Green Options

Very few globe-scattered yurt companies offer flooring. The exception is special event yurt providers and concierge service companies.

If you purchase your yurt near the location of your site, the yurt salesman may help connect you with an appropriate supplier. Otherwise, you are entirely responsible for the yurt flooring. No need to get the heebie-jeebies though.

Do yurts have to be built on a platform? Well, the FAQ page from Shelter Designs in Montana makes a case. In summary, just do it!

It’s best to have a flat surface so the kit will assemble correctly. Make your life easier, they say. Avoid mildew, and finally, ‒ be more climate efficient for comfort.

I love yurt living. It’s like camping out, — but in a modern, convenient structure. The dome has so much to do with that feeling.

As we face the Autumnal Equinox, I watch the interior dome light shift as it does with my landscaping. The daily light beam changes with seasons.

Every yurt has a central compression ring. The exterior finale is typically a dome. Yet there are some options that may surprise you.

A yurt cupola is especially nice for tropical environments. Claire Wolfe, who wrote about her yurt building for Backwoods Home Magazine, replaces the dome skylight for a cupola. She utilized a powder-coated steel frame with an architectural fabric cover. The cupola was raised six inches around the perimeter. As a result, there’s shade and a natural cooling system with maximum air flow.

With a startling green master-plan that will one day connect North and South Korea, Foster+Partners has won an international competition to design an extensive mixed-use scheme for two Korean islands near Seoul.

That it is bold, green and innovative is no surprise. Foster+Partners is known for visionary sustainable architecture - such as their Teatro Del Agua. It harvests sea spray and wind to naturally cool an outdoor amphitheater.

But this is perhaps their most extraordinary scheme ever. How often does an Architectural firm get to connect a communist and a capitalist country? With the world’s longest bridge? Incredible.

I’m coming to the conclusion pretty fast that just about every hotel will eventually be walking the talk when it comes to going green – though some are walking slowly while others are galloping as if there isn’t a minute to waste. While ecotourism continues to grow internationally, more American companies are grasping that going green can save some green too, which is also a point I make in ECOpreneuring.

A recent trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (to enter a few food items in our Wisconsin State Fair) found my family and I bedding down at the Hotel Metro, a boutique, high-rise luxury 63 room hotel that features numerous green aspects, from energy efficient lighting to a rooftop hot tub spa kept clean by using a salt-water system, rather than chlorine. Metro Hotel is the first Milwaukee hotel to be certified by Travel Green Wisconsin, racking up 67 points in total.

Designing a yurt entails color decisions. Of course material swatches are always best, but playing with an interactive tool is a great start.

The Colorado Yurt Company has the greatest exterior color tool available. You can play with the roof and valance choices in addition to the bottom band.

Like any building development, there’s a lot of back-and-forth. I mean it’s not a linear effort. Thus far I’ve covered yurt topics from getting started to climate and prices. However, design is always involved. Herein are some creative yurt doorway options.

Climate and purpose formulate design decisions. And the design is necessary to project costs. What are yurt design options? Let’s start with basics.

If you could design the green home of your dreams, what would it look like? What would it be made of? How would it produce and consume energy?

A project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) at Exit Art, “Vertical Gardens is an exhibition of architectural models, renderings, drawings, photographs and ephemera that depict or imagine a vertical farm, urban garden or green roof.” The exhibit features over 20 projects, both imaginary and real, by artists and architects envisioning solutions for building greener urban environments.

Details for the FREE two-day event (featuring eco architects, artists, professors, and poets) at Exit celebrating Earth Day 2009 are as follows: