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The recent British Council conference, Buildings of Today and Tomorrow’s Reality, gave us a few useful tips when designing and building energy-efficient, sustainable buildings. Here are 23 things to do when designing green buildings… Did you know that 72 percent of total electricity, 39 percent of total energy and 14 percent of total water consumption take […]

A growing concern for sustainable construction is water conservation. For many years, reducing power consumption has been a major focus of sustainable living, and while it is important, our dwindling water supply has slowly made green building exceedingly blue. New construction specifications should incorporate water efficiency and conservation to reduce the impact on our water […]

After being away for several weeks visiting friends, getting reacquainted with my mountain bike, and blogging from the road, I have returned to Summit County. My timing was paired to coincide with the return of real warmth after a long and snowy winter. The mountains are still covered with white, but the rivers and streams […]

Inhabitat reports that Steve Jobs has recently unveiled some rather unique plans for a new Apple campus. Jobs presented the plans at the Cupertino, California city council meeting, revealing designs for a “new clean energy spaceship-shaped campus.” The design should allow Apple to fit more employees on their current plot of land, while also creating […]

  Cities are now home to a majority of the world’s population and are on the front line in the battle against climate change.  While action at the federal level in the U.S. has been painfully slow, cities in the U.S. are starting to lead by example at a local level. Cities must take an […]

If you’ve ever watched “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” on television you know that most of the homes they renovate or rebuild are for families with children. And most of the children end up with “theme rooms” based on questions from the crew of designers. For instance, if a child loves outer space, then he ends […]

Solar panels have been big in the sustainable design and building industry for quite a while now, and this previously inaccessible technology has been getting more effective and affordable with every passing year. According to Inhabitat, a Tokyo company called Smart Solar International has just developed an impressive new solar panel that “chases” the sun! […]

I got to thinking the other day about whether we’ll be building very many bookshelves in the future. Seems most of the people I know are snatching up Kindles or iPads instead of real books. What would a home be like without books, bookshelves, and a comfy chair by the fire to settle into on […]

According to a recent article on Inhabitat, the Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman, is suing the federal government for failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn, states that the Delaware River Basin Commission, with full approval by federal agencies, proposed regulations on fracking without conducting a […]