Ideas Inspire Innovation

The Morrow Plots are corn fields located on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.  During my freshman orientation campus tour in 1995 our group was told these cornfields are the oldest in the U.S. (first grown in 1876) and have been preserved as such an important part of the University's history that the undergraduate library was built three stories underground as to not cast a shadow on the cornfields, risking inadequate sunlight conditions. Wikipedia says that the University master plan at the time (1966) required a large open plaza at that end of the campus, thus also demanding the library be built underground.  Whatever the true reason for building an underground library, the innovation seed was planted and architects had to find their inspiration.  I finally made it back to UIUC in September and here are a few photos of the library and Morrow Plots: You can find more photos and information from the UI Histories Project...

Okay so I had heard all about biodiesel and using corn as an energy source, and seriously how many of our food products have corn syrup or other corn products in them?  Corn nearly makes our world go round. But here's a new one for you...  Samsung recently came out with the Reclaim phone which is made of 40% corn-derived bio-plastic.  cnet gave it 3.5 stars out of 5 and I think cnet is fairly reliable. The links I looked at show the phone costs about $50 with a 2 year contract with Sprint.  They also have it in a fitting green color.  I'm a fan of blue though so I'm showing the blue version below, since even the blue version is "green."  More on the phone here: http://www.switched.com/2009/08/06/samsungs-eco-friendly-reclaim-phone-is-made-of-corn/ http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/samsung-reclaim-sph-m560/4505-6454_7-33743841.html http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/sprints-biodegredable-phone-really-gr...