100% Sustainable House at West Coast Green

It is functional. It is technologically advanced. It is beautiful. It is affordable. And it is absolutely green!

It is the Harbinger House, Designed by Lawrence Group. A single-family house entirely built inside the trade show of  the West Coast Green Conference, that took place in San Jose, California, last week. “Our goal was to try to produce a product that is economically feasible, and if you’ve got extra money to spend, you can make it a lot nicer,” said architect Eric Heischmidt of the Lawrence Group of St. Louis, Mo. The house is, in fact, sustainable from the structure itself, and everything used to furnish it. It is crafted from five shipping containers by SG Blocks (quite hard to belive just by looking!) for a total area of 1700 sf; containers are a prefabricated, modular recycled product that is growing in popularity as a building material. Windows provide excellent insulation and require less energy to manufacture than traditional windows. The woods used for the interiors are FSC Certified. Wall paints are low-VOC. Lights use low voltage bulbs, and have smart lighting controls. Sheets are made from organic cotton, and household electrical appliances are energy efficient. With GreenPoint and LEED certification in the plans, the Harbinger House is an excellent example of sustainable architecture to follow!

(images courtesy of www.inhabitat.com)

Future Technology Inspired by Nature

As it often happen, the future technology actually comes from nature.

An incredible amount of energy is spent every year in air conditioning of building that if well designed
Could be self temperature controlled.

Researchers from EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) are studying the structure of termites mounds, by 3D scanning them.

“We’re certainly not suggesting that people should live in termite mounds!” Dr Soar tells us “we are studying the mounds to look for a method by which environmental conditions can be controlled and then seeing if we can harness this using innovative manufacturing processes.” If successful the work could lead to a revolution in construction: “Imagine, instead of today’s solid bricks and walls, smart bricks and smart walls incorporating capillary-like structures that can move and control moisture, gases and temperature.”

“The researchers hope to develop new construction methods based on rapid manufacturing processes that would enable buildings to be ‘printed’ out of extruded materials. Such ‘freeform construction’ processes would give architects the freedom to design complex organic forms with microstructures and properties unlike anything that can be manufactured conventionally. “This could make the dream of passive systems, which keep our homes comfortable using only renewable energy, a reality,” comments Dr Soar.”

LEED Rating System - A Quick Overview

(Don’t write differently something that’s well written ; )

From Wikipedia

“ The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction.

LEED was created to accomplish the following:

* Define “green building” by establishing a common standard of measurement

* Promote integrated, whole-building design practices

* Recognize environmental leadership in the building industry

* Stimulate green competition

* Raise consumer awareness of green building benefits

* Transform the building market

Green Building Council members, representing every sector of the building industry, developed and continue to refine LEED. The rating system addresses six major areas:

* Sustainable sites

* Water efficiency

* Energy and atmosphere

* Materials and resources

* Indoor environmental quality

* Innovation and design process

Certification

Different LEED versions have varied scoring systems based on a set of required “Prerequisites” and a variety of “Credits” in the six major categories listed above. Buildings can qualify for four levels of certification:

* Certified - 40-50% of non-innovation points

* Silver - 50-60%

* Gold - 60-80%

* Platinum - over 80% “

Learn more on the LEED certification program :

US green building council

wikipedia article

Syndecrete, a Sustainable Concrete for Interior Design

Syndecrete a company that we discovered last september at the west coast green conference in San Francisco produce a special concrete and a set of products, tiles, sinks slabs and tabletops and custom designs based on their concrete.

The syndecrete is a solid surfacing material replace standard concrete for interior design, on top of it it’s has better mecanical property and is certified by The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

I encourage you to visit their website, which is sleek and explain nicely the advantage of the product and the sustanaible issue associated with concrete in interior design.

 Syndecrete website

Cork Flooring Solutions, Surprising?

Imagine a natural wood material that is resistant, last more than a lifetime and do not require to cut the trees down… Well this material is Cork.

We are more used to see it used to close wine bottles, but Natural Cork from cork oak tree can be used in construction and has a lot of benefits. Apart from being sustainable, as the ressource keep growing on the trees, the benefit of this material compared to other type of wood subproduct is that the trees are actually not cut down, preserving the landscape around.

Solida is a flooring company, that produce a wide variety of floor solutions based on cork.

Check their website to see their product and learn a bit more about their production process.

SOLIDA CORK flooring begins life as bark on the cork oak tree (Quercus suber) which grows in the Mediterranean, primarily Portugal which is
the world’s largest exporter of cork. The cork oak tree forests are one of the most carefully regulated resources in the world. Managed by
the government, cork tree forests are looked upon as a national treasure.
Cork flooring is one of the most environmentally friendly flooring products available today surpassing even hardwood since the cork oak tree
is never cut down and all of the associated processes are done using systems and chemicals that are free from carcinogens and contain low
or none of the voc’s (volatile organic compounds) associated with conventional flooring products such as carpet and vinyl.