Manuel said:
"This is great news! I hope all cities pass this into law.The practice of using plastic bags just to quickly dispose of them has been going on far t..." [read]
Jay Knecht said:
"What are the performance stats for the Son of Max? ..." [read]
gazelle said:
"@ Dallas:
The book, and the supplementary videos in the "How It All Ends" youtube series, address this in detail, but I'll try to paraphrase:..." [read]
Barry said:
"Kofi Annan has about as much of a clue about electric cars and developing countries as Ann Ann the Panda.
He underestimates the ingenuity o..." [read]
JJ said:
"Very cool. I didn't thought that biodesel might be our future fuel...." [read]
Derek said:
""I guarantee you this will spark huge debates around the world," she said. "We have to delve into this in a way that hasn't been done in a long tim..." [read]
Is it just the economy or is there a real change going on? Michael Phillips writes in the Wall Street Journal about how builders are offering smaller houses than they have in years. The Scarlett O'Hara stairs and two storey halls are out, and the plans are simpler, square-er, and way more efficient. Some might say that it is simply a response to the economy; as one commenter said " In a down economy smaller houses sell, and in a good economy bigger houses sell. Unless we have all become rabid anti-materialists this is just a phase."
Buildings comprise 40% or more of our emissions in the U.S., so I'm trying to create a personal living situation for myself that might be a model for how more of us could live in the future (at least in cities like New York).
I'm gunning to design a tiny, ultra-green-yet-sleek (almost luxurious in parts), extremely functional, financially smart apartment. I'm in contract for the space and am assembling a team. I have someone who's managing the entire process and an architect-expeditor to help on design, drawings and getting through the permitting process. I need to add an amazing person to the team. Please click through to learn more about what I'm looking for in a green consultant.
Ever have a couple of hours to kill between flights or trains? Rose at Dezeen shows us the Sleepbox, from Russian architects Arch Group. They envisage this tiny booth being installed in airports, train stations and shopping centers.They squeeze a lot into what looks like a four foot wide space- a two foot wide bed and a drop-down desk with storage under the bed. It is an interesting exercise in seeing how small a space one can comfortably live in, but one suspects that the opportunity for, um, misuse might keep this idea of the 15 minute hotel room from going mainstream.
The Difference Between Snail Mail and Email
One of the benefits of smart grids that we too often overlook is the fact that they'll greatly reduce the need for power utilities to send trucks (and often big ones) out in the field to gather data and fix problems. The most obvious example of this is the remote reading of meters instead of having to send people to read meters, but it will also help with maintenance and repairs since the grid will tell trucks exactly where to go to solve problems, reducing the number of miles driven.
Trailers are such interesting exercises in design of small spaces. Pop-up campers and tent trailers have been around for a long time (see this great Pac-man version from 1936). Their great virtue is lower air resistance when towing, making them easier to handle and reducing fuel consumption considerably.
In Europe, people take caravan and trailer design seriously, and the Opera by Belgian architect Axel Enthoven is seriously high end; you don't see stuff like this in a North American campground. Less has never so looked like more.
Could goats be the past and the future?
We've written many times about goats being used to replace lawnmowers and to clear brush (for example, in Arizona, in North-Carolina, and even at Google's Mountainview HQ). Well, we can now add to that list the Seattle-based Rent-a-Ruminant company. More before & after pics below.
This Guy Says Yes, But It's More Complicated Than That... ShareA blogger recently claimed that his new Mac Mini would be paying for itself within two years because his power bill had been slashed by half (see the screen grab below). His headline ("Free Apple Mac Mini. No Strings Attached!") was of course sensationalistic, but there is an important truth behind it: People too often forget to look at the total cost of ownership (TCO) when they're buying computers and other electronics, and making them more aware of it is a good opportunity to encourage good green practices.
