Adele Peters ~ Meet The Man Building A Plastic Bottle Village In Panama

When Robert Bezeau moved from Montreal to Panama in 2009, one of the first things he noticed was the trash: the beaches surrounding the island where he lived were lined with plastic bottles. In a year and a half, working with volunteers, he estimates that he collected more than a million bottles for recycling.

Surrounded by piles of bottles, Bezeau started wondering if they could be used for something new—a building material for houses in what he calls the Plastic Bottle Village. In a new short documentary from Mel Films, filmmaker David Freid visits Panama to see one of the houses now under construction.

Read more: https://www.fastcoexist.com/meet-the-man-building

White Slums Of South Africa

Housing in Our Time ~ 1930’s Social Guidance ~ American Cities

A depression era film by the United States Housing Authority of the Federal Works Agency, showing urban renewal projects in slum areas. Includes of housing construction and related activities.

Housing in Our Time – 1930’s Social Guidance / American Cities / Educational Documentary – Val73TV

David Satterthwaite & Cassidy Johnson ~ Ten Essentials For The New Urban Agenda In One Page

Ten concise points respond to the current draft of Habitat III’s New Urban Agenda which is lengthy, dense and gives too little attention to the key roles of local government and civil society.

Habitat III will seek global political commitment to making urban centres more sustainable, inclusive and resilient. But the latest draft of the New Urban Agenda – to be agreed at the summit – is long, impenetrable and gives little attention to urban governance. Frustrated by this unwieldy document, we have developed an alternative version of the New Urban Agenda – in one page.

Borrowing the format of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient (PDF) these short and practical points provide national governments with clear direction for a workable outcome from Habitat III.

The text does not include many important goals. It seeks instead to push attention away from long lists that repeat commitments already made to the means by which these can be met.

Ahead of the last negotiation meeting before the summit we share these guidelines and are keen to hear comments.

Read more: http://www.iied.org/ten-essentials-for-new-urban-agenda-one-page

University Of Cambridge ~ Researchers In Colombia Are Trying To Reimagine Slums To Foster Equality

Dr Felipe Hernández was born and raised in Cali, Colombia’s third-biggest city and one of the country’s most dangerous – riven by fighting between drug trafficking gangs and the grinding poverty of its shanty towns.

One of the most violent neighbourhoods is Potrero Grande along the Cauca River. “When I was a child I never went to the settlements along the bank, although they were only nine or 10 miles away,” Hernández said. “They had a reputation for being dangerous. It took several years and some geographical distance for me to see how deeply divided Cali was then and remains today. As recently as 1997, the city’s most prestigious club denied membership to black people.”

Various schemes have been initiated to regulate the development of Cali and address the levels of violence in its notorious poorer districts. Although these schemes have commendable objectives, and valuable aspects, they fail to take people’s lived experiences, especially their social networks and productive capacity, into account

“Teaching music to poor children is useful because it gets them off the streets,” Hernández said. “But what happens when they grow up and need to earn a living? How many children have the opportunity to follow a career in music?”

Read more: http://scroll.in/researchers-in-colombia

Building Homes From Plastic Bricks! Waste Product Homes Are The Future.

What if things we throw away could be put right in a block maker, and turned into bricks?  That’s beginning to happen in multiple ways!  From plastic bricks made of recycle waste to machines that crush boulders and rocks into liquid cement, and make bricks, there are great things on the horizon!

These blocks can be made in the same size as standard concrete blocks, though don’t have the same weight-bearing capabilities. The blocks do have good acoustic and thermal insulation properties, which ByFusion says makes them ideal for use in road projects or fill-in building frames.

Read more: http://www.offgridquest.com/construction-methods/Plastic-b