Get your spooky fun on this Friday at BuildItGreen!NYC’s brand-new space in Gowanus, Brooklyn! From 3-6pm, kids can stop by the BIG!NYC/GrowNYC costume swap and trade their old finery for new, plus watch family-friendly Hallowe’en films, do some eco-crafts (Solar One will be making cardboard animal masks), play games and much more!

Then at 7pm, it’s time for more adult fun at BIG’s costume fundraiser. Tickets start at just $10 and are available HERE!

BIG!NYC Costume Swap and Fundraiser
Friday October 28, 2011
Costume Swap at 3pm, Fundraiser at 6pm
69 9th Street, Brooklyn
Get directions HERE!

Well, it’s just not our year for screenings…

NY ASLA has decided to cancel tonight’s screening of Women In the Dirt. They’ll be rescheduling sometime in October in a different venue. You can find out more on their Facebook page.

Women in the Dirt is about the groundbreaking work of seven landscape architects. Their projects combine awareness of architectural and landscape principles, concern with sustainability, safety and beauty. The scope of their work ranges from private homes to vast public projects.

Through conversations with the landscape architects in their offices, or in the stunning spaces they’ve designed, the film explores each woman’s personal aesthetics and approach to their discipline. Women in the Dirt shows how these “masters of the obvious” create the sublime.

The New York chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects will be presenting this premiere screening at Solar 1 on Thursday September 15 at 7pm. Solar One is delighted to present this program- Stuy Cove Park was designed by a female landscape architect, Donna Walcavage. You can learn more about the design and construction of the Park on the Solar One website HERE.

Guest Presenter: Achva Stein, Professor & Director, Graduate Landscape Architecture Program at CUNY

Thursday September 15 at 7pm at Solar One

Rain date will be determined 24 hours in advance, if necessary.



The NEW New York: GreenHomeNYC’s DIY Green Block Party, Saturday October 2nd 10am – 6pm, will give New Yorkers tangible experience with ways to live green(er). Catering to citizens anywhere on the green spectrum from curious to committed, this event will bring concepts to life through hands-on activities. For example, a local compost vendor, Vokashi, will sell compost k its as well as have compost on hand to smell and examine up close. Recycle-A-Bicycle will demonstrate how to repair a bike and take donations of old bikes. Bring your old clothes to be recycled through Wearable Collections, and your e-waste through the Lower East Side Ecology Center. In addition to over 45 vendors, there will be special neighborhood tours such as a “ride-along” on a brownstone’s energy audit, a trip to a green roof, and a tour of Third + Bond, which is anticipating LEED-Gold.

In keeping with the theme, the NEW New York itself will be green: using biodiesel and compostable food containers, recycling trash and composting food-waste, minimizing trash by asking vendors to present paperless, and purchasing carbon off-sets.

Visit our website for more information, and to sign up for events,demonstrations, and building tours. Solar One will be running activities for kids!

10:00am- Make insect/butterfly/native creature puppets!

12:00pm- Make seed bombs that will turn into wildflowers in the spring!

2:00pm- Make a solar racecar and see how fast it will go!

www.greenhomenyc.org/thenewnewyork

Third St between Bond & Hoyt Sts in Brooklyn

F/G to Carroll Street

Volunteer extraordinaire Tom Eccardt serves up handmade mulberry ice cream, made with mulberries grown in Stuy Cove Park, to an enthusiastic crowd at Family Day on June 26. All photos are by Solar One photo intern Maya Cramer.

Tomorrow we’ll be having our second annual creature-themed Family Day,  but in June we had a Family Day that revolved around pollinators and food. We learned about pollinating creatures like bees, moths, flies and butterflies, colored pictures of pollinators and made puppets out of them (this activity is always a hit, and is affectionately known as Bugs-On-A-Stick), sampled sprouts grown from native plants seeds, and best of all, made ice cream without an ice cream maker! Check out the pictures after the jump to find out how we did it! And also a big, heartfelt “Thank You” to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer for supporting Family Day!

Tom shows examples of pollinators to a rapt audience.

