tangledwing

Finca Bellavista: A sustainable tree forest community in Costa Rica. Pictures by Anders Birch or Silke Gondolf.

At The Bellavista Initiative, we believe that conservation in marginalized areas like ours must be approached deliberately and holistically. New ideas and methods must be implemented with respect to generations of customs, beliefs, and activities that might conflict with the progressive changes necessary to preserve and restore ecosystems and communities. Our outreach programs are tailored to address the special challenges inherent to growing conservation efforts within an area that supports a variety of land uses.

Our inaugural year of programs, fundraising, and outreach will focus on applying remedies to some of the most pressing ecological and social maladies impacting the Southern Zone of Costa Rica directly around our community. We believe there are countless opportunities to affect immediate positive changes in this region that we call home. Because our setting is speckled with a variety of land uses – primary and secondary growth rainforests, industrial agricultural lands, protected areas, and struggling populations – it acts as an ideal incubator for the specialized programs necessary to create systemic changes that will protect and restore rainforest assets and communities.

Part of me thinks this is cool - who hasn’t had fantasies about living in a tree house. They do seem well intentioned. Their solution to preserving the rain forest while also finding a way to get the forest to sustain a living for people, might be the greatest of compromise solutions. They’re doing things like recycling their water, alternative energy and trying to be generally low impact. The question is, can an expanding community of tree houses be truly low impact.

Baby’s life saved with groundbreaking 3D printed device

Every day, their baby stopped breathing, his collapsed bronchus blocking the crucial flow of air to his lungs. April and Bryan Gionfriddo watched helplessly, just praying that somehow the dire predictions weren’t true.

“Quite a few doctors said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive,” says April Gionfriddo, about her now 20-month-old son, Kaiba. “At that point, we were desperate. Anything that would work, we would take it and run with it.”

They found hope at the University of Michigan, where a new, bioresorbable device that could help Kaiba was under development.  Kaiba’s doctors contacted Glenn Green, M.D., associate professor of pediatric otolaryngology at the University of Michigan.

Green and his colleague, Scott Hollister, Ph.D., professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering and associate professor of surgery at U-M, went right into action, obtaining emergency clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to create and implant a tracheal splint for Kaiba made from a biopolymer called polycaprolactone.

On February 9, 2012, the specially-designed splint was placed in Kaiba at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. The splint was sewn around Kaiba’s airway to expand the bronchus and give it a skeleton to aid proper growth. Over about three years, the splint will be reabsorbed by the body. The case is featured today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“It was amazing. As soon as the splint was put in, the lungs started going up and down for the first time and we knew he was going to be OK,” says Green.

Green and Hollister were able to make the custom-designed, custom-fabricated device using high-resolution imaging and computer-aided design. The device was created directly from a CT scan of Kaiba’s trachea/bronchus, integrating an image-based computer model with laser-based 3D printing to produce the splint.

Life Chair by Knoll.

Rated Sustainable Gold under the SMaRT© Consensus Sustainable Product Standard
    GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Certified®
    GREENGUARD Children & SchoolsSM Certified
    Can contribute to achieving U.S. Green Building Council LEED® credits, including the Innovation in Design credit
    Complies with ANSI-BIFMA x5.1-2002 structural standard and ANSI/HFES 100-2007
    Plastic base version is made with 55% recycled content and 58% of parts are readily recyclable
    Aluminum base version is made with 60% recycled content and 70% of parts are readily recyclable
    Constructed using minimal materials
    Adhesives and coatings are virtually VOC-free

Those specifications do not apply to the available leather version. Knoll has a pretty good reputation for quality. Whether these green qualities are worth almost $900 (698.00 EUROS) is another matter. There is a market for high quality chairs in this price range, so better those people or companies are buying an expensive green chair rather than an expensive regular chair.

The Clock Shadow Building at 130 West Bruce Street. Said to be Milwaukee’s greenest building. By Continuum Architects + Planners.

The four-story, 28,500-square-foot building is located on an urban brownfield site. The first floor contains a cheese factory and ice cream shop while the upper three floors contain multiple organizations that make up the Healing Collaborative: Aurora Healthcare Community Clinic, the Healing Center and CORE/El Centro. The project includes a green roof that produces vegetables for the community and serves as therapy for participants in the Healing Collaborative program.
 
This building raises awareness for its occupants and users of how we interact with our physical environment. The application of passive measures were fully explored and exploited, before the introduction of any active measures. Sustainable goals were:

    Reduce energy consumption by 50% based on ASHRAE 90.1 through sunshades and natural daylight.
    Reduce water consumption by a minimum of 60% by capturing rainwater for the green roof and using stormwater for flushing all the toilets.
    Use salvaged materials, rapidly renewable materials and recycled materials for a minimum of 50% of the building.
    Divert 99% of construction material waste from landfills.