants to suck up the rain water rather than building big holding tanks, the City might hear them and move to develop a Green Infrastructure policy, saving us millions of dollar$$. Show your support for Sustainable Jersey City's Rain Garden + ART campaign by funding a rain garden here. Learn more in this great article in the Hudson Reporter:  Keeping the flood waters at bay

Aiming For Truly Sustainable Buildings

What are the attributes of truly sustainable buildings and how can the development community get on board to help change outdated regulations here in Jersey City that prevent greener buildings from coming to market ?  In this article some of the discussion touches on certification systems like LEED, the Living Building Challenge and Passive House and the differences between them - good to understand !  While changing the regulatory guidelines can be a lucrative opportunity for developers, lower energy consumption / costs and quality of life aspects are what appeal to occupants seek out these all too few gems.  My personal interest is in seeing these technologies applied to more affordable price brackets, rather than just the luxury market, but that's another conversation. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/realestate/aiming-for-truly-sustainable-buildings.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1383598024-+/PjAJHXbiw/Z+8JS5spDQ

SJC hosts a monthly community education event series called 'Greener Buildings, Energy Efficiency & Water Conservation For Neighborhoods'.   Our next talk is tomoro nite with Geopeak's Mike Babb, covering off on various solar options available to businesses and residences, including a discussion about the solar array they are putting on the roof of St. Paul's Community Center.  These projects are important to Jersey City and there should be more of them.  Join us if you can - details here.

Rain Gardens

Rebuilding: One Year After Sandy

Urban planner and the founder of Outside New York, Carter Craft, spoke on Sunday night at Grace Van Vorst Church about rebuilding the areas affected by water damage from Sandy. The essence of his message, as far as I understood, was that water needs to move and flow and it needs access to places where it can do that harmlessly. Inlets, wetlands, canals, etc. Humans have tried to restrict water's natural inclinations and it's not working. He also stressed the need for interaction between people and the water. Boating, fishing, swimming, paddle boarding, etc. A lot of this touches on the notion of who has access to the water's edge, what socio-economic groups "own" the water's edge and restrict "non-owners" from accessing it. https://outsidenewyork.wordpress.com/

http://www.waterfrontalliance.org/

Rebuild by Design is a competition between some of the brightest minds in the design world. They have attempted to come up with solutions to rebuilding the Sandy affected regions in a sustainable way. I went to the presentation at NYU by the ten design groups who have been chosen as finalists. What excited me most about their plans were the strategies that involved the factors Carter Craft talked about....accessibility of water into the water's edges and the interaction of people and water.

Go to Rebuild by Design's website to see updates on their public forums in and around Jersey City.

http://www.rebuildbydesign.org/