Located in downtown Philadelphia right above the Suburban rail station, the Comcast Center has been awarded the title of “tallest LEED certified building in the US” after earning a Gold Certification for LEED-CS (Core & Shell). The obelisk-like 58 story tower is covered in high-performance glass and sunscreens, and features louvers in the atria to help optimize daylight inside the building. Many other green design features help this mixed-use skyscraper reduce energy consumption, making it a great example of environmentally responsible urban growth.
Taipei 101, famous for being one of the world’s tallest buildings, is set to get some major eco-upgrades in an effort to save money, reduce its impact, and gain the much coveted title of “World’s Tallest Green Building.” In 2007, the Burj Dubai surpassed Taipei 101 in terms of height, but the Taiwanese building won’t give up the fight, throwing down $1.8 million in energy efficiency upgrades, which are expected to yield $20 million annually in savings and make it the Earth’s greenest building that’s also closest to the heavens!
The winner of the Solar Decathlon Competition was announced today — congratulations Team Germany! We’ve been following the competition happenings all week. Our friends have been as abuzz as us, and we’ve noticed that everyone is in a flurry of excitement about solar technology and energy efficient building. Check out what we saw this week!
Treehugger annouced the architecture and market viability awards on Tuesday.
GreenOptions reports on Steven Chu’s decision to spend an additional $87 million on solar technology.
JetsonGreen, our favorite green home expert, highlights the 20 beautiful, solar-powered homes of this year’s Solar Decathlon competition.
NYTimes comments that the students are proving that solar living doesn’t mean compromising lifestyle.
Clean Technica shows us 10 solar technologies to be exicted about.
CleanTechnica also reports that California will be giving more money to small-scale solar projects.
And of course, don’t forget to check out our coverage.
Buildings consume 76% of electricity generated; they create 48% of our greenhouse gases; a quarter of our waste in landfills comes from construction. Yet we continue to tear down perfectly good ones and replace them with new ones that don’t perform as well and don’t last as long. If we understood what old buildings are saying to us, we would be less eager to rip them down, and perhaps might even emulate them in our new buildings. Read on for examples.
Eco Towers for Hamburg by Greeen! Architects
With a focus on connecting workers and visitors to nature and providing a green ambiance, this proposal for an office building in Hamburg talks the talk and walks the walk. Designed by Düsseldorf-based firm Greeen! Architects for the Building and Environment Authority (BSU) of Hamburg, the Eco Towers provide a very low use energy structure with gardens and green roofs scattered all over for use by workers and the public. Considerate of the surrounding environs, the design for the Eco Towers aims to provide a quiet, tranquil and environmentally friendly working place.
Links Roundup of the Week: Solar Decathlon
It’s finally the week of the Solar Decathlon competition! From Thursday, October 8 to Friday, October 16, 20 multi-disciplinary students teams made up of architects, engineers, and designers will participate in 10 contests to determine the winner. You can take a peek at each team’s standing here. Taking place …
Links Roundup of the Week: Roofs and Walls
For years, we have been trying to control our interior environments — by putting up four walls and a roof, and then by stuffing insulation into walls and painting coats of funny chemicals on the outside. Today, we know that environmentally-sensitive indoor climate control will require re-wiring of buildings and the way we think. Lightening a building’s carbon footprint is a challenging task, but one that promises product innovation and creative design. It …
The White House Takes Aim at LEED Certification
The White House is doing its part in leading the way to a more sustainable nation. Not only are they growing their own food on site with Michelle Obama’s garden, but now even they’re aiming for LEED certification! The Obamas are trying to show that reducing energy use and leading a greener life really aren’t that hard. This certainly isn’t the first attempt to green the White House, but it’s definitely the most significant attempt to date. The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) are leading the effort to upgrade to more energy efficient equipment, improve procurement, reduce waste and toxins and lower the overall carbon footprint of the complex.