Preparing butterflies to become Bugs-On-A-Stick.

So how did we make the ice cream? The  basic idea came from the fabulous ReadyMade magazine; here’s the link to the original recipe. Instead of Lemongrass-Vanilla, we made 2 flavors using park-grown plants: mulberry and mountain mint chip. We used coffee cans to hold the ingredients, but we couldn’t find any 5-lb coffee cans for the ice, so we used clean plaster buckets instead:

Kicking the cream around under the FDR drive.

Everyone gets in on the action.

The wider top of the plaster bucket made it really easy to kick in a circle, from one person to another. Even in the 90-degree-plus weather that day, it only took about 30 minutes of kicking to form the ice cream. Because the plaster buckets were so big, we could put 2 coffee cans inside, and make our 2 flavors at once!

The results were absolutely delicious! There were many satisfied customers, and you can be sure this is a Family Day activity we’ll be repeating…

Join Solar One for our first Family Day, this Saturday May 8 from 10am to 2pm. Pot your own native plant, make a seed bomb, or a flower costume, or a watercolor painting, have your face painted and learn about worm composting! All free, all at Solar One- we hope to see you there!

RSVP to daisy@solar1.org or dina@solar1.org

NYU Earth Matters is throwing a party for Earth Day’s 40th birthday, and you’re invited! Check out a fabulous exhibit of eco-art from the NYU community and beyond, eat delicious food from the Dosa Man and check out some exciting live entertainment from MC Andrew WK, Cold Cave, Oberhofer and North Highlands, plus a Special Secret Guest so exciting we won’t be able to reveal their name until Saturday morning!

This event is free and open to the public, rain or shine! We hope to see you there!

You can read the interview here.

For more info on the event, check out http://solar1.org/2009/09/28/habitats-for-artists-and-ecoartspace-at-solar-one/!

On Saturday October 3, 2009,  Solar One and EcoArtspace, one of the country’s foremost art organizations concentrating on ecological/environmental art, are pleased to present a day of workshops, discussions and performances about the artistic process, the environment, public vs. private space, as well as presentations from local artists engaged in environment-focused projects.

For much of this summer, sample “studios” from artist Simon Draper’s Habitats for Artists project have been displayed on the blacktop near the Solar 1 building on the East River south of 23^rd St. Throughout our events season, the sheds have provided a community space for concessions, a bulletin board, a studio for artist Todd Betterley and a conversation piece for the many bicyclists, joggers, fishermen and kids who regularly visit Stuyvesant Cove Park. On October 3 from 10am-12pm, Simon will demonstrate how to build your very own artist habitat and answer questions about the future of the Habitats project.

From 1-4pm, performance artist Chere Krakovsky will bring the personal into the Habitat for Artists shed in her performance “Mothers and Daughters”,  exploring how one generation offers its lessons to the next, both learned and unspoken.

In the first part of the performance Chere will honor her Eastern European grandmother by washing her laundry by hand in the way her grandmother did a century ago and will then hang it out to dry using the area around the habitat as backyard.  Following this she has invited her 86 yr. old mother, Dorothy Krakovsky to join her teaching Chere to sew by hand, which she in turn was taught to do by Chere’s grandmother.

In this piece as in many of Krakovsky’s performance works, the everyday and the creative co-exist.  The Habitat for Artist shed will serve as the home location for the everyday tasks of doing laundry and sewing.  Others are invited to participate in the sewing lesson or share in conversation about what has been offered/handed down to them from their mothers. Chere, her mother and grandmother are three generations of artists. The artwork of mother, daughter and grandmother will fill the interior of the habitat for the duration of the performance. Krakovsky’s own relationship to the domestic has complex. Much of her performance work revolves around her ever-changing notions of home, its location and meaning. Women, domesticity, creativity and everyday tasks converge. She is also helping to raise awareness that before it is too late there is much to be learned from those who have gone before.

Following the performance, environmental artists will display and discuss the projects they are working on, participants TBD.

