Category Archives: Architecture
Charity begins at home they say and also does education. So if you are a green couple and you have a little girl who likes to play with eco-friendly toys like say, a Solar-Powered Bamboo Dollhouse. It is made of sustainable bamboo that uses solar-powered LEDs to light up the interiors and amuse your child. It has an adjustable solar panel on the roof that collects energy to power the five LEDs. There are three in the media room wall (we don’t know what that is) and one each on two rooms on the first floor. The dollhouse is a mansion with nine rooms and a spiral staircase.
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Atelier Feichang Jianzhu is the brain behind the Shanghai Corporate Pavilion but what was more impressing were the thousands of plastic tubes that were made entirely from CD cases. These polycarbonate tubes can be recycled again at the end of the buildings life. How many buildings do we know about where the raw materials used can be used again! Energy is collected through a 1600 meter solar thermal energy system of heat collecting tubes on the roof. It heats up the water to 95 F and will be used to generate electricity which will be used for the exposition as well as the building’s daily power needs.
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A design based on sun-flowers that will provide shade that moves during the day, store heat which will then close and release the heat during the night is the main designed that was revealed for the MASDAR Center which is the new eco-city in the United Arab Emirates. The sunflower umbrellas are a winning design by the international practice Laboratory for Visionary Architecture expansion for LAVA. This city is the world’s first zero carbon, zero emission and zero waste city that is powered entirely by renewable sources of energy.
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For the lovers of nature who like to be rid of the rush of the cities and who doesn’t wish to see the environment go for such a toss, then maybe this house on the Navagio Beach on the north west coast of the Greek Zante Island will be a though. This design is called House on the Water and it is a self-sufficient getaway home for nomadic life offshore. The greatest feature of this one is that its orientation was developed to maximize the use of solar energy and is designed specifically for people who would like to rent it out. Its other features include water desalination, energy accumulation, ventilation methods, water recycling, heat and energy consumption, tidal and solar energy systems
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If you get a transfer to a place that is earthquake prone, you don’t have to worry. You can cut down have a forest for timber and get a wooden framed tower that can withstand high magnitudes of earthquake built. This project however will only be ready in two years, so the trees can breathe. For now. Claiming to be the world’s largest earthquake shake table test has shown that structures of seven storeys or timber-framed towers can survive high magnitude earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter scale. This was done by the Hyogo Earthquake Engineering Research Center who found that a building comprised of a six storey timber-framed condominium block atop one story of concrete and steel could survive intact.
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Turkey is all set to develop the ‘greenest’ project in Istanbul’s new residential and business district. This was confirmed by RMJM, who released the details of this mammoth the US $1 billion development project. Set on 107,000 sq m, this project features panoramic views stretching from the Bosphorus Strait in the west to the Princes’ Islands and the Sea of Marmara to the south, the development has been commissioned by Turkish real estate development company VARYAP that is a part of Varlibas Group International. The project includes a 60-storey tower, 1,500 residential units, a five-star hotel, offices and conference facilities with landscaped public areas and parking facilities. The project, which is expected to serve 20,000 people, is scheduled to be completed in 2011.
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The Sustainability Base being planned by NASA would be the greenest building in the federal government. This will be NASA’s most ambitious plan in its arsenal of eco-friendly projects. The building which will cost approximately $20.6 million, will utilize current alternative energy technologies such as water recycling systems, fuel cells and solar panels to achieve a LEED-certified building. The main aim is to build a self-sustaining structure that consumes no net energy and 90 percent less potable water than other buildings its size.
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The world is moving with a very fast pace and mobility seems to be criteria for everybody. First there were mobile phones, mobile offices, mobile homes and now we have the mobile lounge, called the MercuryHouseOne. It is designed by Italy-based Architecture and Vision and this structure will make its debut at the Venice Biennale this September. The solar-panels on top of this lounge generate enough power for using the lights and other devices in the lounge. The pod-like design looks like a million bucks and can be placed anywhere in the heart of the city or into the wild. With the amazing lightning, video and sound technology used in this lounge, you will certainly enjoy a very unique experience.
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English cottages aren’t the only things that are cute. Even their garden rooms are. Yeah, that is what a UK family business has come up with – a brilliant, eco-friendly option to live green, think green and breed green. It is called the Eco Den (how apt!) and is the latest that the Alternative Space, a business specializing in eco-friendly garden rooms has come up with. The company believes in the on-going trendy motto – ‘don’t move, improve’ and Eco Den allows just that by extending your home, spending less and saving the environment. The options for this one include a pergola and decking to rainwater harvesting system.
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North Carolina based architecture firm Little Diversified Architectural Consulting has conceived an incredible project that will transform a vacant parking lot in Dallas to a completely self-reliant eco-city. The project has been given the name as Entangled Bank. The project will feature a green-walled citadel emblazoned with solar panels, an agricultural field and also an extensive system for greywater treatment and recycling. This will provide sustainable food, water and energy to the residents living in the building. The entire project will have residences, retail and educational institutions and will also include communal sky pastures with a 80,000 square feet of agricultural farmland which is vertical and also a 20,000 square foot grain field that provides food for the city’s inhabitants.
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