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March 24th - 28th 2008
 REVIEW THE 2ND ANNUAL GREEN WEEK EVENTS!!! This year's events were great and varied! View the Weeks events here. Sustainable Pratt membership had grown by leaps and bounds, and we are still growing! Meeting at 12:15pm on the first wednesday of every month, in the Faculty Dining Room, Pratt's Brooklyn Campus. The events are representative of the great diversity and commitment of all members. We have tried to give equal representation to all aspects of sustainability: social equity, environmental sensitivity and economic vitality. Each day of the week had a theme and activities were mostly scheduled to take place outdoors as to make events more available to the surrounding community. MONDAY - GREEN WEEK KICK OFF TRANSPORTATION TUESDAY - BIKE ENTHUSIASTS WELCOME!! WEDNESDAY - SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE THURSDAY - GARDEN AND GARBAGE - PLANT, GROW, COMPOST AND RECYCLE GREENBOUNTY - LOCAL ORGANIC HEALTHY FOODS FOR ALL!! Events of note include: Ongoing sustainable materials exhibits organized by the Interior Design department, held in the JTC Design Center Siegel Gallery opening reception for C40 Solutions: Pratt Call for Entries, an Institute wide student competition for NYC's representation in C40 Solutions an International Sustainable Design Exhibition....Monday Free!!! Bike repair and advocacy table...Tuesday Lectures on Energy Efficiency in Buildings Engineering Building...Wednesday Worm Bins and Sunflowers....Thursday A Green Market at Pratt!!!!...Friday Sustainable Pratt and the Office of the Academic Director of Sustainability were thrilled to welcome Green Week Key Note Speaker PAUL POLAK, author of "Out of Poverty" and founder of Design for the Other 90%a social design network. Mr. Polak discussed the over 800 million people in the world living on less than a dollar a day, and how to design products which enable them to elevate their economic status. Mr. Polak participated in judging the C40 Solutions: Pratt Call for Entries competition prior to his 6pm lecture, Thursday, March 27th in Higgins Hall Auditorium. Followed by a reception and book signing!! All Green Week Events were open to the public and Free!!!! Our goal was and still is to spread the word of sustainable living and raise awareness of all the initiatives taking place at Pratt Institute and throughout the Pratt Community! Link | 0 comments  Innovative Light and Shade @ Pratt    Pratt Institute's Energy Conscience Architecture Professor Brent Porter, is leading innovation in lighting design through his efforts in the Christina Porter Lighting Lab. The Christina Porter Lighting Lab presented a pin-up of its recent work, Feb. 22 - 24 as a precursor to plans for Pratt Institute's GREEN WEEK. Projects include a Velux Skylight research and a "roofscape" design exploration. Tyler Kicera modeled his ventilating skylight system with slanting interior soffits to deflect sunlight as well as artificial light as simulated in the Lighting Lab. Both "daylighting" and "night-lighting" blend together on a cloudy day. The slanting soffits have a double function similar to the skylights by Louis Kahn at Yale's British Art Center. This "roofscape" work is being expanded to tame Rhino and Maya computer languages for the Navy Yard market development as well as other student projects. This includes the aquatic center in Third Year Design. While generating form according to script, why not make the unique computerized extractions provide daylighting throughout the year, add passive solar gain in winter but shadow the interior in summer as skylights draw hot air from the architecture? Photovoltaic arrays can provide the hot spot at roof level adjacent to skylights to enhance the "thermal stack" effect. In the exhibition, the latest photovoltaic collector demonstrated how not only 90 per cent of the coating converts sunlight to electricity but also provides a surprising amount of daylighting to the interior below. A variety of sundials and solar envelopes illustrated their use for studying a design's access to sunlight without shading neighboring properties. The same techniques can be used to develop skylights and detailed roofscape. The work shown returned to the Pratt area's brownstones and what can be done with one indigenous element of the roof: the ventilating, skylighted cupola. Simulations showed how the thermal stack can cool row-housing in summer while not only enhancing daylighting of stairwells but also incorporating camera obscura techniques to bring color to an interior. Link | 0 comments Pratt Entry WINS in Architecture 2030 Design Competition  PRATT INSTITUTE Commercial Design Student, Miles Courtney is the Body Painting Winner! During the Focus the Nation Events on January 30th and 31st, Pratt Institute held video and body painting design competitions sponsored by Architecture 2030. The extraordinary image displayed here was created by Miles Courtney, an Advertising student at Pratt. Click here to view all of the face and body painting entries. The following students, under the guidance of Architecture Professor Brent Porter, submitted video entries:
