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San Diego・Smart Gigabit Community

US Ignite has selected Cleantech San Diego and CyberTECH as the key innovation partners for the City of San Diego as a Smart Gigabit Community.

“US Ignite’s Smart Gigabit Communities (SGC) program enhances local community innovation ecosystems by enabling communities to accelerate the development and deployment of next-generation, gigabit applications and services that run on advanced networks.”

San Diego will join 20 other cities nationwide who are participating in the Smart Gigabit Community program. Cleantech San Diego and CyberTECH will collaborate with US Ignite in the development of six gigabit applications.

CleanTech San Diego is a member-based, non-profit trade organization working to position the greater San Diego region, including Imperial County, as a global leader in the cleantech economy.

“As a nonprofit organization, Cleantech San Diego is uniquely suited to support the industry by fostering collaborations across the private-public-academic landscape, leading advocacy efforts to promote cleantech priorities, and encouraging investment in the San Diego region.”

The CleanTech San Diego office is located on India Street in downtown San Diego.

CyberTECH also has its office in downtown San Diego, on First Avenue. Amongst many other activities, CyberTECH is leveraging experience and expertise in the Internet of Things (IoT) to develop the Smart & Safe Cities Institute.

US Ignite is a nonprofit organization working to

“accelerate new wired and wireless networking advances from research to prototype to full-scale smart community and interconnected national deployments. US Ignite’s Smart Gigabit Communities program accelerates the adoption of ultra-fast, programmable fiber and wireless networks as the bedrock of smart communities by identifying new economic and social opportunities created by those networks.”

Cox Communications has played a key role in bringing the Smart Gigabit Communities program to San Diego through a $300,000 grant to US Ignite over three years.

See:

“US Ignite Selects Cleantech San Diego and CyberTECH as Key Innovation Partners for San Diego’s Smart Gigabit Community Program” | N. Mohan, US Ignite, 7 September 2017

“What is US Ignite”

“Cleantech San Diego”

“CyberTECH”

#SanDiego #cleantech #cybertech #realestate #resilience #smartluxury #USIgnite #SmartGigabitCommunity #CleantechSanDiego #CyberTECH

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Miami museums prepare as Hurricane Irma approaches

What a month.

Museums in Miami and Miami Beach are taking precautionary measures ahead of the possible landfall of Hurricane Irma.

Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), The Wolfsonian—Florida International University (Wolfsonian-FIU, www.wolfsonian.org), the Institute of Contemporary Arts Miami (ICA Miami), Dimensions Variable, the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, and Faena Art closed yesterday (Wednesday) and will remain closed through the weekend.

The Pérez Art Museum Miami was designed and engineered to withstand the vicissitudes of extreme weather.

The ICA Miami’s new building, expected to open to the public in December, is also designed to weather extreme storms. The museum “’collection is currently being held in a state-of-the-art storage facility, which also adheres to hurricane codes’”.

The Bass Museum of Art, currently undergoing expansion and expected to open in October, has an action plan to protect the building, the collection, and employees.

See:

“Miami museums hunker down ahead of Hurricane Irma” | Helen Stoilas, The Art Newspaper, 6 September 2017

“Pérez Art Museum Built ‘Like Rock of Gibralter’ for Hurricanes” | Rudabeh Shahbazi, CBS Miami, 9 June 2017

“Pérez Art Museum” | Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering

#art #museums #Miami #MiamiBeach #artcollections #resilience #realestate #climatechange #climaterisk #HurricaneIrma #Irma #smartluxury

 

 

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when buying a home in a “global warming zone”

Ron Lieber, the “Money” columnist for the New York Times, suggests a team to work with and a process to follow when purchasing a house “in a global warming zone.”

Mr. Lieber suggests:

a real estate professional

“who has deep knowledge of the local market and has lived through a few floods, fires or hurricanes”

a municipal flood expert

“preferably someone from town or city government who can explain any and all regulations you might need to know about when or if you ever want or need to fix your place up”

a local insurance expert

    • what sort of insurance claims the home has generated in the recent past
    • two reports to obtain and read: the CLUE, for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, and A-PLUS
    • “get both, follow up with the homeowner and ask about any flood insurance claims or FEMA grants that may not show up on the reports”

“Read every word of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website on the flood insurance program before you buy a home”

a home inspector

    • who can check how well the roof might hold up in a hurricane

When out looking at houses, check the features of the houses

    • look out for special impact-resistant glass in the windows or hurricane shutters.
    • wind mitigation inspection, how well the roof might hold up

“Make like a reporter and talk to any potential neighbors”

    • ask questions

See:

“You’re Buying a Home. Have You Considered Climate Change?” | Ron Lieber, The New York Times, 2 December 2016

#realestate #climatechange #climaterisk #resilience #smartluxury #finance #insurance #floods #municipalfloodexpert #art #artcollections #museums #privatemuseums

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east & west coast ・sea level rise & things to think about now, before you invest your life savings

Gloria Tello is reconsidering. “’These are things you have to think about now, before you invest your life savings into a business.’”

