images from Green Cabin Kits
I find it interesting that so many women have become leaders in the prefab movement. Pioneers were Jennifer Siegel, Rocio Romero and Michelle Kaufmann (this year's
Residential Architect of the Year). Two years ago we were big on a
Cusato; now we have Copeland Casati, who is offering Green Cabin Kits. And judging by the picture, you don't want to mess with her.
...
Family in Passivhaus; Rolf Oeser for The New York Times
Elisabeth Rosenthal visits a Passive House in Germany and describes their construction:
Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers [sic] a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies. And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.
...
It is that time of year that everyone makes predictions, and looks at predictions made a year ago; here is one that was made quite a bit earlier. It is sad that we live in a world where Norman Bel Geddes is more famous for being the father of
Barbara Bel Geddes, Miss Ellie in a successful 80's TV show, than for his industrial design. Be that as it may, Norman made some interesting predictions for the future in the 1931 Ladies Home Journal, dug up by
Enrique Ramirez of Archinect....
photo: Holy Rosary Soup Kitchen
There's no doubt that charities have taken a substantial hit in the recent economic downturn. According to CBS News,
six million people asked the Salvation Army for help last year. This year that number has almost doubled to between 10 and 12 million. But with more people in trouble, there are fewer donations to go around. For Holy Rosary's Soup Kitchen, however, there's a green light at the end of the tunnel....
TreeHugger doesn't show as many LEED buildings as it used to; they have become almost common, and many, LEED notwithstanding, have "issues," such as being overly large, strange uses, (a
LEED airplane hanger?) or
boring LEED categories like Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance oops, that's the Mother Ship.
However
Preston at Jetson Green gathers together thirty-three LEED Platinum buildings that he covered this year and it is clear that we missed a lot of neat stuff. ...
Photo credit: keone @ Flickr
Broken bone? Soon, you'll be able to have the break superglued back together, all thanks to sandcastle worms and biomimicry. Researchers at the University of Utah have been inspired by the sea worms, who secrete their own natural glue that they use to build underwater houses; the researchers have been able to copy and synthesize the glue, and hope it can someday replace pins, screws and such in mending broken bones....
Image: Mod Green Pod
The triumvirate of hip ladies from Mod Green Pod is at it again. They've been busy since we
saw them last, working hard behind the scenes to update their offerings and services. They're bringing their new (though still U.S.-based) printer in compliance with
Global Organic Textile Standards -- a standard they're helping to establish -- and have added a fun new product:
totes made from fabric remnants or discontinued patterns or colors.
Two things really stand out at the 'Pod, though. ...
Photo Via: Discover This
While Christmas morning has come and gone, there’s no doubt that many kids across America are feeling flush with cash as a result of the holiday; and there’s a great, fun toy put out by Bill Nye that’s aimed at helping kids understand the process of recycling paper that the young, eco-conscious consumer in your house may be interested in....
With approximately 3.9 million infants dying within a month of birth each year throughout the developing world, and 25 percent of those deaths due to complications of being born prematurely like heat and water loss, a group of innovative engineers at Design that Matters are finding a way to recycle cars into infant incubators and hoping to ensure that millions of kids live to see their first birthday as a result of their efforts.
According to Dr. Jonathan Rosen, a former director at the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) which is now promoting the program, he learned from doctors working in developing countries that no matter how remote the community there always seemed to be a working Toyota 4Runner that around. So the challenge became to “start with a 4Runner and take away all the parts that weren’t an incubator.”
...
Photo via Natural High Lifestyle Store
For someone who works from random locations, and is lucky to find a decent flat surface upon which to set up a laptop, I was happy to see this product on the radar. ...
TreeHugger has pretty well gotten its
fill of gifts for the year, but it's never too early to start looking forward to next year's festive holiday season. And we've already found what we want: the
Indulgence Shower.
