Inhabitat » green architecture

Beautiful Buildings Made From Whole Trees

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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Sun Powered LUMENHAUS has a Shifting Solar Facade

by Piper Kujac, 10/23/09

The 2009 Solar Decathlon may have come to a close, but we wanted to shine a little more light on one of our favorite projects, Virginia Tech’s LUMENHAUS. Ranked 4th in this year’s Architecture category, the LUMENHAUS is named for its “power of light” attributes and architectural references to the BauHaus movement, and was particularly inspired by Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House. Like its historic reference, it is comprised of all glass walls, maximizing exposure to natural daylight. The house features an automated “Eclipse System” of highly insulated translucent panels that filters the light using independent sliding layers, creating an ever-changing pattern throughout the day.

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Gigantic Coal Gasometers Transformed into Thriving Communities

by Diane Pham, 10/14/09

In 1896 the Viennese authorities decided to invest in large-scale gas and electric utilities, so they constructed what became Europe’s largest gas plant. After nearly a century long run the plant was decommissioned, and left behind were four massive gasometers. These incredible structures were cast off, but a recent revitalization project led by Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Manfred Wehdorn, and Wilhelm Holzbauer have transformed these four tanks into spectacular and thriving communities.

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Stadium Franco Sensi: Rome’s Solar-Powered Stadium

by Ariel Schwartz, 10/12/09

Forget decorative crystalline stadium skins; Gino Zavanella’s recently unveiled stadium is completely plastered in energy-generating photovoltaic panels. Stadium Franco Sensi, set to be built in Rome, Italy, will feature a museum of Rome’s football team, restaurants, lounges, and bars in addition to regular stadium seating.

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KOZ Architects’ Colorful, Green Sports & Leisure Center in Saint-Cloud

KOZ Architects’ Sports & Leisure Center is a rainbow colored wonderland for kids in Saint-Cloud, France. Designed for festive celebrations and entertainment and featuring the ‘coolest’ indoor climbing wall in France, the vibrant hues from the outside of the building correlate via color coding to the interior areas — enabling spatial orientation …

Stunning Facade Renovation Pours in Daylight

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.

Habitat 67: Montreal’s Prefab Pixel City

Canadian architect Moshe Safdie designed and built this extraordinary experimental housing complex made up of modular concrete units for the 1967 World Expo in Montreal. Named Habitat 67, the apartment complex was Safdie’s attempt to redesign urban living, provide affordable housing and create a community complete with shops and a school. All of the units were prefabricated on-site, and each has its own rooftop garden space located on the roof of the neighbor below.

Urban Sprawl Repair Kit Offers Simple Plans to Fix Suburbia

The suburban landscape consists largely of endless expanses of paved parking lots pocked with strip malls, gas stations, chain restaurants, and McMansions. Rather than razing these structures with the aim of greening the suburbs, Galina Tahchieva proposes that we retrofit them to create “a more diverse, cohesive urban fabric within a walkable and identifiable public realm.” The winner of the People’s Choice Award in our Reburbia competition with over 2,300 votes, the Urban Sprawl Repair Kit offers a go-to set of solutions for transforming 5 structures spawned from suburban sprawl into mixed-use models of urban efficiency.

World’s First LEED Platinum Data Center Opens in Germany

Germany recently joined the ranks of the green elite with the completion of Citigroup’s stunning new Data Center in Frankfurt. Designed by leading sustainable architecture and engineering firm Arup Associates, the 230,000-square-foot facility’s efficient use of energy and resource-conserving design have made it the first data center in the world to achieve LEED Platinum! That’s no small task considering the energy required to keep stacks of servers running smoothly in a climate-controlled environment.

ADEX: Futuristic PreFab for Modular Off-Grid Living

ADEX is a system for building self-sufficient prefabricated pod houses that are capable of adapting to different sites while meeting the changing needs of their inhabitants. The modular eco houses are constructed from an interlocking system of prefabricated pieces, are capable of gathering renewable resources from their surroundings, and can be installed anywhere with no site-specific requirements.

