Bookshelf: Dreaming the Biosphere

Oh, Biosphere 2.  I was in high school when the experiment of locking a handful of people into a greenhouse microcosm of the Earth happened; I remember reading about it in Time magazine.  I remember thinking it was actually a Real, Serious Science Experiment by Real, Serious Scientists.

Turns out, not so much.

Dreaming the Biosphere is the true story of an acting troupe (The Theater of All Possibilities) who lived together on a commune (the Synergia Ranch) and ended up coaxing $150 million in cash money and priceless amounts of expertise out of real scientists and investors to build Biosphere 2.  B2 was a test project to create a small-scale, complete ecosystem that would exist sealed under glass and would sustain itself (and all organisms within, including humans); its goal was to develop a long-term habitat for human beings to settle other, less-hospitable planets.  Although there was real science at work, the project was spearheaded and carried out by lay people.  Was this lack of expertise why it failed?  Or was it the enthusiasm and brink-of-insanity passion of the Synergians that made the experiment even possible in the first place?

Author Rebecca Reider does a terrific job of interviewing the Synergians (including their charismatic but volatile leader, John Allen), the consultants, the builders and others involved in the massive undertaking.  She also unpacks the cultural undercurrents that powered the interest in 'ecotechnology,' space travel, and building brave new worlds.  EPCOT is briefly name-checked; Reider surveys the history of human replicas of worlds in miniature, and she mentions the park's collection of a sample of every culture on Earth in World Showcase.  I suspect that, had Walt Disney lived in the mid-80's, he would have played a role in the project, whether as simple investor or something more.  Like Disney, the Synergians were admirers of Buckminster Fuller (Fuller himself participated in several of their conferences), and you can see similarities in the ultimate design of Biosphere 2 and in EPCOT's Journey Into Imagination pavilion.

I have not finished the book yet, but I am engrossed in it.  I can't decide if these people were kooks or geniuses.  Perhaps they are a little of both.  It's like the football coach who goes for it on 4th down; if they convert it to a first, it's a gutsy play, and if they fail, it is the most boneheaded move ever and FIRE HIM NOW.  If B2 had succeeded, would we be hailing it as a landmark of human progress, instead of the butt of a joke?

Ironies abound, obviously.  There is some side-eye due a group of environmentalists who import exotic plants and insects (hello, invasive species!), oftentimes damaging the original habitat in the process; who ignore the legitimate concerns raised by consulting experts when the concerns interfere with the dream; and who keep changing their mind about major structural details, forcing the builders to rip things out and start over repeatedly, wasting energy and resources.  My favorite anecdotes include the 'ocean' water that was  imported in milk trucks-- that then was dumped out and not used due to unexpected milk residue-- and the native Arizona deer wandering into the unfinished construction site to snack on Amazonian rainforest plants. I haven't had these bug eyes while reading about piss-poor project decision-making since I read this:

Dreaming the Biosphere is a great read, capturing a time of exuberant belief in the power of science, technology and the future, and the ability of a bunch of actors to get a research project fully funded.

(Biosphere 2 still stands, by the way, and is used as an extension project for environmental education by the University of Arizona.  Plus, it's open for tours!  I totally want to go...but I wonder if it smells horrible.)

EPCOT Technology: The Laminar Flow Filter

Now that the kids are back in school and the initial drama of getting everybody resettled has been resolved, I can finally update this blog again (it's been, what, a month?).  Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been EPCOT House-ing, however.  I scored the supplies for two installations (the Radok-block-inspired wall art and the revival of the Rainbow Tunnel--yes!), and over August, I fiddled with the technology that creates laminar flow.

Laminar flow, in a nutshell, is water that's had a lot of the turbulence removed from it, so it flows more smoothly and uniformly.  When water is soothed like this, it can do things like this:

I have no plans to recreate the leaping fountains, trust, but I was curious about how WED did it, so I fell down the Google rabbit hole and discovered that the concept-- and the technology--is actually very simple, easy and--hooray-- inexpensive to do.  MAKE magazine (if you aren't familiar with MAKE, please go get acquainted) has a great tutorial online on how to build a pretty nice laminar filter for around $15 in materials.  You will need some comfort with drills and saws, but it's still a novice-level build.

