The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) brings together artists, architects, scientists, landscape architects, engineers, and others in a first of its kind collaboration. The goal of the Land Art Generator Initiative is to see to the design and construction of public art installations that uniquely combine aesthetics with utility-scale clean energy generation. The works will serve to inspire and educate while they provide renewable power to thousands of homes around the world.
We believe that sustainability is not only about resources, but is also about social harmony. As renewable energy projects make their way closer to urban centers, it is important that they respond to human social needs and that they are considered aesthetically. Inspirational examples can help to expand public awareness and support for the changes required to achieve a truly sustainable infrastructure that does not negatively impact our environment.
The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) was established in 2009 as a project of Society for Cultural Exchange (a US-based nonprofit) to expand awareness on issues of sustainable development, with a focus on energy.
The strategic objective of the Land Art Generator Initiative is to advance the successful implementation of sustainable design solutions by integrating art and interdisciplinary creative processes into the conception of renewable energy infrastructure.
The project can be subdivided into four main areas of focus:
1. LAGI Design Competition: bring new ideas to the public
2. Education and Curricula Development: inspire the future and increase knowledge
3. Outreach: workshops, lectures, and community events
4. Creating Places: the eventual construction of aesthetic renewable energy infrastructure that will serve as centers for education and inspiration.
Every day there seems to be a new story about people disapproving of solar or wind installations in their communities. It's not that they don't care about the environment; in many cases the people opposing the installations are self-avowed environmentalists. To some people, the addition of turbines to the skyline that they can see from their porch is a form of visual pollution. Large utilitarian arrays of solar panels are seen by some as blight upon the landscape. This NIMBY situation has been detrimental to the greater proliferation of sustainable energy solutions and has allowed many popular voices to quickly dismiss alternative energy solutions as "impractical" or "ugly".
We believe that public art has the power to provide new tools for cities with which to integrate renewable energy systems into the built environment while addressing such public concerns.
Public art serves many purposes. It teaches, inspires, and adds pleasure and interest to our days. It generates tourism and increased economic development. We believe that public art do these things and more. By providing urban planners with examples of functional artworks that are models for sustainable development in harmony with the natural world, we can set the stage for a new conversation—one that transcends “either/or” and makes evident the real possibility that cities of the future can provide a sustainable distributed renewable energy supply, the infrastructure of which is integrated into more livable and beautiful public spaces.
Art has the proven ability to create movements and stimulate creative dialogue. The artist community has long taken a critical approach to the problems of energy use and production, which has helped to open the public eye to the severity of the problems facing us. The time is now for artists to take an active role in solving the problem through their own work: "solution-based art practice."
We have, on the one hand, an ever increasing drive toward buildings and cities that are being designed to run on 100% renewable energy. The design community and city planners are moving in this direction driven by the collective will of society. On the other hand, we have technologies proliferating that are still rather utilitarian in their form such as the standard horizontal axis, three blade wind turbine. And these utilitarian forms are seeing some pushback from individual communities, especially as they come closer and closer to the city. The first warning signs of this are seen in rural mountaintop residential communities and coastal communities but this debate will only get more and more heated as the devices integrate into more dense urban environments.
What is needed in order to bridge the gap (between the larger desire for a renewable future and the community level negative reactions to the application of the systems required for it) is an artistic movement that can set a course towards aesthetic considerations in sustainable infrastructure.
The main objective of the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is to make possible the design and construction of public art installations that have the added benefit of large scale clean energy generation. Each sculpture will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid, with each having the potential to provide power to thousands of homes.
In addition to this effort, LAGI is engaged in educational outreach and community workshops. It is the goal of the project to expand awareness and inspire people of all ages about the great potential that exists for providing 100% of our energy needs from sustainable sources in harmony with the natural world.
The LAGI project is also engaged in creating greater awareness of emerging technologies and providing a platform for their development. By incorporating emerging renewable technologies into the medium of public art, the LAGI project has the potential to provide an additional track for product development and market viability in ways that may benefit the cleantech industry as a whole.
We can envision a day when renewable infrastructure artworks will add cultural and economic value to public spaces around the world, while giving us cause to feel good about our creative stewardship of the environment. And over time, these works of public art will pay back both their carbon footprint and their installation cost, making them the perfect investment in our future.