A stylist who does hair and makeup for weddings, Ms. Tello had planned to capitalize on nearby bridal boutiques and open her own studio in the City of Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County, Florida. Having experienced water inundating the streets while a college student and learning of the risk of heavy neighborhood flooding over the next decades, she is reconsidering. While some businesses pile sandbags at their doors, she wonders “how small business owners can cope with it.”

Coastal California is already experiencing the effects of sea level rise.

Says San Mateo supervisor Dave Pine, “We are at the point of no return in fighting climate change and if we don’t reduce emissions there will be catastrophic impacts.”

With sea level rises set to affect more than 100,000 residents of San Mateo County (as of a 2009 analysis, “The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast”), potential property damage in the county is estimated to be about $39 billion.

California coastal communities both north and south are filing suit against 37 “carbon majors,” including Shell, Chevron, Statoil, Exxon, and Total. San Mateo and Marin Counties in northern California and San Diego County’s City of Imperial Beach claim that greenhouse gas emissions from the fossil fuel companies’ activities over the last 50 years have locked in substantial sea level rises, which will cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage to properties and businesses, as well as endangering lives.

San Mateo and Marin Counties and Imperial Beach claim that the defendant companies “have known for nearly 50 years years that greenhouse gas pollution from their fossil fuel products has a significant impact on the Earth’s climate and sea levels” and engaged in a “co-ordinated, multi-front effort to conceal and deny their knowledge of these threats”.

See:

“When Rising Seas Hit Home, Hard Choices Ahead for Hundreds of US Coastal Communities” | Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2017

“Exxon, Shell and other carbon producers sued for sea level rises in California” | Laura Paddison, The Guardian, 26 July 2017

“Rising Seas in California, An Update on Sea-Level Rise Science” | Working Group of the California Ocean Protection Council – Science Advisory Team (OPC-SAT), California Ocean Science Trust, April 2017

“The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast” | California Climate Change Center, 2009

#realestate #resilience #smartluxury #art #CO2 #climaterisk #sealevelrise #ImperialBeach #SanMateoCounty #MarinCounty #Miami-DadeCounty #Miami #Florida #California

 

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company cash flows at risk due to climate change

Between 15% and 20% of company cash flows are at risk, on average, because of climate change.

This is according to an analysis developed by global asset manager Schroders. As of March 31 of this year, Schroders is responsible for the management of £416.3 billion (€486.7 billion, $520.6 billion) of assets.

Says Schroders’ Andy Howard, global warming “is a real problem, not just a societal one but a financial one.”

This month Schroders has introduced a tool, a Climate Progress Dashboard, to track, based on 12 indicators, climate change progress. The indicators include coal production, carbon prices, corporate planning, renewable capacity, oil and gas investment, and political ambition.

The Schroders Climate Progress Dashboard will provide a snapshot of likely temperature rises based on the indicators and will help its fund managers “evaluate the challenges ahead”.

The Schroders Climate Progress Dashboard currently predicts that global temperatures are on course to rise by four degrees above pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

PKA, the Danish pension fund, has demanded that companies take action to protect their business models from climate change. Such action would include reducing their reliance on fossil fuels or moving towards greener energy. PKA is divesting “from certain companies involved in energy and carbon-intensive extraction methods, which we do not believe fit in a low-carbon economy.”

See:

“Schroders Launches Climate Progress Dashboard, Tracks Current Course Of 4°C Warming” | Joshua S. Hill, CleanTechnica, 19 July 2017

“Schroders launches Climate Progress Dashboard” | Schroders, 17 July 2017

“Schroders issues climate change warning” | Attracta Mooney, The Financial Times, 15 July 2017

“Danish pension fund PKA dumps Canadian oil” | Attracta Mooney, The Financial Times, 14 April 2017

#Schroders #assetmanagement #globalwarming #finance #risk #PKA #Denmark #climaterisk #resilience #realestate #business

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PassivDom houses are very, very smart & very beautiful

PassivDom, a start-up based in Ukraine and California, is a tech-based manufacturing company.

PassivDom 3D prints self-learning modular houses, some of which are fully autonomous. “Autonomous” means “off the utility grid.” Solar energy is produced and can be stored in a battery connected to the house. Water is collected and filtered from humidity in the air. The house may feature an independent sewage system.

