Green Architecture/Buildings.

[Michaelangelica]

Courtesy of Care2
26,000 People Get Schooled On Green Buil... - Care2 News Network
26,000 People Get Schooled On “Green” Building Solutions
26,000 People Get Schooled On Green Building Solutions visit site
Environment (tags: AIA, architect, architecture, Architecture convention, builders, carbon emissions, carbon neutral, emissions, energy use, global warming, green, green building, LEED, environment )


The solution to climate change and global warming is now more apparent than ever. With a turnout of about 26,000 people, the AIA annual Architectural Convention in San Antonio, Texas concentrated on the theme of “Growing Beyond Green.”

and again

Clinton, Cities, Unveil $5 Bln Buildings Energy Plan visit site
Environment (tags: energy, climate, ClimateChange, government, globalwarming )
Clinton, cities, unveil $5 bln buildings... - Care2 News Network
Clinton, cities, unveil $5 bln buildings energy plan | Environment | Reuters
- 4 days ago - reuters.com
Five global banks will raise $5 billion in loans to make existing buildings up to 50 percent more energy efficient with New York, London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Johannesburg among the first 15 cities to take part.

[Michaelangelica]

This proposed new American building is about as green as it gets
SF Gate: Multimedia (image)

SF Gate: Multimedia (image)

A GARDEN IN THE SKY / S.F. museum's roof puts green building techniques to the test

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

This proposed new American building is about as green as it gets...

I'm glad you posted this Mike as I was thinking about doing it this morning.

We're long-time members of the Cal Academy (I spent a ton of time there when I was a kid), and even now its fun to just go watch them build it! (Then we go to the Exploratorium across town...).

Stares at fishes,
Buffy

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Buffy

I'm glad you posted this Mike as I was thinking about doing it this morning.

We're long-time members of the Cal Academy (I spent a ton of time there when I was a kid), and even now its fun to just go watch them build it! (Then we go to the Exploratorium across town...).

Stares at fishes,
Buffy

Thanks Buffy
How lucky you are to be so close
Please take some photos.

They should make a programme like this on the building process:-

I have been watching this strangely compelling series from England on building
"Grand Designs". It should be boring;watching the hassles people have building unusual homes.
To-nights episode was about an "eco-house"
Cumbria, The underground house
Cumbria, The underground house from Channel4.com/4Homes
How ecologically sound it was is a moot point I think.
You also need a cool $1/2 mil.
You might be able to watch it online.

Since I was a kid I have wanted to live underground
(Too many "Phantom" and "Batman" Comics)
(but I married a woman with claustrophobia)
I want to go to Coober Pedy where the whole town is underground and they play Golf at night with glow-in-the dark golf balls. There is no grass of course as it is in the middle of the desert with temps from 40-50C
It has reciprocal membership rights with the very exclusive, up-market, Home-Of-Golf Club in Scotland. Only in Oz
Walkabout - Coober Pedy
CooberPedy - underground in Australia
I love opals too

But having built a few strange things in my time "Grand Designs" took me back
I am sure there is a special place in hell reserved for Glaziers (glass-'working'-type people)
I remember we were putting in a 30' high glass waterfall and the glass took ages to get there. When they finally put it in ,
I said "Hey, that's got a huge crack in it"
O she wll' be right mate Yo'll never notice" (The crack was about a meter (3') long)
I NOTICE NOW GET THE B *&%^#$ out of here!!

A couple of things interested me in Cumbria, The underground house

One was an air exchanging system than took out stale air and replaced it with warm fresh air for "about 30P a week (80c?).
Maybe we would need the cool air to come in; in most of Australia

The other was the solar tiles
Sundog-Energy
and
The light 'columns' or "Light pipes"
www.coxbp.com

Also this throw away comment
"Making one tonne of cement, makes one tonne of CO2."

The pics are of Coobar Pedy & the golf course & the house.

[Michaelangelica]

Christie Walk: Paul Downton, Adelaide, SA

Architect Paul Downton believes that since cities are a central cause of the global climate problem, they should also be part of the solution. Involved in climate change action since the Eighties, Paul’s ecologically friendly building designs have culminated in Adelaide’s “Christie Walk” - 20 inner-city dwellings on a half-acre block designed to test his vision of an “Eco-city”.

Catalyst: Catalyst Extra: “People Power” - ABC TV Science
More pics and info here
Christie Walk: Paul Downton, Adelaide - Google Image Search

[Michaelangelica]

Think I'm a fanatic?
look at this

Vertical Grass Art.

Farewell, horizontal!

British artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey are creating transient, green masterpieces, by making grass grow on vertical surfaces. They've been doing it since 1990, and this site shows a few examples of their work.

First they seeded the wall of a rustic cabin on a hilltop medieval village in Northern Italy: The Other Side project. After figuring out how to grow grass vertically up the walls of a room, then moved on the walls of a cathedral - their next project was Dilston Grove church in London.