Events at Solar One will be followed by the opening of Down To Earth at the EcoArtpace NYC gallery at 53 Mercer st, 3rd Floor. Artists include: Joan Bankemper, Knox Cummin, Stacy Levy, Ann Rosenthal/Steffi Domike, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Simon Draper and the Habitat for Artists Collective, including Todd Sargood, Cathy Lebowitz, E Odin Cathcart and Jeff Bailey, plus additional Contributing Artists:
Jacinto Astiazarán and Fritz Haeg, Lenore Malen & The New Society for Universal Harmony, Eve Mosher, Andrea Polli and Chuck Varga, Andrea Reynosa/Kevin Vertrees-SkyDog Projects and Christy Rupp

On July 10-12, 2009, Citysol, a celebration of urban sustainability and creativity in a mini music and arts festival, returns to Solar One. And what a time we shall have!

At Citysol 2009, acts will perform under a solar tent by Eco-Pioneer, who will also be providing site design with solar tents, a tiki lounge and bar and bike area. Installation art and exhibits will be created in a Habitat for Artists, a temporary, recycled-and-recyclable shed as art studio where Habitat creator Simon Draper (and other artists of his choosing) will create pieces to display during the festival. The Habitats are personal/public spaces that can make art more approachable and at the same time encourage more community awareness of and involvement in the creative process. Watching old artworks and other discarded scraps transformed into a free space for ideas to manifest in a city where space is so controlled is exactly the kind of experience Citysol seeks to offer its audience.

FRIDAY JULY 10 at 6 PM: Citysol Party for a Solar-Powered NY
6:30 PM— “Mr. Lower East Side” Moonshine Shorey- Beautiful human being and spoken word god brings his band Jen & the Moon to the party.
7:00 PM — The Alien Comic- Legendary downtown one-man recycling circus.
8:00 PM — DJs from Home Base Collective- Dance dance dance.
PLUS Solar Racecar Design Competition. Join the I Heart PV campaign and get a drink on us!

SATURDAY JULY 11 at 12 PM: Live Music Day Co-Curated by Digiwaxx
12:45 PM — Lower East Side alterna-duo Schwervon!
1:45 PM — Electronica dreamscapers Love Like Deloreans
2:45 PM — Hip-hop/soul artiste Outasight
3:45 PM — Repeat offender/harmonium virtuoso Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers
4:45 PM — Brooklyn punk brothers So So Glos
5:15 PM — The Fabulous Ihsan
5:30PM— Turntable prodigy DJ Spinna
6:00PM— Hip-hop activists Dead Prez
6:30 PM— Underground hero Saigon
6:45PM— Fashion, dance and rap triple threat O’Neal McKnight
7:15 PM — Experimental sextet Hi Red Center
8:15 PM — Teen instrumental sensation Fiasco

SUNDAY JULY 12 at 11AM : Kids of All Ages Day
11:30 PM — Rachel Trachtenburg’s Homemade World with the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
12:30 PM — Just Food- Learn the ancient art of fruit canning!
1:30 PM — Solar One- Check out the Solar One bike blender project, buy a bike-blended smoothie and learn about bike mechanics!
2:30 PM — The Madagascar Institute- Make your own generator; you have the power!
3:30 PM — Band of Bicycles- Bicycle-powered spin art for kids of all ages.

4:30 PM — Wide Open Eco-Pet Fashion Show- Dress up your pet in an eco-extravagant costume to die for! Use found, reclaimed, reused and recycled materials to show off your creativity and your pet’s fabulousness! Win a Big Blue Ribbon! Hosted by performance elf Reverend Jen!

For more information/links to participant’s sites, visit www.citysol.org/2009/index.html.

Visit our sponsors and partners: Brooklyn Brewery, Rabbit Mafia, Digiwaxx, EcoArtspace

Last but not least:
Bring your own cup and get a discount on beer.
Reuse the cup we give you and get a (smaller) discount on beer.
Because sustainable should never mean thirsty.

