Capstone

The Schermerhorn Affordable Housing in Brooklyn Receives 2011 AIA Housing Award. It’s rare that an affordable housing project is recognized for its amenities or high quality of design, but The Schermerhorn House in Brooklyn has managed to do both.

When it was built in 2009, it was praised as being “about as sexy as supportive housing gets” thanks to its gym, outdoor gardens, ground-floor performance space, and sleek facade. Enter the Not Just a Container Shipping Container Design Competition! Enter the Not Just a Container Shipping Container Design Competition!

April 9th, 2011 Set to open on Fulton Mall in downtown Brooklyn this summer, the Dekalb Market will bring together creative entrepreneurs in a community setting. The new market will be housed in a collection of salvaged shipping containers and will include an incubator farm, a food market, an events and performance venue, and a collection of eateries and work-sell spaces. The Not Just a Container contest challenges entrepreneurs to design the most creative and innovative uses for a shipping container in a downtown Brooklyn retail location. Uses for the space include, but are not limited to: a farm structure, a store, an art installation, work-sell space, a restaurant, and sports and music venues. April 9th, 2011. Greenhouse by Joost is a Waste Free Eco Restaurant on the Sydney Harbor. A waste free restaurant?

Impossible you say? Not when built by artist Joost Bakker, who designed the pop-up restaurant in reverse to ensure that there would be no trash, that everything is recycled or composted and the entire building can be dismantled, recycled or reused. An impressive feat to say the least, the green eatery features a completely local, organic and seasonal menu, some of which is grown right on the roof of the shipping container and strawbale building. RainPerfect: Rainwater Recycling System WIth a Solar-Powered Pump. Disconnect that garden hose from your faucet!

We’ve found a much more eco-friendly alternative that harnesses the power of the sun and the gift of rain to store life-giving water for your plants. RainPerfect is a solar-powered pump system that collects seasonal rainwater in a barrel and then pumps it using a NiMH battery that’s charged by a 3.5 kW solar panel. With 15 feet of wire, the solar panel can soak up the sun on a nearby wall or fence or on the ground, and each charge has the potential to draw up to 100 gallons with a maximum pressure of 13 pounds per square inch. + RainPerfect Via Jetson Green. Dror's Folding Concrete Block Could Change How We Build [Video] It's hard to get your head around what, exactly, to call Dror Benshetrit's latest brainstorm, the QuaDror. More Companies Now Willing to Pay Extra for Green Office Space. CHICAGO, IL, and ATLANTA, GA — A growing number of corporate real estate executives say they are willing to pay more to lease green office space and that they consider sustainability issues when making decisions about locations, according to recently released research from CoreNet Global and Jones Lang LaSalle.

CoreNet Global, an organization for corporate real estate professionals, and commercial real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle made the results of their fourth annual Sustainability Survey available yesterday. Conducted last November, the survey gauges attitudes and trends on sustainability and owned and leased corporate facilities. Half the respondents now say they are willing to pay more to lease green office space in contrast to 37 percent who said the same in 2009, and 23 percent said they would pay more rent if some of it were offset by lower energy costs. 10 Wild Materials That Could Help Save the Earth [Slideshow] We take the stuff that makes up our world for granted.

Plastic is plastic, right? And wood is wood? Absolutely not: Materials are still a hotbed of innovation, often involving ideas to help save the planet in imperceptible ways that mask their huge impact. Those innovations are highlighted in this year's Material of the Year awards, given out by Material ConneXion. That company is pretty ideally situated to give the awards: If you're a designer looking to find a material for manufacturing something that seems impossible, start with them. This year, they've given their grand prize to a new type of concrete that emits 90% less carbon dioxide when being produced -- a huge reduction, given that some scientists believe that concrete production causes 5% of mankind's carbon footprint.

First Full Bamboo School in Philippines Stands Up to Tough Stormwinds Philippines Bamboo School Camarines Sur – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. Award Winning Tasmanian Addition Harvests Rainwater and Sunlight Trial Bay House – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. The project involved the complete reorganization of an existing dwelling and the addition of a new living room, veranda, courtyard and garage.

The project involved a complete reorganization of an existing dwelling and the addition of a new living room, veranda, courtyard and garage. The beautiful home is located on Trial Bay and the most intriguing room is called the Channel Room, which overlooks D’Entrecasteaux Channel. Constructed out of precast concrete, the Channel Room is sturdy, robust and employs four windows – one for each facade. Each window acts as a camera lens and is adjusted to the subject, view and light. Modern Dutch House Built From Salvaged Billboards and Umbrellas. A first glance this may appear to be just another nice-looking modern home — until you realize that it is constructed almost entirely from salvaged materials sourced within a nine mile radius of the building site.

