Charles Leadbeater on the creative economy.

Re-posted from: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/node/2923

Charles Leadbeater looks at two different types of creative economies – the open and the closed organisation. He considers the assumptions and the applications of the two models and the breaking down of the closed approach. Libraries are precursors to open innovation and the public platforms for cumulative innovation. The media, traditional research organisations and knowledge-based professions such as doctors and teachers are in the middle of the innovation spectrum.

Charles is a corporate thinker, strategist and consultant who has spoken and published widely, recently concentrating primarily on innovation theory. In 2003, he released an important report on public libraries in the UK, called Overdue: how to create a modern public library service.

Download Charles Leadbeater on the creative economy [mp3, 4.8 MB]

Kerb 21 Call for Submissions

Practitioners of landscape architecture tread the line between creator and curator.
Practice is the ongoing accumulation of knowledge that tests ideas through research and application. Whilst practitioners can be flexible in their definition of knowledge, a collective knowledge must be negotiated to create a consistency of practice. Is this consistency of practice effective for building diversity?


Practicing and engaging on the periphery of multiple disciplines broadens the realm of landscape architecture. This forces a constant defining and redefining of landscape architecture, creating difference that enables the development of new knowledges. As new knowledges are adapted and/or created, they ultimately form the basis of alternate modes of practice. These modes of practice only survive so long as they remain relevant to the current condition. Factors influencing the current condition may be, but are not limited to economic instability, finite resources, shifting social values and advancements in technology and manufacturing.


Modes of practice that adapt to these factors might include new material investigations and applications, imaginative methods of procuring projects and establishing working environments, incorporation of the virtual or reconsidering the permanence of outcomes. These are just allusions to adapted modes of practice that may result in the emergence of new discourse and diversification within the discipline of landscape architecture. Kerb 21 asks - what are these alternate modes of practice and what are they reacting to?


Alternate modes of practice give us the tools to respond to the issues unfolding around us and to synthesise design thinking into other domains.


Kerb 21 seeks to identify adapted modes of practice in order to explore possible futures of landscape architecture. Submissions should serve as a section through practice and will be positioned amongst a broader context of influences. This issue aims to curate an exposition on alternate modes of practice and initiate discourse based on diversity.

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3D Printing that's outer this world!

Below has been re-blogged from space.com

The technology behind 3D printing has allowed users to craft musical instruments and prosthetic limbs, and now European scientists are taking a serious look at printing their own moon base.

The European Space Agency (ESA) study is investigating how practical constructing a manned base on the moon only using 3D printing technology could be, given that it would rely primarily on lunar dirt for building materials.

"Terrestrial 3D printing technology has produced entire structures," Laurent Pambaguian, who heads the project for ESA, said in a statement. "Our industrial team investigated if it could similarly be employed to build a lunar habitat."


A moon base with style

The European Space Agency and a consortium of industry professionals investigated the feasibility of using 3D printing to build a lunar base.
CREDIT: ESA

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Pambaguian's team partnered with the London-based architecture firm Foster + Partners to draw up ideas for a 3D-printed moon colony. [See photos of the 3D-printed moon base ]

"As a practice, we are used to designing for extreme climates on Earth and exploiting the environmental benefits of using local, sustainable materials," Xavier De Kestelier of Foster + Partners said in a statement. "Our lunar habitation follows a similar logic."

Foster + Partners' 3D printed design is a simple four-person moon basethat can be made completely out of repurposed moon dirt, which scientists call "regolith."

Because the entire design is made primarily from indigenous lunar materials moon, there is no need to transport costly materials from the Earth into space. The base would be built using a robotic printer roving over an inflatable dome.

"3D printing offers a potential means of facilitating lunar settlement with reduced logistics from Earth," Scott Hovland of ESA’s human spaceflight team said. "The new possibilities this work opens up can then be considered by international space agencies as part of the current development of a common exploration strategy."

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The European Space Agency and a consortium of industry professionals investigated the feasibility of using 3D printing to build a lunar base.
CREDIT: ESA/Foster + Partners

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Hollow moon dirt walls

The base would have a cell-like but strong frame resembling the structure of bird bones that will protect lunar residents from gamma radiation and micrometeorites that could destroy a less robust build.

