Inhabitat » Green Building

Puri Indah House: Poetic Sustainability in Jakarta, Indonesia

When Architect Adi Purnomo of Mamostudio set out to design a live, work, and exhibition space for a photographer/painter client, he knew that maximizing natural light would be a necessity. Purnomo also pushed his studio’s creative design process to maintain the temperature of the home’s interior spaces through passive means whenever possible. The resulting Puri Indah House features an intricate series of slanted walls that reflect sunlight throughout the day, while intermingled gardens and interior pools of water ensure that the house is shaded and kept cool.

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Elwood Green: 6 Star Sustainably Built Apartment Complex

by Evelyn Lee, 11/04/09

High Density green living is on the rise in Elwood, Australia with Crosby Architect’s new Elwood Green project. Living up to its name, the high-density apartment building will house 25 units that are expected to receive an average 6-star rating – the highest honor currently available from the Green Building Council of Australia. What comes as a bit of surprise is the lack of active systems assisting in the green rating, which just goes to show that old ingenuity and smart design can create buildings every bit as sustainable as the most high-tech structures.

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Design Green Awards Elevate Sustainable Architecture in California

by Haily Zaki, 10/29/09

The Architectural Foundation of Los Angeles recently announced the winners of the Design Green awards at a recent ceremony hosted by the AIA/LA to recognize outstanding work built or conceived by Los Angeles architects. Citation, Merit, and Honor Awards were given to six projects that ranged in size from residential to corporate, non-profit to civic and educational, with Honor being the highest award. From the diversity of the projects, it’s clear to see that California architects do more than just design green. With each year and innovation, they elevate green, exceeding our expectations of what a green project should be.

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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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Water Pumping Plant Renovated Into Gorgeous Living Space

Berlin is a burgeoning modern city with a compelling history, a diverse culture, abundant art, and distinctive architecture that rivals the likes of Paris, London and New York. But if there is one thing that can set the city apart from its pricey peers, it’s the unbelievably inexpensive property. Not unlike many of the uber-creative expatriates that have taken up residence there, two enterprising artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, decided it was time to purchase and renovate a place of their own. So what can $700,000 get you in a city like Berlin? An apartment? A loft? Maybe a small house? How about a massive water pumping station!

The Kitchen of the Future Today

The kitchen of the future was going to be so high-tech. Frigidaire’s Dream Kitchen of Tomorrow had it all; an IBM punch card recipe file, automatic dispensing and online TV ordering. And that’s not all – read on as we take a look at several extraordinary retro-futuristic kitchens to see how they’ve withstood the test of time.

Concrete Mushrooms: Transforming Abandoned Bunkers Into Eco Hostels

There are reportedly over 750,000 abandoned concrete bunkers scattered throughout Albania, remnants of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha and his policies of paranoid xenophobia. Now graduate students Gyler Mydyti & Elian Stefa have developed a plan called Concrete Mushrooms that would ‘invert the meaning’ of these structures by turning them into a network of habitable eco-hostels, cafés, gift shops and more.

Team Germany Wins the 2009 Solar Decathlon!

GERMANY WINS THE 2009 SOLAR DECATHLON!

Drumroll please… after an exciting week of competition and judging, the winner of the Solar Decathlon 2009 has just been announced, and it’s a stunner! In a huge upset (as Team Illinois was leading on the scoreboard until just a few moments ago) the …

Lessons We Can Learn From Old Buildings And Apply to New Ones

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.

SOLAR DECATHLON 2009: Team Ontario/BC’s North House For Cold Climates

We’ve been bringing you breaking coverage of this week’s Solar Decathlon in Washington DC throughout the week and one of the most interesting homes to emerge from the competition is the North House, a super sleek, high-tech solar powered home designed to generate more energy than it consumes – an especially impressive feat granted that the home was designed for the extreme climate of Northern Canada. Currently in 4th place at the Decathlon, Team Ontario/BC is exhibiting an incredibly impressive showing. With two days left of the competition, they still have a good chance to eek out some more points in the categories of Engineering, Lighting and the biggie, Net Metering, which could still put them in the lead.

Stadium Franco Sensi: Rome’s Solar-Powered Stadium

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.

SOLAR DECATHLON 2009: Rice University’s $140,000 ZEROW House Keeps Up With the High Rollers

The Solar Decathlon, the super solar architecture competition held in Washington D.C. bi-annually, officially kicked off today, and Rice University’s awesomely affordable ZEROW House is already making waves. The first round of evaluations took place yesterday, and this low-budget underdog placed 4th among the twenty competitors after being recognized in the categories Comfort Zone and Appliances. What is most impressive about this team is that the average budget of the 20 solar decathlon houses at the mall is $490,000, while the ZEROW home was built for only $140,000!!! Even more impressive, the ZEROW House was designed specifically for Houston’s Third Ward Neighborhood as part of Project Row House – an organization that seeks to develop housing for low-to moderate-income families.

