Hover over copper and aluminium!

As I am a bit shorter, I have always wanted to fly or at least hover over places, so that I can see what is going on. How great would it be to just hover during the concerts or when you want to reach something but it is too high for you. I admit, these are my problems, but hovering over the places looks more real than ever before and it can make our lives more exciting. And now it doesn’t seem as hoax.

Jill and Greg Henderson

A couple from California, United States, Jill and Greg Henderson say that they have developed a working hover-board and they want to bring it to common households.

Greg used Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA), an electronic principle that magnetic energy is conserved,  as Maglev trains uses for humming along and he designed the hoverboard, The Hendo. Although the hoverboard floats only one inch off the ground but couple claims that this is just the first step in improving transportation technology. The Hendo uses four disc-shaped motors to lift it off the ground carrying 140 kg (about two people) for around 15 minutes.

Now they are looking for $250,000 in funding to refine the working technology and start the production. The price of Hendo will be $10,000.

The only small problem of this Hendo hoverboard is that it can hover just over metals like copper or aluminium so you would be able to ride it just in special arena.

Shanghai Metal Corporation will make it possible as we sell aluminium, copper and other products. For more information visit our website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will guide you further. Download the application by scanning QR code or follow us on Social Media.

    

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Credits : inhabitat.com, motherboard.vice.com, kickstarter.com, itp.ner, googleimages

Green Campus – Steve Jobs’ Last Wish for Apple

Before his death in 2011, Steve Jobs announced that Apple wants to build a massive and green campus in Cupertino City California. The construction project has been put off many times but Apple‘s CEO Tim Cook has told that the complex will be finished in 2016.

The sketches of the space-like building look simply astonishing. The Apple campus has been said to become one of the world’s largest corporate campuses and the world’s greenest building. 100 percent of the facilities will utilize renewable energy and just like Coca-Cola in developing countries, Apple will also use solar power in its construction.

The 260,000 square meter campus will accommodate harshly 14,000 employees who will have the possibility to utilize offices, fitness facilities, auditoriums and cafeterias inside the complex. For enabling such facilities the budget of the project has been raised to over five billion US dollars.

Designed by Foster and Partners, Apple‘s campus will be naturally ventilated meaning that air-conditioning and heating is needed only during 25 percent of a one-year period. The natural appearance will be generated 7000 surrounding trees..

Shanghai Metal Corporation is also specialist in construction projects that are sustainable and environmentally friendly. We also execute prefabricated construction projects and build homes, hotels, villas and offices out of shipping containers. If you are looking for a reliable international construction company and construction material, you should visit our website or just send us an inquiry and our English speaking staff will get back to you. Meanwhile please check our social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Inhabitat, Apple, The Verge, Bloomberg Business Week

 

Luxurious Dream House Looks Like A James Bond-Inspired Villa

Dream houses are all over LA and its surroundings. But I bet you haven’t seen the Desert House designed by super-organic architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg in Joshua Tree, located in Californias’ Mojave Desert is a fusion of what resembles a dinosaur-boned structure with a Flintstonesy feel.

Inspired by the rugged and hard surroundings the exterior of the house seems like an extension of it. Dramatically perched on the slope of a rocky hill overlooking the Mojave Desert, the property seems to disseminate amongst the rocks and stones. That feeling was only made possible due to somewhat a texture that could provide the numerous cast-concrete slabs of the exterior with touch and feel of the desert as materials.

The 3-bedroom house work began in 1988 and finished in 1993 in the 10-acre space, but the interior took about a decade for Kellogg and designer John Vurgin to create and design the house that the owners Doolittle always dreamed about. The Desert House is priced at $3 million, heating up the luxury real estate market of the Coachella Valley and surrounding desert. What makes the house so special and attractive is its balance of organic architecture. The masculine outside is counter-balanced by a somewhat feminine and warm intimate space by using concrete, steel, glass and copper for the interior, making the space genuinely comfortable to live in.

Highlights of the interiors are the parasol in the dining room made of some 800 pieces of sandblasted glass, the master bedroom’s self-standing bronze washing basin, massive amount of light and sun entering through continuous openings that separate the towering concrete panels. It is like living in a piece of art, every little detail in the house has been carefully thought of. You even feel like in a spa when listening to the water sound by the indoors waterfall. What about the scenery of the wide open arid landscape provided by spending some time in the bathtub? Breathtaking at the least.

“You don’t copy nature, you don’t emulate it, you take it for what it’s worth”, says Kellogg.

