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Heirloom Design. At Compostmodern, Saul Griffith proposed the concept, which he describes as design that is intended to last for generations. Griffith said he's planning to give his soon-to-be-born son a Rolex and Mont Blanc pen ... and then tell him that these would be the only watch and pen he could use for the next 100 years.

Creating dwellings that can stand up to the extreme forces of nature presents a challenging design problem, no matter the locale. Hoping to address the issue of extensive loss of homes and displacement due to severe flooding in Southeast Asia, Vietnamese design firm H&P Architects created this low-cost, disaster-resistant housing prototype that actually floats atop a base made of reused oil drums.

"Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability - Designed to be the most sustainable building in North America"

Eco Village residents will have community produce gardens and common green spaces and walking trails. There are even plans for a small fleet of communal electric cars. Houses are designed to qualify for LEED-Platinum certification. Houses have their own photovoltaic arrays, between 5 kW and 6 kW in capacity, plus solar thermal systems designed to provide about half of the domestic hot water demand. A separate 75 kW PV installation at one end of the property will provide power for community purposes, such as lighting, and will also produce revenue that can go toward additional construction. The many energy enhancements should save a family between $200 and $300 per month in utility bills when compared to a conventional home of the same size and $100,000 over the course of the 30-year mortgage. Since the project was launched, there has been a 69% increase in the number of volunteer hours donated to the local Habitat chapter, and a 59% jump in the number of volunteers. In all, hundreds of volunteers donated 16,000 hours of time to get the first part of the project complete.

The project uses the frame of a 1950s building as a shell in which to build its experimental space. Over the past five years, this formerly vacant building has been repurposed and extended with minimal costs for materials. Professor Bernd Kniess, dean of Hafencity University's urban design department, is primarily concerned with questions of sustainability, renewal and repurposing in urban space. How to transform the existing? How can the new emerge from the old? Both the building itself and the city around it are employed as resources. Every piece of the building that is removed in the remodeling is then redeployed with a new function elsewhere. Discarded materials from surrounding construction sites are harvested and upcycled at the UdN. This patchwork process requires those engaged in the reconstruction to deal with building's structure as it was found, to develop new courses of action and productively channel uncertainty and risk. In this situation, sustainability does not rest solely on the objects used. Most importantly, it is fostered by relationships-by the neighborhood.

"Aside from being a definite eyesore because of their large blades and causing birds in flight to succumb to them, modern day wind turbines cause tremendous hazard to our ethical and natural environment. Wind turbines require large areas and optimum locations with its moving segments. Netherlands researchers and architectural firm Mecanoo, however, have attempted to upgrade the existing wind power generators by suggesting a bladeless wind turbine design."

Proyecto ganador del oro en el concurso Design for Poverty. Es un sistema para que mediante botellas ancladas a las bajantes de pluviales, se pueda recoger agua, que gracias a la luz del sol y al método Sodis de desinfección (explicación: http://bit.ly/126BniC), ésta puede ser apta para el consumo.

Glosario Cradle to Cradle

definiciones

de aqui puede salir algo de biomímesis para la revista

New York is a dense city of buildings: There are almost a million of them in an area of little more than 300 square miles. So it makes sense that if New York City wants to tackle its environmental issues, it will have to concentrate on the buildings. In New York City, buildings are an important part of our environment, and their design and operation affect our environment too.

Madrid studio ÁBATON has just revealed the ÁPH80 Transportable House, a small prefab dwelling designed for two and sized to be easily transported by truck. The units are manufactured in Spain and could probably be shipped anywhere in Europe. For whatever reason, lately there seems to be a lot more interest and experimentation with prefab housing in Europe than in North America. The small house is a simple gabled rectangle with minimal exterior adornment. Roof and walls are both clad with a composite material made from wood fiber and cement. The sheets have a mottled gray appearance that would probably help the house blend right in within a natural setting, like some kind of angular rock outcrop. All the materials were selected on the basis of their environmental impact and ability to be recycled.

"Many people think the idea of putting composting toilets in homes is crazy. One commenter noted earlier when I suggested it: "No one will want this inside their house. I know this, because I still have a few teeth in my head and a few friends in town." But more and more, people are going off-pipe; my friend Laurence Grant has done it for almost 20 years and wrote about it here; now energy consultant Allison Bailes describes how he did it in Green Building Advisor and how his bathroom actually smells better than yours."

"We can't continue using drinking water to flush away our waste, and we can't afford to keep wasting our waste; at some point soon these are going to be coming into our homes and offices. Don't laugh; already, if you want to build to the Living Building Challenge standard, they are pretty much the only way to go."

"The ban requires Los Angeles' stores to provide paper bags for a fee of 10 cents to shoppers who do not bring their own bags to the store-with the proceeds from those fees going to the stores themselves to offset the costs to adhering to the ordinance.

Un nuevo edificio de apartamentos de lujo en el downtown de Miami que apuesta por las bicis y los coches compartidos. ¡No tiene garage!

¿Es un problema de escala? ¿de tipo de materiales? ¿de tamaño? ¿de estilo? Interesante discusión

Ahora se intentan hacer viviendas que puedan cambiar a medida que cambie la vida del habitante. A estos les gusta identificarla como algo personal, aunque no lo sea. La vivienda también debería adaptarse al lugar. Habría que hacer muchas piezas diferentes para adaptarlas al lugar, a la vida... una casa "a trozos" ¿MONTA TU CASA?

La construcción es de los pocos trabajos que aún no se había globalizado, pero esto da pie a ello. Las asociaciones de profesionales ya empiezan a quejarse porque se quedan fuera conforme el sistema se hace más popular, sobre todo para edificios de media altura.

Ejemplo de empresa que fabrica y distribuye viviendas prefabricadas en kit en EEUU y más allá