SUNDAY JULY 12 at 11AM : Kids of All Ages Day
11:30 PM — Rachel Trachtenburg’s Homemade World with the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
12:30 PM — Just Food- Learn the ancient art of fruit canning!
1:30 PM — Solar One- Check out the Solar One bike blender project, buy a bike-blended smoothie and learn about bike mechanics!
2:30 PM — The Madagascar Institute- Make your own generator; you have the power!
3:30 PM — Band of Bicycles- Bicycle-powered spin art for kids of all ages.

4:30 PM — Wide Open Eco-Pet Fashion Show- Dress up your pet in an eco-extravagant costume to die for! Use found, reclaimed, reused and recycled materials to show off your creativity and your pet’s fabulousness! Win a Big Blue Ribbon! Hosted by performance elf Reverend Jen!

Lots of stuff for kids to do, plus workshops and panel discussions for the grownups. Make crafts, check out the BioBus, a solar-and-wind powered laboratory on wheels, build a hand-crank alternator and learn about how electricity works, and many more! Plus hang out under Eco-Pioneers Solar Tent and chill at the Tiki Bar!

Bring your own cup and get beers for $2 off the regular price! Reuse the cup we give you, and it’s $1 off!

Write a letter for our I Heart PV campaign to increase solar energy generation in New York State and have a beer on us. Check out http://iheartpv.org for more info.

FRIDAY JULY 10 at 6 PM: Citysol Party for a Solar-Powered NY
6:30 PM— “Mr. Lower East Side” Moonshine Shorey- Beautiful human being and spoken word god brings his band Jen & the Moon to the party.
7:00 PM — The Alien Comic- Legendary downtown one-man recycling circus.
8:00 PM — DJs from Home Base Collective- Dance dance dance.
PLUS Solar Racecar Design Competition. Join the I Heart PV campaign and get a drink on us!

This evening of performance art, spoken word and dancing will culminate in the I Heart PV campaign’s Party for a Solar-Powered NY. Talk to a solar installer, write a letter to your legislator asking for stronger solar energy policy, design, and enter a solar racecar in our design competition and win a Big Blue Ribbon!

Bring your own cup and get beers for $2 off the regular price! Reuse the cup we give you, and it’s $1 off!

Write a letter for our I Heart PV campaign to increase solar energy generation in New York State and have a beer on us. Check out http://iheartpv.org for more info.

The urban built environment simultaneously shapes and contributes to many of our most persistent quality of life challenges while also embodying our greatest potential for achieving a sustainable society. In this lecture Jean-Loup Msika, the founder of Sustainable-City-Project, and Dan Heyden AIA LEED AP, will lay out ways in which we can begin to rethink the relationship of the city’s built structures to one another and to the enormous energy resources of the sun with passive solar design at an urban scale.

This is what the flowers look like:

On Thursday March 19 at 6pm, bring yourself, your crochet hooks and knitting needles, your old plastic bags and your ingenuity. The flowers in the pic were made with a D crochet hook and the pattern will be available next Thurs, but if you’d rather knit, or have another idea for a flower pattern, well, bring it on! The more variety, the better. We’ll be meeting at Sustainable NYC at 139 Ave A between St. Mark’s &  9th St. There will be free snacks and tons of fun!

For those who are interested in the design/construction aspect of the display, please email Events & Marketing Coordinator Dina Elkan at dina@solar1.org for more info on where and when we’ll be putting it all together. We’d like to have the display in the window by April 1.

To recap:

What: Create flowers out of plastic bags by crocheting or knitting

Where: Sustainable NYC, 139 Ave A between St. Mark’s & 9th Street

When: Thursday, March 19 at 6pm

Bring: Old shopping bags (transluscent plastic only, please! The opaque, shiny bags get too sticky to work with easily), crochet hooks and/or knitting needles, your friends, your brilliant ideas and lots of enthusiasm!

We hope to see you there!

Artist Talk: Ecoartspace, Solar One and Ronald Feldman Gallery are pleased to present an Artist’s Talk with collaborative team and Eco Art pioneers, Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison. They will speak in New York City at the Ronald Feldman Gallery on Tuesday, January 13th at 6pm in conjunction with their new exhibition Global Warming (opening on January 10th).

