Urban Archives - Ambient Green

EcoCamp Waste Sorting

Puerto NatalesChile

The camp sorts its output by organic and non-organic waste, paper, plastic, glass, and composting items. Even in such a remote location, where we do not have the resources available to recycle everything, we try as much as possible to recycle all that we can. We are also hoping to increase recycling capabilities in our area, not only to serve the camp, but the surrounding community as well.

Corporate Carpooling Incentive

Santa ClaraUnited States

Our company encourages fewer people to drive to work, individually, by offering designated carpool parking spots close to the building entrance.

Drought-Proofed Public Park

BurbankUnited States

Our park uses recycled water for irrigation, in order to prevent a drain on drinking water for the community in times of drought.

Restaurant Food Waste Practices

LondonUnited Kingdom

When it comes to food waste, we try our best to generate the least amount as possible by encouraging guests to only order what they can eat and offering doggy bags for any leftovers. All food waste we generate is sent to anaerobic digestion plants, which in turn provides electricity. We also have a zero landfill waste policy.

Restaurant Urban Roof Beekeeping

Ville de QuebecCanada

On another section of our roof, two beehives are installed that house over 40,000 small employees. During the summer, they help to produce about 80 kg of honey for the restaurant.

Energy Intelligent Building Controls

Ville de QuebecCanada

Our restaurant has an extremely well integrated and efficient mechanical and electrical system design, allowing us to better control and minimize high peaks of electricity consumption. These are the control panels of different pumps, circuits, and hoods. In the foreground, the variable-frequency controllers and drivers of the restaurant’s air supply unit are used to modulate the fans for supplying fresh air, and the air for exhaust. This also maintains a comfortable ambient pressure, even if the door opens quickly or a kitchen hood starts.

Unique in Quebec’s catering industry, the air extracted from the building passes through a heat exchanger in order to preheat the fresh air, greatly reducing the heating requirements of the building. Each of the four hoods in our facility easily draws more than 1,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) outside the building.

Since all of this air must be replaced by fresh air from the outside, a lot of heat is created, especially when the weather brings extremely low temperatures. Our heat recuperator therefore avoids one of the main energy expenditures of restaurants.

Landscaping Water Conservation

DallasUnited States

The Dallas Arboretum is making efforts to research into and educate about water conservation practices in landscaping. Here, it displays a variety of plants that require less water than others, and an experiment towards ‘conservation turf’ as a possible sustainable landscaping solution.

Urban Building Vertical Greenery

PittsburghUnited States

Skyscraper green wall art in our downtown. It is beautiful, and spans 2,380 square feet.

University Solar Emergency Call...

HoustonUnited States

Our campus features scattered emergency call boxes that are powered by solar panels.

Small Urban Renewable Energy...

CypressUnited States

I passed a site of small wind and solar installations on the campus of a branch of our community college. The wind turbines are vertical axis (VAWT).

Apartment Recycling and Sorting

SeattleUnited States

My apartment building offers a composting option in addition to the general waste and recycling bins.

City Recycling Cages

ZipaquiraColombia

Thanks to these cages in our city, recycling has become easier for everyone. If you have plastic bottles, cardboard, or glass at your house, instead of mixing it with organic matter, you take it out to these cages. It is also easier for our city’s waste collection team to take proper care of the recyclable waste.

EcoCamp Natural Light Optimization

Puerto NatalesChile

Our camp is thoughtfully designed to take full advantage of available natural light, within our domes. Not only does this serve to save on indoor lighting, it provides for a magnificent outlook on our extraordinary surroundings.

Hotel Grey Water System...

PragueCzech Republic

Our hotel/hostel utilizes a well designed grey water system with heat recuperation- the second such system in the world. Through this, heat may be harnessed from previously used water, allowing for a decrease in energy necessary for heating further incoming water. The system saves around 4,000 liters of water daily. In addition, heat recuperation is also used in our air, ventilation, and cooling processes.

Further information:

As seen here, our basement houses a recycling and regenerative unit- AquaCycle- which was tested and installed by Pontos Company. This system filters grey water in three cycles. We use the water for flushing the toilets, watering the plants, and washing the floors. This technology serves for the heat recovery from the recycling of grey water.

The water heating process is carried out in three steps. After cold water turns from 5°C to 25°C, heat recuperation from cooling heats the water from 25°C to 35°C. Then, our rooftop solar panels help us to heat the water from 35°C to 60°C. If the solar panels collect much energy during midday which is not used, the system stores the hot water (90°C) in an accumulating pot, and it is used toward any event rush.

Urban Solar Parking Canopies

AustinUnited States

These solar canopies for parking lots not only help to provide electricity, but offer shade, rooftop protection, an efficient use of the substantial area allocated for parking space, and the option to introduce and power electric vehicle charging stations directly where they are needed.