Pratt as a Bicycle Friendly Community  As Pratt Institute's campus moves toward sustainability, a key ingredient for greening will be modes of transportation. Amongst Sustainable Pratters, there is a push to embrace the bicycle! As we gear up for Green Week, the third week in March, a gaggle of Bike enthusiasts have begun to serve up some great ideas to create a cyclist community here at Pratt! #1. Create a bike station on campus! Whether you want to fix a flat, lube a chain, get a tune up or just talk shop, this would be a place on campus to rally the existing cyclist community and help it grow. The idea is to have a temporary setup during green week and when we get enough interest make it something more permanent. Perhaps at the new building on 524 Myrtle Ave.?!? Check out the bike kitchen a project on the campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. #2. In Paris and many other international cities, bike sharing is all the rage! Philly has already caught the bug, visit their Bike-Sharing Blog. And Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a bike share program for Governor's Island! Let's Bring Pratt to the Lead! and place a bike share station next to 524 Myrtle, perfectly positioned for the community and sustainable pratters! #3. Get funding to make Pratt a Bicycle Friendly Community! REI and Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFCs) have a grant program administered by the Bikes Belong Foundation in partnership with the League of American Bicyclists www.bikesbelong.org. They support designated and aspiring BFCs that desire and demonstrate bicycle friendliness. Transportation Alternatives received funding from this source. If you are interested in learning more about making Pratt a Bicyclist's Haven, contact us at info@sustainablepratt.org Link | 0 comments C40 International Design Exhibit  Last Summer, New York invited leaders from 40 of the largest cities in the world to participate in a climate change summit. These 40 cities in collaboration with the Clinton Climate Initiative formed the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. A group committed to tackling Climate Change. This Spring (beginning March 24th), Pratt will begin assembling an International Green Design Exhibit with works from Art & Design schools of the C40 Cities. Pratt Institute will be the representative of New York City and to chose the project to represent Pratt a C40 Call For Entries competition will be held during Green Week This event will be part of the ongoing effort at Pratt to educate future designers in sustainable best practices. If you would like to help in this effort or have submissions for consideration, please contact us at info@sustainablepratt.org Link | 0 comments Greening Pratt's Campus  The Green Walk is a visual expression of the possibilities to green Pratt's campus. The Green Walk is part of a large over-arching plan developed by the Office of the Academic Director of Sustainability (ADoS) at Pratt. The plan will work with faculty, staff or students to develop proposals that help green the campus. ADoS is "hoping to pepper the campus with various projects, point out where interesting research is being done and designate areas where the campus has gone green. This coordinated plan will help raise money to support and sustain individual projects - and hopefully get a major funder to sponsor the "green walk" and make it a comprehensive educational exhibit." Similar to the representation of our richness in Art & Design through the sculpture garden, the "green walk" will be a physical representation of our commitment to sustainability. Link | 0 comments Sustainable South Bronx Leads the way Toward Green Jobs  Green For All a collaborative effort between green jobs advocate Van Jones and Sustainable South Bronx Director Majora Carter has a mission. "Help Build a Green Economy Strong Enough to Lift People Out of Poverty" How do they plan to do this...by calling for a Just and Sustainable Stimulus Package with targeted investments in energy efficiency, mass transit, and a "Clean Energy Corps" to provide Americans with jobs and service opportunities, "creating a green pathway out of poverty". Their mission is timely considering the current Whitehouse Frenzy to stimulate the economy. Green For All is advocating for an honest economic stimulus which will provide living wage jobs and propel green technology, not a one time reallocation of our tax money. It's simple..."give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he can feed himself for life". Get the latest on their progress @ Sustainable South Bronx's January Newsletter Link | 0 comments Archives October 2006 | November 2006 | December 2006 | February 2007 | March 2007 | May 2007 | June 2007 | November 2007 | January 2008 | March 2008 | April 2008 |
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