Spotted: Myanmar is facing a severe housing crisis, as conflict triggered by the military takeover in 2021 has resulted in the internal displacement of around 1.95 million people, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Social enterprise Housing NOW, founded by Myanmar-based design group Blue Temple, is working to build affordable housing using an innovative and sustainable technique.
Housing NOW uses bamboo as a construction material for building prefabricated, modular structures at a cost of around $1,000 (around €923) per unit. Using computational tools, the company generated a structure optimised to respond to forces such as earthquakes and wind loads.
Because larger-diameter bamboo is more expensive, small-diameter bamboo was used instead, and bundled together to produce a structure that’s stronger than conventional, load-bearing, large-diameter bamboo. The hybrid construction technique allowed the creation of prefabricated ‘structural frames’, which were then combined with local construction and assembly of the remaining parts of the house. The result is a large-scale and affordable housing solution.
In 2022, Housing NOW started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, which raised enough funding to construct six modules as part of a pilot project. The company plans to continue raising funds and expanding the project.
The promise of bamboo as a renewable resource is catching on. Springwise has also spotted a platform for investing in low-impact bamboo and the development of land for sustainable bamboo growth in Jamaica.
Spotted: As of 2022, only around 31 per cent of people in Uganda had access to grid electricity. Without a stable electricity connection, it’s harder to access essential appliances, such as cookers. And, non-electric alternatives like burning logs or coal to cook food are generally highly polluting and emissions-intensive. To provide a clean cooking option for those not connected to the grid, Paul Soddo, along with other researchers from Makerere University and Intellisys, developed a solar-powered induction hob and oven called the MakSol Cooker.
The Cooker itself is powered by a roof-mounted solar panel that charges a deep-cycle battery. The device can function for up to six hours, or until the device reaches 20 per cent charge, with the management system automatically charging when the sun is up, and saving essential reserve power when it’s dark. With the control panel, users can easily turn the device on and off and tailor their desired heat.
Where the MakSol Cooker differs from other solar-powered cooking units is the affordability – its price is $150 (around €137), which is far lower than competitors.
The next step for Soddo is to improve the device further. Specifically, the team is looking to use the magnetic coil to double the MakSol’s cooking power and allow food to be ready in half the time.
Cooking is an essential task, but clean cooking devices aren’t universal. Luckily, there are alternatives out there, including safe cookstoves in Sierra Leone and East Africa.
Spotted: Analysts expect that almost a third of the world’s population will still be cooking with polluting fuels in 2030. This is bad news for the environment, and threatens the health of those cooking in polluted spaces – a burden that disproportionately impacts women and girls in countries with developing economies.
Nigerian environmentalist and entrepreneur Tunde Adeyemi wants to relieve those burdens and improve the health and wellbeing of rural communities across the African continent. His solution is customised, portable biogas digesters that turn organic waste into electricity, clean cooking fuel, animal feed, and fertiliser. The Kitchen Box is the home solution, and the Bio-Tank is the agricultural version for smallholder farmers.
The digesters are not only affordable, costing one-tenth of current biodigester systems – enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) and produce biogas that is safe and emissions-free. Adeyemi’s company, D-Olivette, produces all parts of a biogas production system, from tanks and bags for transporting the gas to a biogas-powered stove. The digesters take 10 minutes to set up and come with a five-year guarantee.
The Kitchen Box is relatively small at 500 litres, making it suitable for use in diminutive kitchens and cooking spaces. Organic waste is emptied into the container where it ferments into biogas. Once the gas is combusted, it can power super-hot, clean cooking. The byproducts of the process are available for use as organic fertiliser.
The Bio-Tank works the same way and is available in a variety of capacities from 500 to 50,000 litres, and can be designed and sized to bespoke requirements. The tanks are suitable for fermenting farm and human waste, as well as byproducts from food industry businesses. D-Olivette also offers bags for storage and transport of the biogas, making it easy to share and sell the clean fuel.
The accompanying app uses AI to maximise use of the system for each owner and help communities earn carbon credits for emissions mitigation. To make the system easy to implement, D-Olivette offers training on the set-up and use of its biodigesters with every purchase.
