Register now for San Francisco’s 2015 Architecture and the City festival

Heads up San Francisco design fans – the Architecture and the City festival kicks off tomorrow, and you definitely won’t want to miss out. We’re looking forward to a month filled with great events – from exhibitions and walking tours to educational lectures, films, and home tours that will show you a whole new side of the City by the Bay. (Past festivals have featured a house with a tree-root chandelier, a cottage that generates 30% more energy than it uses and a Victorian home renovation that will blow your mind.) If you’d like to join in the fun, sign up today before spots fill up!

+ Architecture and the City

+ AIA SF

+ Center for Architecture + Design

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INFOGRAPHIC: Why you should stop buying bottled water

Americans buy a staggering amount of bottled water every year. Not only does that bottled water consumption add to a wasteful water footprint—the average U.S. consumer uses as much as 1,320 gallons per day—but it’s also the source of tons of landfill trash. Buying bottled water isn’t economically sound either. Even though half of most bottled waters come from the tap, some water brands charge up to 500 times more than the cost of tap. Wheels for Wishes put together an infographic to examine the many reasons why Americans need to reduce their bottled water footprint.

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National Geographic plants faux ivory tusks to track the illegal ivory trade route

National Geographic is taking an incredible stance in the efforts to stop the illegal ivory trade in Africa by planting and tracking their own faux tusks. Commissioned specially for NatGeo, the fake tusks were equipped with GPS trackers, so the publication could follow the route of the illegal tusk trade around the continent. Traveling almost 600 miles, NatGeo created a comprehensive interactive map that shows the actual route of illegal ivory, poaching hot spots, trader values and major market and exporting hubs, making the illegal industry more transparent then ever before.

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Solar-powered handheld WaterDrop produces cool drinking water in the desert

By 2040, 33 countries are expected to face extreme water stress, according to the World Resources Institute, making the race to develop innovative solutions more furious than ever. Ap Verheggen has been on the cutting-edge of solar thought experiments for several years. You may recall the SunGlacier – a conceptual solar-powered leaf that produces water in the desert. Now he’s back with WaterDrop, a handheld solar-powered device that produces condensation for drinking. Ap acknowledges the concept is a bit like science fiction, but solar technology has taken huge strides in recent years, so it’s worth giving it a closer look.

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New artificial leaf technology could revolutionize renewable energy production

The big challenges standing in the way of a full frontal assault on petroleum by the clean energy industry are the cost of production and a dearth of ways to store the energy after its produced. But a team from Caltech’s Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) came up with new technology that could bridge that gap: an artificial leaf that mimics the process of photosynthesis by plants. The artificial leaf efficiently produces and chemically stores energy using nothing but the sun’s rays.

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