Tag:

architecture

Extreme Compact Living: 300 Square Feet, 24 ‘Rooms’

A Hong Kong architect performs a magic feat of “green” design by packing 24 “rooms” into a 330 square-foot apartment. The dwelling he dubs “Domestic Transformer” glows with natural light.

Growing up with a family of five, plus tenant, Gary Chang once slept in the former tenement flat’s corridor-like living room. This helped cultivate a genius for making the most out of limited elbow room.

Modular walls slide to divide the space to serve the usual daily purposes. A wall full of shelving pulls forward, revealing a panel housing a linen closet. Behind another divider there’s a bathtub, and a guest bed can flop down over it. Rather than walking from room to room, Chang makes the living spaces shift by gliding the walls from one point to another.

“The house transforms and I’m always here,” he says. “I don’t move. The house moves for me.” See how it works in the video below:

April 29, 2010 0 comment

Greener Design by Imitating Nature

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Article by Amy Hengst appearing courtesy of Matter Network.

Termite mounds may look like ugly piles of dirt, but they provide important clues for architects designing energy-efficient buildings.

Termite mounds are built six to 30 feet high off the ground in hot ecosystems and are riddled with tunnels at their peaks that provide passive ventilation, allowing cool air to flow through. Architects in Zimbabwe have used the termites’ model in building a large, beautiful building with a similar ventilation system.

By imitating nature’s model, they were able to save 90 percent in energy costs because they didn’t need to install any air conditioning, according to designer Jeremy Faludi.

This process of emulating nature is called biomimicry. Speaking at the West Coast Green conference last week in San Francisco, Faludi said biomimicry could help us create products and buildings that are more material and energy-efficient, robust, flexible, and long-lasting.

October 6, 2009 2 comments

Britney Spears Did Not Attend West Coast Green

written by Jared Friedman

Like many Americans who don’t realize that every time you flip the switch on a television or light, it results in the burning of coal or natural gas at a power plant, Britney Spears does not prioritize the use of energy in her life.

Why? A) She is crazy, B) Like so many others she doesn’t recognize that she personally is responsible for the pollution that is generated through her energy use, or C) All of the above.

If you answered A or C, shame on you. Similar to you or myself, without recognizing that she has a problem, it wouldn’t occur to Britney to change her behavior.

October 5, 2009 0 comment