ESA and the agency's partners have already built part of the base. Using a mixture of silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron and magnesium oxides meant to simulate regolith — a mixture of dust and dirt — found on the moon, ESA and its partners printed a 2,205-pound (1,000 kilograms) piece of what part of the home could look like.

The European Space Agency and a consortium of industry professionals investigated the feasibility of using 3D printing to build a lunar base.
CREDIT: ESA

View full size image

"The planned site for the base is at the moon’s southern pole, where there is near perpetual sunlight on the horizon," officials for Foster and Partners said in a statement.

The firm has started trying out the 3D printer in conditions similar to those on the surface of the moon. The team has started printing various structures inside a vacuum chamber.

This isn't the first time a space agency has considered 3D printing a lunar base  . Last year, NASA officials challenged researchers at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. to 3D print the ceramic-like simulated lunar regolith into smooth, cylindrical shapes to test the strength of the material.

Foster + Partners is also partnering with other firms to build the first private spaceport in the world. Known as Spaceport America, the $209 million base will serve as a hub for commercial spaceflight. The spaceport should be completed later this year. 

Transiting Cities - Exhibition

The winners of the Transiting Cities – Low Carbon Futures competition were announced at the dedicated exhibition opening on Friday 14 December, 2012. The competition is a part of an ongoing research project conducted by The Office of Urban Transformations Research (OUTR) at RMIT University.

The design ideas competition was open to designers from around the world; landscape architects, architects, urban planners and associated design disciplines to develop innovative visions for Latrobe City, in eastern Victoria, Australia to make the transition from a singular economy dominated by the power industry (coal mining and electricity generation) into a diversified economy and prosperous low carbon regional city.

The range of entries submitted from around the world has contributed to the development of a rich, stimulating, and diverse field of enquiry into the issue of the changing nature of cities and the issue of low carbon futures.

View of the exhibition space with the printed and projected entries

Entrance to the exhibition with information boards

Competition site model

Competition site model - Various frames from the projected animation

From left: Richard Elkington, Chair of Regional Development Victoria (Gippsland) and competition judge; RMIT student winners Farah Dakkak and Carl Hong; Lou Weis, Director, Broached Commissions and competition judge; and Councillor Peter Gibbons, Latrobe City Council.

OUTR Team from left: Peter Wang, Greg Afflick, Rosalea Monacella, Tom Harper & Craig Douglas
 Liz Herbert inspects the short-listed entries
Richard Elkington announces the winner of Transiting Cities competition

Associate Professor Vivian Mitsogianni from the Design Research Institute address the crow

First Prize Winner: Transiting Cities Low Carbon Futures Design Ideas Competition

Reassembling Flows

Team Name: Parallax Landscape
Team Members: Kees Lokman, Yu Ding, Melissa How
Country of Origin: Missouri, United States

Project Description (Short Description)

In the words of Peirce Lewis, Latrobe has become "our unwitting autobiography, reflecting our tastes, our values, our aspirations, and even our fears, in tangible, visible form"[1] (Lewis 1979). Current industrial land use practices in Latrobe, such as mining operations and dairy farming, come with tremendous environmental costs. Recent reports state that Australians, on average, produce over 20 tonnes of C02 emissions per person per year, ranking the country as the world's highest carbon dioxide polluter. Beyond greenhouse gas emissions, mining operations are a large source of surface and groundwater pollution. Large amounts of water are extracted from local aquifers for mining operations and irrigation-based agriculture, causing destabilization of soil conditions, increasing the chance of river bank failures, and making the area more prone to flooding and seismic activity. Moreover, intensive cattle and dairy farming operations produce enormous amounts of manure which is currently disposed of in inadequately sized and lined lagoons or storage structures that allow pathogens to escape into the surrounding environment. The result is an unsustainable landscape that privileges short-term economic gain over human and environmental health.

