House built from trash

clipped from www.livescience.com

Houses of the Future Could Be Made from Trash

Last year’s
trash could become next year’s model home, thanks to the invention of a new
type of construction material made entirely from waste products.

“Bitublocks,”
created by engineer John Forth of the University of Leeds in England, are composed of recycled glass, sewage
sludge, incinerator ash, the by-products of metal purification and pulverized
fuel ash from power stations.

“Bitublocks
use up to 100 percent waste materials and avoid sending them to landfill, which
is quite unheard of in the building industry,” Forth said.

Forth hopes
his new invention will revolutionize the building industry by providing a
sustainable, low-energy replacement for concrete
blocks.

“Less
energy is required to manufacture the Bitublock than a traditional concrete
block, and it’s about six times as strong, so it’s quite a high-performance
product,” Forth said.

Pomote this post by submitting it to Plant Change
Plant It!

Digi D'House: An almost paperless office Part II

I had earlier written a post Digi D'Block, an almost paperless office (click "BACK" button to get back to this page). Looks like I was taken only on an incomplete tour of the D'House (D'Block). In my first post on the D'House, someone wrote a long comment, questioning the success of such open office. I was hoping that someone from Digi would respond, but no response was forthcoming, so the reason for this second post, which is a kind of response to the comment.

Reporters of the Star: D'House surprise, ALLAN KOAY, and another Work form anywhere were probably taken on a more comprehensive tour of D'House, got more detailed briefings and wrote more detailed reports on it.

Allan was taken to see one of the heads of the company. He wrote:"If I hadn’t been told that he’s one of the heads of the company, I wouldn’t have known. He didn’t have a high-back chair or a larger computer screen. In fact, everyone has the same working space, the same kind of chair, the same kind of table (sometimes shared by three or four persons), the same kind of computer. No one person stands out. Yet, each and every person gets to do his or her own thing, so to speak. They can sit anywhere; yes, even in the cafeteria or rest areas (otherwise known in more hip terms as “chill areas. It’s not unusual to see employees sitting in the lounge area, enjoying the open air and the sound of the waterfall in the background, pastry and coffee next to them, and a notebook or laptop in front of them. Which brought me to my second question: “How does anyone get any work done?”

They don’t know, said the staff, things just somehow get done. The meeting rooms, too, are very creatively named – Caribbean, Trinidad, Tobago, Sipadan, Koh Samui. Paradise islands. Noticed anything. They seemed to be named after holiday spots.

Regarding work, Adzhar Ibrahim, director of human resource development: “It’s a chicken-and-egg situation. Do you trust people first and hope that they return the trust, or do you say, you prove to me that you’re trustworthy and I will trust you? I think our philosophy is that, ‘Hey, you’re a decent person and we will trust you.’ If it becomes a problem, then we’ll deal with it. But surprisingly, I don’t think we’ve had any issues of people running away or not working. You can’t hide. Where are you going to hide? And if you need to read the newspaper, you can go ahead and read it. But on the other hand, if you read the newspaper the whole day, everybody will see. So there is some peer pressure.”

He admitted that the system is not perfect, and there will always be a few who will take advantage of it. He said the decision was whether to have rules that cater to a small minority but inconvenience everyone else, or to have rules for the majority and deal with the minority on a case-by-case basis.

Pomote this post by submitting it to Plant Change
Plant It!

Digi D' House: An almost paperless office

I was invited by my new son-in-law to the official opening of his company's new office block, the Digi D'House in the Subang High Technology Park. It was called the D'Family Day, to which all the employees and their relatives are invited. There was plenty of food and drinks, and I had my lunch PLUS my dinner there. There were also clowns, some in stilts to entertain the guests, particularly the children. The Digi Celebrateens (talented teenagers spoted by Digi) were also there with their songs and performances to entertain the guests.

We were taken on a tour of the new offices (3 blocks). It was like an office I have never seen before. There were no cubicles, only open offices. And not only that, there were workstations, some with desktop computers, others with only means to connect the employees' laptops. There were NO drawers! Anything that need to be locked up had to be placed in individual lockers in another room. No one have exclusive use to any particular desk. They are free to use any particular available desk to work on. And at the end of the day, everyone's desk have to be cleared of stuff.

Everything was wireless. Communication was by mobile phone and emails (Digi is a mobile phone operator, so calls are free). Thus papers were hardly used. If anything need to be printed, or if any stationery needed, there are printer centers where paper and a printer is available. You just print from your computer and then go to the nearest printer station to collect your printed materials. This is not used often, so D' Block can be described as an almost paperless office. A good move towards a more environmentally friendly office.

At the back of the office blocks was a natural rock cliff, with a waterfall, and there are steps to climb to the top of the top of the cliff for anyone so inclined. At the top of the cliff is an exercise station. With all this, one would expect the staff of D' Block to be pretty fit.

Here are the photographs of the rock cliff cum waterfall and the exercise station:
Rock cliff cum waterfall

Exercise station at the top of the cliff

Hope someone from Digi may drop by and comment in what other ways Digi's offices are environmentally friendly.