Celebrated architect and co-founder of Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) Andres Duany has designed a structure that could soon bring relief to thousands of homeless disaster victims in Haiti.
A Miami-based company, InnoVida, recently agreed to construct 1,000 of the rectangular, prefabricated structures for Haiti. Each shelter can sleep up to eight individuals and can withstand fire, hurricane-force winds and earthquakes. Duany's "cabin" is unique in that its panels can be put together in various configurations and can even be expanded upon. The cabins have indoor plumbing, which is connected to a potable water tank and a rain barrel.
What's more, InnoVida announced that they hope to build a factory in Haiti and employ thousands of Haitians to produce the cabins.
Miami...
(New York) - The United Nations Security Council should make improving the quality and security of camps for displaced victims of Haiti's devastating earthquake a top priority, Human Rights Watch said today in an open letter to the Council's member states.
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Shelter
Spotted via New Scientist is an amazing new computer model that allows designers to create objects based on the multiple and highly specific shadows that those objects will cast when lit from different angles.
Seen above is one, relatively mundane example of the technology, by Niloy Mitra and Mark Pauly: three paintings by Andy Warhol are being cast from the same object. "Their computer model can calculate the object shape needed to cast up to three distinct shadows simultaneously," New Scientist explains. The designers call it "editing the shadow volume."
Niloy's and Pauly's accompanying video is amazing:
But what if we could do this with a glass tower in midtown Manhattan? Or if there was an elevator moving upward through an all-glass shaft, and as the lights in the lobby...
While reading our daily news, we often come across media makers whose messages echo our own mission. Weekly and even daily, we come back to their sites to see what innovative ideas and projects they've created. Below is a list of the Blogs We Love that help us think about SHELTER.
Architecture for Humanity
Architecture of Sustainability
Dwell
Bearings
BLDGBLOG
Brand Avenue
Inventing Green: The Lost History of Alternative Energy in America
OliNo
Pruned
Slow Home
Solarray
The American Institute of Architects
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What does it mean to build bright green structures for the 21st Century?
Here are some of the most popular and enduring stories we've published in our first six years, stories we think offer a window into the Worldchanging archives. In these pages you'll find a treasury: more than 10,000 articles on cutting-edge solutions dating back as far as October 2003. This work pushes the boundaries of the global conversation on sustainability, social innovation and planetary thinking. Many of these writers are leaders in their respective industries.
To help get you started, we've compiled a primer in each of our seven meta-categories. We hope you'll use these guides as an entryway. Find the ideas you're most passionate about here, then explore our site for much, much more. Stay as long...
After a breathtaking hike along the Nisqually River in Mount Rainier National Park this summer, I stumbled upon this fantastic biotoilet at Cougar Rock Campground. Activated last June, the toilet is the only one of its kind in the United States. According to Bianics Toilet, developers of the technology, the biotoilets have been in use on Mt. Fuji for years and will soon be installed in the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia.
Bianics biotoilets use micro-organisms in cedar chips to break down toilet waste into water and carbon dioxide. "The water is then re-circulated into the toilet tank, and thus never leaves the system." said Bianics, who donated the Cougar Rock unit to the Park in cooperation with the international environmental group Groundwork Mishima.
There is no...
The UK website BusinessGreen reports on a survey of 2,700 UK adults, which “found that half of respondents are interested in finding out whether their home is suitable for renewable energy systems, such as solar panels”:
Meanwhile, over a third said they would be willing to pay more for a house where some of the energy was supplied by renewable sources, suggesting that those investing in microgeneration systems will be able to recoup some of the cost through increased house prices.
The same should apply in this country, especially since a lot Americans understand energy prices are going up whether or not there is a climate bill. The point is that as peak oil kicks in and the reality of human-caused climate change becomes painfully clear, energy efficiency,...
Visionary Dan Philips has been running his construction company Phoenix Commotion for 12 years with a dual purpose: creating beautifully unique affordable housing, and making use of recycled materials. A recent New York Times article reports from Huntsville, Texas, on this environmentally wise and socially responsible endeavor:
To him, almost anything discarded and durable is potential building material. Standing in one of his houses and pointing to a colorful, zigzag-patterned ceiling he made out of thousands of picture frame corners, Mr. Phillips said, “A frame shop was getting rid of old samples, and I was there waiting."
