Welcome - Rural Studio CusatoCottages.com About | Urban Biofilter Urban Biofilter designs, implements, and advocates for the integration of biological systems into our existing urban infrastructure. Urban Biofilter is a research and design organization based in Oakland, CA and is a project of Earth Island Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit. As a collaborative team of ecological engineers, designers and community organizers, Urban Biofilter creates environmental systems appropriate to each site and community. We foster community participation by translating the technical language and bureaucratic processes used by government. Making scientific and engineering knowledge accessible, our projects empower underrepresented community members to assess the ecological needs of their neighborhoods and to collaborate in community-based design process. We focus on transforming undervalued urban resources such as brownfields and wastewater into community assets.
Four Lights Tiny House Company Award-winning renovation slashes mid-century home’s carbon footprint by 80% | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building London-based architecture firm Coppin Dockray completed a green house renovation that’s so successful it cut carbon emissions by 80 percent. Located on a steep wooded slope in the historic Wiltshire village of Antsy, the rural home, named Ansty Plum, comprises a 1960s house and small side annex that had fallen into severe disrepair. Coppin Dockray restored the original structure to its former glory and added double glazing, extra insulation, and other features to boost its thermal efficiency and comfort. Topped with a distinctive sloped roof that mimics the steep terrain, Ansty Plum was originally designed by David Levitt in 1964 for former Arup partner and engineer Roger Rigby. The property also includes a studio annex later designed by Brutalist architects Peter and Alison Smithson. Related: Beautiful contemporary farmhouse harnesses all of its water supply onsite + Coppin Dockray Via Dezeen Images via Coppin Dockray
North Carolina Relaxshacks.com Workshop Announced! SIGN UP DETAILS... HANDS-ON Tiny House Building Workshop with DIY Network Host, Author, Designer, Builder, and Blogger Derek "Deek" Diedricksen We're talking almost 35-40 hours of contact, building, demos, networking, and MORE! It looks like we'll ALSO have a tiny house on wheels visiting us, courtesy of TENNESSEE TINY HOMES! Want to learn how to build a tiny house/cabin? JUST ANNOUNCED- EACH ATTENDEE WILL RECEIVE THESE DOOR GIFTS!!!! event. Above: "The Light Box" a tiny/micro trailer house we all built at our last workshop.... April 26th-28th- Tiny House-Building Workshop #4 I never planned on doing many of these, but the first three I did were so much fun and all of them sold out, so I figured, why not do one somewhere warmer? So North Carolina it is! This workshop will be a team up with Steven Harrell of Tinyhouselistings.com and Tinyhouseswoon.com - a THREE DAY, HANDS-ON, WORKSHOP where we'll collectively build a tiny house! GUEST SPEAKERS/DEMOS from... -Campfire discussions at night -Giveaways
8 homes that generate more energy than they consume | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building Your future home could make electric bills a thing of the past, and even help you earn money in the process. Plus-energy homes are popping up around the world, generating more energy than they use, and can even be set up to sell excess energy back to the grid. Beautiful, energy efficient, and increasingly affordable, these dwellings are proving the viability of renewable energy over fossil fuel sources. Dramatically tilted toward the southeast, Snøhetta’s ZEB Pilot House is a plus-energy family house that produces enough surplus energy to power an electric car year-round. Heralded as Australia’s “first carbon-positive prefab home,” the Carbon Positive House is a solar panel-topped house that produces more energy than it consumes. The Heliotrope is a stunning energy-plus solar home in Freiburg, Germany that rotates 180 degrees to follow the sun’s path and maximize solar panel efficiency. Plus energy architecture isn’t limited to freestanding homes.
Alter Ec'Home Et voici aujourd’hui les premières photos de la construction de 2 Mobile Ec’Home dans l’atelier près d’Hazebrouck (département du Nord) : Pour le socle du Mobile Ec’Home et afin qu’il soit assez rigide et solide pour ses futurs déplacements, le plancher repose sur un cadre métallique.Peint et donc protégé, le cadre reçoit ensuite les poutres qui soutiendront le plancher. Des planches de bois huilées sont ensuite vissées sur la face inférieure (l’habitat sera surélevé par rapport au sol) Le dessous achevé, le cadre de bois est retourné et fixé sur son support métallique Et voilà l’isolant (seule concession d’Alter Ec’Home à l’industrie pétrolière, mais les contraintes liées à l’humidité nous y ont contraint) 10 cm de polystyrène ! La méthode de contreventement choisie pour le Mobile Ec’Home et à base de planches clouées en diagonale, plus léger, plus respirant et plus naturel que les traditionnels panneaux d’osb Mur à ossature bois de l’habitat écologique, insolite et nomade Mobile Ec’Home.
