Sydney’s ugliest building may soon be getting a new lease on life through to a plan to ‘reskin’ the entire tower with a high-performance photovoltaic skin. Architecture firm Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) has proposed the retrofit, and if their plan is enacted it would turn the 1960’s brutalist building into a brilliant super-efficient eco-tower.
NewActon Nishi is a new apartment complex in the middle of Canberra that is aiming to be Australia’s greenest residential development. But don’t go thinking that this will be a boring ‘green building’. NewActon Nishi will feature a sexy minimalist aesthetic in addition to some exciting eco-conscious features.
When most of us think of convention centers, we think of big empty spaces that are certainly not very environmentally friendly. That’s not the case for the next generation of centers — case in point, the very cool looking Qatar National Convention Center. The striking 177,000 square meter structure is seeking a LEED Gold Rating, a first for a building of its type in the region. When it’s completed next year the center will boast 3,700 square meters of solar panels in addition to a host of other resource-saving features.
From its modular modern design to its shipping container components, Olgga’s student housing complex struck us as a pitch perfect project for prefab friday. The French architecture firm designed the complex to be constructed from 100 repurposed shipping containers. Talk about putting your students in a box!
Taking a well known fossil fuel based roadster into the electric age is a certainly a worthy undertaking for any car manufacturer. But doing it yourself? That really grabs our attention. Mark Clifford from the Utah EV Interest Group has slowly but surely been converting a Porsche 911 into an electric supervehicle. Why go through all the trouble? Because it’s a Porsche!
We tend to have a love/hate relationship with Wal-Mart, but we will give them props for their latest green effort. The retailer has just installed close to 5,300 solar panels at its Apple Valley distribution center in California – that’s enough to power 175 homes. The array is Wal-Mart’s largest solar installation and will provide roughly 20 percent of the power for the 1.3 million square foot distribution center, topping out around 1 megawatt. We applaud Wal-mart for the move, but we’re certainly still keeping a critical eye on them.
The humanitarian emergency in Haiti has resulted in a complete loss of the country’s power infrastructure. To bring it back, a host of companies and aid agencies are using the most plentiful resource on the planet to begin powering one of the biggest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen: Solar power.
Take 100 billion pounds, a plan to create 60,000 jobs, and the urgent need to end an addition to fossil fuels, and what do you get? The first steps in Britain’s plan to develop its offshore wind farm capabilities. The UK recently announced plans for two massive turbine farms, and has set a target of producing 33 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2020 – a 3000% increase over current capacity.
Each year over 2.8 million people visit the Suncheon wetlands in Korea, which comprise world’s 5th largest tidal flat. To host them, Gansam Architects’ G.lab* have designed a visitor’s center that works to both enhance and protect the wetland that it is built on. It’s no easy feat, but the architects have succeeded in creating a minimally invasive project that goes with the ebb and flow of the tides.
Few land vehicles are capable of hitting 300 miles per hour – it is, after all, a pretty impressive speed for a car to achieve. That figure becomes even more incredible when you enter the realm of alternative transportation. However just last week the Buckeye Bullet 2 became the first hydrogen powered vehicle to exceed that speed, smashing the world speed record for fuel cell vehicles with a scorching 304mph run!
Harnessing daylight in the busy and narrow streets of London is a remarkable challenge for any architect. Recently ALA met that challenge in their remarkable renovation of the 10 Hills Place office. Using a bit of ingenuity and a bit of shipmaking technology, the architects created a sculptural facade that is as beautiful as it is effective. It’s been said that you can’t judge a building by it’s facade, but for this building, that is precisely what we are going to do.
In the summer of giant robots, red matter, and aliens in South Africa, one little movie has managed to do what no other has done: have an impact on the real world. The Cove is a documentary film that follows Richard O’Barry and a team of experts as they work to uncover and show to the world the extreme dolphin killings that occur in the town of Taiji, Japan, beginning every September. Well the 1st of September has come and gone, and believe it or not, the dolphin killings have stopped – all thanks to this great little thriller of a movie!
Nissan recently unveiled an all-electric vehicle that stands to break ground as the company’s opening foray into the EV fray. Rather than aiming to create a high-end supercar, Nissan has decided to target an altogether different market. Enter the Nissan Leaf, an economical fully-electric vehicle designed with the family in mind.
We’ve all heard the term “vehicle of the future” being tossed around by everyone, but what does it mean? BMW’s response is the Vision EfficientDynamics concept vehicle, a low carbon plug-in hybrid supercar geared towards the premium end of the market that they hope will point the way for their future in this increasingly fuel-efficiency-minded market. Read on to see how it stacks up.
The next frontier in green transportation is bound to be flight travel, which is why it is not surprising to see that NASA just announced the Green Flight Challenge. The competition will be awarding a prize of $1.5 million to the first plane to achieve 100 miles per hour, for 200 miles. That may not sound that impressive until you realize that the plane must achieve an efficiency of 200 passenger miles per gallon – not an easy feat!
With major auto manufactures rushing to green their upcoming vehicle lines as quickly as possible, Ford Motor Company has announced that it is researching an innovative material that may one day become as ubiquitous as plastic – liquid wood! The material is derived from waste wood, can be molded into different shapes, and the best news is that according to Ford, it is almost carbon neutral.
Do you enjoy cars, but feel it’s a bit tedious to actually hold the wheel, step on the gas and shift the gears? No sweat – industrial design studio, Mike and Maaike, has just thing thing – the ATNMBL, a car that drives itself! Did we mention that it comes with a bar?
Students at MIT recently announced that they are developing an extended range electric vehicle capable of achieving the same performance as its gasoline-powered counterparts. Dubbed the elEVen, the electric dream ride is capable of achieving a top speed of over 100 mph, a range of 320km (200 miles) and can completely charge in 10 minutes flat!
We’ve made no secret of our never-ending love for bikes here at Inhabitat – as one of the world’s most efficient modes of transportation they’re also an emission free, healthy, and enjoyable way to get around. There’s no better season to ride a bike than in the summer, so we figured the time is right to bring you a collection of our favorite pedal-powered rides. Without further delay we present to you our picks for the sexiest cycles around!
What could be more fun than gliding along on an eco-chic bicycle? How about shooting through the skies in a pedal-powered monorail capsule! A bunch of entrepreneuring New Zealanders has created just such a human-powered monorail system, known as the Shweeb. Their creation does double duty, acting not just as an innovative transportation system, but also an amusement ride. Are our cities the next step?