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 …

Graft Lab’s Vertical Village in Dubai Has Spider Web of Solar Panels

At first glance, Graft Lab’s dazzling complex in Dubai may appear to have a cluster of sparkling geometric pools at its base. But upon further inspection, the web-like structures are actually something even more desirable than a place to take a dip in the hot desert – a means of collecting the scorching rays of the sun and transforming them into energy. Dubbed the Vertical Village, this multi-use building and accompanying massive array of solar collectors was designed to work smarter, not harder, which is expected to earn it a LEED Gold certification when it is completed.

Green Roofs Are Changing the Way Architects Design Buildings

Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant & Butik, photo Luanne Lozier

Green roofs are wonderful things; like a thick blanket, they keep roofs cool in summer and warm in winter. They have been around for centuries in Scandinavia and Iceland, where they moderate the cold winters and sometimes very hot summers. They reduce the “heat island” effect, where the air above and around the old black roofs gets hotter, making them hot properties in cities. Some, like Toronto have made them mandatory; other cities like Chicago give financial assistance to promote them. The provide habitat for birds and insects, even goats.

Mesa Community College’s Physical Science Buiding Gets LEED Gold

Mesa Community College recently completed work on a stunning physical science building that exceeded LEED expectations when it was awarded LEED-NC Gold. Designed by the award-winning architecture firm, The Smith Group, the building is the first major LEED project to be completed within the Maricopa Country Community College District. The brand new 64,480-square-foot facility houses curriculum for the physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology and engineering departments including classrooms, laboratories, facility offices, an advising center and a 53 seat planetarium. Topping off the new space is an astronomy observation platform.

Gazprom Tower Gets Green Light and Will Be Tallest Building in Europe

Last year we reported on Okhta Tower, a new super eco-skyscraper located in St. Petersburg Russia. After months of push and shove, and mixed reception, the plan for this 77-storey tower designed by RMJM has finally gotten the green light to commence construction. The twisting tower will primarily serve as the headquarters to Gazprom’s oil unit OAO Gazprom Neft, with additional spaces dedicated to a concert hall, museum, hotel and a business center. Once constructed, it will become the tallest building in Europe, and one of the most environmentally sustainable buildings in the word.

West Coast Green Kicks off Tomorrow!

Heads up San Francisco Inhabitants! West Coast Green kicks off tomorrow, and Inhabitat will be live on the scene at Fort Mason to bring you all of the fresh green designs on display! Taking place from October 1-3 at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, this year’s program promises another star-studded lineup of speakers, an inspiring series of panels and summits, and a cutting-edge …

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 …

Win a Free West Coast Green Tradeshow Pass!

Heads up all readers in the San Francisco Bay Area! West Coast Green is just one week away, and we’re giving away free tradeshow floor passes to 20 lucky readers! These passes are your gateway to over 280 exhibitors and 12 demo sessions showcasing the greatest green building developments around, and they’re good for all 3 days of the event. All you have to do to win is:

1. Sign up for the Inhabitat newsletter

2. Leave a comment below with your full name telling us why you’d like to go!

The first 20 responses win a tradeshow pass, so get cracking!

Natural Fusion: Penn State’s Solar Decathlon House

A team of students from Penn State recently unveiled their Natural Fusion residence, which has been selected as one of 20 ultra-efficient homes set to make an appearance at this year’s Solar Decathlon. The elegant structure is wrapped in living walls and utilizes a host of energy-efficient features including a green roof lined with photovoltaic panels and large windows that bathe the interiors in daylight.

Ancient Church Renovated into Modern Bookstore

Whether you’re religious or not, this old Dominican church will certainly bring you the enlightenment you’ve been seeking. After months of renovation this magnificent structure originally constructed in 1294 has opened its doors to the public as a “brand new” bookstore in the heart of Maastricht. A superb example of adaptive re-use, the Selexyz Dominicanen infuses rich and historic architecture with plentiful shelves ripe with information.

Urban Infill Strikes Gold in San Francisco

Of all the pads chosen for this year’s AIA San Francisco Living: Home Tours, only one found me smiling from start to finish. I wondered why as I wandered through this intriguing Glen Park residence… suddenly, on an upstairs landing, I spied a strange note stuck inside a fire-engine red Royal typewriter. I crept closer, just to get a peek. Staring back at me, three words, all caps: NOTHING BUT EVIDENCE. The owners’ motives began to emerge, as clear as the double-height glass wall behind me. Strachan and Melissa Forgan, it seems, had volumes to gain — more space, more light, even sheer satisfaction and enjoyment — simply by digging in, building up and letting Architecture and the City take its course.

Links Roundup of the Week: Affordable Housing

Living in New York City, I’ve lost touch with the concept of affordable housing. However, after competition finalists were announced for an affordable student housing complex in the historic center of Athens, Greece, I felt inspired to seek out other exciting developments in the world of affordable design.

