Inventors are currently trialling recycled plastic road technology in the Netherlands, says The Economist, with a 30 metre bicycle track opened in early September.
The first prefabricated PlasticRoad track in Zwolle consists of modular sections made in a factory from 70% recycled plastic and 30% polypropylene. Developers say it includes recycled plastic equivalent to more than 218,000 plastic cups or 500,000 bottle caps.
Sensors to measure temperature, the number of bike passages, durability, flexing and the flow of water through drainage channels, are also fitted inside the path.
Two Dutch firms – KWS, a road builder, and Wavin, a firm that makes plastic piping – are developing the product in partnership with Total, a French oil-and-gas firm.
The trial follows an Australian test project installed in May, with a substance called Plastiphalt laid onto a 300 metre stretch in Craigieburn in Melbourne.
The Plastiphalt was made from recycled material from more than 200,000 plastic bags and packaging, 63,000 crushed glass bottles and toner from 4,500 printer cartridges. All this was blended into 50 tonnes of reclaimed asphalt to create 250 tonnes of road-building material.
The two projects are being monitored for performance.
Image: PlasticRoad.
Melbourne school with no classrooms:
Victoria’s first vertical state school welcomed its first students earlier this year. So-called ‘learning neighbourhoods’ have replaced classrooms inside the multi-level building, says Architecture and Design.
Learning can take place indoors or outdoors at South Melbourne Primary School, depending on the weather, in spaces designed by Hayball in collaboration with Tract Consultants.
“Each learning neighbourhood will effectively accommodate 75 children with three teaching staff,” says Hayball director Ann Lau.
“This is very much about collaborative learning rather than didactic learning.”
The school combines community services and schooling in the one space, writes Foreground. Any ‘hard’ borders between the school and its surrounding area were erased, to create a public facility that invites the community in.
The Street Furniture Australia factory, in Regents Park, Western Sydney, is both a manufacturing hub and R&D studio for our Australian-designed and made street furniture products. We run fun and informative group events for customers throughout the year, to share how products are designed, tested and built, and the latest products and projects. Director of Tract Julie Lee said: “It was a great opportunity for our team to look behind the scenes and understand the innovation, research and climate positive outcomes Street Furniture Australia is focusing on. Thank you for having us!” Place Design Group Associate, Liam Isaksen, said: “The factory tour is a fun experience to learn about the design and manufacturing process of public furniture we use in landscape architecture design. Seeing the work behind the scenes and …
Did you catch these most-read case studies, furnishing tips, new product announcements and special industry events in your StreetChat updates in 2023? Each month our StreetChat enewsletter publishes new projects, products and trends from the public domain; subscribe to receive it in your inbox. 10. Which design firm can see Longhorn Cattle from their office window? 2 countries. 9 cities. 300 landscape architects. Street Furniture Australia and USA partner Spruce & Gander visited offices in Australia and Texas. There were key similarities and some notable standouts. 9. Jazz at The Mint: Product and Book Launch Sydney landscape architects gathered at the iconic Mint Courtyard to launch a design book by our founding directors Darrel Conybeare and Bill Morrison, and expansions to the Linea collection. 8. 2023 Good Cause Giveaway goes to …
Street Furniture Australia has designed and built prototype charging stands as part of a Transport for NSW program to deliver free phone chargers at 15 Sydney train stations. Developed by Street Furniture Australia’s inhouse industrial designers in collaboration with Transport for NSW, the prototypes offer wireless, USB-A and USB-C charging, and can power 7 devices at once. They were built at the Street Furniture Australia factory in Western Sydney. Two Power Spots are now installed at Liverpool and Campbelltown stations. The $1 million Power Spots Project rollout to 15 transport hubs including Bankstown, Hurstville, Lidcombe, Penrith, Wynyard, Central, Town Hall and Bondi Junction will be completed by late 2024. NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the Power Spots provide peace of mind: “In the modern world, our phones are our …
Kanye’s housing renders: Kanye West’s Yeezy Home design and architecture collaborators have released images of an initial pre-fab concrete concept design, with a Brutalist aesthetic, on Instagram. Very little information has been offered about the architectural renderings, posted by Jalil Peraza, a long-time West collaborator who teamed up with architect Nejc Škufca and industrial designer Vadik Marmeladov to bring us a first look at Ye’s housing vision. Peraza told The Urban Developer his intention is to create a “scalable” low-income social housing scheme using prefabricated concrete. His company, Face Modules, has prior experience with low-cost prefab commercial pod systems. Should West’s project go ahead, a ’tilt-up’ method of construction, using cranes, could be used to erect as many as 30 house panels per day. It could be the start of West’s new city. Or perhaps he is currently …
Kanye West – rapper, fashion designer and now city builder? Kanye West appears to be turning his sights from music and sneakers to architecture and city-building. “Don’t let him do this,” writes Brentin Mock in CityLab. In the final 15 minutes of an interview with Charlamagne Tha God, ticking well over 8 million YouTube views in 20 days, Yeezy walks his 300 acres and muses, “I’m gonna build five properties, so this is my first community. I’m getting into development. Anybody who’s been to any of my cribs knows I’m super into developing homes. This is the next frontier for me.” “I’m going to be one of the biggest real estate developers of all time, like what Howard Hughes was to aircraft and what Henry Ford was to cars.” His …
Could glowing trees light our streets? Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say cities may be able to cut back on power use and emissions with plants and trees that glow at night. If successful, MIT hopes their research could be used to provide low-intensity indoor lighting, or transform trees into self-powered streetlights, according to the Urban Developer. Currently researchers have embedded specialised nanoparticles, including the chemical that gives fireflies their glow, into the leaves of watercress plants. The plants were shown to give off a dim glow for nearly four hours. This new method avoids the need to introduce a glowing gene into the plant, a far more laborious task, and with further optimisation the engineers say they could light up a desktop – or even a streetscape. “Plants can self-repair, they have their own energy, …
