All this talk about ivy covered bike silos and solar and wind power harvesting has me thinking about the group SMIT and their research product GROW. The team was founded by a Pratt ID student and his sister the main product of the venture being his thesis project. I do believe most of us know their newest partner Ben Howes who graduated from Pratt architecture in '06. The system uses bio-mimicking leaf shaped pieces to harness solar and wind power.
"...GROW employs thin film photovoltaics with piezoelectric generators and screen printed conductive ink encapsulated in ETFE fluoropolymer lamination... Based around a modular brick system, GROW is composed of a small number of different parts. Each brick has 5 solar leaves which have a very flexible piezo generator at their stem. The manufacturing of these bricks could happen in a roll to roll printing process where PV, conductive ink, and piezo generators can be layered quickly and efficiently. The rolls can then be stamped and formed to create leaves and connection points. Each brick is designed so that at the end of their life cycle the valuable components, i.e. photovoltaic and piezo, can be stamped out and up cycled while the reusable material, i.e plastic, can be up recycled back into the production stream."
This is the blog from their early days in the venture and their current official site. Their solar ivy is due out this fall as a full working prototype/product line.
... and they have already had a piece of the Copenhagen action, they exhibited in the CPH Design Week 09.
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