Hawaii is known as the birthplace of surfing, and their culture around the sport is legendary. Now, a company in Hawaii is turning the EPS foam waste from producing surfboards into a composite material that replaces traditional concrete blocks.
Known as Surf Blocks, the material is a mixture of recycled EPS/styrofoam and cement, and creates extremely strong, weather resistant building blocks that are being used to rebuild parts of Maui, among many other uses.
Photo courtesy Hawaii Off-Grid Architecture & Engineering
Surf Block Maui is the company behind the innovation, and is proving that recycling materials otherwise meant for the landfill can be reused in innovative ways.
SURF BLOCKS are insulated composite concrete forms (ICCFβs) that are used to create lightweight, cast-in-place, steel reinforced concrete walls.
The Surf Blocks permanently remain in place as part of the structure and serve as an insulating component for the structure they enclose. There are numerous benefits to this construction methodology which results in an incredibly disaster resistant structure at a competitive price.
Read more about this innovative product on Archinect:
Photo courtesy Hawaii Off-Grid Architecture & EngineeringPhoto courtesy Hawaii Off-Grid Architecture & EngineeringPhoto courtesy Hawaii Off-Grid Architecture & EngineeringPhoto courtesy Hawaii Off-Grid Architecture & Engineering
The island of Maui in Hawaii has had a devastating fire, resulting from very dry conditions, and incredibly strong winds from Hurricane Dora.
Wind speeds of up to 80 miles per hour created blast furnace conditions, and flames enveloped nearly the entire town of Lahaina, a historical town on the island’s west coast, which was once the capital of Hawaii itself. The town held a lot of cultural significance for native Hawaiians, and was a major tourist draw, with historic Front Street full of shops, galleries, restaurants and homes.
As of August 12, 80 people have perished in the fires, making it one of the most deadly fires in the US in decades.
In addition to buildings and property, an enormous and famous Banyan tree in downtown Lahaina was burned, and is unlikely to recover.
Photos via AP, USA Today, Getty, Maui News and Maxar Technologies.Β
Waiola Church hall and Lahaina Hongwanji Mission temple fully engulfed in flames.
The fire’s incredible speed and strength resulted in dozens of entirely charred vehicles on Lahaina’s main streets.
Fast moving flames creating a wall of fire.
People in shock from the flames and smoke enveloping Lahaina.
A Lahaina resident at the moment she learned her home was burned to the ground.
Overhead views show utter devastation in Lahaina, as flames ripped through the town.
Maxar satellite images show the before of Lahaina
Maxar satellite images showcasing the aftermath of the flames.
Tragic before and after satellite images showing the fire’s destruction.
Views from a helicopter show the smoke and burned trees from the fire’s aftermath.
The enormous Banyan tree in Lahaina was brought to Hawaii in the mid 1800s, and has been a major draw for decades. It was burned in the Lahaina fires, though we were unable to find an aftermath photo.
Olson Kundig is one of the premier modern home architect firms working today. There are many working in a similar style, but we find their clean lines, attention-to-detail, and overall grace to be the very best.
One of their latest homes is a family retreat in Hawaii, entitled ‘Hale Lana’, is a large, sweeping house, with expansive rooflines and dramatic overhangs, covering a mostly glass interior.
We can’t get over how the dramatic cantilevered roofline gives character to the home, a clean linear quality that is continued throughout the profile of the home.
More than just looking impressive, the extended roof allows for covered outdoor seating while preventing solar gain, so that the glass walls can be opened to the ocean breeze without the Hawaiian sun baking the interior.
In a way, the home’s perfect lines frame the natural beauty like a picture frame, fading into the back and letting the beauty of the tropics take over.
With a tasteful interior and a host of other beautiful features, this home’s elegance stands apart from many huge and garish houses that we’ve become accustomed to see.
Both unfortunate and slightly heartening, we see abandoned cars in Hawaii being swallowed up by the thick jungle around them. Vines, trees, and tropical foliage slowly engulf these rotting vehicles, showing that nature really will take over, if given time. Photos by Thomas Strogalski.Β Β Β Β Via Colossal:
At Moss and Fog, we’ve never been afraid of color, so the design of the newΒ Shoreline Hotel in Waikiki, Hawaii, is right up our alley. Β Embracing a playful, neon aesthetic, the Shoreline eschews the bland taupe and beiges for something far more fun. Their lobby spaces, guest rooms, and branding have bright, energetic shapes and colors, thanks to design firm BHDM. TheΒ 56,000-square-foot, 135-room boutique hotel feels thoroughly modern, but not staid and predictable. We find it visually striking and memorable, and a heck of a lot of fun. Rooms start at $200/night. Via Design Milk:
Our bucket list includes seeing scorching hot, liquid lava flowing from active vents in the earth’s crust. Luckily, Hawaii is relatively accessible, and has many places where you can witness liquid rock spewing into the ocean. Captured with an unusual sense of form and style byΒ Michael ShainblumΒ inΒ HawaiΚ»i Volcanoes National Park on the big island, the images show the great contrast in colors, shape, and temperatures. Taken from a boat, Shainblum’s vantage point give us a fascinating look at the way new landmasses are formed. Via Fubiz:
Space is cool. Space is infinitely vast. But we’ve barely stuck a pinky into the vastness of space, visually. The Hubble space telescope was a major step forward for humanity, allowing for some incredible peering into the past, at galaxies and nebulas and quasars and all manner of amazingness. Β Now comes the next giant in space telescope exploration, the Thirty Meter Telescope, also known as the TMT. Β To be built on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano, deep in the Pacific, the TMT is, as titled, thirty meters across, 14 stories tall, creating by far the largest mirror on the planet. This giant contraption will allow for up to six times the optical power of Hubble, even though its on earth, and not in the blackness of space. It should be astounding what the Thirty Meter Telescope can see, when it is operational in 2020.
