I loved LEGOS back in “the day”. I would spend hours upon hours building and looking for just the right pieces to complete my architectural nightmare. Then I would always knock it down in my terrifying rendition of Godzilla, just ’cause. LEGOS are still awesome, but you can’t exactly live in a house made of them as James May of Top Gear proved.
Anyway, the whole LEGOS analogy is the first thing I thought of when I read about the Trexa EV platform. It is basically a completely integrated, all-wheel drive electric skateboard that you can build your own kind of car upon. Pretty freakin’ cool, right?
By Zachary Shahan •
December 29, 2009
Ecovillages are great habitats and support systems for people who want to live environmentally friendlier, happier, healthier lives. One of the most famous modern ecovillages, Findhorn Ecovillage, starts this ecovillage spotlight series.
Ecovillages often combine ecological planning and design with innovative social, political and/or economic systems. Additionally, they often include certain cultural or spiritual goals.
The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) states, “Ecovillages are urban or rural communities of people, who strive to integrate a supportive social environment with a low-impact way of life. To achieve this, they integrate various aspects of ecological design, permaculture, ecological building, green production, alternative energy, community building practices, and much more.”
Due to their great features but still rather obscure existence, I decided to do this “Ecovillage Spotlight” series to highlight some of the great ecovillages that exist around the world.
The ecovillages that follow show some of the great possibilities that are out there for ecologically friendly, community living.
By Zachary Shahan •
November 25, 2009
Taiwan’s Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world from 2004-2007. Now, it is looking to become the world’s tallest GREEN building.
The building’s owner, Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFC), is putting in $1.9 million to give this 101-story building a green makeover.
By Delia Montgomery •
November 14, 2009
It’s ironic I’m writing about windows while my yurt in the tropical rain forest of Hawaii is enduring the heaviest rainfall I’ve ever witnessed. The awnings are proving their worth well.
Why don’t I close the windows? Well, I’m getting there. It’s just that I don’t have a deck around my 3-foot elevated yurt and therefore a ladder is required. The picture tells the story.
By Delia Montgomery •
November 7, 2009
Seems yurt manufacturers have been surveying customer comments. Good thing, as that’s how progressive changes occurred at the Colorado Yurt Company. They recently added a new design because customers relayed their preference to open their windows from inside.
This is good news for yurt dwellers without an exterior walking deck and with a raised platform. For those, it’s go outside with your ladder.
Fully Operable Windows is the new description in Colorado. It opens like a traditional home window with a crank. Each window is big enough to meet code requirements for egress. Made with a thermal pane and Low-E glass in a Doug fir frame. E-glass means low emissivity glass, a new technology for energy efficiency.
By Jeff Kart •
August 19, 2009
Aug. 29 is the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and Kanye West’s “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” comment on live TV.
The rebuilding of New Orleans continues. And it’s being rebuilt in shades of green.
According to a “New Orleans Green Building Assessment” released by the Sierra Club, the devastation of 2005 has provided the city with a unique opportunity to develop a national model for rebuilding with sustainability in mind.
By Jeff Kart •
June 2, 2009
LEED, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, has become the alpha acronym when referring to green, or eco-friendly, buildings. The standard, from the U.S. Green Building Council, recently went 3.0.
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, is taking the green diploma to an even higher degree. University officials are betting a new Living Learning Center will meet the Living Building Challenge, the world’s most stringent green building rating system from the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, a chapter of the USGBC and its Canadian counterpart.
By Timothy B. Hurst •
April 14, 2009
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.
Under 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.