So far, he has built 14 homes in Huntsville, which is his hometown, on lots either purchased or received as a donation. A self-taught carpenter,...
Verb Crisis examines architectural solutions to the extraordinary conditions of an increasingly dense and interdependent world. Editors Mario Ballesteros, Albert Ferré, Irene Hwang, Michael Kubo, Tomoko Sakamoto, Anna Tetas and Ramon Prat present innovative projects and research through original photos, essays, and exclusive interviews with key figures from architecture and urban planning to environmental, economic, and global affairs.
This resource was reviewed by Regine Debatty
This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.
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What happens when big box retail destinations die? As the economic downturn causes people to reduce their trips to stores and to shop less, more stores are forced to close and leave malls deserted. What's to be done with these big empty boxes if and when they become vacant?
In Big Box Reuse, Julia Christensen explores this question by taking us on a tour of shopping destinations turned community centers. The book shows how 10 communities have turned vacated stores, like Wal-Marts and Kmarts, into churches, libraries, schools, medical centers and more.
This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.
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ThetaNoon is an online community of thousands of people are choosing to harness this free source of renewable energy to power their appliances and lights, and heat their homes and water. They use the location information to calculate your Theta, or plane angle from the sun to your house, and employ ‘complex algorithms and real time weather data’ to create an estimate of your solar energy usage. From this calculation, ThetaNoon creates a score of statistics and charts to show you your energy savings in kilowatts per hour.
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This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please a target="new"...
Mall culture in the United States -- at least as we know it -- is coming to an end. As malls across the country start to fade into obsolescence, what is to become of these massive structures? Deadmalls, a site dedicated to following failing malls, tracks closings and developments, and even allows you to locate malls that are dying in your own town.
Read more in the Worldchanging Archives
This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please a target="new" href="http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010323.html">click here.
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Shelter at 11:06 AM)...
By Sophie Blakemore
Government sets out roadmap for ‘One Planet’ nation by 2050.
Wales has launched an ambitious sustainable development strategy to be “self-sustaining in renewable energy” by 2025, and to produce zero waste by 2050. The far-reaching targets in One Wales: One Planet place the nation streets ahead of England and Scotland, and make it one of only three countries globally with a legal obligation to develop sustainably.
If actions match ambition, “Wales will set an example for the rest of the world to follow,” says Jonathan Porritt, Founding Director of Forum for the Future and Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission.
The new scheme, set out by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) at the May 2009 Hay Festival, includes both 2025 targets...
By Craig A. Severance
The Waxman-Markey bill has a very strong set of building efficiency codes (see Section 201, page 214 of the bill -- a big PDF). Our guest blogger, Craig A. Severance, discusses what the bill requires in a post first published on his blog. Craig, a practicing CPA and former Assistant to the Chairman and to Commerce Counsel, Iowa State Commerce Commission, did one of the most detailed cost analyses publically available on the current generation of nuclear power plants being considered in this country (see "Exclusive analysis, Part 1: The staggering cost of new nuclear power").
The greenhouse gas cap-and-trade title of the Waxman-Markey bill gets most of the attention, as it should, but the bill has many other provisions, some good, some lame.
It's...
A leaked early version of the Indian Government's national solar energy plan indicates that India may be thinking more ambitiously about a "clean energy" road map than was previously anticipated.
The draft strategy, first published in The Hindu, outlines plans for a national target of 200,000 megawatts of solar generation capacity by 2050. This is 1.3 times India's current installed power generation capacity of 150,000 megawatts across all energy sectors.
Although the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change is yet to approve the plan, and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has not confirmed the claim, this possibility raises important questions for India's energy future, namely: Could a large-scale transition to solar power and other renewables be economically and...
By Anna Pigott
North Kesteven District Council in Lincolnshire is to become the first local authority in the UK to use straw bales to construct social housing, when they begin a pilot project of two semi-detached properties in West Grove, Martin, this May.
