Green Museum Unveiled in Rio De Janeiro

Santiago Calatrava, celebrated Spanish architect, unveiled his Museum of Tomorrow planned as part of a major gentrification project for the Rio waterfront.

Santiago Calatrava, celebrated Spanish architect, unveiled his "Museum of Tomorrow" planned as part of a major gentrification project for the Rio waterfront.

The "green" project is part of a series of major public works projects planned by authorities to give the city a facelift ahead of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Energy Hogger Singapore Fillips 'Green' Buildings
Singapore is one of Asia's most exhaustive energy users, from the bone-chilling air conditioning that pumps through malls and offices to lights that burn all night.

"Half of the design is occupied by the nearby urban area, such as the Sao Bento hill. We wanted to make gardens and an architectural walkway around the museum which will offer an ecology lesson, like filtering the water from the bay for use in (decorative) pools," Calatrava said as he presented the design for the museum due to open in 2014.

"The museum is not only an object, but it is the city. The landscape becomes a fundamental element. the (17th century) Sao Bento monastery needed to be seen. The building needed to be horizontal."

The museum is built on a pier in the middle of a large green space of 30,000 square meters (322,900 square feet) with gardens, pools, a bike trail and a recreational area. Water from the bay will also be used for air conditioning.

Environment Threatened by Plastic Waste: Study
Large quantities of plastic waste dumped into the ocean could impact the environment, reports case study.

The two-story structure features a cantilevered roof and facade with moving elements that extends almost to the full length of the pier. On the roof, large steel structures that move like wings will serve as a foundation to store solar energy.

The museum, the first to deal with prospects for building the future, "will encourage visitors to ponder the impact of their actions on the planet," said physicist Luiz Alberto de Oliveira, an official involved with the project.

Pollution More With Some Improved Cookstoves Than Traditional Mud Stoves
Improved cookstoves are touted to cause less pollution than traditional mud stoves.

Calatrava's project will partner with Paris's la Villette museum or the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and the California Academy of Sciences.

"It will be an educational tool on our current actions that will build the world of tomorrow, on how we will live in 2050 when the world population reaches nine billion," de Oliveira added.

Neighborhood Design Connected to Children's Lifestyle
An Australian research study to be published in the international journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine makes the connection between little open space in neighborhoods and sedentary children.

Source-AFP