Astounding sculptures made entirely of pencils, by Jessica Drenk. Via Colossal:
South Carolina-based artistΒ Jessica DrenkΒ was born and raised in Montana where she developed an understanding and appreciation of the natural world that has since deeply influenced the course of her artistic career. HerΒ installationsΒ andΒ sculpturesΒ often imitate organic shapes, patterns, and textures even when using a medium that is often manufactured by human hands. Drenkβs most recent sculptures are a series calledΒ Implements, each of which begins with a mass of standard No. 2 pencils that have been tightly glued together. Using an electric sander she then molds the piece into a form that seems more likely to have originated in a dark cave or deep within the ocean than from a school desk. Of her work she says:
By transforming familiar objects into nature-inspired forms and patterns, I examine how we classify the world around us. Manufactured goods appear as natural objects, something functional becomes something decorative, a simple material is made complex, and the commonplace becomes unique. In changing books into fossilized remnants of our culture, or in arranging elegantly sliced PVC pipes to suggest ripple and wave patterns, I create a connection between the man-made and the natural.
A cloud of ash billowing from Puyehue volcano near Osorno in southern Chile, 870 km south of Santiago, on June 5, 2011. Puyehue volcano erupted for the first time in half a century on June 4, 2011, prompting evacuations as it sent up a cloud of ash that circled the globe.
Out of an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes around the world, 50 or so erupt every year, spewing steam, ash, toxic gases, and lava. In 2011, active volcanoes included Chile’s Puyehue, Japan’s Shinmoedake, Indonesia’s Lokon, Iceland’s GrΓmsvΓΆtn, Italy’s Etna, and recently Nyamulagira in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Hawaii, Kilauea continues to send lava flowing toward the sea, and the ocean floor has been erupting near the Canary Islands. Collected below are scenes from the wide variety of volcanic activity on Earth over the past year.
Shinmoedake peak erupts between Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures, in this aerial view seen on January 28, 2011. Ash and rocks fell across a wide swath of southern Japan straddling the prefectures of Miyazaki and Kagoshima, as one of Mount Kirishima's many calderas erupted, prompting authorities to raise alert levels and call on for an evacuation of all residents within a 2 km (1.2 miles) radius of the volcano.
Lava spews into the air, higher than the treetops, near the Kamoamoa fissures between Napau Crater and the Pu`u `O `o crater on Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, on March 7, 2011.
Lava pours from from a fissure just after daybreak and cascades out of sight into a deep crack near the town of Volcano, Hawaii, on March 6, 2011. Scientists monitored a new vent that has opened at the Kilauea volcano, sending lava shooting up to 65 feet high.
Lightning cuts through an ash cloud as Shinmoedake peak erupts, as seen from Takaharu Town Office, Miyazaki prefecture, Japan, on January 27, 2011.
Indonesian worshipers descend from the crater of Mount Bromo in East Java province on January 28, 2011. The worshipers gave offerings to the god of the mountain, praying for the safety of local people.
Surfers paddle past icebergs covered in ash from the GrΓmsvΓΆtn volcano eruption, in the glacier lagoon at the base of Vatnajokull, Iceland, May 26, 2011.
A view of the ash plume above the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain near Entrelagos, on June 5, 2011. The volcano, dormant for decades, erupted in south-central Chile, belching ash over 6 miles (10 km) into the sky, as winds fanned it toward neighboring Argentina, and prompted the government to evacuate several thousand residents, authorities said.
Lightning bolts strike around the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain near southern Osorno city, on June 5, 2011.
Houses and trees are covered by volcanic ash on the bank of Nahuel Huapi Lake in Villa La Angostura in southern Argentina, on June 19, 2011, after the nearby eruption of the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain.
Dead fish float among debris and small chunks of pumice in the Nilahue river after the eruption of the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano in Rininahue, southern Chile, on June 8, 2011.
Mount Lokon spews hot lava and volcanic ash during an eruption in Tomohon in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province, on July 14, 2011. Mount Lokon sent an ash cloud as high as 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) in the north of Sulawesi island, prompting panicked residents to flee the agricultural area, a government official said.
An eruption from Mount Nyamulagira in eastern Congo sends lava high into the air on November 11, 2011.
A man walks as the Tungurahua Volcano (background) spews ash, in Cotalo, Ecuador, on November 29, 2011. Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano spewed red-hot rock and ash as officials upgraded their eruption warning level to orange and some at-risk communities began evacuations.
Tungurahua Volcano is seen from the town of Guadalupe, Ecuador, on November 28, 2011.
View of the fumarole of Tungurahua volcano, from the town of Cotalo, Ecuador, on November 29, 2011.