Through a free and open international design competition, LAGI has brought forward hundreds of innovative ideas for the integration of renewable energy into the constructed environment in ways that create more beautiful places and protect our shared ecosystems.
In 2010, the design competition for the UAE reached hundreds of thousands of people with an inspirational message about a sustainable future and how we can get there. A 350 page book of selected works from the 2010 edition is set for publication in January 2012.
In partnership with New York City's Parks & Recreation and other local NYC institutions, we are holding the 2012 LAGI design competition for a site within Freshkills Park (the former Fresh Kills Landfill). The project opens on January 1, 2012 and submissions are due July 1, 2012. Registration is free and open to anyone. The project will be holding workshops in Staten Island and Manhattan, and will provide a platform for education and outreach on issues of renewable energy, both locally in New York, and extending out to an international audience.
In addition to the main LAGI design competition, the 2012 edition has created a dedicated forum for high schools to participate.
We have also designed an "energy literacy" project that intersects art, science and sustainable technologies with the objective of educating people about the concepts of aesthetic clean energy generation. This includes a six step process:
1) Understanding Art Outside of the Gallery
2) Understanding the Science of Energy
3) Understanding Sustainable Technologies
4) Conceptual Framework
5) Design Your Own Renewable Energy Artwork
6) Upload Your Design to the LAGI Website
We continue to bring this curriculum to the public through lectures, community workshops, and publications. And we continue to work towards support for the construction of the world's first utility-scale aesthetic renewable energy power plant.
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Links to More InformationHome page of the Land Art Generator Initiative. Follow this link to learn more.
Project PartnersAt 2,200 acres, Freshkills Park will be almost three times the size of Central Park and the largest park developed in New York City in over 100 years. The transformation of what was formerly the world’s largest landfill into a productive and beautiful cultural destination will make the park a symbol of renewal and an expression of how our society can restore balance to its landscape.
In addition to providing a wide range of recreational opportunities, including many uncommon in the city, the park’s design, ecological restoration and cultural and educational programming will emphasize environmental sustainability and a renewed public concern for our human impact on the earth.
While the full build–out will continue in phases for the next 30 years, development over the next several years will focus on providing public access to the interior of the site and showcasing its unusual combination of natural and engineered beauty, including creeks, wetlands, expansive meadows and spectacular vistas of the New York City region.
The Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island cultivates a sustainable and diverse cultural community for the people of Staten Island by:
-Making the arts accessible to every member of the community.
-Supporting and building recognition for artistic achievement.
-Providing artists, organizations, and arts educators the technical, financial and social resources to encourage cultural production.
For thirty years the Institute for Urban Design has positioned itself as a central platform for debate over issues related to urban planning, development, and design. By creating a common territory for architects, planners, policy-makers, developers, academics, journalists, and urban enthusiasts, we acknowledge that to ensure quality in planning and urban design, a dialogue must emerge that represents the diversity of stakeholder voices affected by urban development.
In addition to organizing lectures and symposia, we produce publications that offer both analysis and criticism by some of the most relevant and influential voices of our time. Through these avenues, and through research and advocacy, we hope to create an environment where the various actors in the urban system may speak out to ensure a better, more vibrant and sustainable future for our cities.
Founded in 1979 by the journalist and editor of Urban Design Magazine Ann Ferebee, the Institute emerged in the aftermath of a pioneering conference that Ferebee organized in 1978, the First National Conference on Urban Design: Cities Can Be Designed. In the three decades since its founding, through many symposia, events and publications, the Institute has built a strong international network of people and institutions. Contributors have included Jane Jacobs, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Richard Sennett, Denise Scott Brown, Simon Schama, Adolfo Carrion, and Moshe Safdie.
Zayed University is an educational centre of excellence in an emerging and evolving nation. Proudly bearing the name of the founder of the nation – the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan – it stands for innovation, inspiration, and education.
The University offers an academic program that prepares talented, ambitious and enthusiastic students for success in government, the arts, business, media and IT and to meet the challenges of a dynamic twenty-first century world.
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