Sustainable design examples?

bamboo stuff is environmentally conscious, i know a site with lots of bamboo everyday things. ill edit when i find it.

Edit: found it http://funfam.jp/
its actually mostly dining utensils and stuff, but whatever

I suggest checking out TED.com to get some ideas. Listen to Norman Foster talk. Or Alex Steffen. Or William McDonough. And here’s an article about green roofs.

There are some great ideas and great speakers on TED. You can search terms such as ‘green living’ or ‘environment’ or ‘sustainable living’ and it will pull up relevant video, blog entries, and articles.

P.S.- I really love TED.

I don’t know if this exists already, but to save water I want to capture the run off from my roof that comes down through the gutters and let it be held in a mostly underground large tank to use to water the lawn. There would be a large filter to keep out leaves and large particles. When the irrigation system turns on it would pull/pump water from here first and then switch to public water if it runs out. Seems like it would not be that expenisve to do? I water my lawn for almost 2 hours a day in the hot summer, right now it is an hour and a half every other day, and we just had days of rain…water down the drain. What a waste.

Earth Ships

Here is a website full of good ideas.

I hope something from there is something you can use!

I live in a brick house in the tropics, could there be anything more ridiculous, the place turns into a kiln!!! Newer houses here are being designed to take advantage of the breezes, constructed of corrugated tin with insulation, high ceilings with vents for the hot air to escape, internal walls that don’t go the whole way up so the air can circulate.

There is an architecture firm in Darwin called Troppo. They do innovative and beautiful designs for the tropical climate. I think they have a website, have a look, should give you some ideas.

On the scale of continent, the European Union’s strong support of sustainable development could be a very interesting case study. Here’s a link to their latest press release of their 2009 plans.

http://ec.europa.eu/sustainable/welcome/index_en.htm
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0400:FIN:EN:PDF

Moving into cities, Curitiba in Brazil is a very interesting example of a sustainable master plan. Here are links to a PBS documentary and a NYTimes article that profiled Curitiba in a sustainable design issue.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/brazil1203/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/magazine/20Curitiba-t.html

To go one level down, here is a link to a number of profiles of LEED-certified buildings from the US Green Building Council that could be considered “sustainable” by some definitions.

http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1721

To get a better understanding of what sustainability actually means as it is a rather nebulous, all-encompassing term, I would suggest looking at the College Sustainablity Report Card as it nicely lays out all of the components they consider to be a part of sustainability. And if you are looking for more case studies, Los Angeles CCD and Arizona State University are great examples.

http://www.greenreportcard.org/