Green Options » Architecture http://greenoptions.com/tag/architecture Posts tagged 'Architecture' Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:23:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Algae Biofuel Moves to the Big City: Project Aims to Grow Algae On a High-Rise http://gas2.org/2009/09/29/algae-biofuel-moves-to-the-big-city-project-aims-to-grow-algae-on-a-high-rise/ http://gas2.org/2009/09/29/algae-biofuel-moves-to-the-big-city-project-aims-to-grow-algae-on-a-high-rise/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:23:05 +0000 Nick Chambers http://gas2.org/2009/09/29/algae-biofuel-moves-to-the-big-city-project-aims-to-grow-algae-on-a-high-rise/

The demise of retail giant Filene’s Basement may have a positive effect on proponents of vertical urban farming and algae biofuels alike. Since 2007, the developers of a Filene’s site in downtown Boston have been unable to find funding to move the project forward. But now Höweler + Yoon Architecture and their partner Squared have put forth a proposal to erect a temporary vertical, modular, algae bioreactor high-rise in its place.

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]]> http://gas2.org/2009/09/29/algae-biofuel-moves-to-the-big-city-project-aims-to-grow-algae-on-a-high-rise/feed/ ‘Make it white’ Chu says to Stewart http://cleantechnica.com/2009/08/04/make-it-white-chu-says-to-stewart/ http://cleantechnica.com/2009/08/04/make-it-white-chu-says-to-stewart/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:29:53 +0000 Moiz Kapadia http://cleantechnica.com/2009/08/04/make-it-white-chu-says-to-stewart/

Energy Secretary Steven Chu was recently on the Daily Show, with a carbon reduction strategy that is readily applicable: cool off our roofs.

Your home or office building has to endure the solar radiation it receives from the sun on a daily basis.  Much of this radiation gets transferred through conduction into the building, placing a further burden on your air conditioning system.  Painting the roofs of buildings white and laying softer colors of roofs on homes will reflect that heat energy back into space.

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]]> http://cleantechnica.com/2009/08/04/make-it-white-chu-says-to-stewart/feed/ Eco-Docks Designed to Float in NYC’s Nasty Rivers http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/30/eco-docks-designed-to-float-in-nycs-nasty-rivers/ http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/30/eco-docks-designed-to-float-in-nycs-nasty-rivers/#comments Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:11:32 +0000 Bryan Nelson http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/30/eco-docks-designed-to-float-in-nycs-nasty-rivers/ Eco-docks

A professor and student team have designed a network of modular floating docks to harness clean energy for New York City.

The eco-docks would generate the energy by harnessing tidal power from the city’s rivers; they should also help to add much needed green space above the dirty waters.

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]]> http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/30/eco-docks-designed-to-float-in-nycs-nasty-rivers/feed/ Straw and Hemp Houses To Be Huff-and-Puff Proof Buildings of the Future http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/21/straw-and-hemp-houses-to-be-huff-and-puff-proof-buildings-of-the-future/ http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/21/straw-and-hemp-houses-to-be-huff-and-puff-proof-buildings-of-the-future/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:48:38 +0000 Bryan Nelson http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/21/straw-and-hemp-houses-to-be-huff-and-puff-proof-buildings-of-the-future/ Field of straw

Researchers from the University of Bath will be constructing a “BaleHaus” this summer made from prefabricated straw bale and hemp cladding panels.

The house will be a model for building carbon zero homes of the future. And because straw and hemp efficiently absorb carbon dioxide while they grow, the buildings made from them might even have a negative carbon footprint.

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]]> http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/21/straw-and-hemp-houses-to-be-huff-and-puff-proof-buildings-of-the-future/feed/ DuPont’s Solution to Fragile Solar Cells http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/06/05/duponts-solution-to-fragile-solar-cells/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/06/05/duponts-solution-to-fragile-solar-cells/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:55:13 +0000 Lisa Wojnovich http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/06/05/duponts-solution-to-fragile-solar-cells/ Open Edged Solar Roofing TilesOne of the biggest problems with solar cells currently on the market is that they are extremely easy to break. Companies intent on manufacturing any sort of solar powered products have to find solutions, and few have yet been perfect. Hoping to change this trend, DuPont recently announced the launch of two new lines of encapsulants specifically designed to contend with the trials inherent in manufacturing photovoltaic products.

