Why open source sustainable cities? Because sustainable cities of people working together for what One Community calls “The Highest Good of All” can positively and permanently change the world in ways everyone will benefit from. We can create a sustainable planet if enough people want it and sustainable city creation is a way to get enough people involved to reach the necessary tipping point.
Click on each icon to be taken to the corresponding Highest Good hub page.
One Community’s physical location will forward this movement as the first of many self-replicating teacher/demonstration communities, villages, and cities to be built around the world justifying “why open source sustainable cities”. This is the July 18th, 2021 edition (#434) of our weekly progress update detailing our team’s development and accomplishments:
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One Community is answering the question, “why open source sustainable cities” through Highest Good housing that is artistic and beautiful, more affordable, more space efficient, lasts longer, DIY buildable, and constructed with healthy and sustainable materials:
This week the core team started moving the updated content for the “Earthbag Construction Footers, Foundation, and Flooring” tutorial from the Google Doc generated by the researchers to the One Community’s website answering the “why open source sustainable cities” question.
We worked to make sure the format matches our standards, solved situations where the special characters are not supported by default on WordPress (like the square root symbol), and began to make the table of content clickable and more detailed. The pictures below share some of this work.
The core team also completed a thorough review of the best solar hardware report for our solar microgrid designs.
Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 52nd week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis continued researching information on how snow accumulates on sloped roofs and the effects the environment has on the snow focusing on understanding “why open source sustainable cities”.
He also researched ways to control the motion of the snow when on the roof. His findings determined that temperature fluctuation causes snow to slide abruptly on sloped roofs. This poses a danger to the structural integrity of the interior roof of the Net-Zero Bathroom.
The most practical solution was to retrofit snow guards onto the roof in order to hold the accumulated snow in place and slowly allow it to melt. He rendered the exterior roof of the Net-Zero Bathroom with snow guards to help the user understand where to install them.
He then rechecked his calculations of the maximum allowable snow depth on the Net-Zero Bathroom and found it to be 34.5″ and a scaling factor of 1.15 when average snow depth is under 30″. Jose Luis added this information to the tutorial/instructions of the Net-Zero Bathroom and gave construction recommendations.
He will finish the AutoCAD roof plan of the Net-Zero Bathroom and review the tutorial/instructions to fix discrepancies and/or errors. The pictures below show some of this work.
Jeson Hu (Aerospace Engineer) completed his 19th week helping with research related to the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics. This week, Jeson contacted Garkane to arrange a phone meeting next week to discuss the rate schedule that One Community will fall into. He also continued on his diesel generator research, finding products, inputting specs and contact information.
He additionally linked the spec information to the product name cell for future reference and then focused on addressing the comments in the Choosing the Best Solar Hardware Research & Report collectively working towards understanding “why open source sustainable cities”.
Jeson added first, second, and third generation solar cells definition, cleared up a few confusing areas, and added image descriptions. The pictures below share some of this developing work.
Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 13th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development. This week Daniela completed working on the roadway easements for the property. She then worked on a new design for the fire access road of the Earthbag Village.
The new design that was implemented expanded the road to 35 feet, which was the smallest width the team was able to come up with. Once approved Daniela then began to work on this change for the complete village layout as part of answering the “why open source sustainable cities” question.
This week Daniela also created a resources page for the Roadways, Walkways, Gutters and Parking Lot Report and uploaded the resources to the Dropbox. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Katherine Cao (Chemical Engineer) also completed her 8th week working answering “why open source sustainable cities” and on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs.
This week Katherine read feedback from peers and made corrections on the report. Katherine also redid the tables, and made them look professional, and did some formatting for the report. Pictures below are related to this work.
Nicholas K. de León (Project Management Adviser) completed his 6th week helping with review of Highest Good Housing research and related tasks directed at answering “why open source sustainable cities”. Nicholas continued editing documents, going through the first three documents on his list and working up from there.
He cleared prior suggestions that had the necessary improvements, continuing to make suggestions where necessary. On a positive note, Nicholas believes that many of the documents are nearly at a stage where a final read can be done. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.
Prabhath Ekanayake (Electrical Engineering Assistant) completed his 6th week working on answering “why open source sustainable cities” and the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Prabhath continued development of the grid tie tutorial by rewriting assigned sections based on team feedback. Below are some images related to this work.
Shreyas Dayanand (Battery Research Engineer) also completed his 3rd week helping with the solar microgrid design specifics related to electric vehicles and battery sizing. Following up with last week, Shreyas came up with a more illustrative block diagram to explain the Vehicle-to-Grid concept for the current generation of Electric Vehicles.
He found an option to consider the Tesla Model X as an option for the community in accordance with its features that would be helpful. Shreyas illustrated with an example of how much energy can be used from an electric vehicle battery pack considering all the governing factors.
He started to look into the different battery storage options that are available to use for the solar-farm application and the parameters to be established for the same further contributing to the answer for “why open source sustainable cities”.