If there is any interest in checking out the property more details can be found at TTK Represents.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of metals such as copper, widely used in architectural artifacts and construction. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking professionals will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on  LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source and photo credit: organicmodernestate.com, yatzer.com, hiconsumption.com, la.curbed.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

Read more articles by this author here.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Meet Solar Farm: The Future in City Light & Power

Resembling something out of a movie, the Ivanpah Solar Thermal is the world’s largest solar power plant located in Ivanpah Dry Lake,
California’s Mojave Desert. Occupying approximately 3,500 acres (14.2km2) and grounded on BrightSource’s solar tower technology, the thermal complex produces gross total of 392 MW of solar power.

Over 300,000 garage-door-size mirrors are used to attract the power of the sun in two dimensions and reflect the sunlight to boilers that sit atop three 459 foot tall power towers. A center of earth location in relation to the sun is used so that each mirror in its solar generating system is precisely aligned.

Atop one of the three 459 foot tall power towers

What is so special about Ivanpah Solar Thermal? Economic, social and environmental benefits are many. With the thermal’s construction 2,636 new local jobs were created, generating about $350 mi in local and state taxes. Clean, sustainable and reliable solar electricity serves 140,000 homes on average in California, while 400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emission per year is reduced, which equals to removing 72,000 vehicles off the road.

Not only that, the construction of this iconic project was a breakthrough as it kept the majority of the natural landscape untouched unlike other mega constructions. When BrightSource’s 173,000 heliostat pylons were installed, grading and concrete foundations were limited to the maximum, allowing the vegetation to co-exist within the solar field below the mirrors. The project also accounted with an innovative and customized design; excavators operated in the 130-foot wide no-drive zones, traveling in the same tracks through the solar field and installing between 75 and 125 pylons per day, per machine.

Low environment impact heliostat pylon design

The innovative technology uses the same principal of electricity production i.e. high-temperature steam which turns a conventional turbine, where electricity is produced and transmitted to homes and businesses. The big difference is that at Ivanpah, the concentrated sunlight (and not fossil fuel) strikes the boiler’s pipes and heats the water to create superheated steam. Besides, the technology uses 95 percent less water than competing wet cooled solar thermal plants by employing a dry-cooling process, which uses air instead of water to condense steam. All water used by the steam production cycle is recycled back into the system, or consumed to clean the mirrors, highlights BrightSource.

The Ivanpah Solar Thermal System is “critical to establishing America’s leadership in large-scale, clean-energy technology that will keep our economy globally competitive over the next several decades,” says Tom Doyle, president at NRG Solar. This is the future and the Ivanpah has, for sure, started changing the way we produce and consume energy.

Shanghai Metal Corporation is proud to follow on news that represent massive step forward for renewable energy as previously reported here. SMC manufactures a wide range of Solar panel aluminum extrusion widely used in solar panels and tin coated/plated copper strip used in solar panel batteries. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking personnel will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on  LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com, dailyfusion.net, energy.ca.gov, blog.nrgsolar.com, infrastructurenews.co.nz, brightsourceenergy.com, forconstructionpros.com

Picture:flickr.com/photos/brightsourceenergy/sets/72157633434942709/show

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

A Simple Solution to Water Shortages

The world is running out of fresh water and population growth remains on an exponential trajectory. Regions around the globe have been suffering though droughts for a number of years now but in 2014 they reached a catastrophic level.

Both the USA and Australia are reporting record droughts with California and Queensland being hit the hardest.  The drought in California has caused the sate to lose 63 trillion gallons of water and 80% of Queensland is suffering through severe droughts.

Despite our depleting water resources one of the largest allocations of fresh water is for watering lawns and other landscaping activities.  Recently California passed laws that levy fines on people who water their lawns and this has caused outrage as it has damaged the aesthetics of peoples property.  However, there is another way to get a great looking lawn without using a drop of water.

Artificial grass is the future of outdoor landscaping as conventional lawns are becoming socially and environmentally unacceptable given water shortages across the world. In the USA 9 Billion gallons are used everyday simply for watering lawns.

This waste could be entirely eliminated through artificial grass as it requires absolutely no water. Furthermore, artificial grass can be customized very easily to fit any environment.  This means artificial grass can be used to increase drainage which in turn means more water will be sent back into the municipal systems rather than going to waste.  The environmental and water benefits of artificial grass are massive and will be the future of our new environmentally friendly suburban yards.

Shanghai Metal Corporation is committed to sustainable growth that improves the quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come.  Artificial grass is part of that plan as water conservation is too important of an issue for us to ignore.

