Trees for Grannies, a Thermoregulating Project by World of Warmth
by Petz Scholtus, Barcelona, Spain on 08.21.08
Have you ever wondered what we look like in infrared? What the warmest part of a sheep is? Where your home leaks heat? What an infection looks like according to its heat? Dutch group World of Warmth has created a collection of infrared images (see examples further down) and videos, covering topics like housing, food, clothing, buildings, equipment, people and animals. The latter forms the largest part of the series because animals are very good-looking in infrared. World of Warmth explains that animals have very interesting stories to tell about how they create comfort in a very energy-efficient way. We can still learn a lot about thermoregulation from certain animals. Read how Trees For Grannies is all about thermoregulations after the jump.
Image © C. Boonen & A. Vlooswijk
World of Warmth illustrates many different stories with thermographics, such as core body temperature versus limb temperature, fighting fever, how metabolism or brain activity produce heat, the influence of patterns and colours on temperature, buildings loosing heat, different ways to create thermal comfort or explaining your energy bill.
Recently, Arno Vlooswijk from World of Warmth started a small campaign in the Netherlands called Trees for Grannies. Inspired by the Dutch project Trees for Cows (who planted 70.000 trees in meadows), this is about planting more shady trees around nursing homes and about natural thermoregulation. Arno explains that the project is basically about matchmaking. Finding the old people's homes which could use some improvement of natural thermoregulation as well as the garden, and match them with shady trees and plants. To achieve that, Trees for Grannies is working with local organisations, the public and various companies to get the trees to the grannies.
Currently, Trees for Grannies research consists of compiling lists of the greenery around nursing homes (currently only available in Dutch). The next step will be to add aerial images and make top-tens by region.
For this project Trees for Grannies is also looking for interesting stories and research from other countries. The idea is to compare aerial views of old people’s homes and their surrounding green situation as well as the stories of the people who live and work in them. Arno’s main question is: What is your favourite tree? And if you know any stories related to trees and old people’s homes in your area, please contact Arno or leave a comment below this article. ::World of Warmth ::Trees for Grannies (in Dutch only)
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this is so neat. using heat to study common phenomena!
Sadly, the first granny and tree story that comes to mind is not a very nice one. Shortly after our neighbours moved in next door, the new owner decided to cut down or prune into oblivion all of the trees on the corner lot surrounding the house (including the city owned trees, which he was not actually allowed to touch, but that is another story). The trees were all at least 25 years old and in very nice shape, until he took a chainsaw to them. About a week later, I walked out of my front door to discover the granny that lived next door (the mother-in-law of the new owner) sitting on a patio chair on my front lawn under my largte, unharmed, tree. When I asked her what she was doing there, she explained that there was no shade left in her yard, so she was using mine.