The bales will provide the main structure of the three-bedroom homes, which are described by the council as “typical, affordable, council houses”. But there’s nothing typical about the amount of energy they’ll save: swapping bricks for straw will increase insulation by up to three times more than building regulations require, so these houses won’t need heating systems. They’re anticipated to cost less too: the council has budgeted £110,000 per house – £20,000 less than the equivalent brick-build. And in the...
By Suzanne Goldenberg
Renovation scheme will replace windows, insulation and light bulbs in ageing and neglected low-income housing stock.
The Obama administration unveiled a $4bn (£2.5bn) plan to upgrade public housing for low-income Americans today, as part of an ambitious green job-creation project.
Obama sent the vice-president, Joe Biden, and other senior officials to Denver for a formal announcement of the renovation scheme, which will replace windows, insulation and even light bulbs in ageing and neglected housing stock.
The labour secretary, Hilda Solis, was also expected to announce $500m to train up workers for the new jobs. Of those funds, $50m will be directed to regions that have been hardest hit by the recession – such as the rustbelt state of Michigan where...
By Roger Valdez
The Clean Energy Fund targets 500 energy efficient retrofits by 2010.
We’ve been writing about some of the ways that federal stimulus funding has been misallocated to projects that would increase greenhouse gas emissions and aggravate our addiction to gasoline.
But there is some good news from Portland. The City of Portland and Multnomah County in partnership with Energy Trust and Shorebank Enterprise Cascadia have created the Clean Energy Fund which will use stimulus money to retrofit 500 homes in the greater Portland area.
It’s a pilot project that will allocate $2.5 million of stimulus money for the retrofits, starting with 10 homes this month and completing another 490 retrofits in the next two years. A bill expanding a similar state program, the Energy...
You know an innovation has hit its stride when it becomes scalable. When we first started writing about green roofs, they were typically boutique projects -- and convincing city governments and developers to invest in their large scale production seemed like a major challenge. But decision-makers have gotten the message, and green roof design has risen to the occasion. Case in point: the new Vancouver Convention Centre, a major civic project which officially opened this past weekend, boasts the largest non-industrial roof in North America.
The six-acre rooftop garden is crafted as a habitat for the 400,000 native plants and grasses growing there, as well as for birds and bugs (it houses hives for 60,000 bees).
The building, designed by Seattle-based LMN Architects, in...
I'm currently on a 10 year anniversary tour to talk about the role of design and architecture and its' impact on society. Tomorrow I speak at University of Miami and early this week at Rice University both with the titled talk 'When sustainability is a matter of survival'. With this as my context It was a chance visit a few weeks back in Southern Illinois that has stuck in my head.
In late February I got the opportunity to go to the University of Southern Illinois - Carbondale, a rural university that has one of the newest architecture programs in the country. Unknown to most of the world Carbondale, Il was the home of famed visionary R. Buckminster Fuller and his wife Anne from 1960 to 1972. Brought in by pioneering University President Delyte Morris, they lived in a leafy...
Yet another large step in the quest to make green building efficient and more affordable: Green building leader Bensonwood Homes has constructed a prototype net zero-energy home that was recently awarded LEED Platinum status, the U.S. Green Building Council's highest rating for green building construction.
The Unity Home, currently occupied by the president of environmentally focused Unity College and his wife, uses widely available green building strategies including passive heating, tight thermal insulation and concrete slab foundation (which allows the home to stay warmer in winter and cooler in summer). These low-energy techniques work so well that even in the cold Maine winter, the homeowners rarely need to rely on the rooftop solar panels for energy to heat their home....
Camping out on the Secret Beach in Banda Aceh
I don’t think that my use of plastic sheeting would pass me as a shelter engineer, although I did manage to get the fire going and cook the fish in the rain, so maybe food distribution is more my forte.
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As policy makers in Washington D.C. continue working on the anticipated U.S. economic stimulus package, leading thinkers from all corners of the sustainability movement are building their cases for taking this historic opportunity to stimulate bright green change.