The manufacturing process works like this: The team develops a “map” for the 3D printers / seven-axel robots in its factories in Ukraine and California. The 3D printer / seven-axel robot prints the roof, floor, and walls layer by layer. The material used is composed of carbon fibers, polyurethane, resins, basalt fibers, and fiberglass. This material is six times stronger than steel.

Doors, windows, appliances, an alarm system, solar panels, and the septic, electrical, healing, cooling systems are then added – by people.

According to the PassivDom website, PassivDom has the highest thermal performance among residential buildings. PassivDom windows are the warmest in the world. PassivDom exceeds the energy efficiency requirements of both the Passive House Institute and LEED.

PassivDom provides a 40-year materials warranty for the preservation of thermal characteristics. There are no materials that will lose thermal conductivity.

A PassivDom house is not only a smart house, it is a “very, very smart house.” All devices are networked to the Internet of Things and can be controlled from a smart phone. The micro-climate system is self-learning, monitors oxygen and carbon dioxide, and maintains the temperature and humidity desired by the occupant.

And PassivDom houses are beautiful.

Wow.

See:

PassivDom

“A robot can print this $32,000 house in as little as 8 hours — take a look inside” | Leanna Garfield, Business Insider, 6 April 2017

#smart #smarthouse #PassivDom #Ukraine #California #tech #buildingtech #realestate #art #smartluxury #resilience #luxury #3Dprinting #autonomous #offgrid #solarenergy #electricity #water #CO2 #PassivHaus #LEED

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connecting the dots ・ why?

Why connect the dots between real estate, the arts, smart luxury, and resilience?

Because, as David Wallace-Wells has pointed out in “The Uninhabitable Earth”, that has quickly become New York Magazine’s most read article, ever, global warming is “worse than you think.”

Mr. Wallace-Wells believes, and I share his belief, that “the public does not appreciate the scale of climate risk.” We have not spent enough time contemplating “the risks beyond sea-level rise.” And, “that, when it comes to the challenge of climate change, public complacency is a … problem.”

We need to contemplate the risks, try to appreciate their scale, and try not be complacent.

Many of us live in houses or buildings of some shape and size, love works of art, perhaps speculate in the arts and real estate (buy for purposes of expected appreciation), and enjoy the craft, material, and sophistication of luxury. So, what about resilience?

Resilience is the ability to pick up, recover, and get through when the going gets tough. We all might need to grow our capacity for resilience. We might need also to adjust how we conduct our lives.

While “rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.” “Absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century.”

So let’s keep reading and start, perhaps, adjusting our behaviors. A little bit at a time. Yes? In posts to come I will, step by step, dissect and curate information from Mr. Wallace-Wells’ opus magnum.

See:

“The Uninhabitable Earth, Annotated Edition” | David Wallace-Wells, New York Magazine, 14 July 2017

#realestate #art #smartluxury #resilience #luxury

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art, museums, & climate risk | the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Museums, as stewards of cultural heritage, are in it for the long term. To safeguard the artistic, historic and scientific resources they hold in trust for the public, museums need to adapt to a world where change—and water—are the new normal.

Designing for Resilience, Elizabeth Merritt, founding director, Center for the Future of Museums, an initiative of the American Alliance of Museums

The Swiss architectural firm of Herzog & de Meuron designed what is now called the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). The museum is anchor for a 30-acre museum park on Biscayne Bay in downtown Miami. The Biscayne Bay location was provided by the City of Miami. Construction of the building cost $220 million. $100 million was provided by Miami-Dade voters in general obligation bond funding. $120 million came from private donors.

The museum of modern and contemporary art is dedicated to collecting and exhibiting international art of the 20th and 21st centuries. The museum holds the largest collection of contemporary Cuban art in the United States.

The National Climate Assessment of 2014 named Miami one of the U.S. cities most vulnerable to severe damage as a result of rising sea levels. According to the report, sea levels have risen eight inches since 1870. The report projects a further rise of one to four feet by the end of the century.

The National Climate Assessment of 2014 found that while melting Arctic and Antarctic ice and rising sea levels are threatening the entire American coastline, Miami is exceptionally vulnerable due to its natural geology.

The city of Miami is built on top of porous limestone. The limestone absorbs seawater. The rising sea waters are being absorbed into the city’s foundation. The water bubbles up through pipes and drains, encroaches on fresh water supplies and saturates infrastructure. County governments estimate that the damages could rise to billions or even trillions of dollars.

In such circumstances and given Miami’s geology, how is the Pérez Art Museum Miami designed to fulfill its responsibilities as a steward of art and cultural heritage?

The architecture has been designed to adapt to the climate of Miami. The new building, opened in 2013, was specifically designed to withstand hurricanes. The museum is raised on an elevated platform above the flood plain. The museum features the largest sheets of hurricane-resistant glass in the U.S. Art storage facilities are situated more than 46 feet above sea level. The museum’s backup-electricity system runs on generators. The generators are located on the third floor.