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]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/06/05/duponts-solution-to-fragile-solar-cells/feed/ Will Chile Give Land-Locked Bolivia Ocean Access Via Tunnel? I Hope Not http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/22/will-chile-give-land-locked-bolivia-ocean-access-via-tunnel-i-hope-not/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/22/will-chile-give-land-locked-bolivia-ocean-access-via-tunnel-i-hope-not/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 08:48:25 +0000 Levi Novey http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/22/will-chile-give-land-locked-bolivia-ocean-access-via-tunnel-i-hope-not/ Technological innovations can solve some of the world’s biggest problems right? That’s what a firm of Chilean architects would like us to believe. They’ve come up with a creative idea for how land-locked Bolivia could regain access to the ocean. It was not too long ago, in 1883 to be exact, that Bolivia lost the little coastline it had in a war with Chile. Since it’s only be gone for a short time, now’s the perfect time to get it back!

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/22/will-chile-give-land-locked-bolivia-ocean-access-via-tunnel-i-hope-not/feed/ Is NYC The Greenest Building City Today? http://greenbuildingelements.com/2009/05/12/is-nyc-the-greenest-building-city-today/ http://greenbuildingelements.com/2009/05/12/is-nyc-the-greenest-building-city-today/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 14:33:58 +0000 Jennifer Kaplan http://greenbuildingelements.com/2009/05/12/is-nyc-the-greenest-building-city-today/ Whenever I see my friend James D’Addio, the architectural photographer, I ask him about which new green buildings he’s been shooting. Not surprisingly, in a city with dedicated green building blogs and the NYC Department of Design & Construction’s award-winning programs, NYC may be the greenest city in the United States.  Here two projects in NYC that exemplify where green building is going.

It seems like if a building is going up, its just as likely as not to be green. McGraw-Hill research tells us that 53% of building professionals expect to be dedicated to green on over 60% of their projects in the next five years. It seems like there is ample opportunity for innovation in the building industries despite a downturn in overall building. I guess NYC is as good a place as any to lead the charge.

Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower, which sits atop a 1928 landmark building in Manhattan is engineered to use 25% less energy than required by code and boasts the world’s largest “air conditioner.” The two-story, stepped waterfall is also a huge radiant cooling system that along with other measures saves 1.7 million gallons of water every year. Other interesting facts about the building include:

  • 90% of the structural steel used came from recycled materials
  • More than 80% of the orginal structure was recycled for future use
  • 26% less energy was used during construction
  • Light sensors and controls throughout the building
  • It has a 14,000 gallon water reclamation system in the basement

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    ]]>     http://greenbuildingelements.com/2009/05/12/is-nyc-the-greenest-building-city-today/feed/     The story of St. Thomas 7-Hot Pepper Sauce. As told by the chickens who made it possible. http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/05/05/the-story-of-st-thomas-7-hot-pepper-sauce-as-told-by-the-chickens-who-made-it-possible/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/05/05/the-story-of-st-thomas-7-hot-pepper-sauce-as-told-by-the-chickens-who-made-it-possible/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 04:40:39 +0000 Kelli Peterson http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/05/05/the-story-of-st-thomas-7-hot-pepper-sauce-as-told-by-the-chickens-who-made-it-possible/

    Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  In the case of St. Thomas 7-Hot Pepper Sauce, it was definitely the chicken.  Without the chicken, there wouldn’t be the fertilizer to grow the hot peppers to make the hot sauce that the sent kids from the St. Thomas projects in New Orleans Lower Garden District off to college.

    And without the chickens, Derek Hoeferlin and his architectural students from Washington University would not have had reason to take interest in this little community garden which has begun to harbor interest for it’s uniquely designed “urban chicken coop”, the story of its recovery post-Katrina and the sustainability recipe it holds for other communities across America.

