Belatchew
This looks like Cousin Itt’s house, but it’s actually a proposal from Swedish architecture firm Belatchew, which wants to outfit this Stockholm building with an energy-collecting piezo-electric toupee. Could you start seeing hairy buildings in your neighborhood? Will you someday live in a hairy house?
Well, probably not — the technology is still pretty new. The idea is that these millions of piezo-electric “straws” blow in the wind, collecting energy out of thin air to power the building. But, says Treehugger, there are still a few challenges:
[H]ow do you clean all those piezo-strands? How much noise might they make on a windy day? In addition, most piezo-electric generators are sheets or plates installed where people move about, and underneath the collectors is wiring to bring the generated energy to where it can be used.
Last but not least, piezo-electricity isn’t very efficient. Not yet, at least.
Yeah, that last part’s a bit of a buzzkill. But at least this theoretical skyscraper would look sweet as hell, and not suffer the undermining of confidence that comes from building pattern baldness.
Belatchew