He also consolidated information regarding the different levels of Electric vehicle charging the related parameters like the power delivered and charging time. Pictures below relate to this work-in-progress.
Jarot Tamba (Civil Engineering Intern) completed his 2nd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing. This week Jarot dove further into gathering information regarding the different proportions which Aircrete users have found to have worked successfully.
Jarot found some useful information from the Honey Do Carpenter Youtube channel which focuses on the construction of small rectangular homes using Aircrete.
There was information provided regarding the best curing methods (covered and out of direct sunlight and high temps), how to protect aircrete from a mold (using visqueen plastic wrap), and how to reinforce aircrete (pouring mixture over grid patterned wire mesh). Further research was also done about superadobe which was a bit difficult.
Jarot’s group cannot control what dirt or clay mixture they receive so initial tests must be run to determine the best mixture. Jarot and the group also met on campus during the week to scope out the workplace and discuss some important aspects of the project.
They also met to finalize their plans for initial testing, documentation, video recording and cleaning and maintenance plans related to “why open source sustainable cities”. Pictures below relted to this work.
Dominick Banuelos (Civil Engineering Intern) also completed his 2nd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing a crucial part of “why open source sustainable cities”. This week Dominick worked with the whole team to create the initial mixing plan, materials, testing plan, cleaning plan, video plan, and project schedule.
Following what the group came up with will allow for the project to run smoothly and on time. Below are some images related to this work.
John Paul D. Matining (Civil Engineer Intern) completed his 2nd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing too. This week John completed more research on Aircrete and the Earthbag mixes and created a proposed plan that was then combined with the group’s individual plan to create the group’s proposed plan.
This included plans for documentation of the project, a materials proposal, mixture proposal, schedule, and cleanup plan, all parts of the “why open source sustainable cities”. These documents included calculations, ratio mixtures, camera uses, and other details needed to conduct and fully document the compression testing. The pictures below relate to this work.
And Marcus Nguyen (Civil Engineering Intern), also part of the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing team, completed his 2nd week as well. This week Marcus did further research in order to figure out the overall schedule for the Aircrete and Stabilized Earth Compression Testing as part of understanding “why open source sustainable cities”.
He also attended the meetup on his campus to meet with Jae, his group members, professor, and internship liaison to go over the necessary information needed to run the test. Later in the week, Marcus and his group gathered all the information to meet up and shared their research in order to come up with a schedule and plans for approval.
The pictures below share some of this developing work.
One Community is answering the question, “why open source sustainable cities” through a Duplicable and Sustainable City Center that is LEED Platinum certified/Sustainable, can feed 200 people at a time, provide laundry for over 300 people, is beautiful, spacious, and saves resources, money, and space:
This week the core team continued review and feedback on the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial segment of the “why open source sustainable cities”. The focus for the week was making comments and addressing some older comments related to the doc. This week’s work has taken us through page 128 and included sections on Rigid Pavement Design and the Glossary.
The core team also completed a thorough review of the best solar hardware report for our solar microgrid designs.
Ian Oliver Malinay (Energy Modeler/Analyst) completed his 27th week helping run the energy analysis calculations to help us achieve LEED Platinum status for the Duplicable City Center. This week, Ian worked on the energy modeling narrative updates as reference for the future projects to be processed to ensure the LEED platinum certification.
Ian produced a narrative report that is general and easy to follow. The provided procedures also considers the ASHRAE 90.1-2010 standard that is applicable to the LEED 4/4.1 version of the rating system.
This report can be considered as an official manual of Duplicable City Center to properly design the energy model of the building working towards answering “why open source sustainable sustainable cities”.
The inputs here are more efficient than the performance of the Baseline Design so we can make sure that the energy model attains the highest possible LEED credit points. Please see below related pictures for reference.
Carol Nguyen (Civil Engineer) also completed her 12th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development as a part of “why open source sustainable cities”.
This week, Carol worked on the report, added more details in the writing, added references for the requested sections, and resolved the comments that had already been addressed. For the Rigid Pavement section, she added the pictures to illustrate types of rigid pavement (CRCP, JPCP) and “Expansion Terminal Joint Section Between CRCP and Structure Approach Slab”.
Carol also added more details in the “Dowel and Tie Bar” and “Pavement Smoothness” section. In addition, she worked on the comparison table for alternative pavement options. The pictures below share some of this developing work.
Neel Shanbhag (Control Systems Electrical Engineer) completed his 6th week helping answer “why open source sustainable cities” and with the Duplicable City Center Electrical designs. This week he continued researching and understanding various papers for solar sizing for the Duplicable City Center. Pictures related to this work are below.
Venus Abdollahi (Architectural Designer) completed her 2nd week helping finish the Duplicable City Center roof designs working towards answering “why open source sustainable cities”. This week Venus started development of the City Center Living Dome roof design by detailing the roof, making the isometric section, and adding R-value specifics.