California Desert Home Uses Passive Ventilation Techniques

Building a home in the desert is certainly a test of green building innovation — because in a climate where resources are limited, how do you build to ensure comfort and longevity? Architect Lloyd Russell offers a beautiful solution with his Austin Residence near Palm Springs, California. Besides its construction out of recycled materials, Russell gave serious consideration to the mechanics of passive ventilation the home during the hot summer months. He was also sensitive to the culture of the surrounding California desert when developing the home’s look-and-feel, creating a contemporary home reminiscent of an old West outpost that captures the essence of desert living.

Mecanoo’s Sustainable Social Housing in Málaga, Spain

Delft-based firm Mecanoo Architecten recently began construction on a new green public housing project in Málaga, Spain. Sustainability plays an integral part in the construction of the project, which is located in a new development on the outskirts of Málaga called Universidad. The development comprises 170 residences and it was designed with solar paneling to minimize energy use, and alternating heights of five or six stories to allow natural ventilation and natural light to penetrate the interior spaces.

Beautiful Garden Studio Built from Reclaimed Fence

Here’s a project that will get any weekend warrior excited, especially one tackling the tear-down and installation of a new fence. Occupying a footprint of no more than 8’ x 10’ this little studio/shed in Petaluma, CA was made from rain-screen siding and reclaimed redwood fencing. Plenty of daylight makes it to the interior space thanks to a simple polycarbonate clearstory, and the interior …

Co-Op Canyon: Ecotopia Inspired by Anasazi Cliff Dwellings

Inspired by the cliff-side villages of Anasazi Indians, Co Op Canyon is a terraced urban oasis full of vertical gardens and lush spaces that aims to create a holistic, community-centered, sustainable city block. Designed by LA-based architecture and design firm, Standard for the Re:Vision Dallas competition, the canyon harvests enough rainwater, solar energy, and agriculture to completely sustain its 1,000 residents.

Studio 804’s Student-Built Off Grid House

Designing and building a LEED Platinum house is reason enough for us to take notice. When the house is also the work of graduate students at the University of Kansas and it is designed to function off-grid, you can bet that we will anxiously follow its development. Studio 804’s 3716 Springfield House is a two-story residence that is exactly these things, and with the school year just wrapped up, so has the construction of this eco-friendly house in Kansas City.

Andrea Salvini’s Light Filled Modern American Cabin

The cabin is an American icon – a place of retreat, relaxation, and respite. In the past, cabins have been of rough construction and hardly efficient, however this project by New York architect Andrea Salvini updates the iconic structure with a modern twist. Her Modern American Cabin, minimizes and stylizes the traditional cabin’s lines and architectural elements, while remaining true to its original concept and spirit.

Pyramid Farm: Vertical Agriculture for 2060

The Pyramid Farm is an incredible concept for the future of agriculture envisioned by professors Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier. The design is based on the growing belief (is it fact yet?) that vertical farming will soon become a necessary lifeline in cities throughout the world. The human population is growing exponentially and increasingly more urban while the global food supply shortening. Despommier speculates that if nothing is done to advance current farming techniques, 3 billion people could face starvation by 2060. The Pyramid Farm offers a solution in the form of a complete self-sufficient ecosystem that covers everything from food production to waste management.

Timberland Opens Eco-Friendly New York Store

The Timberland Company, known for it’s environmental stewardship and consistent ranking as one of America’s best companies to work for by Fortune and Working Mother Magazine, has just opened a new sustainable store at 474 Broadway in NYC. The sleek interior and ample use of reclaimed wood make for an inviting and earth-friendly shopping experience.

Philadelphia Rag Factory Converted to Eco-Innovative Residences

The tightly-knit family of designers and innovators at the Onion Flats collective is raising the bar on innovation for Philadelphia architecture. They have discovered that by taking over the responsibility for everything from a project’s initial conceptual design, all the way to the financing, marketing, and construction, it has allowed them to explore totally new processes for things like water collection and green roofs, without the headache of outsourcing. Completed in 2006, one of their most notable projects are the Rag Flats, a group of modern residential units topped with green roof gardens, solar panels, and lounge spaces, which are built within the shell of a former rag factory.

