{"171521":{"#nid":"171521","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Recycled Tires Used to Build \u2018Earthship\u2019","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESteven Van Ginkel, a research engineer in the School of\u0026nbsp;Civil and Environmental Engineering, was walking his\u0026nbsp;dog along Peachtree Creek in Atlanta\u2019s Buckhead neighborhood when he saw abandoned tires stuck in a sandbar. While some might have seen pollution, Van Ginkel saw building materials.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVan Ginkel is a faculty leader of Tech\u2019s Arkfab Green Phoenix initiative, a partnership between Tech and Truly Living Well, an Atlanta nonprofit that supports sustainable urban agriculture. The Ford Motor Company Fund provided $50,000 to the initiative, which is enhancing the Wheat Street Garden next to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta (pictured at right).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA team of Tech students and faculty members had planned to construct a sustainable system to raise mushrooms, vegetables and fish in the garden. The building for the mushrooms needed to be well insulated, and it needed to be cheap.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVan Ginkel was struggling with that challenge when he happened upon the trashed sandbar. In late summer, he led 20 students and other volunteers to salvage tires. \u201cI had no idea we\u2019d find 487,\u201d Van Ginkel said. \u201cThere are likely more we didn\u2019t see buried under the sand.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team is using the tires to build an \u201cearthship,\u201d which features walls of recycled tires surrounded by rammed earth. The large thermal mass of the structure moderates the interior temperature.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen finished, the structure will be used for mushroom cultivation. Beside it will be a greenhouse for fish and vegetables. Recycled food waste will be used in growing gourmet mushrooms, and mushroom compost will be fed to red wiggler worms, which, along with duckweed and algae, will provide food for tilapia in the greenhouse. Fish waste will be processed into plant food to grow salad greens.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThree Georgia Tech student groups\u2014Georgia Tech Engineers Without Borders, Engineering Students for a Sustainable World and the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity\u2014are partnering on the construction.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKatie Wingrove, a third-year environmental engineering major, said she was excited to take part in the project because it touches on issues of social equality, economics, sustainable engineering and ecology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cArkfab could change the way people look at food in cities,\u201d she said. \u201cThe potential research ideas are piling up. However, the spirit of volunteerism and community building is the foundation of the project. Research and volunteerism are intertwined.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe structures will have solar panels and a system to collect rainwater. The gardens will provide as much as 500 pounds of fresh fish and vegetables per month to Atlanta families.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team is a semifinalist in the Cleantech Open business competition. They\u2019re hoping to win the grand prize\u2014$250,000\u2014to put toward building seven more Arkfab systems in other urban food deserts (areas with little or no access to healthy foods).\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf they do win, Van Ginkel knows where to look for building materials.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019d like to take all of the waste tires in Atlanta and turn them into single-story, energy-efficient buildings,\u201d Van Ginkel said. \u201cThey look great, too, since the tires are covered with adobe. You don\u2019t even see the tires when the building is done.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis story \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/gtalumnimag.com\/2012\/11\/recycled-tires-used-to-build-earthship\/\u0022\u003Einitially ran\u003C\/a\u003E in \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/issuu.com\/gtalumni\/docs\/8804\u0022\u003Ethe November issue\u003C\/a\u003E of the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/gtalumnimag.com\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Alumni Magazine\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESteven Van Ginkel is a faculty leader of Tech\u2019s Arkfab Green Phoenix initiative, a partnership with an Atlanta nonprofit that supports sustainable urban agriculture.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Steven Van Ginkel is a faculty leader of Tech\u2019s Arkfab Green Phoenix initiative, a partnership with an Atlanta nonprofit that supports sustainable urban agriculture."}],"uid":"27469","created_gmt":"2012-11-15 18:29:11","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:13:10","author":"Kristen Bailey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-11-15T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2012-11-15T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"171531":{"id":"171531","type":"image","title":"Wheat Street Garden Initiative","body":null,"created":"1449178999","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:43:19","changed":"1475894811","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:51","alt":"Wheat Street Garden Initiative","file":{"fid":"195731","name":"timthumb_0.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/timthumb_0_0.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/timthumb_0_0.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":77729,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/timthumb_0_0.jpeg?itok=ySdHJh1M"}}},"media_ids":["171531"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/gtalumnimag.com\/2012\/11\/recycled-tires-used-to-build-earthship\/","title":"\u0022Recycled Tires Used to Build \u2018Earthship\u2019\u0022 on gtalumni.com"},{"url":"http:\/\/gtalumnimag.com\/","title":"Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine"}],"groups":[{"id":"1316","name":"Green Buzz"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"13245","name":"ArkFab"},{"id":"35011","name":"georgia tech alumni magazine"},{"id":"479","name":"Green Buzz"},{"id":"167864","name":"School of Civil and Environmental Engineering"},{"id":"169533","name":"steven van ginkel"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:van.jensen@alumni.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EVan Jensen\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeorgia Tech Alumni Magazine\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}