D-Olivette recently won the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation by the Royal Academy of Engineering and has sold more than 4,000 units of the Kitchen Box. The digesters are currently available across Nigeria and Benin Republic, and Adeyemi plans to continue expanding availability of the systems to reach as many rural communities as possible.
Other biogas innovations featured in Springwise’s library include municipal and farming systems for transforming organic waste into fuel.
Australian design student Alexander Burton has developed a prototype kit for cheaply converting petrol or diesel cars to hybrid electric, winning the country’s national James Dyson Award in the process.
Titled REVR (Rapid Electric Vehicle Retrofits), the kit is meant to provide a cheaper, easier alternative to current electric car conversion services, which Burton estimates cost AU$50,000 (£26,400) on average and so are often reserved for valuable, classic vehicles.
Usually, the process would involve removing the internal combustion engine and all its associated hardware, like the gearbox and hydraulic brakes, to replace them with batteries and electric motors.
REVR is designed to convert almost any combustion engine car to hybrid electric
With REVR, those components are left untouched. Instead, a flat, compact, power-dense axial flux motor would be mounted between the car’s rear wheels and disc brakes, and a battery and controller system placed in the spare wheel well or boot.
Some additional off-the-shelf systems – brake and steering boosters, as well as e-heating and air conditioning – would also be added under the hood.
By taking this approach, Burton believes he’ll be able to offer the product for around AU$5,000 (£2,640) and make it compatible with virtually any car.
Burton is a bachelor’s student in industrial design and sustainable systems engineering at RMIT University in Melbourne but has worked on REVR largely outside of his course.
Alexander Burton designed REVR to make electric car conversion more accessible
The spark for the project came a few years ago when he and his dad started thinking about converting the family car, a 2001 Toyota that Burton describes as well-built and reliable.
“But it’s just not really something you can do get done,” he told Dezeen. “It’s super expensive and it’s not really accessible.”
Burton wanted to find an affordable solution for others in his position while helping to reduce the emissions associated with burning petrol as well as manufacturing new electric vehicles, which are estimated to be even higher than for traditional cars.
Burton was motivated by the desire to reduce carbon emissions
With REVR, people should be able to get several more years of life out of their existing cars.
The kit would transform the vehicle into a hybrid rather than a fully electric vehicle, with a small battery giving the car 100 kilometres of electric range before the driver has to switch to the internal combustion engine.
However, in Burton’s view, this is where people can get “the most bang for their buck” with few changes to the car but major emissions reductions.
“You can’t fit a huge battery in a wheel well but we wager you won’t need one,” said Burton. “While people drive a lot, especially here in Australia, on average they drive 35 kilometres a day and it’s mostly commuting.”
“This distance would require only a five-kilowatt-hour battery, and we can put three times that in the wheel well.”
Burton used the motor modelling packages FEMM and MOTORXP to develop the design of his motor, which sees the spinning part, called the rotor, placed between a vehicle’s disc brakes.
The stationary part, or stator, is fixed to existing mounting points on the brake hub.
Burton used the FEMM and MOTORXP software packages to model the motor
Borrowing a trick from existing hybrid vehicles, the kit uses a sensor to detect the position of the accelerator pedal to control both acceleration and braking.
That means no changes have to be made to the car’s hydraulic braking system, which Burton says “you don’t want to have to interrupt”.
While the design is in its early stages, the concept was advanced enough for the jury of the James Dyson Award for exceptional student design to pick the project as the national winner in Australia.
The international prize winner from the 30 included countries will be announced on October 18.
Burton plans to use the AU$8,800 winnings from the national award to buy a small CNC machine and the specialist materials that are required to build a working prototype, building on a previous non-working prototype made in RMIT’s workshop.
Burton made a prototype of the device in the RMIT workshop
He says he has “a stretch goal” of converting a million cars with REVR and is interested in working with partners in the automotive industry. But he is also critical of its lack of investment in retrofitting to date.
“It’s like with repairability, industry is so against that,” Burton told Dezeen. “They love the whole planned obsolescence thing.”
“Ultimately, to retrofit goes against their profit margin because it extends the usefulness and the lifetime of their products. I think that’s why there’s retrofitting companies out there but they’re still largely reserved to classic cars. It’s just so expensive to do.”
Previous winners of the James Dyson Award include an infection-sensing wound dressing created by students from the Warsaw University of Technology and a fish-waste bioplastic by British designer Lucy Hughes.