BIG Architects Unfold Origami-Skyscraper in Shenzhen China
The very fabric of skyscrapers is being reinvented now as architects and engineers look to make these dense urban buildings more sustainable. One of the biggest dilemmas they face is allowing for visibility without overheating the interior from direct sunlight. BIG Architects recently came up with their solution to this issue, winning them the award to design their origami-folded skyscraper for the Shenzhen Energy Company. The facade is folded accordion-style, and shades the office complex from direct sunlight with integrated solar thermal panels, while simultaneously allowing for indirect light into the interior.
Europe’s Incandescent Light Bulb Ban Begins Today
Europe’s ban on incandescent light bulbs goes into effect today in an attempt to enforce energy efficiency standards on lighting. As of today, retail stores are no longer allowed to purchase high wattage incandescent light bulbs to offer to customers. In fairness to shopowners, they are, however, allowed to continue to sell whatever they have in stock until supplies run out. While many hail this as a necessary restriction in order to advance efforts against climate change, others complain that the ban is an attack on personal preferences. We’re excited to see the change and look forward to when the US’s efficiency standards are elevated as well.
Sears Tower Going Green With $350 Million Renovation
Just like the Empire State Building, the famed Sears Tower in Chicago will be soon receiving some major eco upgrades to become more energy efficient. Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture is responsible for the upgrade plans as well as a brand new 50-story luxury hotel to be built right next to the tower. The eco upgrade will reduce energy consuption by 68,000,000 kWh per year or the equivalent of 50,000 barrels of crude oil. Costs for the renovation are estimated at $350 million dollars for tower, which will soon be renamed Willis Tower.
Foster + Partners Break Ground on Virgin Galactic Spaceport
It’s an exciting time for space fanatics everywhere as construction recently began on the world’s first commercial space launch pad, Spaceport America. Designed by Foster + Partners, the facility is located in southern New Mexico near the White Sands Missile Range and will serve as a launch site for private space travel. Built into the side of a hill, the Spaceport will meet LEED building standards and includes some high-tech green building strategies including a solar roof, excellent use of thermal mass, and a highly efficient HVAC system.
Remote-Controlled LED Light Bulbs Offer 7 Shades of White
Energy-efficient LED light bulbs may be more expensive than CFL’s, but Sharp’s new DL-L60AV LED could be worth the high cost. The tricked-out bulb comes with a remote control that features a dimming function as well as the ability to select seven different shades of white… so your guests can never complain that they don’t like the ambiance.
INTERVIEW: Sustainability Advisor Lonny Grafman on The Waterpod
If you live in New York City, you may soon have the chance to check out the Waterpod, an incredible self-reliant eco-habitat, exhibition, and living space designed to showcase sustainable grassroots technology. The Waterpod just launched this Saturday, and it will now dock for public viewing at various locations in Manhattan’s five boroughs. We had the chance to conduct an exclusive interview with Lonny Grafman, the project’s sustainability advisor, about this floating model of self-sufficiency.
PVT Solar Panels Generate Heat and Electricity at the Same Time
PVT Solar is pioneering an ultra-efficient breed of solar panels that focus not just on incorporating better photovoltaic components, but also take the heat generated by the solar panels and use it to power a solar thermal system. According to the company, these solar cogeneration panels are three times more efficient than anything else out there!
Links Roundup of the Week: Keeping Cool
Whew! Summer is definitely just around the corner. We can feel the humidity intensifying with each day in New York City and we know it will only be a matter of time before the heat will really be upon us. With that thought in mind, we thought we would start looking at some ways to keep cool without blasting the air conditioning or using more electricity — and we …
Guardian Climate Change Summit 2009
In the midst of the current global economic crisis, many businesses stand to lose sight of sustainability goals as they focus upon the meeting the bottom line and keeping their staff in employment. However there has never been a more critical time for environmental policy, and the Guardian Climate Change Summit 2009 is a rallying call for businesses to move from environmental awareness to action in these tough economic times. Taking place in on June 15th at London’s Hotel Russell, the conference aims to inspire more businesses to prioritize the environment by showing that meeting the bottom line financially and keeping climate change high on the agenda are far from incompatible.