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    ]]>     http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/05/05/the-story-of-st-thomas-7-hot-pepper-sauce-as-told-by-the-chickens-who-made-it-possible/feed/     Green Roof 1.0: The Seaweed Houses of Læsø, Denmark http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/14/green-roof-10-the-seaweed-houses-of-l%c3%a6s%c3%b8-denmark/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/14/green-roof-10-the-seaweed-houses-of-l%c3%a6s%c3%b8-denmark/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:32:25 +0000 Timothy B. Hurst http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/14/green-roof-10-the-seaweed-houses-of-l%c3%a6s%c3%b8-denmark/ seaweed house in denmark

    Though green roofs are reemerging in the most advanced building designs around the world, for centuries, people constructed buildings out of materials immediately available to them in their surrounding environment. It is only a relatively recent luxury, for example, that people have easy access to roofing materials like asphalt shingles made hundreds, perhaps, thousands of miles away.

    On the island of Læsø, Denmark there still stand a handful of buildings that are excellent examples of what communities would do with what was immediately available to them — if only they had any of it left.

    In the Middle Ages the island of Læsø became famous for its salt industry. Hundreds of salt kilns were built, throughout the island, requiring constant fuel for the important final stage of commercial salt concentration. But on the island of Læsø—a community with a finite availability of natural resources—constantly feeding the hundreds of salt kilns eventually led to the island’s deforestation.

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    ]]>     http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/14/green-roof-10-the-seaweed-houses-of-l%c3%a6s%c3%b8-denmark/feed/     Living Walls and Green Roofs Pave Way for Biodiversity in New Building http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/02/living-walls-and-green-roofs-pave-way-for-biodiversity-in-new-building/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/02/living-walls-and-green-roofs-pave-way-for-biodiversity-in-new-building/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:49:21 +0000 The Guardian Environment Network http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/02/living-walls-and-green-roofs-pave-way-for-biodiversity-in-new-building/ Living Wall at Musée du Quai BranlyUnder recommendations from the UK Green Building Council, otters could return to urban rivers, bats could roost under bridges, swifts could flock to office blocks and peregrine falcons soar above cathedrals. Written by Felicity Carus and shared via the Guardian Environment Network.

    What do the Westfield shopping centre, Canary Wharf and a Victorian museum have in common? They are all at the vanguard of a move to encourage biodiversity in buildings that could take on an unprecedented scale if guidelines published today are adopted.

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    ]]>     http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/02/living-walls-and-green-roofs-pave-way-for-biodiversity-in-new-building/feed/     Green Architecture and the Future of Building http://ecopreneurist.com/2009/03/16/green-architecture-and-the-future-of-building/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2009/03/16/green-architecture-and-the-future-of-building/#comments Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:10:30 +0000 Scott Cooney http://ecopreneurist.com/2009/03/16/green-architecture-and-the-future-of-building/ There may be few occupations that have more opportunity to incorporate sustainable choices into their products, services, and day-to-day operations than architecture.  The market for green building has cooled down along with everything else, but it seems inevitable that it will replace its traditional counterpart faster than most other sustainable industries.  Organic foods, for example, grew 20% year after year for almost a decade before slowing to a 6% growth in overall sales last year, but no one believes that organic will completely replace traditional agriculture anytime soon. Green building, however, may be lined up to become mainstream.

    It just makes sense.  Rising energy prices coupled with decreasing costs of many green building products and widespread acceptance of the many benefits of green building have produced a perfect storm that could realistically propel green building forward to mainstream acceptance.  The other major influence is the economic downturn, which is bringing liquid clarity to the costs of maintaining a traditional home, and the corresponding benefits to planning for energy efficiency.

    Warren Lloyd, of Lloyd Architecture, says, “Things will be very different [when residential construction starts to heat up again after the downturn].  Green Building will just be how we do things.”  Lloyd, whose firm

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    ]]>     http://ecopreneurist.com/2009/03/16/green-architecture-and-the-future-of-building/feed/     Berkeley Architect Constructs Self-Heating Home http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/12/31/berkeley-architect-constructs-self-heating-home/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/12/31/berkeley-architect-constructs-self-heating-home/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:00:39 +0000 Becky Striepe http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/12/31/berkeley-architect-constructs-self-heating-home/ A California architect has constructed a home that heats itself from the warmth of its appliances. Homes like this have been popular in Germany, where a local architect built the first of its kind in 1991, but they are only just starting to catch on here in the States.


    [Creative Commons photo by KeWynn Lee]

    Nabih Tahan’s “Passive House” on Grant Street in Berkeley is the first one in California. It uses a ventilator to recycle the heat that radiates from the appliances, reducing the use of heat from fossil fuels by 80%-90%.

