Posts Tagged ‘Sustainable building’

Green Marketing Should Focus on The People

The latest report from ecoAmerica is titled “up start with people.” The report states that the environmental community has not been successful at wining the hearts and minds because they have focused mostly on government regulation and intervention. The non-profit sees more success being had by those in the movement who are focused on social solutions that are built around people.

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Originally posted on Green Economy Post

Crowdfunded windmill will generate energy for members’ own use

We’ve seen numerous creative approaches to supplying sustainable energy for home users, but recently one caught our eye that seemed a little different. Targeting consumers unwilling or unable to outfit their own homes with wind or solar energy collectors, Dutch Windcentrale offers a chance to own a portion of a local windmill and enjoy a proportionate amount of the green energy it produces.

A brainchild of the Dutch Energy Cooperative with support from the Doen Foundation, Windcentrale gives Dutch households a way to secure their own energy supply for years to come. Toward that end, it has divided up a single windmill’s output into units with an expected wind output of 500 kilowatt hours (kWh) each per year. Interested parties can purchase one or more of those units so as to supply their own household consumption, which averages about 3500 kWh. Power is delivered through the local utility, and during wind-free days it’s supplemented with the utility’s own, traditional supply. When members move, meanwhile, they can simply take their shares with them.

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Originally posted on Springwise

5 Green Products Designed for Greener Highways

Sustainable technology development is the need of the hour. With fast depleting natural resources, threat to survival has become evident. The scientists and designers are on a constant look out for designs that solve survival needs of tomorrow. It is true that highways, with its ever growing vehicular traffic, has to be blamed for creating environmental pollution. But many modern industrial designers vouch to transform this traffic lifeline into green power generation hub for future. Highways extended on vast stretch of land, have potential for developing many sustainable means of generating power. Electric cars, e turbine, solar and wind energy lighting and solar powered air purifiers are few of the futuristic designs to curb the pollution levels and build self- reliant system through highways.

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Originally posted on Ecofriend

Vertical Farms For London Are Lovely Green Eye Candy

Vertical farms may be pie in the sky, but they are a lot of fun for architects with time on their hands. AWR recently organized a competition to design a vertical farm with a residential use called LOFT 2011.

I am particularly fond of the Second Honorable Mention, the Breathing Vertical Farm. There isn’t a lot of growing area, but it would make a beautiful place to live.

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Originally posted on Treehugger

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Eco-Friendly Floating Villages

Called The Pearl of West Indies, Haiti was during a long time the most visited country of the Greater Antilles representing the occidental third of Hispaniola Island. Devastated in 2010 by an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, the country has now to be rebuilt from new innovative architectural and town-planning concepts.

The Coral Reef project plans a matrix to build a three dimensional and energy self-sufficient village from one and only standardised and prefabricated module in order to rehouse the refugees from such humanitarian catastrophes. This basic module is simply made of two passive houses (with metallic structure and tropical wood facades) interlocked in duplex around a transversal horizontal circulation linking every unit.

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Originally posted on Vincent Callebaut

Sustainable ‘Farm Tower’ in London Offers a Solution to Food Crisis

The “London Farm Tower” is an amazing concept by Brandon Martella and is situated on the southern bank of the river Thames, facing Potter’s Field. This sustainable building is a solution to the present day crisis where population is growing by millions, urbanization is eating up all the agricultural land and therefore the increasing demand for food cannot be met.

The Farm Tower is a compact skyscraper that contains all the main ingredients for a self-sufficient city, including agricultural space, albeit in a vertical format. This sustainable building is actually developed much like a tree that depends upon the sun and water for growth and survival.

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Originally posted on Design Buzz

Canadian Government Fires Environment Ministry Scientists and Meteorologists, Hires Oil Lobbyists

I just love the juxtaposition of these two stories in today’s newspapers; in The Star, we learn that the Environment Ministry is cutting 700 Meteorologists, scientists, chemists and engineers, or about 11% of the workforce. “I think it speaks volumes about this government’s priority as it relates to the environment,” says Bill Pynn of the Union of Environment Workers. According to the Star:

The job losses will badly hurt the ability of the science-based department to do its job on issues such as climate change, monitoring water and air quality and wildlife species. “. [says another union leader:] I just don’t think the department can continue to do its science with that magnitude of cuts.”

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Originally posted on Treehugger

Solar Powered Tour Buses With Bikes

This should be a green solution for promoting places and guiding people towards a more eco-friendly way of appreciating places they may end up visiting. Buses are the best way to aid tourists and travellers and since we are all lined up for a greener tomorrow, this Solar Powered Bus concept should be interesting.

That is not all. The bus also comes with bikes inside so that in case it makes a stop, tourists can use them to get go around the tour spot rather than walk. And after the bike ride is over, the bikes are simply returned and hooked up until a next stop (if any) for tours is reached.

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Originally posted on Keetsa

Global Warming Or Global Population Control

While its commendable and, I believe, the job of every person living on planet earth to take care of the common ground we all share; sadly, it appears that environmental conservation has become more of a radical religion than anything else. In reading posts on blogs and news organization sites, its obvious that folks are worried about literally every last ounce of carbon emissions that enter into the atmosphere.

But here is something most of you probably didn’t know: GASP! CO2 is actually GOOD for our environment. According to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, “carbon dioxide is essential to photosynthesis in plants and other photoautotrophs, and is also a prominent greenhouse gas.

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Originally posted on Renewable-Energy News

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Deforestation is climbing at an alarming rate.