Spotted: If you’ve ever ventured out of a city, you’ll know that transportation in rural areas is often unreliable. This leaves people immobilised, often cornering locals to purchase vehicles of their own. Having reliable, shared transportation in these areas is not only a more affordable solution for residents but a more sustainable one too: helping minimise the number of combustion-engine vehicles on the road. UK-based RideTandem decided to put this idea into action, turning local transport providers into smart shuttles for work and educational needs.
To mobilise those in rural areas, the startup has partnered up with local taxi, minicab, and coach companies. Using an app, RideTandem matches these transport partners to those wanting to book a ride into a shared vehicle. The result is an affordable shuttle-type service for commuters living in areas with poor and expensive transport links.
“Even before the cost-of-living crisis hit, public transport outside of big cities was broken – expensive, unreliable, or simply not there for people who need it,” explains RideTandem co-founder and CEO Alex Shapland-Howes. He adds: “Almost 5,000 bus services – more than one in four – were axed between 2012 and 2022. Many that remain, especially outside cities and large towns, are under threat from the recent end of the Bus Recovery Grant.”
Following a recent seed funding, RideTandem has now raised £2.3 million (around €2.7 million) with the aim of extending its reach beyond the UK.
Springwise has previously spotted other innovations in the archive aimed at increasing mobility through ride-sharing, from a company that offers ride-sharing in greener vehicles and remote-piloted shared cars in Las Vegas.
Spotted: Agriculture is directly responsible for up to 12 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, with fertilisers alone accounting for around 5 per cent of total emissions. To reduce this, a partnership between EIT InnoEnergy, RIC Energy, MAIRE, Siemens Financial Services, InVivo, and Heineken has recently launched FertigHy, a green fertiliser provider.
The agricultural sector is responsible for over 10 per cent of the European Union’s (EU’s) total greenhouse gas emissions, and European farmers apply around 10 million tonnes of nitrogen fertilisers each year. This is why the European Commission has identified the fertiliser sector as critically important to reducing CO2 emissions.
FertigHy will build low-carbon fertiliser plants that will use green hydrogen to replace the natural gas-based feedstock used in traditional fertiliser plants. The green hydrogen itself will be produced using electrolysis powered by renewable or low-carbon electricity.
The initial plant, due to start construction in 2025, will produce more than one million metric tonnes of low-carbon fertilisers per year and will be based in Spain. FertigHy also plans to build and operate a number of large-scale low-carbon fertiliser projects in other European countries.
FertigHy is coming at a time of increasing awareness of the high CO2 and energy cost of fertiliser production. In the archive, Springwise has spotted other innovations aimed at improving sustainability in this space, including the use of biochar – produced from waste – to enrich the soil and capture CO2, and increasing support for regenerative agriculture.
Spotted: The average baby goes through approximately 7,000 nappies before they are potty trained, and the vast majority of nappies used around the world are disposable. Considering that there are over 400,000 babies born in Rwanda and over 46 million across Africa annually, the number of nappies generated is staggering. The problems posed by single-use nappies are two-fold: there is a financial burden, with some mothers even needing to delay changing to reduce cost; and the environmental impact of disposing of that many plastic-based nappies.
Founded with the goal of helping mothers and families provide their babies with a sanitary and dignified alternative to rationing disposable nappies, Kigali-based Toto Safi gives mothers the ability to subscribe and save money on reusable nappies, while also eliminating the wastefulness of single-use alternatives.
Toto Safi’s nappies are designed and produced in Rwanda through partnerships with local women tailor cooperatives. By choosing Toto Safi, parents can not only make a positive impact on the environment, then, but also contribute to community development and the well-being of local economies.
The final products are high-quality, affordable, adjustable, and environmentally sustainable. They are also made with breathable and waterproof materials like cotton or bamboo, which means the nappies are gentle on babies’ skin, highly absorbent, and free from chemicals. Customers can either purchase the reusable nappies outright or subscribe for weekly sanitised nappy deliveries, along with the pickup of soiled nappies for cleaning. This system reduces waste and offers parents long-term cost savings.
Toto Safi is currently testing and developing new product lines, including two-in-one diapers, pocket diapers, and adult diapers, to meet diverse customer needs. The aim is to offer a comprehensive range of reusable items like padded underwear, period pants, and incontinence products, providing sustainable and comfortable solutions for people of all ages.