Energy Code sounds like a dull topic, but if you're hope is to see things like energy use or carbon emissions reduced - energy codes are at the heart and soul of your desires. Considering the fact that energy codes are only about 40 years old in the United States (and only 20 years older in Europe), the fields that determine how regulations govern the way buildings actively consume energy is a young and fertile. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg created a task force made up of local green building organizations and more than 170 professionals to address what's the best way to improve the efficiency of the megacity. Starting this week at the Center for Architecture, a series of lectures by experts involved with task force are beginning to explain exactly how these changes will affect clients, buildings, code, permitting and your pocketbooks. I had a change to do a Q&A with Chris Garvin, the first speaker of the series, to get his insider's perspective on what this all means.
Image via: Jessica Dore
In the San Juan Del Sur region of Nicaragua, the famed Earthship crew, along with 13 Nicaraguans from the local community, created the start of what will be entirely off-grid, sustainable community, titled Casa Llanta ("Tire House"). This is the first Earthship in Nicaragua and tipster Jessica Dore sent in her thoughts and impressions from her trip to this futuristic community....
Matt notes that artificial trees aren't very good for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, but they do have their place in our lives, usually around Christmas. And while it is too early to roll out our Real or Artifical Tree comparisons, There is always time to look at new ideas for living with less and getting by in smaller spaces.
That's why this new half-a-Christmas Tree is such a good idea. Harry Wallop of the Telegraph writes that "the artificial tree appears bushy and full from the front, but it is an illusion. It has been sliced down the middle, so it has no back, allowing owners to push the Christmas tee against their sitting room walls, saving valuable space."
Elaine Walter of B&Q, a big British hardware retailer, explains:...
Source: EPA
Don't Underestimate Good Ol' Recycling!
When it comes to reducing CO2, we almost always talk about power plants and vehicles. But a new study by the EPA (pdf) shows that, if you consider the whole life-cycle, a huge chunk of greenhouse gas emissions (42%) are caused by the way people in the US "procure, produce, deliver and dispose of goods and services". It concludes that waste reduction and recycling are very powerful tools to reduce CO2 emissions: According to the report's projections, if we were to reduce packaging in general by 50%, reduce non-packaging paper products by 50%, extend the life of computers by 25%, increase recycling of construction and demolition debris to 50%, and increase solid municipal waste composting and recycling to 50%, we could cut US CO2 emissions by about 354 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2E). Each year....
Photo: Chrysler
Next Step: Online-Only Manuals?
The owner manuals of many vehicles are 500 pages long and can weight up to 4 pounds. Chrysler has decided to save some trees (and cash) by going all digital for 2010. DVDs will be provided will all the information expected from a paper manual, but video tutorials will also be included to make things extra clear (in case the vehicle is so badly designed that you can't figure out how to do something by yourself...). Chrysler predicts that this move will save about 20,000 trees per year....
(Images: Dezeen)
Warehouses, schoolhouses, and factory buildings repurpose well into lofts and art studios, but draftiness and patchy temperatures often come with the terrain. Berlin architecture firm Davidson Refaildis devised this concept, Selective Insulation, to help with this problem. The result: a thermally cloistered space for desk work, built around a window. Installed in the Old School House in Hexham, UK-an 1849 structure where it is "difficult to maintain warm working conditions for much of the year,"-this angular pod creates an insulated microenvironment....
Image via: The Great American Apparel Diet
American women giving up shopping?? Did we hear that right? Yep, actual the Great American Apparel Diet group has gone global, but began with 18 women who decided to diet, or fast really, and not buy any new clothing for an entire year. That means no nice outfit for the office holiday party, no new Easter dress and no new bathing suit next summer for beach season. Okay, while we might not like the word "diet," here is another climate-focused diet to help us stop buying so much stuff. Maybe it's "easy" to avoid malls, but what will they do when holiday catalogs start showing up on their doorstep, or when models hit the runways in droves during Fashion Week in NY next week? Can these ordinary American women give up running to the mall every time a new season brings a new party or event?...