ArchiBlox » Carbon Positive House | Sustainable Homes - Eco Friendly Homes - Healthy Living Carbon Positive The Carbon Positive House (CPH) has been created to free us of modern day lifelines and make significant contributions within society. Developed and created through innovative design sensitivities and new technologies. A revolutionary step forward in Australian Architecture and Construction. In-ground Cool Tubes: to help with cooling Sliding Edible Garden Walls: to block sun penetration Green Roof: for added thermal insulation The Buffer Zone: "The lungs of the house" & "Food Basket" Healthy Materials: High grade sustainable materials, formaldehyde and VOC free Airtightness: Airtight building envelope for energy efficiency Like more information on our CARBON POSITIVE homes?
This family lives in a sustainable and edible green-house home of the future A professor the University of Rotterdam’s Sustainable Building Technology program recently offered an opportunity to Netherland families to participate in a groundbreaking project that would span three years and completely uproot the participating family by relocating them in an experimental greenhouse dwelling. Not everyone would jump at the proposal, but for Helly Scholten, a “botanical stylist” and her family, the project was a chance to dip their toes into a lifestyle she had long fantasized about—sustainable, functionally off-grid and far from mundane. Scholten applied right away and secured her family’s new home for the next three years, adorned with walls of glass and a roof layered in flora and growing produce. The experimental home is designed to support a prominent 1,450 square-foot vegetable garden on the roof, which supplies the family with more than enough produce, to the point where they’ve begun auctioning off tomatoes in the fertile season.
Texas Modular Home Will Run on Rainwater and Sunshine Alone | Builder Magazine | Water, Water Supply, Water Conservation, Austin-Round Rock, TX, Solar Decathlon, Texas Although the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon competition is focused on renewable energy, one of the teams chosen to build a house for this fall's event will take resource conservation a step further. The University of Texas at Austin, partnering with Germany's Technische Universitat Munchen, will construct a home that is net zero usage for energy as well as water. The team's NexusHaus, which will be on display during the competition held Oct. 8 to 18 in Irvine, Calif., will be one of the country's first water-independent dwellings, and its design could have major ramifications for home builders in drought-prone areas and beyond. Its concepts have takeaways for builders across the country as more jurisdictions allow measures such as potable rainwater reuse and graywater recycling. Because of the looming water crisis, the first step for the 70-plus-member team was to ensure that water in the home be used as efficiently as possible, with a goal of 25 gallons per person per day.
ABC OF INCREMENTAL HOUSING « Elemental Out of the 3 billion people living in cities today, 1 billion is under the line of poverty. By 2030 out of the 5 billion people that will be living in cities, 2 billion are going to be under the line of poverty. That means that we will have to build a 1 million people city per week with 10,000 dollars per family. Given the magnitude of the housing shortage, we won’t solve this problem unless we add people’s own resources and building capacity to that of governments and market. On the other hand, it is a fact that available resources are not enough[1]. If you can´t do everything, focus on: A. B. C. We identified 5 design conditions as the ABC of incremental housing: Good location: dense enough projects able to pay for expensive well located sites.Harmonious growth in time: build strategically the first half (partition structural and firewalls, bathroom, kitchen, stairs, roof) so that expansion happens thanks to the design and not despite it. [1] In terms of time and money
Alejandro Aravena, Winner of This Year’s Pritzker Prize, Is Giving Away His Designs This January, Alejandro Aravena received architecture’s highest honor. This week, the Chilean architect announced that his studio, Elemental, will open-source four of its affordable housing designs. The projects can be downloaded, for free, from Elemental’s website (here). Aravena delivered the news at a press conference held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Click to Open Overlay Gallery The open-source initiative will make available CAD drawing files for four of Elemental’s completed projects: the Quinta Monroy, Lo Barnechea, and Villa Verde developments in Chile, and the Monterrey Housing complex in Monterrey, Mexico. “From now on [the designs] are public knowledge, an open source that we hope will be able to rule out one more excuse for why markets and governments don’t move in this direction to tackle the challenge of massive rapid urbanization,” reads a manifesto-like document on Elemental’s website. Go Back to Top.