I work with a nationally-known youth organization and I thought the kids would find laminar flow interesting, so my initial plan was to have them collaborate on building a filter ($15 is cheap, but if you do $15 per child, it adds up fast, and we don't have an insane budget).  I did some more looking, however, and found this.

I played with the materials and made up this:

It was very easy.  I cut the bottles with good scissors (I started the hole with a small hacksaw) and drilled out the cap with a large drill bit (I have to check the specs, but I think it's a 1/2").  Buy the straws, fill the bottle, insert the pot scrubber, and wrap it all in duct tape, et voila-- EPCOT technology!  And it WORKS.  When you pour the water out, it's like glass and it's really very impressive, especially if you demonstrate a before and after.

One challenge is finding drinking straws that work, actually.  You need NON-BENDY straws and ALL the straws these days have bendy bits.  I went to a restaurant supply place and found basic, unwrapped, straight straws.  I think the filter cost around $5 to make.  I omitted the cheesecloth and it worked fine without it.

I did the filter activity with the kids last week and they really liked it!  I did the sawing and drilling ahead of time, so all they had to do was assemble it.  It was a good lesson on how special effects oftentimes take advantage of some pretty simple scientific principles and gadgets, and that it's all accessible.

I wouldn't use the repurposed bottle filter as part of any kind of yard install-- it does screw onto the hose, but the water pressure is too intense for it.  I would go with the MAKE version if you wanted to take it full-scale.

Tweaks, Large and Small

The big project this past week was the wall painting for the living room, the Spaceship Earth-inspired zone.  I have been working on this 'refurb' for weeks now, starting with the removal of 30+ year old wallpaper that usually came off in large sheets, but often would flake off in dime-size pieces.  Ugh.

The wallpaper wasn't offensive, but it was very, very neutral, which isn't my thing at all.  I lived with it for several years until I finally got around to getting it down.  The room is also fairly big, so between the removal, the wall repair and prep, and the actual painting, it took ages.  But it's worth it, because now we have SSE-Legs Blue up in here.

Close enough, anyway.

That's not all I'm going to do, obviously, but it's a big step.  The little table is in here now, and I have some ideas for wall art and textiles to add to the vibe.

I also made a quick little thing--art pens, index cards, a little glue and an old beater cheapie frame-- to inject some World of Motion-ness into the dining room:

Polishing a Turd

My husband had this old side table.

Once upon a time, it had been kinda cute.  It was made by a relative of his and he used it in his bachelor pad to seat a plant.  Over time, the plant died, the table made a few moves from house to house and then our kids kept sitting on it and knocking it over.  It went from 'side table' to 'sad table.'

Journey Into Tetanus

What on Earth could I do with such a decrepit--

O hai.

I used wood glue to re-set the loose legs, then painted the whole thing.  I used two Martha Stewart paints-- Polished Silver Specialty Paint for the top and Aquarium Blue Glitter for the legs.  The blue is a little deeper than the legs on SSE, but I dug it and I couldn't resist the glitter.  I still may re-do the legs, since the coverage isn't as opaque as I'd like-- it's streaky and I had to put like a dozen coats on since it basically goes on like glitter glue.  (That's operator error rather than an issue with the medium.  Needless to say, read your labels carefully when you buy supplies!)

Once it dried and cured (couple of days), I used a Sharpie oil-based paint pen in black to draw the geodesia.  I did measure and use a straight-edge to try and achieve Buckminster Fuller goodness, but eventually I just eyeballed it and free-handed it, since the Sharpie was drawing various widths of lines when I dragged it along the edge.  It's not the laser precision of SSE, but I think the end result is pretty cool:

Tomorrow's Children need to quit using me as a chair.

OMG Horizons.

I said I wasn't going to do it, but I just figured out EXACTLY how to pull it off.  It's going to take FOREVER but it is going to be TOTALLY WORTH IT ALL CAPS FOR EXCITED EMPHASIS.

CheapCOT (Part 1 of...well, many)

We have a jellyfish exhibit in The Living Seas now.

Under $50 to acquire and maintenance-free to boot.

The Living Seas "Mural"

EPCOT Center had some of the most beautiful mural work, most of which survives in some form today (the caveman/spaceman in Spaceship Earth, the tile mosaic at the entrance to The Land).

