Green Options

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Off the Grid Homes combines beautiful images with technical information for sustainable homes.

The book by architect Lori Ryker is less of a manual for systems to be used in off the grid homes (though it does include good information about the systems and strategies that are used in sustainable off the grid living) and more of a showcase of state of the art homes at the intersection of appealing architecture and high sustainability.

For many, the phrase “off the grid home” brings associations of a rudimentary, hand-built, rustic cabin. It usually suggests a rough hewn character and images of anything other than refinement and elegance. But that image is far from the case in examples presented in this book.

Following are the top international environmental news for during the week of April 13 - 20. See an archive of top international environmental news here.

Asia

Two “Extinct” Species Discovered

First there was Swinshoe’s softshell turtle, and then the Javan Elephant. Is this more commonplace than we might believe?

Frankly, no. Despite the occasional hubbub over an animal science has lost track of– say, the Coelacanth– we’ve witnessed something extraordinary. Swinshoe’s turtle was previously believed to be extinct in the wild, with only three remaining in captivity, and therefore every one of these 300-pound turtles is a critical find.

Continue reading: Environmental Graffiti. Hot in media: Stumble Upon.

On March 18th, I posted the article, “Metropolitan Home Goes Green,“ discussing the magazine’s feature story on a Seattle penthouse.  Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Linda O’Keeffe, the Director of Design and Architecture at Metropolitan Home. Since Ms. O’Keeffe sees design trends as they happen, I asked her a few questions regarding what kind of changes she sees the green movement bringing to our homes.

Green Building Elements: Do you see a significant number of people opting for smaller homes?

Linda O’Keeffe: I do. Even people who can afford more are choosing to live in smaller spaces, sometimes because they are young or because they are empty nesters, but in general, just because it makes more sense now.

GBE: As people scale down, which rooms are they prioritizing, and which ones are they eliminating?

LO: I’m seeing fewer home offices and dining rooms. We were fooled into thinking we’d need a home office. But our offices are paperless now, so there is less to store. And there has been a change in technology, too; people are doing a lot of their work on a BlackBerry while they wait at the airport. Sometimes people with kids want a home office so that they can have a separate space, but even then, often everyone is in the kitchen. The kids can work on a laptop in there, and [parents] can see what they are doing.

Overall, people feel now that rooms should be adaptable: cozy enough for one person to read in, but able to accommodate 30 guests. Also, formal rooms are becoming less popular. They seem almost Victorian. Now we want every square inch of our homes to be usable.

The 20 teams selected for the 2009 Solar Decathlon have been announced by the US Department of Energy. Each team will receive a $100,000 grant from the DOE to be used for creating a completely solar-powered home for the competition.

The full list can be found in an article at Custom Home Online. The 2009 competition has some international flavor, including last year’s winner, the Technische Universität Darmstadt, as well as the Universidad Polytécnica de Madrid and two groupings of Canadian universities.

Like other wonders of the modern world, these amazing green wonders are places you must see before you die. These structures are unique in the world for their brilliantly creative methods of melding aesthetic beauty, functional design and environmental sustainability.

Built in Darmstadt, Germany, this structure is called Waldspirale or “Forest Spiral.” It was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a celebrated Austrian architect and painter. Planted along the 12 floors of the rising roof are beech, maple, and lime trees. The structure even incorporates a running stream. The building comprises 105 apartments. In the tower on the Southeast corner, a restaurant and cocktail bar rises over the entire structure. Source: Wissenschaftsstadt Darmstadt.

Nestled in Pembrokeshire, in Southwest Wales, this structure is truly an eco-dream home. It was built about three years ago by a single family and their friends over the course of four months. The family estimates that it took about 1,000 to 1,500 hours of work and cost only about £ 3,000. It was constructed mostly out of logs, straw and mud, which acts as an effective insulator. According to the house’s inhabitants, the home “feels gentle. Feels to me more like being part of the (natural) world, less like a commodity in a box.” Source: Simondale.

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the Portland Cement Association (PCA) have announced their “Concrete Thinking for a Sustainable World” student design competition.

This is the third year for the competition. The concrete industry is looking for opportunities to boost the perception of concrete as a green material, since the mining, processing and transportation of concrete is responsible for 8% of all carbon dioxide produced by human activity.

The urban fabric of Chicago is getting greener every year. Since 1989, more than 500,000 trees have been planted, more than 80 miles of landscaped medians constructed, and 2 million square feet of green roofs built or negotiated—more than all other American cities combined. But the more significant greening is happening in the built environment, where sustainable architecture is becoming a growing part of the skyline here in the birthplace of the skyscraper.

The push toward green building has been gaining momentum in the Windy City during the past few years. Chicago served as proud host to the 2007 GreenBuild Expo in November. The city already has the most LEED-certified buildings in the world. In the private sector, a number of large commercial projects underway will showcase some innovative design. One of the most dramatic of these is Santiago Calatrava’s Chicago Spire, a 2,000 foot twisting tower that will become the nation’s tallest building after completion in 2010. The commercial and residential tower will seek LEED Gold status based on many features including special glass to protect migrating birds.

Part of the reason green building is gaining momentum is a big push from City Hall. The administration of Mayor Richard Daley has mandated the use of green roofs and other sustainable design in all city-financed projects. While commercial developers gradually find their way to building more sustainable design as the real estate market develops demand, the city has been able to spread green building throughout the city by requiring all new public buildings to achieve LEED Silver status. In addition to the creation of green schools, green police stations, and green libraries, two buildings that opened their doors this year to some of Chicago’s poorest residents show that green design isn’t just for the well-heeled.

The California Energy Commission asked the Davis Energy Group in Sacramento to evaluate new home construction in California a few years ago. The following excerpt from Home Energy Magazine tells you what they found.”The increasing architectural complexity of new homes requires greater vigilance on the part of framers, insulators, and drywall contractors to create a single thermal/pressure boundary between conditioned and unconditioned spaces. The more complex the design of the home, the […]

Wildfires aren’t usually on my radar, because I don’t live in a region that is much susceptible to them. But, in the past couple of weeks, everyone has become more aware of them. They have been widely across the news because of the number of serious wildfires in southern California recently. At the same time, recent news coverage has also looked at drought conditions which are being felt in Georgia

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Efficient materials can sometimes seem to be the ideal path for green building. If we can find a way to more efficiently produce the materials we need to build our buildings, it would seem that we would be well on our way to reducing our impact on the planet.

For example, rather than using lumber sawn from old growth forests, engineered lumber and I-joists make more efficient use of lumber resources

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"Was it a conscious decision or a momentary lapse of reason? How did progress take priority over humankind? Could harnessing the world’s energy that allowed our ascent now be the ledge pan of our down fall?" These are the questions addressed in the PBS ongoing series e2. The most recent episodes, narrated by Morgan Freeman, focus on energy. They look at transportation infrastructure, the auto industry, fuels and renewable fuels, alternative

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