The visionary team at non-profit research organization Architecture 2030 has issued a plan for using stimulus funds to drive energy efficiency in the private building sector. Called the 2030 Challenge Stimulus Plan (PDF), it offers strategies for combining stimulus tools like mortgage relief as a means of softening the up-front cost of investing in energy efficiency upgrades for individual building and homeowners.
An official release from Architecture 2030 describes the strategy:
Their Plan, described as a simple,...
According to the research-based predictions of urban affairs and planning expert Arthur C. Nelson about half the buildings that Americans will use in 2030 will have been built after 2000. This gives us Americans an opportunity to effect massive change on the built environment if we make deliberate choices starting right now.
I recently came across a post about the Hurriquake Nail on the always-inspiring tech blog NextBigFuture. The Hurriquake, designed by Bostitch engineer Ed Sutt, is a study in practical world-changing innovation: it combines simple building technologies like threading and a spiral shank, placed at exactly the right points along the nail so that it anchors deeply into wood, holding steady where it needs to most, and creates wobble-free joints at the points where...
Social innovator and entrepreneur Elsa Zaldívar has developed a new product for home construction in Paraguay. The material, produced as panels that can be used as a substitute for wood, is lightweight but sturdy, and relatively inexpensive to produce, making it a boon for impoverished communities, particularly those in storm-prone areas of the country. And the panels are made of renewable and recycled materials: dried vegetable matter and recycled plastic. The practical and game-changing creation recently earned Zaldívar the Rolex Award for Enterprising Individuals
The idea for the construction material was born out of another social enterprise: in 2001, Zaldívar earned an Ashoka Fellowship to help women of Paraguay's Caaguazú region achieve economic security. She helped...
Because "it takes too long to come down to ground level each day to make it worthwhile," a crane operator on the Burj Dubai – the world's tallest building – is rumored to have "been up there for over a year," the Daily Telegraph reports. His name is Babu Sassi, and he is "a fearless young man from Kerala" who has become "the cult hero of Dubai’s army of construction workers." He also lives several thousand feet above the ground.[Image: The Burj Dubai, via Wikipedia].Whether or not this is even true – after all, I never think truth is the point in stories like this – 1) the idea of appropriating a construction crane as a new form of domestic space – a kind of parasitic sub-structure attached to the very thing it's helped to construct (perhaps raising the question:...
I promised myself that I’d blog every single day while I was working in Georgia. It should be fairly obvious that I didn’t. I can’t say that I was super productive while I was in Tbilisi - for a variety of reasons, including particularly dysfunctional co-ordination, but also because of the basic difficulty of getting [...]...
I came across this gorgeous design for a vacation home in northern Portugal this morning, and was absolutely inspired by its display of creativity, efficiency and relative affordability:
The structure, designed by architect Alvaro Leite Size Vieira, is certainly luxurious, with three bedrooms, a small outdoor pool and other amenities. But it also works in harmony with the natural environment, not only aesthetically – reflecting the curve and grade of the hillside – but also practically, optimizing access to natural sunlight with south-facing orientation, and benefiting from natural cooling resulting from its position within the ground.
But as far as luxury homes go, it's not completely inaccessible: According to the bloggers at New York WTF, the house was...
Smart metering is coming. Within a decade, you’ll know exactly how much every flip of a switch or turn of a knob costs in monthly utility charges.
By Adam Stein
The Times profiles two British seaside towns on the forefront of the low-tech energy efficiency revolution. Take, for example, Hove residents Brenda and Jeffrey Marchant, owners of a typical Victorian house. The Marchants were always energy-thrifty, but instant feedback is a uniquely motivating force.
"Turn on a computer and the device — a type of so-called smart meter — goes from 300 watts to 400 watts. Turn off a light and it goes from 299 to 215. At 500, the meter is set to sound an alarm.
'I’ve become like one of Pavlov’s dogs,” Mrs. Marchant said. “Every time it bleeps I think I’m going to take...
Strictly speaking, shelter is outside the remit of this blog. However the article The Exigent City in the New York Times was an excellent piece of reporting, and I urge everybody to read it. (HT: Simmy Ross) The article closes with the following lines:
When I first contacted Cameron Sinclair, who started Architecture for Humanity with [...]...