Inflatable Buildings That Could Earn $10 Million a Year

Using clever, super-green construction methods, Woods Bagot proposes a building system that would make use of the stalled sites littering New York.

Read full article here.

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1662273/stalled-sites

Interesting Research: Magic solar milestone reached

ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence led by Professors Martin Green and Stuart Wenham, has again asserted its leadership in solar cell technology by reporting the first silicon solar cell to achieve the milestone of 25 per cent.

Centre Executive Research Director, Scienta Professor Martin Green, said the new world mark in converting incident sunlight into electricity was one of six new world records claimed by UNSW for its silicon solar technologies.

ARC Centre Director, Professor Stuart Wenham said the focus of the Centre is now improving mainstream production.  “Our main efforts now are focussed on getting these efficiency improvements into commercial production,” he said.  “Production compatible versions of our high efficiency technology are being introduced into production as we speak.”

The world-record holding cell was fabricated by former Centre researchers, Dr Jianhua Zhao and Dr Aihua Wang, who have since left the Centre to establish China Sunergy, one of the world’s largest photovoltaic manufacturers.  “China was the largest manufacturer of solar cells internationally in 2007 with 70 per cent of the output from companies with our former UNSW students either Chief Executive Officers or Chief Technical Officers”, said Professor Green.

For more information go to http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2008/nov/Solar_record.html

New databases in 2009 for the School of Design

The library has secured a subscription to a number of fabulous new resources, specifically for the School of Design:

• Masters of Architecture https://www.mastersofarchitecture.com/

An online series of colour images from Pidgeon Audiovisual and World Microfilms.  The images have been digitised from an original collection of 58 slide sets which were published between the mid ‘80s and 2003.  There are about 7,000 images in all, and regular additions of similar sets of digitised images will be automatically added to the website.

• BEDP Environment Design Guide http://www.environmentdesignguide.net.au/

EDG provides reliable, practical information, allowing practitioners to make educated, environmentally responsible decisions during the early phases of design, where the greatest environmental benefits can be effected with the least cost.  There are some synergies here with the schools of Urban Development and Engineering Systems.

These subscriptions will come into effect shortly – I will keep you updated as to when they will be available via the Library website.

GreenFILE – new EBSCOhost database

Recently, EBSCO Publishing announced the release of GreenFILE, a bibliographic database of information about environmental concerns. This database is being made freely available at www.greeninfoonline.com and can also be accessed via QUT Library EBSCOhost database page at http://www.library.qut.edu.au/db/2040f which will allow you to link through to full text in many cases.

GreenFILE indexes scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports. This resource offers a unique perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the environment. Drawing on the connection between the environment and disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology, GreenFILE serves as an informative resource for anyone concerned about the issues facing our planet. The database contains nearly 300,000 records, full text for selected titles and searchable cited references for more than 200 titles as well.

Ecospecifier

Take a look at the recent products and latest knowledge added to ecospecifier.

Ecospecifier is a knowledge base of over 1000 environmentally preferable products, materials and resources. Designed to help designers, builders, consultants and those looking to deliver a best practice design, ecospecifier can help reduce environmental impacts and create healthier and more productive living and working environments.

Access ecospecifier via the database record at http://www.library.qut.edu.au/find/databases/fullrecord.jsp?id=5046