For detailing the roof, she’s using Revit to create details and callouts. For the City Center Living Dome roof, she added different layers and annotated them. The isometric section is still in process but Venus was able to complete details and the 3D isometric section. See pictures below.
And Carlos Lillo (Engineering Technician) joined the team and completed his 1st week helping with the pallet furniture designs for the Duplicable City Center guest rooms as a part of the “why open source sustainable cities”.
Carlos started the week importing the Duplicable City Files into the Blender Environment. By the end of it, he was able to complete his firsts deliverables: All Renders.
Carlos encountered a problem when generating the renders after including the LED system (noisy renders) but after a while he was able to overcome said problem by increasing the render quality and using a denoiser filter. Pictures below are related to this work.
One Community is answering the question, “why open source sustainable cities” through Highest Good food that is more diverse, more nutritious, locally grown and sustainable, and part of our open source botanical garden model to support and share bio-diversity:
This week as part of answering “why open source sustainable cities” the core team continued creating updated SketchUp models for the final designs of the Aquapinis/Walipinis. We uploaded the latest AutoCAD designs and used them for updating the Walipini structure in SketchUp. We also continued designing the central area of the Aquapini.
We resized aquapini beds with bed supports from 5′ to 3′ width so they will be easier to harvest. We also designed a waterfall idea with recycled tire, fish and flowers, and set it up so the drainage pipe that goes from under the media beds drains there to create a waterfall. This waterfall sits between the first and second aquapini beds.
Three walking paths where planned too, one in the middle that is a 4′ wide path and two 2’8″ wide paths next to the growing beds. And we designed a keyhole raised garden bed that sits in the far west end of the walking path. Pictures below are related to this work.
This week Qiuheng Xu (Landscape Designer) completed her 41st week volunteering, now helping with the Aquapini & Walipini external landscaping details included in answering “why open source sustainable cities”.
While waiting for the core team updates to the structures (now complete), Qiuheng was able to adjust the central area and structures’ open area that faces the center. She then created and rendered a draft version of the landscape walkthrough. Below are some pictures from this work.
Qisheng Rong (Mechanical Engineer) also joined the team and completed his 1st week helping with the development of the climate batteries for the Aquapini/Walipini structures.
This week Qisheng reviewed the previous work of the climate battery team and gained more understanding of the heat transfer calculation and CFD model of the climate battery design crucial to the debate around “why open source sustainable cities”.
He also had a meeting with Amin to discuss more details of the tasks and expectations. He read the Ashrae handbook to get familiar with the heating and cooling loads calculations. Qisheng also started researching the climate battery designs and configurations in research papers. The pictures below are related to this work.
One Community is answering the question, “why open source sustainable cities” through Highest Good education that is for all ages, applicable in any environment, adaptable to individual needs, far exceeds traditional education standards, and more fun for both the teachers and the students.
This component of One Community is about 95% complete with only the Open Source School Licensing and Ultimate Classroom construction and assembly details remaining to be finished. We’ll report on the final two elements to be finished as we develop them.
With over 8 years of work invested in the process, the sections below are all complete until we move onto the property and continue the development and open sourcing process with teachers and students – a development process that is built directly into the structure of the education program and everything else we’re creating too:
One Community is answering the question, “why open source sustainable cities” through a Highest Good society approach to living that is founded on fulfilled living, the study of meeting human needs, Community, and making a difference in the world:
This week the core team completed 32 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration for answering “why open source sustainable cities” not mentioned elsewhere here.
The picture below relates to this. We also did more testing and bug identification within the Beta version of the Highest Good Network software.
Jaime Arango (Graphic Designer) completed his 32nd week, spending time on contemplating “why open source sustainable cities” returning to creating badges for the Highest Good Network software. This week Jaime created the New Max-Personal Record and Most Hours in a Week badges. You can see both below.
Chris Weilacker (Software Engineer) completed his 31st week while understanding “why open source sustainable cities” and working on the Highest Good Network software.
This week Chris worked on the Badge Report/History including the ability to set up to 5 featured badges and for Admins to delete badges in a user’s history and change badge counts on the User Profile page. Chris also placed the listing of featured badges (up to 5 by rank) on the user profile page. Pictures below are related to this work.
OJ Alcaraz (Software Engineer) also completed his 3rd week lending effort to understanding “why open source sustainable cities” and working on the Highest Good Network software. This week OJ continued working on the inventory controller API.
OJ focused on testing completed methods and began debugging the delByInvId and unWasteInvById methods as the calls were throwing errors. They were throwing errors where they could not submit an API call without having to restart the back end. Now they are at a point where you can submit an API call but there is now a MongoError message.
OJ will continue to work on that next week. He also started planning out the test script for stakeholders which will be in Google Form format. The pictures below relate to this work.
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