It looks like an Italian company has worked up a new kind of air freshener, made of concrete!

By including titanium dioxide in the mix, they have found that the concrete will absorb both nitrous dioxide and carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. Both of these are emissions from automobiles, so it makes sense to absorb these gases.

Unfortunately, large quantities of CO2 are generated in the production of concrete in processing and transporting the components and the concrete itself.

They claim is can reduce urban air pollution by up to 40%, a tall order.

Stay tuned, and I’ll let you know if I find out more about how the absorption balances out with the production.

Via Social Design Notes: M&C Science and Nature

We come across a number of clients each year that are interested in doing-it-themselves. If you’re like them, here’s the wall finish you may be interested in!

Wallpaper like the paint-by-numbers kits I used to paint as a kid!

Have you ever been in a conference or at a performance when someone’s cell phone rang, even after the emcee asked for all phones to be turned off? I have, and it is nothing short of annoying. But there is hope!

NaturalNano has developed a paint product that can solve the problem.

In a combination of a specially formulated paint and wireless technology, they can control which radio frequencies are available and which are blocked and which are available. At intermission, access can be allowed for cell phones, then it can be “switched off”.

It sounds like they can allow WiFi but block cell phones as they choose.

At last, a solution to the new digital etiquette problem.

Thanks, Paul.

Concrete absorbs water.

Make it salty in the MN winter and you’ve got trouble. Saltwater rapidly corrodes reinforcing steel, which is bad news for parking ramps, bridges and roads.

Cover your damp foundation with insulation and drywall and you’ve got a potential mold problem.

Here is a solution that seems to solve the problem: Hycrete. It is an additive to concrete that fills the molecular gaps in the concrete, making it hydrophobic. From their website:

The corrosion resistant basics of all Hycrete formulations are constant. When used in concrete, Hycrete provides two levels of protection.

Hycrete protects the reinforcing steel. Hycrete coats the steel surface with a monomolecular film. One end of the Hycrete molecule is polar by nature and attaches to other polar particles, such as iron or other metallic molecules.

Hycrete provides water proofing properties to the concrete. Hycrete is reactive. It reacts with metals in the water, metals in the concrete, and metals of the reinforcement. From the reaction, a precipitate is formed where one end of the molecule has a long hydrocarbon chain. Like oil repels water, this precipitate fills the capillaries of the concrete, repelling water and shutting down capillary absorption.

And from a Hycrete press release:

“… According to William McDonough, founding partner of McDonough & Partners and a leader in the sustainable development and green office movements, “The need for external membrane and coating systems is eliminated [with Hycrete]. Any time a process in construction can be avoided, more is accomplished with less, and savings through time and material are realized.””

Via Treehugger.

Green Roofs are becoming a favored way to design buildings to be more earth-friendly. At the most basic level, they consist of a waterproof roof membrane covered with soil and plantings. The benefits are many: increased membrane life, insulation, storm-surge reduction, and usable space on the roof. Mostly, however, this idea has taken off in warmer climates.

The Professor Brad Bass of the University of Toronto has been researching the performance of these roofs in cold climates, and the results are soon to be unveiled.

“Bass analyzed a test roof built in Ottawa by Karen Liu of the National Research Council’s Institute for Research in Construction, to offer the first conclusive data that winter green roofs can help reduce heat loss and energy consumption during cold months…”

“The winter green roof uses evergreens – juniper shrubs – and a thicker soil base than typical leafy green roofs, which generally provide passive benefits to the environment by reducing the need for air conditioning on hot days. The winter roof was installed on both a standard test house and an energy-efficient winterized house. Bass used environmental systems performance software to chart the indoor temperature fluctuations in both buildings”.

“The results for the winterized house were good, and the results for the regular house were dramatic,” says Bass. “The assessment opens up designers to considering winter roofs as part of a year-round energy efficiency strategy.”…

More from TreeHugger. Thanks, Michael, for the link.

Our own Carleton College is studying green roofs:

David Holman ’06, Jason Lord ’06, Jake Gold ’07, Andrew Kaplan ’08, and Mandi Fix ’08 continued their independent study on green roofs with Director of Facilities Richard Strong as their advisor. Last spring involved the construction of a 660-square-foot green roof on top of the Olin storage room. The roof is currently visible from the Olin/Mudd loading dock and walkway. Last fall and winter the group researched green roofs from a number of different sources and constructed several test modules, studied soil mixtures, prairie spices, and drainage options.

They used a drainage system, donated by American Wick drain, that prevents soil from reaching the roof rubber, allowing ample drainage when the soil is saturated and holds water to evaporate back into the plants. They carefully selected the soil of Vermiculite, Perlite, compost, and clay to be lightweight, hold nutrients/water, and not to break down. They created a list of almost 200 different native prairie hardy species they thought would survive on the desert-like roof. Construction began on Friday, May 13, and was finished and planted by Thursday, May 19.

The green roof has performed better then expected so far. They placed between 2” and 6” of soil on the roof and planted prairie plants on the roof. Even in only 6” of soil, the prairie plants have grown to a height of over three feet–without any water since early July and no fertilizers whatsoever. The past few weeks we have seen several natural wild flowers on the roof. Feel free to stop by the Olin/Mudd walkway and see it for yourself.

We have been following the development of green roofs for many years and have watched their growing use. Soil depth is an issue both for plant viability and structural requirements to support the roof system. Spencer Jones, a local Landscape Architect, has suggested that the long-term viability of the plantings is a concern to be watched in our climate. Many roofs look good the first year, then seem to decline thereafter. Carleton’s look into prairie plantings will be interesting to follow in this regard.

VIVUS embraces the concepts of green roofs, and invite other interested individuals into dialogue and design about green roofs.

If you are looking for some inspiration for your dream project, be sure to check out the Ann Sacks line of tile. This line of tile is like no other: they use many types of integral designs, a wide range of colors, and innovative installations. You will never think of tile the same way again!

It is great to see creative expansion of building accessories and components. Along these lines, Design Boom organized a design competition for innovative tile in 2004. This fleshy tile and a heated tile were the two winners out of over 1500 entries.

This “mood tile” is also pretty cool: imagine your walls changing color as the shower heats up in the morning!

You may not see all of these tile on Menard’s shelves next year, but these competitions push the envelope and broaden design thinking across the world.

Thanks, Paul, for link.