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    ]]>     http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/12/31/berkeley-architect-constructs-self-heating-home/feed/     The $200 House: OpenSource Design for Disaster Relief and Emergency Shelters http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/30/emergency-shelter-design/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/30/emergency-shelter-design/#comments Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:14:54 +0000 Derek Markham http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/30/emergency-shelter-design/ Vinay Gupta is a man with a novel approach to disaster relief and emergency shelters.

    The Red Cross is interested. FEMA is interested.

    Does OpenSource architecture and peer-to-peer emergency response hold the key to effectively meeting people’s needs in a disaster?

    In an interview with TreeHugger, OpenSource designer Vinay Gupta had this to say:

    “The idea that the U.S. might have to handle a city worth of refugees very suddenly shouldn’t be a strange thing to anybody who’s aware of the fact that there is some risk of terrorism on a mass scale. An organization like FEMA really has the responsibility to be able to evacuate a city worth of Americans in 24 hours if they have to be able to do so. That capability had not been developed so it couldn’t be deployed.”

    Implementing Gupta’s emergency response plan and simple disaster shelters could develop that capability, working with FEMA, the Red Cross, and other local aid organizations.

    Looking at the events surrounding the Katrina disaster, I’d say we really need to have a plan that works next time. The Hexayurt sounds like a phenomenal answer for sheltering displaced people, quickly. It’s a public domain project, OpenSource and ready to be taken to the next level.

    This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

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    ]]>     http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/30/emergency-shelter-design/feed/     Built By Hand Book: Traditional Natural Building Designs Around The World http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/10/10/built-by-hand-vernacular-buildings-around-the-world-a-book-review/ http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/10/10/built-by-hand-vernacular-buildings-around-the-world-a-book-review/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:10:53 +0000 Brian Liloia http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/10/10/built-by-hand-vernacular-buildings-around-the-world-a-book-review/
    Imagine houses with six feet-thick seaweed roofs, deep-nestled and hand-carved cave homes, and pigeon-harboring huts made of mud. Sounds a little unreal, huh? Well, this and more is all vividly documented in Built By Hand: Vernacular Buildings Around the World, a most inspiring bit of natural building eye candy I recently had the fortune of stumbling upon. Built by Hand is a hardcover collection of photographs of traditional buildings of all styles across the globe.

    If you weren’t already appalled by the house design atrocity known as the McMansion, Built By Hand will make you pine ever harder for more intimate, natural, sensible, and green home designs that can be found all over the world, still being built by indigenous peoples and sometimes mimicked by enterprising, modern day natural home builders.

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    ]]>     http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/10/10/built-by-hand-vernacular-buildings-around-the-world-a-book-review/feed/     Green Prefab From Across the Pond http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/09/28/green-prefab-from-across-the-pond/ http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/09/28/green-prefab-from-across-the-pond/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:02:13 +0000 Low Impact Living http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/09/28/green-prefab-from-across-the-pond/ I happened to live in France back in 2002, and during my year there I noticed a pretty significant gap between sustainability as practiced in Europe in the US. In Europe, I was working with large public companies who were already integrating the implications of global warming and sustainbility into their businesses. In the US (and sadly still today), many companies were still arguing whether global warming even existed!

    This difference was also evident in houshold products - from luxury hotels in Italy fully outfitted with CFLs to low-flow water fixtures and dual-flush toilets in many homes to small upright washers in even the most basic apartments, the kinds of products associated with our burgeoning US green movement today were already the norm in many parts of Europe back then.

    On a recent trip overseas I happened to pick up a French architecture magazine for the flight home. I was pleasantly surprised to see that we had really caught up in the past six years - outside of being written in French, you would have been hard-pressed to distinguish this magazine from any of the leading US architecture magazines.

    French prefabOne article caught my eye, though, for it did point out a slight difference that needs to move across the pond. It was on a beautiful and practical prefab home, called the EvolutiV house by Olgga Architectes of Paris. The house itself is striking, made from two rectangular prefrabicated sections that can be rearranged to develop different floorplans and having exterior walls made from sections of wooden logs. The homes also come with the latest and greatest in eco-design: natural ventilation, rainwater collection, solar panels (both PV and thermal), green roof, radiant heating with an option for geothermal heating/cooling, and the typical eco-friendly materials throughout.