  • The first floor of the museum was elevated by Herzog & de Meuron above the 18-foot high-water mark left by Category 5 Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The elevation acts as a safety cushion for projected effects of climate change.
  • Gaps in the floors of the patio surrounding the museum allow water from rain, storm surge or flooding to drain into the parking garage, located underneath the museum.
  • A power generator is located on the third floor of the museum. Electricity to the building is ensured even if lower floors are affected by flooding. The generator has enough fuel for three days of use, and can be refueled by truck or barge (in case the roads are blocked).
  • Second-floor windows feature the largest panels of hurricane-resistant glass in the US (17.5 feet tall by seven feet wide, each weighing 2,500 pounds).
  • The teak entrance doors weigh 550 pounds each. They each feature a multi-prong pin system. The pin system locks the doors in several places to secure them against category-five hurricane winds.
  • The hanging gardens, inclusive of the mechanical system and irrigation system, are designed to withstand a category five hurricane.
  • Should a major hurricane head towards Miami, the museum maintains plans to de-install and place in storage as much of the art as possible, starting with the most sensitive works, such as particularly rare works on paper that are sensitive to humidity and temperature fluctuations.
  • The museum’s art storage facility is situated 46 feet above sea level. This is to ensure security from flooding and water damage. Storage HVAC is designed to handle humidity levels that might follow a storm event.

See:

“Jorge Pérez Donates $15 Million in Cash and Art to Miami Museum” | Hili Perlson, Artnet, 30 November 2016

“Designing for Resilience” | Elizabeth Merritt, Center for the Future of Museums, an initiative of the American Alliance of Museums, 11 August 2015

“Protecting Priceless Art from Natural Disasters” | John Whitaker, The Atlantic, 27 May 2015

“Trendswatch 2015” | Elizabeth Merritt, Center for the Future of Museums, an initiative of the American Alliance of Museums“

“Miami Finds Itself Ankle-Deep in Climate Change Debate” | Carol Davenport, The New York Times, 7 May 2014

“Pérez Art Museum” | Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering

National Climate Assessment

Pérez Art Museum | Wikipedia

 

#PérezArtMuseumMiami #Miami #Herzog&deMeuron #JorgePérez #art #artcollections #climaterisk #resilience #realestate #artstorage #electricity #powergeneration #carbondioxide #CO2 #risingsealevels

 

 

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luxury ・ evolving

Sara Bernát, a freelance brand strategist and Ph.D candidate at Humboldt Universitat, Berlin, focuses on the sociology of luxury.

The aim of her research is “to study social, cultural, and economic forces that have culminated to shape and define the concept of luxury throughout modern historical eras.”

She observes that educated millenials are no longer able to ignore irresponsible social and environmental impacts of product manufacture that promotes and seeks to fulfill heedless demand and unbridled consumption.

Consumerism, however, is core to our existence today. It is also tied deeply into psychological and social behavior. And so, the solution to the sociological and environmental threats lays within.

Rather than becoming the social pariah, a number of new luxury brands recognized that traditional luxury may carry the solution.

With its limited production, carefully sourced materials and respect for craftsmanship, sustainability could be innate to luxury.

See:

“How luxury is the millenial’s unlikely weapon to fight social inequality” | Sara Bernát, Luxury Daily, 4 July 2017

Sara Bernát | LinkedIn

 

#luxury #smartluxury #realestate #art #resilience

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Max Beckmann’s “Hölle der Vögel” (Birds’ Hell) (1937-1938) Sells for US$45,834,365

Max Beckmann’s “Hölle der Vögel” (Birds’ Hell) sold for US$45,834,365 at Christie’s London Tuesday evening (June 27).

The painting, executed in oil on canvas in 1937 – 1938, drew three bidders and sold to Larry Gagosian. It is understood that Mr. Gagosian was bidding on behalf of the New York collector Leon Black.

Art dealer Richard Feigen acquired the painting in 1983. Hölle der Vögel” (Bird’s Hell) has remained in his collection until now.

See:

“Boosted by Gagosian’s Record Bid on Beckmann, Christie’s Notches a $190 Million Impressionist and Modern Sale” | Colin Gleadell, Artnet.com, 27 June 2017

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, London, 27 June 2017, Results | Christie’s

Max Beckmann Hölle der Vögel, 1937-38 (special catalogue) | Christie’s

 

#art #artcollections #artmarket #MaxBeckmann #BirdsHell #HöllederVögel #Christie’s #LarryGagosian #LeonBlack #realestate #resilience #luxury #urbanluxury #NewYork #London