Green Options

If every building had a white roof, we would be able to cool the surrounding areas. That is the reasoning behind a California law about to go into effect next month requiring light reflective roofs on all new buildings. It is already the law for new flat roofs here.

Here, architect Richard Meier and his partner Michael Palladino have apparently created a design to go one further. [...]

We are seeing more climate conscious design in architecture: In this case; the rain screen.

A skin over the house is designed to manage and harvest occasional heavy precipitation, to provide protection from premature decay from moisture intrusion.

Earthen plasters provide a beautiful, soft, and an organic finishing touch to your home, whether they be a straw bale house, cob building, wood cabin, or even plain old sheetrock walls. A simple natural plaster can be mixed from ingredients straight from the earth, including sand, clay, and fibers such as straw, cattail fluff, or even cow manure.

It’s a simple process and a creative one, too: you can let your imagination shine through earthen plaster with its vast sculptability and its variety of application.

Read on to learn more about making and applying earthen plasters!

Air leaks in a building cost money. Find out how to fix them in existing buildings, and suggestions for designers on how to prevent them.

At some point in the useful life of most houses, the roof needs to be replaced. An EPA report prepared in the late 1990s calculated that almost 4 million homes per year have their asphalt roofs replaced, leading to the generation of 6.4 million tons of asphalt roofing waste. (Table A-8) Because of this, roofing materials are one of the larger contributors to landfill construction debris. And most of the materials used in making shingles (the prevalent form of roofing used in North America) are not readily recycled into other useful forms, leading to a stream of materials filling up the landfills.

Roofs are subject to extremes of temperature, receiving the full exposure of the sun as well as suffering from the extremes of cold. No other part of the average home sees a wider cycle of temperatures. Precipitation and wind also provide a constant eroding force that wears at the roof and gradually contributes to breaking it down. Because of this exposure to the elements, roofs are typically elements that need to be replaced several times over the life of a building.

Are there greener options than a basic shingle replacement?