The housing crisis has forced many to find imaginative solutions to housing themselves but it has also provided an opportunity for low impact living by thinking small and compact. The tiny house movement founded in the US uses vehicle trailers as the foundation around which a home is constructed. The limitations of size means that compact arrangements need to found resulting in a home that uses less raw material and less energy to run. … Read more
Masdar City Abu-Dhabi's Sustainable City Project
Abu Dhabi has among the highest per capita energy consumption on the planet but Masdar City has been planned and developed to utilise the abundant solar power potential and uses enhanced traditional design practices to create natural cooling. The city is surrounded by walls that exclude hot desert winds, Streets are short and narrow and angled to provide maximum shade and a 45m high wind tower captures cooler breezes and directs them into the streets. This results in an impressive 15 to 20 … Read more
Passive Solar Greenhouse Produce More Food Locally With Less Energy
Groundswell Community Network in British Columbia, Canada have constructed a passive solar greenhouse that greatly extends the growing season for a wide range of crops and reduces energy consumption to a minimum. The north side of the building is insulated and built with a high thermal mass to store heat and the glazed structure is placed on the south side. Surplus heat collected during the day is feed into a heat store beneath the floor. There are also photo-voltaic and solar thermal panels … Read more
Eco Retrofitting Older Houses Refurbishing Houses for Low Carbon Emissions
Buildings are the largest consumers of energy and worldwide there is a vast stock of old and highly inefficient homes and commercial properties. Bringing them up to modern ecological standards is a skilled matter involving insulating the structure, correctly ventilating the spaces and recovering heat from exhaust air, installing the most efficient heating systems with the lowest carbon emissions and fitting appropriate renewable energy systems such as photo-voltaic panels. The links below … Read more
Copenhagen – Cycle City Bicycle - The Way to Traverse the City
The city of Copenhagen has been planned and developed for cyclists with dedicated bike lanes and cycle paths, synchronized traffic signals and a wide spread general provision for bikes. Hundreds of thousand of cycle journeys are made every day easing congestion and pollution. Without the bicycle Copenhagen would be grid locked. Many other cities are also planning for bicycle routes but Copenhagen has done more successfully than most. … Read more
Greenhouse of the Future Grow Food and Create Space to Relax
Interested in building your own greenhouse, but don’t know where to begin? Now, there’s the Greenhouse of the Future. Filmmaker Curt Close teamed up with Anaconda Productions and the non-profit SolutionEra to release a DVD, eBook and step-by-step guide on how to build a passive solar greenhouse that utilizes renewable energy and is built from natural and recycled materials. Follow the link for more information:- … Read more
Solar Dryer for Food Sovereignty Sustainability all year round
The solar dryer is a solar-powered food dehydrator, that is entirely autonomous and “off grid”, and supports both local food autonomy and economic resilience. Once installed, it enables a farm to preserve seasonal surpluses of fruits and vegetables (which is a local traditional practice). This basic “tunnel” solar dryer is essentially a table-top greenhouse, with active ventilation provided by electric fans and a dedicated photovoltaic panel. It provides optimal airflow and temperature for … Read more
Composting Toilet Saving water. Producing compost.
In the Palestinian Territories the access to water is largely controlled by Israel, which makes it a very expensive resource, and not always reliable. The same happens with the access to land where it is possible to farm. Composting toilets can definitely reduce the amount of water needed per family, and they can also produce good quality compost that can seriously improve the soil's quality in a short amount of time. A composting toilet can be built largely with recovered materials. The … Read more
Building with Natural Materials Inspirational Ideas for Building with Natural Materials
Modern building has become a sophisticated process using highly processed materials and fittings that are part of a huge global industry. Reclaiming power on a local sustainable level and respecting what our local environments can give encourages us to use natural materials from our surroundings. Built to express the local landscape and local traditions such building generally harmonises with the environment and feels a part of it. It should be noted that natural insulation materials are less … Read more
Making roads ice-free Clearing the road with green alternatives to the salt, sand and chemicals
Cold-climate researchers at Washington State University are clearing the road with green alternatives to the salt, sand and chemicals typically used for highway snow and ice control. One of these alternatives is using leftover barley residue from vodka distilleries. … Read more