    The most interesting piece of the story, though, is that the literature for the house and the articles written about it all refer to the home’s target energy usage: less than 48 kWh / m2 / year, which translates to about 4.4 kWh / ft2 / year. This is 70% less energy usage than the typical US home in similar climates.

    It’s not the level of performance that makes this interesting, for many prefab options in the US can do as well. It’s that the media in France AND the architecture firm who designed the house feel compelled to advertise efficiency in terms of a single number that is easy to understand and can be used to compare this home to others one might choose. I’ve rarely if ever seen that in discussion of US prefab options (or other green homes) - outside of a LEED rating, we’re often left to guess exactly how eco-friendly that home is. We’d love to see this become more widespread in the US - information is power, and simple, objective numbers like this can help us separate the truly eco-friendly from innovative designs that are green in name (or advertising) only.

    To see more photos of the Evolutiv house, click here to view the balance of this posting. (FYI, the EvolutiV house is about 800 square feet and is available in France for about $150,000.)

    And click here to find great green prefab homes available in the US.

    photo 2

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    ]]>     http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/09/28/green-prefab-from-across-the-pond/feed/     Building a Mobile Kitchen http://sustainablog.org/2008/09/13/building-a-mobile-kitchen/ http://sustainablog.org/2008/09/13/building-a-mobile-kitchen/#comments Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:40:38 +0000 Amiel Blajchman http://sustainablog.org/2008/09/13/building-a-mobile-kitchen/ A standard mobile kitchenSome people build houses. Others, go abroad and help build or rebuild communities. Still others build… mobile kitchens! Earlier this year, students from the University of Toronto’s master’s program at the faculty of architecture designed and built a mobile kitchen. So what you say? What’s so big about a kitchen table on wheels? Well, some people pimp their cars, these UofT students pimped their kitchen! This kitchen comes with a barbeque, seats about 50, and has garbage, recycling and composting bins available.

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    ]]>     http://sustainablog.org/2008/09/13/building-a-mobile-kitchen/feed/     Solar Powered, Carbon Neutral Pyramid to House 1 Million People in Dubai http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/26/solar-powered-carbon-neutral-pyramid-to-house-1-million-people-in-dubai/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/26/solar-powered-carbon-neutral-pyramid-to-house-1-million-people-in-dubai/#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:29:39 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/26/solar-powered-carbon-neutral-pyramid-to-house-1-million-people-in-dubai/ Solar Powered, Carbon Neutral Pyramid to House 1 Million People in Dubai Ancient Egyptian pyramids and Middle Eastern ziggurats are coming alive in the 21st century technology.

    A new futurist concept that encompasses green building technology and—according to the developer—can house up to a million people, will make a debut at the world stage in October.

    The 2.3 square kilometer Ziggurat Project, undertaken by Timelinks, a Dubai based environmental design company, will be 100 per cent carbon neutral and will run by harnessing the power of nature setting a futuristic pace for eco-friendliness for other similar projects in the pipeline.

    Borrowing from ancient ingenuity, the inhabitants won’t even have any use for a car: transport throughout the complex would be connected by an integrated 360 degree network (horizontally and vertically) so cars would be redundant. Biometrics would provide security with facial recognition technology.

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    ]]>     http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/26/solar-powered-carbon-neutral-pyramid-to-house-1-million-people-in-dubai/feed/     “Creating a Sustainable Future is not Political” http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/08/08/creating-a-sustainable-future-is-not-political/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/08/08/creating-a-sustainable-future-is-not-political/#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:55:47 +0000 Heidi Suydam http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/08/08/creating-a-sustainable-future-is-not-political/ Tien-si ChenI met Mr. Chen at a back yard bar-b-que in Tennessee last weekend. We were both passing through the area and happen to have a mutual friend. Admittedly I learned of his interest in sustainability by eavesdropping on a conversation he was having with someone else. My ears tuned in when I heard phrases such as “reclaiming rainwater” and “solar power”. You may be thinking “so what” there are plenty of architects who are applying sustainable techniques to their work. What makes Tien-si Chen different is that he is a Christian Conservative.

