Just last week Treehugger joined thousands of designers, builders and architects in Arizona to check out all the latest advances in sustainable building at Greenbuild 2009. By the time we got to Phoenix, we were 28,000 strong, all standing up and cheering for Al Gore’s speech, a new and different one directed at the Greenbuild audience. A conference like this shouldn’t be necessary; every building should be green. But there were stirring speeches, great educational sessions and hundreds of new green products to see.

Read the rest of TreeHugger Reports From Greenbuild 2009

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Post tags: Arizona, building materials, Green BUilding conference, greenbuild 2009, phoenix, sustainable design, treehugger

According to the Forest Products Laboratory, a whole, unmilled tree can support 50 percent more weight than the largest piece of lumber milled from the same tree. Putting this principle into practice, Whole Tree Architecture is dedicated to building with materials that lumber companies consider scrap – weed trees, also know as ‘managed forest thinnings.’ The resulting projects are beautiful displays of locally sourced and sustainably managed materials.

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Post tags: green architecture, Green Building, green design, managed forests, renewable materials, whole tree architecture

It never ceases to surprise us that much of good, sustainable design is also deliciously fun. Take Debbie Wijskamp’s paperpulp cabinets, for instance. They are what their name implies: drawers and shelves made out of pureed paper mache. And while I want to write sophisticated sentences with phrases like ‘materials reuse’ and ‘resource conservation,’ I just can’t help thinking about how glorious it must be, in a third-grade sort of way, to mash paper into furniture. Wijskamp’s process validates these daydreams.

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Post tags: "green furniture", cabinet, Debbie Wijskamp, eco furniture, eco-friendly furniture, furniture recycled materials, paper mache, paper pulp, Sustainable Materials

One of our favorite shows from the 2009 London Design Festival was Corn Craft, a beautiful showcase of sustainable materials hosted by Gallery FUMI and Studio Toogood. Held in Gallery’s FUMI’s personal live/ work space on Hoxton Square, the exhibition hit all the right notes with tactile, emotional art-design pieces by Max Lamb & Gemma Holt, Nacho Carbonell (above) and Raw-Edges Design Studio.

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Post tags: green design, green furniture, industrial design, London Design Festival 2009, Products, Recycled Materials, sustainable design

Aquaquest is a beautiful addition to the Vancouver Aquarium that was conceived as an education center to teach the surrounding Canadian community the importance of eco-friendly living. True to its nature, the complex demonstrates these principles through an impressive set of sustainable building strategies including a leafy green wall, rainwater harvesting, and a highly efficient heating and cooling system.

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Post tags: Aquaquest, canada, LEED gold, Sharp & Diamond Landscape Architecture Inc., Stanley Park, Stantec Architecture, The Marilyn Blusson Learning Centre, The Vancouver Aquarium, vancouver

StrawJet, of Ashland, Oregon, has developed a unique process for the creation of structural building components from a variety of waste agricultural stalks. Essentially, they have created a machine that takes waste stalks and creates a tightly wrapped beam which can then be applied to many different facets of construction. The cables are made and wrapped without glues, resins or chemicals and are made completely from waste material. As long as we are growing food there will be straw, so why not use it creatively?

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Post tags: CASBA, Green Building, Malawi, natural building, reuse, SOAIA, Straw Building, StrawJet, Sustainable Building, Waste Straw

Recover, restore, and reuse.  That was the mantra employed by Portugal-based architecture team Ezzo, led by César Machado Moreira, in designing Paço De Pombeiro, a twentieth-century rural hotel in Felgueiras, Portugal. The hotel is located on 24-acres of farmland which are primarily used as vineyards, and had existing sixteenth-century buildings. The architects wanted to revive the old structure, so they designed the hotel to complement and enhance the characteristics of the existing structures — and provide space and amenities for up to 22 guests and an outdoor swimming pool.

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Post tags: building retrofit, Ezzo, Green renovation, hotels, Paco De Pombeiro, portugal, pre-existing buildings, refurbishment, retrofitted building, rural hotel, small hotel building

Vancouver-based architecture firm Bricault Design’s vegetation-clad house in Venice, California is a sexy study in green. The mod abode incorporates sustainable design in a new residential addition that features a lush living wall on three sides of the house and a breezy roof garden perfect for relaxing in the sun. Read on to see the other eco-conscious touches that make other homes green with envy.

