Local River Aquaponics System—But You Can Call It "Refrigerator-Aquarium"

AddyDugdale — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:07:00 EDT

The Local River is an aquarium-vegetarium (hang on a minute) by Mathieu Lehanneur, the same guy who thought up last year's Bel Air plant filtration system. Using the same curved white design that tickled our fancy with the Bel Air last year, the Local River is a home storage system for fish and greens that is inspired by the Locavores movement of San Francisco, people who only eat food grown within a 100-mile radius. More info below the gallery.

Described as a "fish farm-cum-kitchen garden," the Local River works using the principle of aquaponics, a system used in Far East fish-farms. The plants—lettuce is thought to be a good bet—extract nutrients from the fish poop, purifying the water and balancing the eco-system of the water.

Made from blown and thermoformed glass, and with a water pump, the Local River comes in two sizes: large, which measures 64 x 29 x 39 inches; and small, which comes in at 29 x 18 x 36 inches. What works in its favor is the fact that your fish will never be fresher. The concept (for that is all it is) will be on display in New York's Artists Space Gallery from April 25.

I'm not sure that Lehanneur, however, has taken into account just how squeamish some people are—raising a pet freshwater fish is one thing, but killing it, gutting it and baking it for Sunday lunch may be asking too much. It rather reminds me of the first training exercise undertaken by the SAS in Hereford. The wannabe special forces are presented with a pet rabbit. For a week they have to look after the bunny-wunny, feeding it, petting it etc etc, before they are ordered to kill it and cook it for dinner. [Dezeen]

Bel-Air Filtration System Uses Plants to Purify Our Environs

AddyDugdale — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:43:56 EST

With more than a nod to NASA and James Dyson, French designer Mathieu Lehanneur's Bel-Air purifying system uses plants to keep the atmosphere inside your house clean from nasty pollutants. The pint-sized air-filtration system acts as a miniature greenhouse, stripping the benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene from inside your home using three natural filters.

The Bel-Air uses the leaves and roots of the plant and a humid bath to strip the pollutants from the air and purify it. The idea came from plant research done by NASA back in the Eighties when they were looking for a way to keep their astronauts safe from the polymer-saturated environment found in space travel.

Lehanneur developed the filter-free filter alongside Harvard scientist David Edwards, and describes his invention as being "to the American and Asiatic common filter appliances what Dyson is to regular vacuum cleaners."
The Bel-Air is currently available as a prototype, and is expected to go into production in 2009, but Lehanneur would like buyers to test his machine and report back so that the finished article will be even better. You will be able to see it at MoMA in New York in February 2008, as part of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition. [Dezeen]

Gizmodo: mathieu lehanneur

Local River Aquaponics System—But You Can Call It "Refrigerator-Aquarium"

Bel-Air Filtration System Uses Plants to Purify Our Environs