Jetson Green reports on net-zero energy homes nestled into an idyllic setting among evergreen trees and grasses.

gbNYC tells us that Connecticut is getting its first LEED-certified residential …

Modern, Colorful and Creative Shipping Container Home in Houston

Shipping container homes just keep on getting cooler. Developers Katie Nichols and John Walker along with architect Christopher Robertson wanted to create affordable and sustainable homes for the emerging hipster crowd – modern, colorful and creative. This single-story home, located on the outskirts of downtown Houston in a “transitional neighborhood,” is made from 4 shipping containers sourced from nearby ports. The house is constructed using some fairly advanced building techniques that make it an extremely sturdy and well insulated structure, not to mention incredibly cool.

LSarc’s Randall House Bridges Indoors and Outdoors

One of our favorite projects from last weekend’s AIA Homes Tours was the Randall House in Glen Park, by LSarc design team. The site, typical of San Francisco contours, slopes nearly four stories from front to back making the rear lower floors a challenge to daylight. The architects did a stunning job of working with this difficult site while reusing existing construction materials, incorporating FSC certified timber, and creating a healthy interior environment through the use of sustainable materials.

West Coast Green 2009 is Two Weeks Away!

Heads up all Bay Area green building buffs – West Coast Green 2009 is just two week’s away, and tickets are selling fast! Taking place from October 1-3 at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, this year’s program promises another star-studded lineup of speakers, an inspiring series of panels and summits, and a cutting-edge exhibition of green building technologies that stand to shape the …

StrawJet Transforms Straw Waste Into Building Beams

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?

Trash Temple Made from 100 Tons of Recycled Plastic Bottles

We generate so much trash on a daily basis that it wouldn’t be surprising if future generations mistakenly thought that we actually worshipped all the garbage we toss into landfills. That’s the idea behind Salzig Design’s Temple of Trash, a temporary structure built in a Rotterdam, Netherlands port area as part of the 2007 Follydock Festival. The waste-filled walls of the temple are constructed 100 tons of PET bottles pressed into bales!

Algae-Covered Buildings Boost Biofuel Production

Are living green buildings just around the corner? A report recently released by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers suggests that sealed containers of algae photobioreactors could be integrated into the sides of buildings to produce biofuels and sequester carbon, adding a whole new meaning to the term ‘green building’. As the algae grows it sucks up CO2 from the surrounding air which can then be stored.

New York Mandates That All New Government Buildings Go Green

As you may already know, New York is the home of Inhabitat’s main headquarters and we are super proud to announce that Governor Paterson has just signed the State Green Building Construction Act mandating that all government-owned new construction and major renovations must meet green building guidelines! We think it’s highly commendable of Governor Paterson to lead our state towards a more sustainable future by setting this momentous example. Hopefully, we will soon see a day where all buildings in New York, government-managed and otherwise, will meet sustainable standards.

$Refract House | Solar Decathlon + Architecture City$

Refract House | Solar Decathlon + Architecture City

Project managers open the doors to Refract House, ready for Solar Decathlon 2009, Photo by Kevin Gardner

What happens when an architect and an engineer walk into a Jesuit university in Silicon Valley and end up on a lightbender wholly rolling for the nation’s capital? This year’s Solar Decathlon, a Dept. of Energy best-of competition for smart and sunny houses, chose Team California to compete in the finals in Washington, D.C. The West Coast team is the result of two very different schools joining forces — 100+ students, graduates and advisers were pooled from Santa Clara University (mostly engineering) and California College of the Arts (architecture and design) to create this solar dream team that created this truly energy-efficient, sun-powered Refract House.

Affordable Housing Made of Recycled Materials

Imagine building your home exclusively of salvaged materials. No re-mixed concretes or FSC-certified woods. Just metals and woods that have been discarded. That’s exactly the kind of home-building Dan Phillips has set out to do through his low-income housing initiative, The Phoenix Commotion. Out to prove that homes can be sound, affordable, and energy-efficient — even aesthetically interesting, Dan is on a mission to build low-cost homes with salvaged materials sourced from unusual places, ranging from flea markets to auto-salvage yards.

NASA Base is Most Sustainable Federal Building Project in America

NASA has planted its flag on planet Earth (for a change) with the groundbreaking of their “Sustainability Base” this week. The new endeavor is located on their Ames campus in Moffett Field, CA just outside of Silicon Valley and has specs that are pushing green building to new limits. In order to deliver in true sustainable style, NASA recruited Inhabitat favorite, William McDonough + Partners, to take on the 50,000-square foot collaborative support facility.

Sky-High House Sits Atop a Water Tower

We love hearing about old structures being converted into comfortable living spaces, but a water tower?! Dubbed the “House in the Clouds”, this architectural marvel was constructed 85 years ago as a water tower to serve the township of Thorpeness in Suffolk, England, but today it serves as a bed and breakfast for anyone searching for a getaway overlooking England’s low lying hills. Read on for the tower’s history, which is just as curious as the tower itself.