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Ekokook
Victor Massip and Laurent Lebot, designers at French studio Faltazi, have designed a conceptual system where water is recycled and waste is broken down by worms inside the kitchen
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Called Ekokook, the system is about trying to come up with a way to upgrade existing housing without advocating complete reconstruction. Each wall, each balcony, each window, each door, each shutter can serve as a support for an eco-installation. The design grew out of an experimental approach based on the analysis of the nerve centre of every home – the kitchen. It’s based on four essentials – waste management, kitchen health, reduction/consumption of energy and intelligent storage. It has built-in fittings for selecting, processing and storing all kinds of wastes including organic, solid and liquid.
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Three built-in micro-plants for three recycling functions
The kitchen is where most household wastes are produced. If waste management is to be effective at both the individual and the collective level, selection and processing must begin as soon as the waste product appears. When we are peeling carrots, for example, we should be able to dispose of peelings straight away by emptying them into the earth worm composter direct from the work surface. Similarly, when we wash salad leaves, we should be able to choose to save the water for watering household plants. Simple actions like these must be encouraged and made easy by adequate fittings. The same goes for the disposal of solid wastes.
Micro-plant 1
Solid wastes: selecting, processing, storage
Solid wastes have no smell. This means that they can be kept longer, once their volume has been reduced to a minimum. On the scale of the city, this enables council trucks to collect waste less frequently, which means less cost for the community, less noise nuisance, and less atmospheric pollution. We have broken down the receptacle for solid wastes into five units for processing glass, paper, plastics, metals and miscellaneous waste. The volume of each unit corresponds to dimensions that suit an average family (two adults & two children). Units can be customized to suit user profiles and to interact with services offered by the community.
We have opted for a system of components organized by bloc and by function: in the high part are different hatches, and in the lower part are the units for reducing volumes, and storage containers on rollers. The devices we propose to reduce the volume of wastes are machines activated by hand: a steel ball, like the ball in a pinball machine, to break glass, an endless screw like a nut-cracker to compress cans and water bottles, and a manual shredder-crusher to shred paper before turning it into briquettes.
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| There is no doubt that the word “sustainability” is overused and misunderstood in many areas of the market but in fact what we should be discussing is sustainable development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” says Lennart Jonsson. |
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Concrete houses become even greener
On a typical family house using low carbon concrete (LCC) blocks, you could save up to 10 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of leaving your car at home for over two years. Ecocem explains how concrete block house construction can now be even more sustainable.
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Ecocem goes carbon neutral
The CO2 footprint of Ecocem's GGBS cement has in five years gone from 60 kg/tonne to 30 kg/tonne to 25 kg/tonne and is now 0 kg/tonne; this is compared to a carbon footprint of ordinary cement of approximately 900 kg/tonne.
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1 Finsbury Circus wins 2009 City Heritage Award
One of London’s landmark buildings, 1 Finsbury Circus, has won the 2009 City Heritage Award for Excellence in Building Conservation. Although traditionally very difficult to achieve, architects Gaunt Francis has managed to redevelop the building to “the highest environmental standards”.
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Is sustainability killing the architect’s creativity?
One could argue that being creative has become more difficult in recent years – ever expanding building regulations, town planners and demanding clients can inhibit the creative juices. But I see sustainability more as a challenge than a death threat to creativity. With more public and government awareness and backing, we as architects can make a positive difference to our built environment writes Zeno Winkens
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