Milan 2009: Philips Debuts Ledino Lighting Collection
As part of the Euroluce exhibition at the Milan Furniture Fair, Royal Philips Electronics showcased a wide range of cutting edge LED lighting products. Our favorite designs on display were part of their newly debuted Ledino collection, an extensive range of stylish indoor and outdoor fixtures that provide 80% energy savings over standard incandescent bubs. The lights have a very low wattage and minimal CO2 emissions, but it is much more than their energy efficiency that makes these lights notable.
BUGPLUG: A Kid-friendly Power Monitor
This year’s Greener Gadgets Design Competition is heating up, and we’re excited to see so many great kid-friendly designs in the mix. One of our favorites is the Bugplug, a quirky little power meter that helps kids to conserve electricity. Simply attach it to a power strip of appliances and an infrared sensor will monitor the room to determine if anyone is around. If no one is, it pulls the …
POWER HOG: Piggybank Power Meter Keeps the Change
Looking for a fun way to teach energy conservation to your kids? Check out the Power Hog, an adorably pig-shaped power monitor that introduces kids to energy efficiency (and general thriftiness) by piggybacking upon the familiar format of the piggy bank. You need to plop a coin in the Power-Piggy to activate electricity flow, so kids can use …
Google Debuts PowerMeter Energy Monitoring Tool
From joule-counting energy jars to twittering power monitors we’ve got power meters on the brain as of late, what with the upcoming Greener Gadgets Conference and Design Competition. Proving that great minds really do think alike, we’re excited to hear that Google is getting into the energy-saving act with their recently debuted PowerMeter. The application will collect information from utility meters and energy monitors and provide easy access to energy statistics right from your iGoogle homepage.
TWEET-A-WATT! A Power Monitor That Twitters Your Energy Use
This year’s Greener Gadgets Competition is loaded with brilliant ideas. One of our favories is the Tweet-a-watt, a fabulous open-source, power monitoring project from ladyada. One part off-the-shelf hardware, two-parts hackware and a dash of environmental consciousness and social networking, Tweet-a-watt monitors and “tweets ” (publish wirelessly) your home’s daily energy use to your Twitter account, all for less than fifty bucks!
CES 2009: Energizer Debuts a Solar Battery Charger
Energizer has worked hard to brand and market itself as the go-to battery for rechargeable reuse by offering many nifty little recharging gadgets to power up your AA and AAA batteries. At CES this week, Energizer debuted its latest green gadget, the Solar Battery Recharger. While we all love our Solios, if you wanted to charge batteries you still had to buy a battery charger that drains energy from the grid. This solar charger removes the step, allowing you to charge both AA and AAA batteries with renewable energy.
7 Bad Habits of Eco-Design Driven Consumers
Inhabitat is proud to present our readers with the world’s most exciting developments in future-forward design. Still, the stunning array of beautiful green furnishings and stylish products available today presents certain questions about the responsible consumption of green goods. The time has come address these challenges and take an in-depth look at our collective green habits. Read on for a list of seven bad habits of Eco-Design driven consumers, and the first steps that begin the road to recovery.
IS IT GREEN?: HP Printers
HP has rolled out a system that identifies eco-friendly features of its products to customers. It’s called the Eco Highlights label, and it provides quick facts about the product that may or may not convince the customer that it’s environmentally friendly. But as a company inextricably tied to the paper industry, how can HP promote sustainable consumption? We caught up with Michelle Price, HP’s worldwide environmental strategic marketing manager, to ask her a few questions about HP’s latest green initiatives.
HOW TO: Green Your Work Place
Its 9am on a Wednesday morning and you find yourself preparing for your day with a cup of coffee in hand and your daily Inhabitat Digest open on your desktop. But today is no ordinary day. Today when your boss catches you in the act of reading our blog instead of working, you can tell him or her “Don’t worry, I’m researching a new green office strategy, which will save us money and create a better working environment,” or something to that effect. While this may seem like a convenient excuse, we know our suggestions for creating a greener workspace will help you do just that: to take your love of environmental issues and infuse them into your work routine, those of your colleagues and the practices of your company.