Here’s a reminder: By the year 2030, only 10 per cent of what the Amazon Rain Forest is today will remain in tact.

Shocked? Yet, within this frightening forecast shines glimmers of hope. The “Green Movement” stands tall with forward-thinking tradesmen, architects, engineers, politicians and new green entrepreneurs, all playing a vital role in the green movement; trailblazing a healthier and sustainable lifestyle for a dying “blue society,” so to speak.

The once kooky green building ideology now has a mass production business model.

The growing popularity and production of recycled plastic lumber has already and will continue to play an important role in the future of sustainable building.

Recycled plastic lumber is equivalent to; or, better than real lumber; serving planet earth with many environmental benefits:

Recycled Plastic Lumber is…

Made From 100% Recycled Plastic and 100% Recyclable: With the world losing 7.3 million hectares of forest per year; adopting recycled plastic lumber instantly reduces the amount waste exhausted in any given construction site. Made from 100% industrial plastic waste and 100% recyclable, all breaks or mis-cuts can be recycled and used again; lasting a lifetime.

Aesthetically Pleasing and Heat Resistant: Equally pleasant to the human eye and just as sensual as real wood, recycled plastic lumber is heat-resistant; preventing dry wood and unattractive shrinkage. Its strong planks serve a cool surface allowing you to freely roam your deck on any given hot day. Your soles of your feet and exposed skin are safe when you lay there and soak in the warm sun.

Versatile: Infestation, warp, and splinter free recycled plastic lumber has proven to be applicable in many different building projects. Hailed in the green building community as the essential alternative to wood; its versatile properties can be used to build exterior moldings, window frames, door frames, decking to fences, vertical gardens and more.

Health Risk Free: Away and beyond the hazardous lather real wood needs to fight off insects and weather, recycled plastic lumber is chemical free: no additives or preservatives. It serves high performance without being high maintenance.

Summary: With the climbing rates of deforestation and illegal loggers continuing to pillage planet earth, recycled plastic lumber attempts to even the score.

Recycled plastic lumber is..

• Made From 100% Recycled Plastic and Recyclable
• Aesthetically Pleasing and Heat Resistant
• Versatile and equivalent if not better than real lumber
• Promotes a healthy and green environment

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This is for you. The busy eco-body who just doesn’t have enough time to keep up with Renew Resources’ daily Twitter feed.  So to save you the hassle of sifting through all of our glorious Eco-friendly tweets, we have narrowed and highlighted this week’s best “Sustainable Building” posts. They’re current, relevant and definitely worth knowing about!  Here we go in no particular order!

Beton Hala Waterfront Proposal by Architecktur Studios

Introducing the Beton Hala Waterfront proposal by Egyptian architects Andreas Eckmann and Stefanie Hesse of Architecktur studios.  Here we have an eco-friendly structure that goes beyond most of our eco-friendly building tweets we’ve made thus far.  What’s so special about it?  Underneath the asphalt lies Piezoelectric Sensors which are placed underneath the 350 meter long pathway expected to produce 420 KW of electricity per day. Specifically, when a 125 lbs individual walks up and down the roadway for a few seconds, it’ll produce 0.1 W of electricity.  Amazing, huh?

Source:  Eco-friend

Groundbreaking Recyclable Basketball Stadium by Architizer

Designed by Sinclair Knight Merz, Wilkinson Eyre and KSS London unveil a Recyclable Basketball stadium for the 2012 Olympic Games.  How is a 1,000 steel tonne structure “Green?”  Good question.   It’s a recyclable basketball stadium, meaning that the country can reuse its temporary structure for other events.  Nonetheless, London avoids using over the top wasteful materials for the Olympics and shows to put forth more effort in recyclable standing structures which a step closer to an eco-friendly direction.

Source:  Architizer

Yiftach Ben Meir Sea02′s Computer System For Sustainable Design

Architect Yiftach Ben Meir invents Sea02, a computer system dedicated to propose energy alternatives for sustainable design.  Here we have a quick example of how Sea02 helped produce an eco-friendly structure using for a green building project in Tel Aviv.  Ultimately, the plan is to utilize the sun, wind, and land energy sources optimizing solar, wind and land energy for green living.

Source:  Tuvie

Summary
And there you have it, Renew Resources‘ top three sustainable building tweets of the week.  All three tweets help us forget about the clusters of crises we experience today and also reminds us that the human species always finds a way to reach over the clouds of calamity and father rainbows of solutions that save the day.  Until next post—stay green.

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Comments?  Know how to speak tweet?  Don’t be shy, share your green tweets with us today!

A growing number of large commercial industrial and residential buildings are being constructed with a flat roof or “green roof” structure for design, functionality, and environmental purposes. As a consequence, there is an increasing need to provide eco friendly safe, access for the installation and maintenance of the buildings’ services i.e. elevators, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, telecommunications and other serviceable equipment. In addition the provision of regular continuous safe access for roof top safety exits and on-going building services such as window cleaning is also vital.

Easy to install and maintenance free, Renew Resources plastic lumber walkway modules provide a cost effective, safe, simple solution to roof access requirements for a wide range of high-level applications.

The modules are pre-manufactured from eco friendly recycled plastic lumber. Unique riser strips keep the plastic slats clear of the roof surface to allow self-draining of water and the open slatted design will remain stable even in extreme, gusting winds. They provide a non-penetrative option thereby eliminating potential leakage points and will protect the roof covering whether asphalt, 3-layer felt or, high performance single ply membranes. Renew Resources recycled plastic roof access modules will not react with roofing membranes whilst offering continual protection from pedestrian traffic.

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