PREFAB FRIDAY: resPOD from “Down Under”

It’s wonderful to see the popularity of prefabricated architecture spreading everywhere, from urban metropolises to pastoral rural settings. resPOD, a conceptual prefab design by Matthew Grace Architecture who is based in Australia, is a flexible form of housing with several different eco-friendly features including passive solar design and a greywater system. Constructed from shipping containers, the homes would be retro-fitted in a factory for quick and energy-efficient production, offering prospective homeowners a greener option when it comes to purchasing a home.

Michelle Kaufmann Designs Folds Under Terrible Economy

It is with great sadness that we recently learned of the closing of Michelle Kaufmann Designs, one of our favorite green architecture practices and close friends to Inhabitat. The groundbreaking studio blazed the path for green building and was in large part responsible for linking modern, modular prefabricated housing with sustainability. Having interviewed Michelle and followed her growing practice over the past five years the news comes as a great blow and we’re really sorry to see them go!

Stunning Steel Foil Buildings Cut Material Use

The Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Wales recently opened eight stunning crumpled steel buildings that utilize an innovative construction method to keep their material use to a minimum. Conceived by design/build team Heatherwick Studio, the special cladding system was installed on-site by forming foil-thin steel into structural shapes and then coating the inside with spray foam insulation. The polished and crinkled steel not only provides windowsills and eaves but creates an interesting facade of fragmented reflections of sky, forest, and grass which gives the buildings a striking look that is entirely made up of their surroundings.

Group 41 ‘H House’ Stands Out in Noe Valley

This brand new, luxurious residence in Noe Valley, San Francisco replaces an inefficient 800 sq ft shack on Hoffman Avenue. Designed and built by SF–based Group 41, the ‘H House’ is a model of both modern architecture and sustainable building for the neighborhood–and it’s currently on the market.

MILAN: Our Top Picks From Zona Tortona

Zona Tortona is regarded as a sister show, or “satellite exhibit,” to the Salone Internazionale del Mobile; however, it was at Zona Tortona that I found some of the most innovative and forward-moving designs this week in Milan. Zona Tortona takes place in a neighborhood where the streets via Zona and via Tortona cross. Historically this neighborhood was an industrial area with rows of compact tenement housing placed in between factories. The transformation from commerce to creative space began in the early 80s when artists and designers were being pushed into the outskirts of the city at the same time that industry started moving further into the countryside. Today, Zona Tortona is known around the world as an art and design district and is universally recognized for the exhibit that runs concurrently with iSaloni.

Empire State Building to Receive Eco Renovation

The Empire State Building, once the world’s tallest building and the skyscraper famously scaled by King Kong, is now set for a $100 million ‘green renovation.’ The great symbol of New York and America, which sits in the heart of midtown Manhattan (one of the most efficient cities in the nation with per capita emissions one third the US average), just underwent an eight month modeling and analysis program and will receive a massive overhaul. The Clinton Climate Initiative, Johnson Controls Inc., Jones Lang LaSalle and the Rocky Mountain Institute partnered to come up with a plan to reduce the building’s energy consumption by 38 percent, or $4.4 million, annually!

Beehive Building: An Innovative Eco Research Center

University of Sheffield’s new £4.4 million Arthur Willis Environmental Centre will allow researchers to study future climate scenarios and their effects on local biology, including plants and social insects such as ants and bees. The energy-efficient greenhouse gave Bond Bryan Architects and builders William Birch & Sons Ltd an opportunity for some innovative work. The facility has been built to not only blend seamlessly into the surrounding woodlands and sit upon on WWII rubble infill, but also to allow bees to fly in and out!

Solar Powered Kangaroo Valley House

Situated amidst 100 acres of scenic views, rainforest, and flowing water, this gorgeous solar-powered residence stands perched above Australia’s Kangaroo Valley. Faced with an incredible natural site, Tom White and Alexander Michael’s home incorporates simple, robust materials while practically floats among the clouds.

An Urban Paradise for the Lower East Side Girls Club

Though New York City’s real estate climate is anything but sunny, this year, the Lower East Side Girls Club (in partnership with the Dermot Company, a high-profile local developer) will break ground on a new 30,000–square foot, mixed-use arts and community center on the corner of 7th Street and Avenue D. It will be the first and only Girls Club facility in NYC (when boys and girls clubs nationwide joined in 1986, the Boys Club of New York, operating on the LES, opted out of the merger, leaving the neighborhood’s girls to develop their own organization). Now, says the Girls Club’s web site, “this sustainably built, ‘green,’ state-of-the-art capital project will enable us to triple our program capacity.”