Artsadmin | Dilston Grove | Project Details
Very slow to load
Dark Roasted Blend: Vertical Grass Art

Wearing Green

Green Island

[Michaelangelica]

THE HEMP HOUSE

They had everything they needed -- except straw.

Construction on the 1,760-square-foot house was to start in 2003, the same year Alberta's drought made headlines across the country. The couple found that Alberta farmers, unable to grow their own bedding for their livestock, had gone shopping in B.C. That meant regular straw-bale sources were sold out.
The Rokeby-Thomas house on Saltspring Island was built with hemp-bale walls on the main floor, providing an insulating value of R30. Large windows run along the south side of the house, helping it to gain solar heat throughout the day.
The Rokeby-Thomas house on Saltspring Island was built with hemp-bale walls on the main floor, providing an insulating value of R30. Large windows run along the south side of the house, helping it to gain solar heat throughout the day.
Ray Smith,
More pictures:


"We started calling family and friends in the Kootenays," says Drew, an inventor, "looking everywhere and anywhere for straw."

They never found it, but they did find a rancher with 2,000 hemp bales -- and snapped them up.
Local art adorns the home, including some of Drew's wrought-iron work from his blacksmithing days. A botanical weave of iron twists up the staircase, depicting flower petals and seaweed in the same frame.

"I don't pay much attention to the rules when I'm creating something," Drew says of the seabed and garden mix. "I just decide on the form as I go."

The artistry extends outside, with garden borders fashioned from bent rebar. A spring-fed pond, rose vines and iris gardens surround the house.

A bohemian atmosphere pervades the home in stained-glass frames, felt tapestries and vivid wall colourings in contrasting purple and yellow tones, chosen by Jaime.

"A lot of people are tired by the time they're finished building a home, and they end up with beige or white walls," says Drew. "I told Jaime to go wild, be daring."

Looking at the brilliant walls in his wife's studio, Drew laughs and says, "Perhaps I shouldn't have said that."

- - -

The house that hemp built

[Michaelangelica]

It looks like an upside-down Apollo spacecraft and serves as a testing ground for ideas dreamed up by the 63-year-old solar architect. The home slowly turns with the sun to charge a billboard-sized solar panel on the roof, and the waterless toilet emits an occasional malodorous whiff.

Hanna Lehmann, Disch's wife, says she doesn't mind these features but admits she'd like to have a freezer, except that it would eat up too much electricity for her husband's liking.

"I miss my Campari on ice," she said.

OMG
POLITICIANS WITH VISION!!!

Germany as a whole has followed Freiburg's lead in trying to save energy, encouraged by the environmentally friendly Green Party that was in former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's governing coalition. In 2000, Germany decided to phase out nuclear plants by 2020, and it has adopted legislation promoting the development and use of renewable energy sources.

Renewables made up more than 5 percent of Germany's total primary energy supply in 2006, according the Environment Ministry. The government's goal is to increase the share of electric power from renewables to 12.5 percent by 2010 and 20 percent by 2020.

Wind energy remains the country's leading renewable source of electricity, but solar power use has increased to about 750 megawatts installed in 2006, up from 83 megawatts in 2002, according to the German Solar Industry Association.

The solar industry is now becoming a $6 billion a year business that builds more than 50 percent of the world's installed solar panels. About 43,000 people work in the industry, according to the association.

Optimum Online - News - AP News - German City Pioneers Use of Solar Energy

[Michaelangelica]

Never wash windows!
the best invention ever
because of sticky windows!!!
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podca...w_20070804.mp3

[Nitack]

I once heard of a house built in the California desert that used a natural and energy free form of air conditioning. It was quite ingenious the way they did it.

Once you get about five feet below ground the temp hits a constant 50ish degrees F (I am in the US, don't know C that well). So what they did was to dig multiple trenches around this house to a dept of ten feet. They had those trenches zig zag while leading back to the house (you will understand why later). From that point they laid corrugated steel pipe in the trenches. At the ends farthest from the house they had the pipes surface above ground, covered the top with a wire mesh and a hood so as rain could not fall in it. They covered over the pipes again and watered as the soil was put back in to help it settle to the same density it was prior to being dug up. The connection of the pipe to the house was at the lowest point in the house (presumably the basement). From there they proceeded to as tightly weather seal the house as possible. The thing was as airtight as they could make it. Then, they installed an attic vent at the absolute top point in the roof.

From there is was basic physics. As air in the house heated up it flowed out of the attic vent due to its higher density than the cooler air in the house. As the air flowed out though the pressure difference drew in air from the pipe at the lowest point. That air had been flowing in underground where most of the heat had been lost to the ground and the air flowing in was in the 50-60 degree range. From there it was just a matter of air flowing through the pipes, cooling, becoming dens and flowing through the house due to the lack of pressure because of the air leaving through the attic vent.

I thought it was genius and wanted to do it on my own house, but the humid air in Virginia would have created issues with condensation, mold and such. Might not be a bad idea for some Australian homes though...