EnergyHub: A Simple Solution for Energy Efficiency
One of the many barriers that impedes us from living a greener life at home is the lack of any simple and reliable way to gauge how much energy we are consuming. We can turn off our lights and computers, but we are still kept in the dark as to our true levels of our consumption. As price and demand for energy continue to climb, it becomes that much more important to have access to vital information about our energy use, which is exactly what the EnergyHub hopes to provide.
IKEA Solar Panels on the Horizon
Ubiquitous big-box colossus IKEA has shown some great green developments lately, from flat-pack bike trailers to eco-friendly lines of housewares. Now the patent purveyor of all things flat-pack has announced plans to invest $77 million into its GreenTech energy fund with the goal of eventually producing solar panels, efficiency meters, and energy efficient lighting. Granted its massive distribution network, IKEA’s uptake of green tech could pose a monumental shift in the accessibility and affordability of these technologies.
MAD Architects Honeycomb Skyscraper
Be it their biomimetic form, their integral strength, or the their beautiful visual texture, lately we can’t get enough of hexagonal honeycomb structures. The latest to catch our eye is the stunning Sinosteel International Plaza by Beijing-based MAD architects. More than just a striking façade, the building’s hexagonal curtain is based upon climate modeling and serves to regulate the structure’s temperature and daylight by varying the size of each cell’s window.
Eco-Luxury Hotel for the Bahamas’ Star Island
Next year, eco-luxe travel will get a new destination with the opening of a new five-star resort for Star Island in the Bahamas. In and among diving, playing tennis and drinking a cocktail or two, holidaymakers will discover that the resort is entirely energy self-sufficient, with power coming from solar, wind and micro-hydro generators. And, that the sustainability aspects of the resort’s construction, interior and grounds have also been considered in impressive detail.
SOLAR ENERGY AS CHEAP AS COAL!
Energy company Sunrgi recently announced an astounding new solar system that will break our grids free from the fossil fuel lockdown. Their Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics promise a low-cost, high-efficiency system with an incredible projected energy pricing of 5 cents per kilowatt. This breakthrough puts solar on par with the cost of coal, natural gas, and other non-renewable energy sources.
World’s First OLED Lamp from Ingo Maurer
It’s an exciting time for OLED technology as it finally begins to integrate into the home and designers start to realize its potential for efficient and inexpensive lighting solutions in a variety of stunning new applications. Resembling a tiny tree blossoming with lucent leaves, Ingo Maurer’s Early Future lamp is the world’s first to pack energy efficient OLED lighting into a tabletop form factor.
NAUTILUS Eco-Friendly Flat-Pack Hanging Lamp
This eco-chic hanging lamp is more than an expression of good taste. Aptly named the Nautilus, the design recently emerged from the hands of Rebecca Asquith of the sustainability-driven New Zealand outlet Unless. This whimsical fixture illuminates interiors with style and an awareness of how good design can coexist with principles of good environmental stewardship.
Nokia ‘Remade’ Concept Phone Made From Recycled Materials
Nokia has caught our green design attention once again with the recent unveiling of ‘Remade’, a concept phone made almost entirely of recycled materials. The prototype was introduced at Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona last week revealing Nokia’s vision for recycled material use in mobile phones of the future. From the looks of ‘Remade’, Nokia’s products of tomorrow will consume less natural resources, reduce landfill waste and be more energy efficient.
Samsung Launches New Low Energy 31″ OLED TV
Walking the showroom floor at CES this year, we’re overwhelmed by the products on display, but underwhelmed by the lack of design innovation from a sustainability perspective. However, one innovation that got our attention is Samsung Electronics Super Thin 31” OLED TV Screen, one of the largest and thinnest OLED TV screens to date. Based on organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology, this product offers brighter, more vivid pictures while using less power than a regular TV. The best part is that OLED technology allows for a super thin and sleek package, proving that sustainability can be sexy – even in consumer electronics!
LOTS MORE GREAT GREEN DESIGN STORIES HERE... KEEP READING!