    In 1991 Tien-si Chen was contracted to build a home addition. The woman who hired him to do the addition wanted the work completed with used materials she acquired from garage sales and throw away piles. Mr. Chen completed the addition and fell in love with sustainable building. He began applying sustainable techniques to his projects.

    The remodel in 1991 used recycled materials and also employed passive energy design. He explained how he orients his projects to use the south, north breezeway creating air flow, using shade from trees on the property which reduces energy use. Mr. Chen explains that this is “taking part of nature that God has provided for us and using it in our every day living”. He referred to Frank Lloyd Wright and sharing that each time Frank Lloye Wright designed a building he turned it 60 degrees immediately because doing that creates a relationship with the sun, wind and shade. “Forces of nature that God created for us. He (God) created an environment and when we know how to use it we can benefit from it.” explained Mr. Chen.

    He approaches his work as an opportunity to create a solution using green architecture. Applying these techniques to the entire building system from the air conditioning system to the plumbing. He is currently working on a new project in which they are separating all the water flow. For example sewer, shower,  and rainwater will flow through different pipes in order to reclaim any possible water that is appropriate to reuse. This is a huge redevelopment project that I am unable to name at this point. When Mr. Chen receives permission from the development a follow-up will be posted to identify the project. He has worked on several projects for the same development company, applying sustainable techniques each time.

    Mr. Chen is also connected with a man in Nigeria and is working on large projects there such as a 300 bed student housing building and an eco village. The eco village is a self-sustaining project using wind power and gas from reclaimed methane. This particular project is in the proposal stages.

    Passionate about sustainable architecture, Mr. Chen loves to offer solutions for energy efficiency and to promote preservation of the earth he holds dear as he believes it is a gift from God. I asked him about his connections with the directors of these large projects which vary in geographic location from Chicago to Nigeria. My question specifically was “In the board rooms, are people hesitant about your political affiliation and Christianity?” He directly replied, “In that arena, it never comes up.” As we discussed this I discovered no one asks him his political or religious affiliation when they need an architect who is passionate about sustainability. He explained that many of the people he works for are Democrats, supporting Obama and on the opposite side of the spectrum politically. Mr. Chen concluded our conversation by stating “Creating a sustainable future is not political.”

    Related Posts:

    Photo Credit: Riah’s Photography with permission

    ]]>     http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/08/08/creating-a-sustainable-future-is-not-political/feed/     Chicago Win Shows Focus on Green Architecture http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/07/08/chicago-win-shows-focus-on-green-architecture/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/07/08/chicago-win-shows-focus-on-green-architecture/#comments Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:37:26 +0000 Joshua S Hill http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/07/08/chicago-win-shows-focus-on-green-architecture/ As the environment continues to gain more and more attention, so does the need to stay green and environmentally friendly. We’re seeing these qualities become more and more relevant and important in a variety of fields; from automotive to architecture.

    The latter has long been a focus of the green development. One need only look at the mass of stories coming out of the Middle East and Asia to see that a green focus on design and architecture is now more important than ever.

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    ]]>     http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/07/08/chicago-win-shows-focus-on-green-architecture/feed/     Low Impact Living: Green Prefab Coming to a Market Near You http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/07/07/green-prefab-coming-to-a-market-near-you/ http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/07/07/green-prefab-coming-to-a-market-near-you/#comments Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:54:20 +0000 Low Impact Living http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/07/07/green-prefab-coming-to-a-market-near-you/ If you can’t tell, we’re pretty hooked on the latest and greatest in green prefab design. One big problem, though, is that there’s a huge amount of noise and not all that much action - plenty of fabulous prefab designs and museum / conference exhibits, but very few actual installations (and even fewer mid-market installs, which is where prefab has to go in order to make a true difference in our housing stock).

    Finally, the log jam seems to be breaking. Several firms have begun to produce green prefab homes for real people in small but growing numbers. This past month, Marmol Radziner, a prefab company here in Southern California, made a splash with some pretty showy installation videos on local media outlets. These homes are either a) high end or b) for the firm’s founders, so they’re still a ways away from mass-market. But, the videos do a good job of showing what elements make prefab homes unique (factory construction, rapid installation, modular components) and at least to me suggest that they’re not all that far away from being able to replicate these installations on a larger and thus less expensive scale.

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