For our full list of products that we offer check out our website here. Be sure to join the conversation in our LinkedIn group, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Try also our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

Jordan S.//SMC Editor

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Sources:

smcbuildingsystem.com/Artificial_Grass–pds6436.html

epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/outdoor.html

washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/28/californias-drought-what-losing-63-million-gallons-of-water-looks-like/

bom.gov.au/water/restrictions/

greenviewfertilizer.com/articles/keep-outdoor-space-green-without-over-watering

Pictures: geekologie.com, designermaterial.com, archiexpo.com

Reefer Containers – The Best Tool for Shipping Penguins!

People are shipping some strange things these days. A British news service Metro lists 10 weirdest items that people have ever shipped. The list includes a dead cat, a live hamster and a hot shepherd’s pie. The Denizen magazine writes about a person who shipped Heinz ketchup from the United States to Singapore. FedEx has also gathered a list of the weirdest items they have ever shipped. Some items are temperature sensitive a therefore require a refrigerated shipping container. What could be a good example of such an item? Well, penguins!

The FedEx Corporation actually shipped nineteen African blackfoot penguins that were saved from the Hurricane Katrina in 2006. The penguins traveled with two sea otters in airfreight back to New Orleans from California where they spent their eight-month refuge. The chartered flight of US$100, 000 was donated by FedEx and the penguins had a nice reception with a purple mat waiting them at the airport.

Unlike African penguins, antarctic penguins live in very extreme conditions and can survive a cold breezy weather. For example Emperor Penguins are one of the most warm-blooded animals on the planet enabling them to breed even in low temperatures of -30°C (-22°F) and while putting up with winds of 200 kmh (125mph) and more. The emperor penguins can maintain a 38°C degree body temperature mostly by huddling with other penguin buddies in a flock.

Besides an international shipping permission, shipping temperature sensitive items such as penguins, otters or camel milk, one needs a refrigerated shipping container. Shanghai Metal Corporation has a long experience in supplying high-quality reefer containers. In Shanghai Metal we only sell environmentally friendly reefer containers that have a low Co2 footprint. Our containers can maintain a temperature of -35°C at the lowest. More information about our refrigerated containers can be found in our website. Also feel free to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also try our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: sucai.dabaoku.com, image.baidu.com, coolantarctica.com, metro.co.uk, denizenmag.com, fedex.com, USA Today

Container Shops – The New Hot Trend in Modern Retailing!

Conventional retailing includes setting up a store in a fixed location and paying the rent for the use of the real estate. Modern retailing on the other hand, is mobile, meaning that instead of waiting for the customers to come to you, you will be able to easily relocate your business closer to your customers. This simple procedure is going mainstream and it can only be done with shipping containers. Boxman Studios have listed some benefits of container stores.

Wherever there is a container pop-up store there is always crowd, there is no question about that. This phenomenon has been proven by various consumer brands including Nike that “just did it” and designed a shipping container to reach its lacrosse market, making 38 stops in 52 days across the U.S. You can read the whole story in Box Man Studios’s article.

Another reason why container pop-up stores attract consumers is that they are equipped with electricity generators that can be used to set up Wi-Fi hotspots. While surfing online they can also admire ads on containers’ vertically extended walls and perhaps scan your company’s QR code with WeChat.

What’s more, container pop-up stores are 100 % customizable. Containers come with various kinds of door solutions, letting companies customize to pop-up stores according to their brands.

Adidas also executed a successful pop-up campaign in 2012’s Boston Maraton where it attracted many people among 27,000 runners. The German sports brand also showed its creativity by bringing  a shoe box shaped container store to Chicago’s Lollapalooza music festival in 2010.

Especially clothing companies are going for pop-up retailing. Besides Nike and Adidas, also Lacoste and Uniqlo have had their container shops to visit California and New York.

Generator enabled and refrigerated containers have also made it possible for restaurant businesses to step in the pop-up business. During the construction of the new World Trade Center in New York City, the fast food chain Subway offered the workers an exclusive Subway store consisting of three stacked containers moved higher and higher up the building as the building grew. Starbucks has also opened some innovative drive-thru container stores across the U.S.

Shanghai Metal Corporation is a proud provider of shipping containers that can be used as homes, hotels, offices or pop-up shops. Our website offers a detailed description of our containers and container houses. Besides visiting our site, please also remember to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Please also try our new mobile application by scanning our QR code with your tablet or mobile phone.

 

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Illy pop-up café in Melbourne, Archiexpo.com, Retaildesignblog.net, Designboom.com, ContainerTech.com, Starbucks newsroom, Boxman Studios, Eventmarketer.com