Times are tough for architects and a lot of them are going after smaller projects. Some of them are even giving their work away. David Baker and Partners have produced the Modularean Eco House out of ecologically farmed bamboo finished with a low VOC soy resin. (To reduce costs, they built it at doll house scale). Then they gave it away for a fundraising auction in support of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. ...
Photos: Alex Pasternack
Something worth checking out this holiday weekend if you're in New York: Chinese artist Song Dong's "Waste Not," an installation at the Museum of Modern Art made up of most of the objects obsessively collected by the artist's mother over a half a century in her Beijing apartment.
Hoarding is often considered a compulsive disorder in developed countries Just read about the Collyer Brothers -- E.L. Doctorow has a new fictional treatment of them and I just started Franz Lidz's Ghosty Men -- or search the web for syllogomania or disposophobia. But Song's exhibit reminds us that in places like China, where economic want is either a fresh memory or a current condition for many, conserving objects is still a virtue. Sometimes it can be beautiful....
Apartment Therapy's Unpluggd shows a lovely office-in-a-steamer trunk designed by London's Timothy Oulton and sold at Restoration Hardware (for 4 grand).
Gregory Han concludes his post with "What we'd really hope is for a stylish DIY version out there." And TreeHugger is always there to help....
Kent at Tiny House Blog notes that "you can build your own cob house with little money, but with lots of time and enthusiasm." He shows us 24 year-old Ziggy's cob (a mixture of straw, clay, and sand similar to adobe) with a footprint of 360 square feet built for under three thousand bucks. (Yes, that is $ 8.33 per square foot.)
...
Recycling is one of those feel-good first steps in the path to green living. The latest wave is get-paid recycling - in a half dozen states, consumers are racking up points for discounts or prizes. Now GreenOps(copying Sweden's idea?) is the latest to set up 'reverse vending' recycling boxes - at retailers like Whole Foods, and offering 'redeemable points'. There are currently at least 2 dozen of the automated recycling boxes in Arizona and California, and once you've saved some points, you can, according to Waste Management, redeem them for 'dinner out' or a 'big discount on family fun.' But there's another way to go in the recycling path - instead of making recycling a way to get more stuff, how 'bout using it to generate more charitable giving?...
Photo Credit: Laura Leyshon for National Post
Vancouver designer and writer Jane MacDougall, shown above with her repurposed satellite dishes, writes an interesting article about the Gift of Thrift and comes up with some zinger quotes from famous DWMs, starting with Thomas Edison:
“Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.”
Garden sheds offer such a great opportunity to experiment in architecture, to do something completely different, to have a little fun as well as serving the practical purpose of getting a little more space.
For example, this little gem was designed by Stiff + Trevillion Architects, a homage to Mies Van Der Rohe's iconic Barcelona Pavilion. It's part of a slide show in the Telegraph on the British garden shed movement.
...
Tad Beck's stair can handle dogs. Photo by Dave Lauridsen inDwell
Justin at Stair Porn roots around in his Dwell Magazine collection and finds two examples of alternating stairs being used in dwellings. These stairs take up half the space of conventional ones (see our roundup here), but are usually reserved for industrial use. Even the manufacturer, Lapayre Stair, explicitly tells prospective customers to get lost, noting:
...
Back in the early to mid 20th century, doctors prescribed lots of fresh air year round; my mom hated pushing a baby carriage so would drive her convertible around Fort Wayne in the middle of winter with the top down and my sister in the back seat. Carrie McLaren at BoingBoing shows an alternative, a little clip-on window crib. She notes that "According to The Health-Care of the Baby by Louis Fisher (1920), window cribs were "admirably adapted for city apartments."
It is also an interesting solution to the problem of getting a bit more room in a small apartment, sort of a high-rise version of a garden shed....
Image via DK Ahn
Rather than ship an object to your door or local store, imagine downloading the underlying info, procuring the materials locally, and then letting a machine build it. Maybe even on your kitchen table. This technology is not ready to turn the manufacturing world on its head quite yet, but it is becoming less absurd. London-based designer DK Ahn has conceptualized such a device; he calls it MICROFACTORY. This elegant home manufacturing appliance is, in effect, a sort of CNC router for the DIY enthusiast, artist, or inventor. The image above is a concept only, but Ahn has built a working prototype (not quite so slick, but impressive nonetheless) that he calls MOW (video and more pics after the jump). ...
IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility. Photo: Flickr, CC
Big Blue Dominates the List
The geeks reading this will know about Top500.org, a reference website that ranks the world's fastest supercomputers by raw speed. It's all about teraFLOPS (10^12 operations per seconds), and until a few years ago, that's pretty much all that most people cared about. But these days, energy efficiency is becoming the dominant metric. Operations per watt is now key, and that's what the Green500 list uses to rank supercomputers. Read on for more details on how it works....
Image: Tainá de Miranda Soares/VC no G1
Are humans running out of living space? Or just a species that is at home where we find ourselves? These are questions provoked by an exhibit at the Gallery A Gentil Carioca in Rio de Janeiro. Two artists, the brothers Tiago and Gabriel Primo, are living up to 14 hours a day in a "house" mounted high on the wall on the outside of the gallery building. Tiago and Gabriel use mountain climbing equipment and training grips to move between bunkbeds, an antique grammaphone on the chest of drawers, a loveseat, a hammock and a table with chair -- all screwed securely in place. The display is intended to provoke a reaction from passers-by in a city known for people living on the streets. What are the most curious experiences the brothers report?...
Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times
TreeHugger loves the idea of small spaces; the New York Times shows a particularly lovely apartment in Greenwich Village that packs a lot into just 350 square feet. They write:
As floor plans go, there isn’t much: one medium-size room; a galley kitchen tucked behind a wall; a bathroom; and, in lieu of a bedroom, a sleeping loft up a ladder from the living area, under the sloping roof.
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the weekly archive if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 11.20.09
Image via: Jessica Dore
In the San Juan Del Sur region of Nicaragua, the famed 
Matt notes that artificial trees 
Source: EPA
Don't Underestimate Good Ol' Recycling!
When it comes to reducing CO2, we almost always talk about 
Photo: Chrysler
Next Step: Online-Only Manuals?
The owner manuals of many vehicles are 500 pages long and can weight up to 4 pounds. Chrysler has decided to save some trees (and cash) by going all digital for 2010. DVDs will be provided will all the information expected from a paper manual, but video tutorials will also be included to make things extra clear (in case the vehicle is so badly designed that you can't figure out how to do something by yourself...). Chrysler predicts that this move will save about 20,000 trees per year....
(Images: 
Image via: 
Times are tough for architects and a lot of them are going after smaller projects. Some of them are even giving their work away. David Baker and Partners have produced the Modularean Eco House out of ecologically farmed bamboo finished with a low VOC soy resin. (To reduce costs, they built it at doll house scale). Then they gave it away for a fundraising auction in support of the 
Photos: Alex Pasternack
Something worth checking out this holiday weekend if you're in New York: Chinese artist Song Dong's "Waste Not," an installation at the Museum of Modern Art made up of most of the objects obsessively collected by the artist's mother over a half a century in her Beijing apartment.
Hoarding is often considered a compulsive disorder in developed countries Just read about the 
Kent at 
Photo Credit: Laura Leyshon for National Post
Vancouver designer and writer Jane MacDougall, shown above with her repurposed satellite dishes, writes an interesting article about the
No, it isn't another post about phantom supercapacitors from 
Garden sheds offer such a great opportunity to experiment in architecture, to do something completely different, to have a little fun as well as serving the practical purpose of getting a little more space.
For example, this little gem was designed by 
Tad Beck's stair can handle dogs. Photo by Dave Lauridsen in
Back in the early to mid 20th century, doctors prescribed lots of fresh air year round; my mom hated pushing a baby carriage so would drive her convertible around Fort Wayne in the middle of winter with the top down and my sister in the back seat. 
Image via 
IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility. Photo: 
Image: 
Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times
TreeHugger loves the idea of small spaces; the 
