Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
We lost the opportunity for some very large contracts because we were just too
new.
Hertz is developing a concrete product that makes use of some of the 4
billion pounds of carpet that is dumped in landfills each year. It would be
a mass-produced product on a very large scale, and he has been discussing
a strategic alliance to manufacture and distribute it with a large public com-
pany that has a strong environmental ethic and an international reach, both
in production and marketing. Hertz envisions using community-based
groups in emerging countries in the production process. An alliance with a
large company would free Hertz to concentrate on innovation and initial
product and process development, to be selective in his projects, and to
retain his high standards of craftsmanship.
The Syndesis web site (www.syndesisinc.com), which includes an exten-
sive bibliography and lists of clients, exhibitions, and awards, provides abun-
dant evidence of how much interest Syndecrete has generated. Hertz is
proud that his work has been recognized by the Museum of Modern Art
in New York, which included Syndecrete in a 1995 exhibition titled
Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design. But his creative endeavors have
extended far beyond this one product. His designs range from household
items (e.g., flower vases made from inverted, refinished road cones) to
houses, including his own, that integrate the thermal properties of Synde-
crete with passive solar heating.
Hertz and his staff know Syndecrete's capabilities so well that they do
not have to offer standard items.“If we're going to do a bathroom,” Hertz
explains, “we don't have to pick a bathtub from a catalog, we can actu-
ally design it and fabricate it ourselves.”This results in buildings and com-
ponents that are not only rational, functional, and beautiful, but truly
unique.
Hertz is also active in professional and environmental organizations, lec-
tures widely, and serves on the faculties of the UCLA Extension School and
SCI-Arc. At SCI-Arc he is involved in a new academic-industrial partner-
ship for developing low-environmental-impact materials. In all that he
does, Hertz is mindful of Albert Einstein's observation that “we cannot
solve today's problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”
In a 1997 address at the Barnstall Municipal Art Gallery in Los Angeles,
Hertz challenged other designers, architects, and inventors:
