Green Options

3 Rivers Eco Lodge is an enchanted sustainable hotel encampment consisting of hillside terraced cottages. Rainforest preservation, indigenous tree planting programs and organic gardens are at the heart of this green resort.

Retreat features include:

• solar water heaters
• self composting toilets
• biodegradable, locally made soaps and furnishings
• environmental education through conservation
• a yoga studio
• indigenous tree planting projects
• green globe info
• organic gardens
• rainforest preservation

I’m simply smitten with the current issue of Coco Eco Magazine which features:

• the first yearly International Eco Couture issue.
• ways to stay safe in the sun, from eco-sunscreens to special skin treats!
• a sexy Leila Hafzi outdoor eco-fashion shoot by the shore.
• the hottest green fashion stars in London.
• awesome highlights from fashion designers in the Philippines that design clothing with their traditional pineapple fiber.
• the head of the Humane Society up close.
• a worldwide fair-trade section.
• a complementary guide to San Francisco.
• unique eco-retreat highlights.

Shown below is another rendering of a winning design for Bird Island called the Rafflesia House.

While it is intentionally named, it “unintentionally looks like the Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world and a native to the rainforests of Malaysia. (Rafflesia used to be Malaysian national symbol, but it is now replaced by Petronas Towers.)

The Rafflesia develops from the bud into a flower over a period of nine months. The blossom is pollinated by flies attracted by its scent, which resembles that of the carcass. The flower lasts for only a few days. Rafflesia challenges traditional definitions of what a plant is because it lacks chlorophyll and is therefore incapable of photosynthesis. Rafflesia is a parasite. It did not begin its life as a parasite, but evolved this lifestyle. Biologists do not know what the Rafflesia’s function is in its ecosystem. This mystery incites one of the most elementary questions: What is the function of the humans in the world’s ecosystem?“

The award winning Rafflesia House shown above is a spectacular study of the human habitat evolving and becoming an integrated part of its tropical, urban, and site-specific ecosystem. The architects, designers and builders “searched and re-examined the ideas of the right balance between the connection of the building to the outside and the shelter the building provides from the outside elements: plants, creatures, rain, sun, wind, or heat.”