SPACE IS LIMITED: TO RSVP contact Sarah Paulson at (212) 226-3232 sarah@feldmangallery.com
or amy@ecoartspace.org

Where:  Ronald Feldman Gallery | 31 Mercer Street (at Grand Street)

When: January 13th | 6pm

About the Artists: Among the leading pioneers of the eco-art movement, the collaborative team of Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison (often referred to simply as “the Harrisons”) have worked for over thirty years with biologists, ecologists and urban planners to initiate collaborative dialogues to uncover ideas and solutions which support biodiversity and community development.

The Harrison’s concept of art embraces a breathtaking range of disciplines. They are historians, diplomats, ecologists, investigators, emissaries and art activists. Their work involves proposing solutions and involves not only public discussion, but extensive mapping and documentation of these proposals in an art context. (From www.greenmuseum.org)

“…Call it CSI: Thermal Police — energy experts armed with mostly low-tech tools but strong sleuthing skills, finding flaws that let the air inside a house go through a full exchange with the outdoors twice an hour, instead of once every two or three hours.

Correct those flaws, and heating and cooling costs are typically cut by 20 percent to 30 percent, a saving of more than $1,000 annually in some households. In addition, carbon dioxide emissions and the strain on the national electric and gas systems are reduced.

About 140,000 houses will be weatherized with public help this year, a total that President-elect Barack Obama has promised to raise to one million, to reduce energy consumption and cut energy costs for households and taxpayers, who often absorb those costs for the poor. This would represent a historic shift in emphasis for the federal and state governments, reducing poor people’s energy bills instead of helping to pay them. [NY Times | Full Article]

For more information about weatherization services or training in your community, contact the Community Environmental Center or Solar One!

Imagine 3.8 billion years of design brilliance available for free, at the moment of creation, to any sustainability innovator in the world.  Imagine nature’s most elegant ideas organized by design and engineering function, so you can enter “filter salt from water” and see how mangroves, penguins, and shorebirds desalinate without fossil fuels. Now imagine you can meet the people who have studied these organisms, and together you can create the next great bio-inspired solution.

That’s the idea behind AskNature, the online inspiration source for the biomimicry community. Think of it as your home habitat—whether you’re a biologist who wants to share what you know about an amazing organism, or a designer, architect, engineer, or chemist looking for planet-friendly solutions. AskNature is where biology and design cross-pollinate, so bio-inspired breakthroughs can be born.

Check out a newly formed wildlife habitat on the island of Manhattan! The Manhattan National Wildlife Habitat, known as Decentral Park, is a critical national resource that provides habitat for a diverse array of flora and fauna. These are now being studied by citizen park rangers, including you. All citizens are empowered with the rights and responsibilities of official Deputy Park Rangers, and are invited to participate in gathering information about the ecosystems which make up this beautiful park through WHOOZ a habitat and animal mapping project by Jeffrey Warren and Natalie Jeremijenko for MIT.

WHOOZ is a project actively engaged in mapping animal populations in Manhattan, and anyone with a cellphone can participate in mapping. WHOOZ is particularly interested in BATS, INSECTS, PIGEONS, and PEOPLE Use these four keywords to submit sightings to WHOOZ.

This project needs your participation! Find out how to participate here

The 2008 International Design Biennial is hosting a show entitled: “So Watt!” a collection of projects that bring attention to issues of energy.

“In facing energy issues today, how can we find more economical ways to use electricity, when it is such an important part of the dwelling-place? Thanks to design, the way we use electricity becomes tangible and visible, and the exhibition makes it possible for each of us to find ways of using electricity responsibly, harmonising comfort and care of the environment.”

Shown above is Solar paper lantern by Damien 0’Sullivan, 2004. “This luminaire is made of 36 miniature solar panels, each connected to an electroluminescent diode. The circular layout of the panels and their optimal angle of inclination ensure that they will capture a maximum amount of sunlight in order to charge the lantern’s battery. The overall graphic design is a direct celebration of solar technology.” more…