Background
Find my incomplete/selected work and educational history and publications on ResearchGate:
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Prior to my current position, was briefly located in Spain, with sustainability project that bizarrely derailed, due to an unusual adventure with squatters taking over my home and farm. In May 2021 they broke in and stole my farm, which I was beginning to renovate and take off the grid in preparation for building a self-sufficient small coffee farm, implementing the example of a zero-waste small-scale agricultural operation.
Fairly unprecedented for Spain's laws, I won the criminal trial against the squatters who stole my home and property, but it still took months to enforce the eviction.
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Because this project was derailed by this insane loophole in the Spanish legal system, my stay in spain was spent instead teaching upcycling to local communities, crafting trades, and miscellaneous working as a carpenter, gardener and consultant in Tenerife.
Projects in Spain
Off-the-grid Sustainable Farming
In Tenerife, Spain before my illegal squatter disaster derailed this project, I began this project to restore an old house on a small farm, to transform it into an ecologically friendly, self-sufficient organic coffee farm, powered exclusively by renewable energy, and implementing zero-waste operational strategies.
Upcycling Art and Teaching Workshops
Hosted upcycled and all-natural-product artworks is this beautiful store in Vilaflor, Tenerife:
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Come visit and enjoy their collection of Tenerife's local artists work, alongside a fine beverage and snack on their stunning terrace!
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Thank you to all you students who participated in my last workshop on October 31st, 2021! It was a delight to have you and teach the techniques to make such a broad variety of useful and beautiful household items! Hope to see you again some day!
Workshop instructions now available for download here:
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Past Projects
Upcycled & beetle-kill lumber furniture & sculpture
Using and re-using old materials to avoid unnecessary production and environmental damages of new materials forms the crux of my woodworking projects and motivations. Each of my furniture pieces or sculptures uses either upcycled materials (especially unrecyclable plastics like the styrofoam peanuts in slide 6) or "rejected" beetle-kill lumber or natural wood piececs, to harness both the beauty in the unique designs present in nature, and in ecological and economical creativity.
Off-the-grid living via building out mobile home vans
2017-2018: Build of second off-grid mobile home van in a RAM ProMaster
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Features: 300W solar panel with AC/DC inverter and deep cycle battery, Gas stovetop cooker, sink and countertop, ample storage for outdoorsing activity gear, folding double-bed/sofa, motor-powered skylight with shade and fly screens, LED lighting, front privacy screen, thick wall/floor/ceiling insulation and plywood veneer panelling
Indoor vertical gardening: Nutrition to every Home!
My pilot experiments with constructing an off-the-grid indoor vertical garden inside my apartment in Switzerland. Solar panels on the south-facing balcony harvest energy year round to a 240Ah battery system, used to power LED grow lights (tailored to the wavelengths green veggies absorb), to keep a continuous supply of fresh salad greens inside each home. I am still interested in networking to launch this idea on a broader scale. Contact me!
MORE PROJECTS COMING SOON!
Uploading slideshows of other projects whenever I grab the time:
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Carpentry and renovation work with recycled materials
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Coupling waste management to upcycled artwork
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More mobile home construction photos to come
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Passive drinking water harvesting experiments
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Grey water systems for apartments with balcony gardens
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Balcony garden planters from upycled waste materials
Survivalism!
Urban and Wild Harvesting:
* Nopales and cactus pears from prickly pear cactus: https://youtu.be/ZcxHQuWOFC4
* Acorns: https://youtu.be/ovcIiue-FGw
PDF on processing acorns:
Before:
After:
Renovation work, with a focus on sustainable practices
Before-and-after shots of renovation work in homes, terraces and outdoor spaces. In all my construction and carpentry work, I strive to source materials locally to reduce the carbon footprint of obtaining materials, or to source recycled materials. In Denver, CO, the best resource for this was ExtraBuild, a remarkably well-stocked warehouse of reclaimed building materials, who were my mainstay resource.
Paper mache furniture -- upcycling cardboard/paper waste
Upcycling artworks: paper mache furniture and sculptures, entirely made of my own waste cardboard and paper, using cooked cornstarch-water-salt-vinegar mixture as the ecological non-toxic glue paste between cardboard layers and to adhere the paper.
Works in the slideshow:
1. Dresser with drawers (some WIP photos)
2. Planter sculpture
3. Custom storage with secret compartment
(surface finished with instruction manual pages in many languages)
4. more coming soon when I upload photos (shoe organizer, a desk organizer and a SOFA!
research and publications in computational chemistry
click paper to view more
