Samantha Sannella: In-home Food Recycling

A clean solution for the 'green garbage' - a dehydrator - which turns food waste into a dry chipped/shredded substance that can be used for mulch to feed the garden. This machine - which I will call, 'The Green Machine', is installed into the sink - much like the 'garburators.' Food is chopped up by the garburator - then the compost is washed down to a tank - which is a dehydrator. When the dehydrator is full, it turns on and dries the chips. The moisture is siphoned off to the drain pipe on the sink's plumbing. The dry shredded chips are then sealed into a bag. You can store the bags for Spring garden feeding.

Image of the Leslie Street Allotment Gardens, Toronto

Idea Bank Series by Margaret Atwood

Given that:

• Pollution and pesticides are a problem
• Flowers grown in many countries have no pesticide standards
• More pollution is caused flying the flowers here
• There are many flat-roofed warehouses and business buildings
• Flat roofs heat up horribly
• More pollution is caused cooling the buildings in the summer
• Green roofs cut down on cooling and heating costs and thus cut pollution

Therefore:

Someone could make a nice business combining the installation of green roofs and the using of the space to grow organic local flower varieties. No good in winter, but the building would still benefit from improved insulation.

Once the roofs were in place, the building could actually rent the space for growing, thus profiting twice.

Montreal’s Pascale Giardin is a Concordia Fine Arts Alumni from Studio Arts (BFA 91) who, for the past few years, has been exploring the architectural space. Pascale’s installations are motivated by pure forms; her innovative concepts are characteristic with rhythmic patterns and textured surfaces. Although monochromatic, natural elements always seem to find their way into Pascal’s intimate designs. Even her most original designs echo a delicate balance between form and function. You can find some of her recent handiwork at Montreal's celebrated Toqué restaurant, Chicago's New China Grill restaurant in the Hard Rock Hotel; Toronto's gallery-boutique Hollace Cluny; Le Germain Hotel in Montreal; Boutique Bô in Paris and in Nobu restaurants in New York, Las Vegas and Miami.

A material like clay is vulnerable and flexible at the same time; the inherent properties of the medium produce one-of-a-kind authentic pieces for Pascale. Her materials of choice: earthenware, semi-sandstone, semi-porcelain all help create a slew of services offering architectural ceramics, porcelain curtains, accessories of decoration. Pascale’s works are inspired by the effortless beauty found in nature; each object is made with a great respect to the medium and its tradition.

Pascale is now working on various projects with well-established interior design firms in toronto such as Yabu Pushelberg, B|H Design Consultants Inc and II by IV. Be sure to visit her in Studio North booth number SN17 at the Interior Design Show 2006

Stuck in traffic as I was on the DVP, you can often see over the ravine, but not on this day. The fog fell over the city like a collapsed tent, allowing you to only see a few metres ahead. The traffic had been slowed due to a fender bender, and just when I was wondering how you could hit someone right in front of you in such slow traffic, I almost did exactly the same thing. The fog had flattened my view of everything in front of me, resulting in a quicker than expected stop, meaning a quicker than expected stop for the guy behind me too. Fortunately, any disaster was averted. It had been some time since I seen fog this thick. The view through the windshield was like red and white LEDs held behind a sheet of vellum. While it reminded me of all of the fog-bound days of my youth this was different. It was Toronto fog.

Growing up in St. John's, where during entire seasons you could count the number of sunny days on one hand, one develops a faculty for fog. Morning fog that moves, night fog that doesn't. Fog that burns off, and rises quickly or fog so heavy it's like standing beneath a low-flow shower head. All of which is different from the low curtains of fog of London or the billowy clouds of fog that drop over the hillsides of San Francisco. The wonder of fog, for me, is the effect of standing in a cloud. It's particularly acute on those spring mornings when low lying mist is burning off and you can see the hot spot of the sun cutting in streaks from above. Yet, I haven't seen many mornings like that recently. Toronto's fog for me usually means a dirty grey ceiling and inevitable wheezing brought on by asthmatic lungs soaking in damper than normal air. The unique quality of Toronto's fog to me is it's incredible evenness and stillness. Even warm, wet winter days in Ottawa produce a drifting mist, but not in Toronto. The fog really does just sit on the city.

There's something to be said of our brain's ability to recognize the angle of the sun such that we have some instinctual knowledge of the season and time of day, but I'm beginning to realize we also recognize the angle at which the sun is blocked. For me, the fog of a town is as much a part of its DNA as its streets, neighbourhoods and buildings.