Portsmouth's Green Stadium
Posted by Big Gav in green buildings, Philippe Starck, portsmouth, wind turbine
Cool green building of the week from Inhabitat is the new Portsmouth football stadium.
Some stunning pictures recently surfaced of Herzog and De Meuron’s latest oeuvre, a £600 million soccer stadium to be constructed in Portsmouth, England. In keeping with their Beijing Bird’s Nest, the venerable Swiss architects have created a striking 36,000 seat stadium that will include an exhibition center, housing, and a park. Envisioned as a shining waterfront beacon, the development will revitalize Horsea Island (a former landfill site) via an abundance of green spaces, a sustainable energy program, and a low-carbon emission scheme.
Sports venues raise an problematic environmental quandary, since the carbon emissions incurred by transportationt to and from stadiums can be staggering. We were impressed that Herzog and de Meuron’s development will employ a variety of sustainable approaches to offset these carbon costs.
The project will reclaim a great expanse of land from Horsea Island, introducing 1.5 acres of public space. Bus, park-and-ride, pedestrian and train services will be provided to help cut down on emissions, and entire island will incorporate a sustainable energy approach that will “take advantage of the different program elements to work together and ensure a low carbon emission scheme.”
Inhabitat also has a post on designer Philippe Starck and his sudden conversion to green design (calling all his previous work "unnecessary"), initially manifesting this via a home wind turbine.
Philippe Starck’s personal invisible windmill ‘Democratic Ecology’ was introduced at Milan’s Greenergy Design show earlier this year in a vibrant display relaying the intent to enable every man, woman and child on Earth to generate their own power in designer style. The transparent mini-turbine will be available to all in September 2008 and, in typical Starck style, if everyone’s going to have one he’s going to make sure they all look great.
The turbine was on display in an twisted cube decorated with ecologically motivated statements, clearly designed to maximize the turbine’s aesthetic potential. Inhabitat was on the green scene in Milan, and can attest that the text and images looked fabulous viewed through the polycarbonate as it spun round. Presumably the transparency is a metaphor for the way Starck wants us to live: “Do we need so much materiality? The more materiality there is, the less humanity.”
The windmill can generate 20-60% of the energy needed to power a home, at a price point of around 400 Euros ($633). Not realistically within everyone’s budget, but by combining creativity and elegance with ecology Starck will hopefully encourage more people to take greener steps. And for those who don’t want their conservation pieces to be conversation pieces, a subtler version has been proposed.
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