Ever since Nemo and his Friends moved into The Living Seas, the entryway has looked like this:

(Image from this site.)


But for 20+ years, the entryway looked like this:

(Image from this site.)


Even though sunsets and sunrises can be slightly cheesy, I loved the colors in this and I really liked the 3D "piecing" to emphasize the sun's colors reflecting and bouncing off of the rippling ocean surface.  Yesterday I created a piece of artwork inspired by this original EPCOT mural.

I did not recreate it exactly; aside from not having a chunk of wall big and long enough to do it justice, I am trying to steer clearly of a literal remake of everything exactly as it was.  I don't have that level of skill or resources, and I'm trying to make an inspiration house, not a monument.

So here's how I did it.  This piece cost around $30 to make.  If you want to spend more, go for it, but I don't think it's necessary (save the $ to make other projects!).

The canvas was most of the expense at $20.  It's around 18 x 24; the wall where it's going obviously determined the size of the canvas.   I used two shades of blue acrylic paint and put some loose 'wave' shapes on it.  As this is going to be a background, it doesn't have to be too precise.

I knew all of those years of drawing M-birds in elementary school would pay off some day.

I bought the canvas at an art store; everything else was bought at your local crafting emporium.  (You can get canvas there too; I just wasn't sure when I was at the craft store if I was going to use one, and the art store is closer to me.)  I grabbed some balsa wood strips (all around a dollar each) in various widths.  Balsa is best for this because it's lightweight; real wood is going to add up in weight very quickly, and you don't want to have to brace it and anchor it so it doesn't rip out of the wall.

You can obviously paint directly on the wall, but to get the 3D effect, you'll need to attach the pieces to the wall too.  My goal is to make stuff that can go with me in the event of a move, and I don't want to do too much to the wall surfaces directly.  Repairing walls can be a huge pain.  But YMMV.

Celebrate the magic of cheap wood.

I used acrylic paint to color each strip a different shade for the 'sunset.'  I didn't bring a picture to match the colors exactly-- I just eyeballed it and took my best shot.

The color scheme of a track suit.  In 1981.

The five tubes of acrylic paint cost 99 cents each.  The shop had an insane sale on sponge brushes, so I picked up a dozen for a dollar.  They're not radically more expensive at regular price, though.

The balsa strips suck up paint and dry pretty quickly.  I cut them into random lengths-- some very short to make the rippling-light effect.  I've never worked with balsa and damn, is it soft.  Cutting them is easy, almost too easy.  Be careful as you could tear it and make jagged edges.  The paint also comes off anywhere your saw so much as touches the wood.  I cut with a tiny crafter's hacksaw, but that's not necessary; a pair of wire cutters would probably do just as well, even better perhaps because they won't pull at the composite and shred it.

I used a fine-grain sandpaper (220, left over from a recent floor refurb) and evened off the edges of the balsa bits.  Don't sweat cutting them perfectly straight; balsa sands really easily, so you can even out the edges while you smooth it.  Then I touched up the bare-wood ends with a matching paint color.  You could, obviously, cut the wood first and then paint it all up at once, which probably makes more sense to do.

Pic taken pre-sanding and pre-retouching.  You can see how jaggedy the edges can get.

I laid out the pieces on the now-dry canvas (I gave it a couple of hours to dry) to create something resembling an abstract sunset, then used Gorilla Glue to adhere the pieces to the canvas.  A little glue goes a long way, especially with balsa, but cheap wood will have some warping here and there, so a couple of pieces may need some extra coaxing to lie flat.

And here she is:

Again, if you want to hew more closely to the original mural, go for it.  This isn't a piece that would be hung under a spotlight; it's more the visual version of background music, and it's going on a fairly 'dead wall' in the kitchen.  There, it'll provide a little interest, but isn't going to dominate the room.  If you think about the original EPCOT pavilion design, they had the live water effect on the pavilion sign, which drew your attention; the mural on the back wall was really a companion piece to the main draw of that repeated, crashing wave.

I don't dislike the changes that the Nemo reboot brought to the mural, but now there isn't that balance that used to be there, between the serene mural and the unexpected violence of the breaking wave.  Now it's a bunch of squawking seagulls (don't get me wrong, it's cute) and the busy-ness of the movie critters all over the mural space.  It's not bad, but the tug-of-war between calm and chaos is lost.