Almost a year ago, a National Geographic Channel show called How Hard Can It Be tried to recreate the balloon house from the Pixar movie Up!
On Saturday morning, March 5, at dawn, a team of scientists, engineers and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16’ X 16’ house 18’ tall with 300 8’ colored weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles, and set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted. The entire experimental aircraft was more than 10 stories high and reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet and flew for approximately one hour.
Built from thousands of plastic bottles, La casa ecológica de botellas was designed and constructed by Alfredo Santa Cruz and his family in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina. Lit with outside light, softened by the clear plastic, it is a surprisingly beautiful (and waterproof!) structure. There are more photos and some stats as to what it’s made of at Inhabitots.
The Ecological Bottle House exemplifies the concept of self sustainability and demonstrates how a bit of creative ingenuity can bring about positive change in the way humans interact with the environment. This project addresses four distinct yet interrelated aspects of the human environment relationship: the ecological, social, cultural and tourism.
This is exactly what the kid should see.