Half way between
the navy shower and the
low flow showerhead, this smart concept cuts way back on water consumption -- 56 percent less than a regular showerhead; 26 percent less than
a low-flow model -- without sacrificing much warmth or comfort. Anybody who's taken a navy shower -- the kind where you turn the water off while soaping up -- on a chilly December morning will appreciate being able to stay warm the
whole time you're showering, while still saving bucketfuls of water. How does the Indulgence Shower do it?
...
This year, Barcelona city council decided to set an example and opt for low energy Christmas lights around town. The most intriguing ones are the 6 metal Christmas trees that are either solar or bike-powered. The Barcelonans however believe they are being tricked…...
Photo Via: Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
If you’re looking for a more eco-friendly way to create a festival of holiday lights in the future, consider what Pennsylvania homeowner Jim Berroth has taken on as a more environmentally friendly approach to dealing with holiday decorations that’s stopping traffic in his neck of the woods. It’s a unique twist on your tired old Christmas tree, and his six grandkids, already schooled in the necessity to recycle what once filled landfills, call the creative display "Pap's pop can trees."
...
Here is an infrastructure investment America should consider: an Envac waste disposal system. Instead of filling our streets with garbage bags and waiting for trucks to pick them up, many European cities (they invest in infrastructure that isn't for cars there) are trying out these clever underground vacuum systems. Garbage is separated into "fractions"- paper, organics, or other garbage, deposited in chutes where it is held until a computer opens the gate at the bottom of the tube and sucks a particular fraction down the pipe to a processing center. The result?
"...A drastic reduction of road transportation of waste, improved hygiene and enhanced occupational health and safety standards." And better looking and smelling cities. ...
TreeHugger readers don't appear to share my fascination with mass customization, the idea that you can order exactly what YOU want, made to your specifications, instead of having to take what Mr. Big Box offers. One recent extreme example was
[me]&gogi cereal, which most commenters considered un-TreeHugger. They might say the same about M-Shape's custom table that you can build on your Nokia cell phone. Why would one want to do such a thing?
...
Jaymi's recent post on the
green-ness of a Roomba versus an upright vacuum did not mention the option of a broom; perhaps it is ingrained in us to look for the high-tech solution. Back in 1959, the Sarnoff Labs of RCA predicted a Roomba-like "Mechanical Maid" and a few other wonderful labour-saving devices, all sucking watts to make our lives easier. ...
Nicolai Ouroussoff writes about architecture in the New York Times that "
It Was Fun Till the Money Ran Out"-that before the financial cataclysm,
the profession seemed to be in the midst of a major renaissance. Architects like Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, and Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, once deemed too radical for the mainstream, were celebrated as major cultural figures. And not just by high-minded cultural institutions; they were courted by developers who once scorned those talents as pretentious airheads.
But what about now, that the only money for building will be coming out of Washington for infrastructure investment? Does the work go to the pretentious airheads?
...
As the Consumer Marketing Manager of Sub-Zero and Wolf, Christopher Parr knows what people want in their kitchens, and knows what it takes for a fridge to be green. We had a chance to chat with him about
Sub-Zero's idea of green, the
green kitchen inspiration video series -- we recently
interviewed architect Michael McDonough about the same -- and how to get the greenest performance out of your appliances.
TreeHugger: We talk a lot about taking meaningful green action to reduce our collective and individual footprints. Where should kitchen appliances fit in to that model?...
Not a few real estate development projects have been iced because of the real estate meltdown; I hope that
Rock Row in Los Angeles will not be one of them. It has a lot of things to admire, including a really tight site plan that gets 15 townhouse-like units on to one property with a common service lane between them. The units are appropriately scaled at 1300 to 1540 square feet, what looks to be reasonably priced from $475K, and have
"many environmentally conscious features, ranging from a permeable driveway of grass pavers to instant hot water heaters. LEED Certification also guarantees excellent indoor air quality, very low utility bills, and an energy efficient and sustainable design and construction. An ecological viewpoint is carried from schematic design to the finishes and fixtures."
...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the
if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.