Springwise has recently spotted other sustainable nappies, such as a reusable nappy made from seaweed, and another disposable one made from biodegradable bioplastic.
Spotted: Clean energy sources, like solar and wind, are much better for the environment than fossil fuels, but they are less reliable. Increasingly, companies are exploring pumped hydropower as a means of storing renewable energy. But today’s conventional low-density hydro-power systems don’t use renewables to their full efficiency. Enter startup RheEnergise.
RheEnergise’s High-Density Hydro system pumps a special, hi-tech fluid uphill between storage tanks at times of low energy demand and cost. As energy prices rise, the fluid is released downhill through turbines, which generates electricity to supply the grid.
RheEnergise’s mineral-rich fluid is two and a half times denser than water, which is normally used in pumped hydropower. As a result, it contains two and a half times the energy and can be used on a hill that is two and a half times smaller. This means the RheEnergise system does not need high mountains to work, leading to more potential sites and substantial reductions in construction costs.
RheEnergise recently received a £1 million grant (about €1.1 million) from the UK Government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio. It will use this investment to explore whether minerals or waste materials that do not need to be imported can be used in its fluid.
The company plans to deploy a demonstrator close to Plymouth by the middle of next year. It is also pursuing other opportunities across the UK and Europe and expects to have its first five-megawatt grid-scale project in operation as early as 2026. RheEnergise has estimated that there are around 6,500 sites in the UK alone that could use the system.
Springwise has spotted other innovations utilising hydropower, including small turbines for use in any river, and a generator that works where fresh water meets the sea.
MicroPolis – is a proposal for a new housing typology of micro-homes in metropolitan centers such as New York City. It can be installed in already built, empty urban spaces. The staggering of the units creates a push-and-pull relation, generating balconies for most units. Large public outdoor terraces provide social and co-working spaces and safe places for children to play. Installing these complexes in wealthier neighborhoods and business districts improves living standards for communities of color, immigrant groups, and low- to middle-income families.
Architizer chatted with Esther Sperber, Principal at Studio ST Architects to learn more about this project.
Architizer: What inspired the initial concept for your design?
Esther Sperber: MicroPolis is a response to a February 2020 court case that revoked the building permit for the top 20 floors of a Manhattan luxury condominium because it used gerrymandering-style tax lot assembly tactics to justify the request for a very tall building. We suggested that we should not waste these already built floors but rather use them for affordable housing. The aim is to present creative, inclusive and positive design solutions to the urban affordable housing crisis, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The prevalence of unoccupied and unusable space presents an opportunity to rethink affordable housing throughout the city.
This project won in the 10th Annual A+Awards! What do you believe are the standout components that made your project win?
The project is contextual and addresses New York City’s critical issues such as the housing crisis, diversity and inclusion, and lowering the carbon footprint in the construction industry. MicroPolis could help alleviate the affordable housing shortage, which we have a moral obligation to address. The design creates innovative, sustainable and affordable micro-homes within vacant floors of luxury buildings in metropolitan city centers. Cities have always embraced people from all kinds of diverse backgrounds, but the pandemic revealed that the city is more divided than we would like to acknowledge. MicroPolis celebrates NYC’s diversity by increasing equity and valuing the range of people needed to make the city thrive. Adding affordable housing units throughout the city’s higher-end neighborhoods aims to make NYC more integrated, resilient and equitable.
What was the greatest design challenge you faced during the project, and how did you navigate it?
We realize there will likely be resistance to this proposal. Few privileged communities welcome low- and middle- income developments in their neighborhoods, let alone their own apartment buildings. But if we have learned anything during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that our society is deeply intertwined. The communities that suffered most from the pandemic are those that we depend on most to keep our city running. The same resistance to this project is reason enough to take this typology seriously. It is time to stop averting our gaze from those who are less fortunate economically and invite them to be our neighbors.
How did the context of your project — environmental, social or cultural — influence your design?
NYC’s real estate exposes the city’s socio-economic inequities. Manhattan’s luxury residential market seems to be rebounding. However, at the same time, the Department of Housing & Preservation, which is responsible for maintaining affordable housing, experienced a 40% cut during the pandemic, resulting in the loss of 21,000 affordable housing units. Our unique modular system, which aims to create greater social equity, consists of prefabricated, energy-efficient and cost-effective micro-homes, which can be installed in already built empty urban spaces. The proposal demonstrates how to creatively house key workers and other tenants in need by maximizing space on mid-level floors of currently unoccupied luxury condos, which some developers have designated as mechanical voids in an attempt to increase the height of luxury buildings and gain maximum value for coveted upper floor apartments.
How important was sustainability as a design criteria as you worked on this project?
The issue of sustainability was one of the main driving factors of MicroPolis’ design. Reusing built spaces has environmental advantages: it conserves materials and resources, lowers carbon footprint, and brings old, energy-inefficient buildings up to the current code. Carefully selected building materials and cladding ensure thermal insulation to lower energy use and costs for these micro-homes. MicroPolis is also uniquely designed to enable staggered balconies to provide some sun exposure and shade coverage during extreme weather conditions.
What key lesson did you learn in the process of conceiving the project?
The housing crisis in New York City, or any city for that matter, is a complex issue. With some of the world’s wealthiest residents, New York City is also home to thousands who do not have a clean, warm or dry place to sleep. The city is struggling to address its housing shortage for lower-income individuals and families, and to provide shelter to its 60,000-plus homeless. At the same time, New York City has a record number of empty, unsold, new luxury apartments. Unused space, particularly in tall luxury residential towers, can be reconfigured to accommodate more units dedicated to affordable housing within the existing floor area.
How do you believe this project represents you or your firm as a whole?
My firm, Studio ST Architects, strives to focus on sustainable, innovative and responsible design. Our firm combines unique expertise in architecture and psychology to design inspiring buildings and renovate spaces that transform human experiences, build deep and inclusive community connections, and create a sense of health and well-being. MicroPolis directly addresses these pillars of our practice.
How has being the recipient of an A+Award evoked positive responses from others?
It gave us an opportunity to think and explore issues around the multi-family residential typology, particularly within dense urban centers. This also helped us reach a larger audience to raise an issue we are passionate about, which led to more discussions with our clients and collaborators about responsible, compassionate design that addresses not only people’s basic need for housing, but also human connection.
How do you imagine this project influencing your work in the future?
Studio ST Architects has significant experience in apartment interior renovations and religious buildings, but we are excited to do more work in the multi-family residential sector. Our recently completed Jones Street multi-family apartment building holds a similar spirit of ambition to connect people and address the need for housing within Jersey City. Jones Street creates individual homes and a sense of community for the families and young professionals that live in this growing Jersey City community. It targets the swathe of families and young professionals looking for New York-style buildings just across the Hudson River. We hope to continue tackling the housing crisis by taking on more multi-family housing projects.
For more on MicroPolis, please visit the in-depth project page on Architizer.
Spotted: In 2020, there were 18.1 million cases of cancer across the globe, with 9.3 million of these being in men and 8.8 million in women. Not only is the diagnosis extremely distressing for the people involved, the cost of treatment and monitoring is constantly rising as well. Now, researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a non-invasive testing technique that is much more affordable than other methods.
Traditional testing methods analyse blood samples for the DNA signatures of cancer cells. However, sifting through all the genetic material in a sample – a method called whole-genome sequencing – is expensive and labour-intensive because cancer-specific biomarkers tend to be concentrated in areas known as CpG islands, which make up only around one per cent of the genome. The new method, however, discards non-informative sections in a patient’s DNA and targets the CpG island.
The method was discovered by accident when a researcher heated a blood sample and realised that the heat destroyed much of the genome, but left the CpG islands intact. This allowed them to sequence the remaining genome directly – making the tests not only faster and cheaper, but also more sensitive than traditional methods.
The research team estimates the new testing method – called the Heatrich-BS assay – will cost around $35 (around €32.50), compared to around $750 (around €697) for traditional methods. With this reduced cost, tests will be able to be performed more regularly.
The team, led by Assistant Professor Cheow Lih Feng, is working on finding industry partners to bring their technology to market.
Springwise has spotted growing number of scientific innovations aimed at making medical testing more accessible. These include a non-invasive method for detecting malaria using a smartphone, and a cheap, handheld testing kit.
