Sustain
Designed by: Charles Totaro, James Farran, Olivia Grove, Anrew Collins
University of the Arts
Philadelphia, PA, USA
What is it?
It is a conceptual project that takes a look at the future of energy usage.
Exploring the possibilities of kinetic, static, solar energies. The overall
project is speculative to the year 2027.
What makes this design different or better?
Sustain is a future scenario in the year 2027, an environmental response
to current ecological problems such as pollution, global warming, overpopulation,
and resource depletion. Through sports, fashion, the club scene, and the
home environment, we are revolutionizing popular culture and creating
a new movement based on the production and consumption of "free energy".
Kinetic, solar, static, and friction along with other natural energies
will be collected, stored, and transformed for alternative and further
use in daily life. This new active and sustainable energy lifestyle will
benefit the individual as well as the community in the use of clean, free
energy.
Judges commentary:
Gareth: A Revolution In Environmental Efficiency - I'm always attracted
to environmental design that has minimal negative impact on existing lifestyles.
The idea of capturing all of your wasted energy and using it to help power
your house is fabulous. I liked the fact that the designer took the time
to calculate how much energy various physical activities (walking, dancing,
skateboarding) could generate.
Alberto: It's fascinating to think about how storing some of the wasted
kinetic energy that we use daily can impact our lives. The main stumbling
block that I saw was that the transfer, from what amounts to batteries,
to a system's electric grid, required a lot of user participation.