TEN Arquitectos NYC Tower Has Stepped Green-Roof!

New York City’s urban grid is dense, so when new developments pop up, we root for intelligent and environmentally-positive design that balances out the concrete with a little bit of greenery. Architect Enrique Norten and his NYC-based firm, TEN ARQUITECTOS, are in the midst of building a mixed-use high-rise in Hell’s Kitchen called Clinton Park, which will provide some much-needed green space to concrete jungle on the west side. The unusual stepped roof and S-shaped design reminds us a bit of terraced farming — an age-old agricultural method — and provides ample space for budding urban gardeners to sow their seeds. When you consider the stepped terrace with the contemporary look-and-feel of the building’s facade, we know this green and attractive addition to the urban grid is sure to please future residents.

PREFAB FRIDAY: PLACE Houses

This stunning home in Kirkland, Wash. is one in a series of prefabricated homes called PLACE Houses designed by architect Heather Johnston. The home’s diverse use of sustainably-sourced materials and low-impact energy harvesting — in addition to its fresh, contemporary look — won the series a spot as one of the Top 6 Prefab Designs in the April 2006 issue of Wallpaper magazine. Built with SIP panels, this 2,800 square-foot model home was constructed on-site and has almost every green amenity you can imagine. This PLACE House has the look of a custom-built home, but can be ordered and built as though it were part of a “ready-to-wear” line — making for an easy, streamlined package.

Leicester College Unveils Energy-Efficient Abbey Park Campus

Upfront planning goes a long way when it comes to building for sustainability. In their design for Liecester College’s new £25 million Abbey Park campus, Bond Bryan Architects utilized state-of-the-art thermal modeling software to maximize the structure’s energy efficiency, taking into consideration existing site conditions and passive building strategies such as thermal massing. As an added bonus, the building will generate some of its own power thanks to a wind turbine installed on the roof.

Monterey Bay Shores Set to be Greenest Ecoresort in the World

Monterey Bay Shores is a stunning new development set to break ground this month that will convert a desolate disused sand mine into a thriving environmental preserve and eco-resort. Replete with living walls and a five acre green roof, the development boasts an impressive list of green design elements and is working towards LEED Platinum certification. Now, saying that you’re the “Greenest Eco Resort” is quite a claim, but if the Resort builds out all that they have promised, it really will be the most environmentally friendly resort in the US, and possibly in the world.

Scottsdale’s Arabian Library Wins Smart Environment Award

Borrowing books from the library is the responsible and environmentally friendly thing to do, and this new library in Scottsdale Arizona makes us want to use the library all the time. Designed by Richärd + Bauer, the Arabian Library utilizes great green building design and innovative new thinking to encourage people to lend from the library. Not only that, but the building is gorgeous, inviting, brightly lit, and a recent winner of the 2008 IIDA/Metropolis Smart Environments Award.

Workspace of the Future: Cambridge’s Creative Exchange

These days cubicles are so passé, and we’re starting to seem some inspired green workplaces that encourage creativity and interaction. 5th Studio in Cambridge has designed and built the Creative Exchange, a shared workspace complex with some great sustainable credentials. The building features a small footprint, excellent active and passive solar systems, and a flexible interior that makes great use of natural light. Large communal areas allow people to come and go more freely, and provide more opportunity for meetings, interaction, and well, chances for creative exchanges.

China’s Miyi Tower Project Purifies Polluted River

Riding the wave of new development in China, Studio SHIFT recently won a competition to design a fantastic new landmark in Miyi County. Miyi Tower will sit on the edge of the Anning river as a symbol of the new face of Sichuan provence. The tower’s most striking feature is its whimsical latticework skin, which suffuses the structure with daylight and “evokes the shimmering surface of the river below.” This connection is reinforced by the project’s goal of filtering and transforming the polluted Anning river into a lush landscape of wetlands, lakes, leisure and agricultural areas.