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Post tags: Bricault Design, Brooks Avenue House, California, canada, green additions, green finishes and fixtures, green roofs, Living Walls, Los Angeles, Marc Bricault, sustainable design, Venice

Driven by a progressive environmental strategy that will exploit sustainable energy design, Spanish-based firm Moho Arquitectura’s design for a mixed-use tower in San Jose will become a new benchmark for eco-friendly design in Costa Rica. In addition to its eco-conscious features, the unique “peeling” quality of the tower is sure to turn some heads!

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Post tags: Architecture, Costa Rica, Mixed-use tower, Moho Arquitectos, Sabana Park, san jose, sustainable design, Urban design

This sleek modern hilltop residence was designed by Japan-based architecture firm Suppose Design Office to make optimal use of passive solar building principles. Every aspect of the residence’s innovative design has been carefully considered to make the best use of available sunlight and natural ventilation, demonstrating how efficient building practices can inform and give shape to elegant modern architecture.

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Post tags: Japan, Otake House, passive solar building design, Recycled Materials, residential architecture, Suppose Design Office, sustainable design

We use it to build bridges, roads, sidewalks, and just about every structure relies on concrete for its base – wouldn’t it be wonderful if cement actually negated CO2 emissions instead of creating more? Well, now it can! Novacem, a fresh new startup company has actually concocted a cement that eats up carbon as it hardens! And with an annual production of more than 2.5 billion tons, can you imagine what kind of impact it would have if all the cement we used could do what Novacem’s green cement does?

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Post tags: carbon eating cement, CO2 emissions, eco cement, gloabl warming, green cement, green construction, novacem, Portland cement

Bridging the gap between good design and giving back to the community, Canstruction, the annual international design/build competition where architects, engineers, designers, and students compete to design and build gigantic structures made entirely from full cans of food, is coming to New Jersey in October!

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Post tags: AIA New Jersey, american institute of architects, Canstruction, Community Food Bank of New Jersey, exhibitions, Green Design Competitions, Prudential Center, Society for Design Administration

Grandmas make some pretty awesome things – pies, sweaters, and techinically, you. But can you say that your grandma ever made a village??? Ours certainly didn’t. Between 1956 and 1981 Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey built Bottle Village using tens of thousands of bottles in mortar. The village is “an otherworld of shrines, wishing wells, walkways, random constructions, plus 15 life size structures all made from found objects.” The 1/3 acre lot in Simi Valley, CA is literally littered with the various structures that Ms. Prisbrey created as a hobby, constructive creative outlet and playful reminder of the joy of upcycling.  Unfortunately, a 1994 earthquake has left the village damaged and in need of repair, but recent media attention has helped bring in new visitors and a renewed interest in preserving this wonderful and unique place.

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Post tags: Bottle Village, Creative Re-use, Creative Reuse, LA Times, Recycled House, Simi Valley, Tressa "Grandma" Prisbrey, Ventura County

Dutch artist Geke Wouters has created a stunning collection of paper-thin bowls made from carrots, peppers, beet root, leeks, tomatoes, and other vegetables. Each delicate piece of edible art is made using a proprietary drying and forming process that converts organic materials into the paper thin layers, giving you the sense of a microscopic view into their intricate cellular structure. True to their natural materials, no two of these vegetable bowls are exactly alike.

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Post tags: Art, Biodegradable, bowls, dried, dutch design, edible, geke Wouters, Green Materials, mossi, Netherlands, vegetables

If you’re in the market for new business cards or a cutting-edge new advertising medium, you should take a look at this brilliant idea – your message or logo etched right onto a real leaf, no paint necessary! The resulting leaves are simple, stunning when looked at against the sunlight, and the best part is that if they are thrown away, there is no adverse effect on the environment. Design Firm Tatil Design of Brazil came up with the elegant marketing idea, which they recently used in 2008 during the 55th Cannes Advertising Festival to promote their “Designing Naturally” workshop. Natural Medium, which is what they call their amazing laser cut leaves, was so popular and well received at the festival that it won the Bronze Award for the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards in Eco Design.

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Post tags: 2009, Add new tag, advertising, dried leaves, eco-friendly material, green marketing, idea, laser cut, laser printed, laser printed dried leaves, marketing, natural medium, sustainable material, tatil design