Dwell’s recent profile of this Dutch home by 2012architects explores the uncommon lengths that the project undertook to make a refined architectural statement with discarded materials. The architects claim 60% of the exterior and nearly 90% of the interior is salvaged through a process they dub recyclicity — read on to find out how they did it. Photo by Mark Seleen. AbleNook: Flat Pack Modular Prefab Units That Come Together In A Snap Ablenook – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. AbleNook's design is based on identical and universal aluminum structural insulated panels (SIPs) that clip together without the use of any tools.

AbleNook’s design is based on identical and universal aluminum structural insulated panels (SIPs) that clip together without the use of any tools. The main structural members, like the floor joists and wall columns, are also identical, extruded from aluminum and can run electrical conduit through them. This universal plug-and-play assembly system allows for economies of scale during fabrication, efficient shipping and easy assembly upon arrival. The design itself is a narrow room with an arched roof covered in solar panels that collects rainwater on both ends and directs it into a collection tank at the back of the house.

Units can be single or double-wide depending on the need and can include multiple bedrooms, kitchen, work space, storage and bathroom. Incredible Rooftop Treehouse In Amsterdam Made From Fruit & Veggie Crates Under Heaven by Leonard van Munster – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. Before you get to thinking you can go see this now, van Munster's installation was actually back in 2004 as part of the temporary exhibition, "Mark", for the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Beautiful Environmental Housing Project Adds Green to the Heart of Paris HQE Housing North and South – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. The project straddles across the street and incorporates gardens planted with bamboo and magnolias and commercial space on the ground floor. The project straddles across the street and incorporates gardens planted with bamboo and magnolias and commercial space on the ground floor. Breaks in the buildings highlighted with bright red facades draw more daylighting into the apartments above and allow for natural breezes to blow through the gaps assisting with natural ventilation.

There are 93 apartments total, designed for people of all ages that can also adapt as they age or new tenants move in. Eight of the apartments are designed to be wheelchair-accessible. A high performance thermal envelope minimizes energy use for heating and cooling with the help of white polished concrete facing the street to reflect sunlight, and fiber cement siding or aluminum cladding inside the plot to absorb energy depending on their orientation. Leftover T-Wall Barricades Could Provide Modular Housing For Iraqi Families T-Wall Housing – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. Build a Modern Green House With Lindal Cedar Homes Lindal Elements - A5 1900 – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. Lindal Cedar Homes was the first systems builder to be approved by the National Association of Home Builders Green Building Standards program.

They have been building green certified homes across North America for years. Image © Bridgette Meinhold Lindal’s building system for custom homes follows a clear step-by-step process that is aided by your local Lindal dealer. 5 Tips from Green Home Remodeler Sarah Susanka. While conjuring up comfort in the home seems like a basic principle, it’s a far more complex process for architect & remodeling guru Sarah Susanka, who believes that comfort can significantly influence the sustainability of your personal abode. With her mantra of “build better, not bigger,” Susanka promotes quality over quantity when remodeling a home.

Woven Prefab Housing Facilitates Cost Effective Housing Concept. Prefabrication of the components for this apartment complex designed for Denver, Colorado, would hasten construction times and ideally reduce overall cost. Weave Housing, designed by Meridian 105 Architecture, is a proposal for a prefab, urban housing complex that relies on lightweight insulated concrete and high performance glazing. The urban apartment complex would feature a mixture of different sized apartments. Some apartments are one unit wide, others are two across or two vertically and even larger units are two across and two vertically. Modern Rwandan Education Center Made with Local Materials. This newly completed education center in Nyanza, Rwanda is a subtle design that uses local materials and crafts with a sophisticated layout to provide for a multitude of community needs.

Designed by Dominikus Stark Architekten, the structure has been purposely built using simple building forms and established local building materials arranged in a way that creates multiple layers of spaces in a contemporary form. The passively cooled complex was constructed completely with local labor and materials like clay adobe bricks, steel, wicker and papyrus. Old Fishing Warehouses Transformed into Rooftop Penthouses In Holland Nautilus Penthouses – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. The coast of Holland once played host to a large industry dominated by fishing. Freerunning Documentary Features Bjarke Ingles of BIG Architects.

Treehouses, Silo Homes, Airplane Homes - Building Green Recycled Homes. TOP 5 TINIEST PREFAB HOMES. As prefab housing takes hold as a viable, sustainable, contemporary building technique, one of the lessons we are learning is that bigger does not necessarily equal better.