However, Latrobe's identity on both the local and global level is one that is so deeply rooted in its mining tradition that to deny its significance in the valley's future is equally short-sighted. By proposing a gradual shift over time from the current coal oriented energy economy and opening up its remnants to its people, this project honors the rich and storied history of the region while responding to the need for cleaner energy alternatives. Reassembling Flows thus aims to change this paradigm by repurposing existing infrastructures, optimizing resource utilization, and structurally integrating ecosystem services into design processes across multiple scales. Understanding Latrobe Valley as a complex system of interconnected flows of industrial processes, ecological systems, and cultural networks allows for the transformation of currently discarded "waste" byproducts from these processes into valuable resources--creating opportunities from liabilities. No longer an exploited landscape of extraction, Latrobe becomes a key part in an extensive network of social, environmental and economic exchanges that extends throughout and spatially connects the Gippsland Region.

[1] Peirce F. Lewis, “Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Scene,” in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes edited by Donald W. Meinig (Oxford University Press, USA): 1979.

2nd Prize Winner: Transiting Cities Low Carbon Futures Design Ideas Competition

Dirty to Mighty: Brown is the New Green

Team Name: Daichi

Team Members: Daichi Yamashita
Country of Origin: Ontario, Canada

Project Description (Short Description)

Dirty to Mighty is a response to two major issues Australia faces in relation to energy and sustainability.

1. Australia’s declining oil production with merely 3.9 billion barrels of proved oil reserves (0.2% of the world) coupled with the increasing oil consumption, exceeding 1 million bpd of oil in 2011, pose a threat to the country’s energy security. At this rate, self-sufficiency in oil is predicted to drop from the current 50% to 20% by 2020.

2. The world coal consumption continues to rise, especially in Australia´s prime export countries such as China and India. (2.8 and 0.6 billion short tons in 2010 respectively.)

How can Latrobe City act as the key catalyst in providing a solution to such critical and urgent problems?

Currently, the power stations in Latrobe Valley together emit around 65 Mt of carbon dioxide each year. The stations, however; cannot simply be terminated as they generate 90% of Victoria´s electricity and employ 3100 people. In addition, the area is gifted with 65 billion tonnes of brown coal with an estimated 33 billion tonnes to be “potentially economic”.

Dirty to Mighty proposes to use brown coal to produce not only electricity but also liquid fuel as well as many other high value products, while utilizing the CO2 released during the conversion process into additional products including oil, creating a highly viable yet sustainable means of achieving energy security and economic diversification. Brown coal becomes the essential element leading to a completely new vision of Latrobe Valley which utilizes its abundant natural resources without compromising environmental impacts. Along the axis of the provided site, the project introduces a technological corridor of research/innovation facilities focused on the liquefaction and gasification of brown coal as well as the sequestration and conversion of carbon dioxide.

Honorable Mention: Transting Cities Low Carbon Futures Design Ideas Competition

Hydraulic Network

Team Name: Truitt Foug Architects
Team Members: William Truitt, Carolyn Foug, Marsha Bowden, Adam Wong
Country of Origin: Texas, United States

Project Description

In Water Wars, Vandana Shiva describes the possibility of water management for the use of a larger public. An integrated ecosystem and way of life exists in one part of the Rio Grande Valley where other water systems have been privatized and divided the larger landscape. As populations in dry landscapes grow, water rights cause conflict and a rush to ‘land grab’ access to viable water systems. Shiva uses Gujarat and Punjab as case studies in the problem arising between large populations, dropping water tables and the privatization of the remaining natural resources. Climate change shows, however, that water issues develop in every region, not simply in already challenged or established crisis zones.

The Latrobe Valley presents a unique landscape whereby the abundant natural resources have been historically sold for profit, first for local energy consumption and now for the global market. Water here, in fact, is an impediment to the extraction of coal for cheap energy consumption, and so large swaths of land have been de-watered, causing the water table to drop over 50 meters. The new artificial landscape, revealing the hidden ecology, does provide an opportunity to rethink the relationship of living space to water. This project re-imagines the Latrobe Valley as an interconnected hydraulic network. While the current infrastructure acts to separate uses and flows of the entire region in order to facilitate the transport of goods, a slight alteration of the larger landscape quickly transforms the region into an infrastructural space that is decidedly public and connected with the everyday living condition. Four distinct zones along a section of the valley- Sport, Morwell, Water Treatment, and Solar Pillows describe new ways in which to take advantage of the subtractive landscape.