Dive into the archives.
- A DIY Guide To Building A Green Roof Hits The Virtual Shelves.
London, England. Two of the UK’s leading proponents of green roofs have teamed up to produce ‘THE DIY GUIDE TO GREEN & LIVING ROOFS’ - a guide aimed at individuals with a Do-It-Yourself inclination along with those having trouble persuading local contractors to take up the challenge of installing a green roof on their behalf.
‘The [...]
- $400m windfarm approved
Otago Daily has reported that a $400m NZD ($295m USD) Mahinerangi windfarm proposed by Trustpower has been approved by the Environment Court.
Read more @ the SOURCE: Otago Daily
- Moving Downtown to save on car costs
The Associated Press and other news outlets have reported over the last few weeks on the growing trend for young people and empty nesters moving downtown in major cities across the USA to save on fuel costs and to reduce their travel time.
The other growing trend is more people opting to use public transport to get [...]
- Eco-towns set to face toughest ever green standards : Directgov - Newsroom
The UK Government has released the report with proposal’s for the Eco Towns, below is the full details.
Underlining the government’s determination that only the best quality schemes with very high sustainability standards should qualify for eco-town status, the standards being developed are set to include:
* achieving zero carbon status across all the town’s buildings, including [...]
- Don’t let green roofs be victims of the crunch - Building Design
Phil Clark of Building Design asks Why bother specifying a green roof when it adds extra costs, consultants, hassle and work? This attitude seems common when it comes to deciding whether to add vegetation to your scheme’s structure. And in the credit crunch, any part of a project that could be considered an added expense [...]
- Solar-powered cars begin race to Calgary
CBC.ca reports that 15 solar-powered cars, including four managed by teams from Canadian schools, rolled out of a suburb of Dallas, Texas, on Sunday en route to Calgary in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge.The race should end on July 22 at the University of Calgary
CBC.ca – Solar-powered cars begin race to Calgary.
- State-of-the-art sustainable neighborhood- Columbian.com
A former industrial site on prime waterfront real estate in the city’s core sheds its working-class roots for a future as an urban neighborhood reconnecting people to the water.
Sound familiar? Except this isn’t Vancouver’s Columbia River waterfront, where developers envision a dense cluster of apartments, condos, offices, retail, restaurants and parks.
It’s in Victoria, B.C., [...]
- Eco-towns should be near urban sprawl, say planning chief - Birmingham Post
The Government should drop proposals for eco-towns in rural locations and concentrate instead on developing sustainable communities in urban areas, according to the chairman of Birmingham’s planning committee.
Councillor Peter Douglas Osborn said the council would be pushing ahead with its own plans to build five eco-towns within the Birmingham city boundary.
He said locations favoured by [...]
- Climate Change top of the Agenda @ G8
Numerous news sources have reported on the G8 summit with Climate Change seen as the one of the top issues that needs to be addressed. The other critical issues are being referred to as the 3F Crisis – Food, Fuel, Finance. With many countries heading into slow down and some a recession with high inflation [...]
- Going up - Vertical gardens catch on - Vancouver Sun
Vancouver is in the middle of a green wall revolution. A record number of these environmentally friendly sustainable “living” walls - also called vertical gardens - are being built here at the moment.
One of the first ones went up a couple of years ago at the aquarium’s Aquawest Learning Centre. Measuring 3 metre by 15.2 [...]
- Landscape failed in eco-town plans, says Landscape Institute
The importance of landscape is neglected in the Government’s eco-towns plans, the Landscape Institute said this week.
Chair of the Landscape Institute Policy Committee Jon Lovell said eco-towns provided “an outstanding opportunity” but warned that the sustainability of the proposed eco-towns depended on the integration of landscape planning, design and management. He said that green space [...]
- Auckland students win by sustainable design
Open to University of Auckland Civil and Environmental Engineering students, the competition brief was to re-design a system that reduces stormwater runoff and pollution in new housing developments, while contributing to good urban design.
The competition was jointly sponsored by the Auckland Regional Council, the Hobsonville Land Company - a subsidiary of Housing New Zealand Corporation [...]
- Star architects bid to design new center for South Korean capital as 21st century model city - International Herald Tribune
An all-star group of international architects bidding for the chance to design a new urban center for the South Korean capital said Tuesday the vast site offered a rare chance to create a model for 21st century cities.
Five top architecture firms behind many of the world’s recent iconic structures are being given US$1 million each [...]
- LandDesign and Audubon Lifestyles Join Forces for Sustainable Development
LandDesign Inc. and Audubon Lifestyles, LLC, today announce a new strategic partnership aimed at helping businesses and municipalities to implement green design and development and build more sustainable communities.
The partnership will offer comprehensive, practical and timely assistance for clients that are committed to environmentally responsible green design and sustainable development, and creating long-term quality of [...]
- Singapore’s First Water Week Sees Deals Worth Over $270M U.S.
Governments, utilities providers and water companies signed 27 agreements totalling more than SGD367 million (USD270 million) during the first Singapore International Water Week, which drew to a close last Friday. In addition, a water fund was launched to attract SGD435 million (USD320 million) in investments in Asian water projects.
SOURCE: Water Online – Singapore’s First Water Week [...]
- Landscape Architects to get new Design Hub building at RMIT
The Age newspaper has reported that
Architect and RMIT alumnus Sean Godsell unveiled his plan for the Design Hub to BusinessDay yesterday, an innovative, landmark building for the city that has a “second skin” enveloping an eight-level tower.
The building will be on the corner of Swanston and Victoria streets, at the former CUB site. Mr [...]
- Today’s suburbs, tomorrow’s slums? - globeandmail.com
According to some doomsday scenarios, spiking gas prices could turn the cul-de-sacs and two-car garages that surround North America’s cities - built over the past 60 years and designed for the convenience of people with cars - into tomorrow’s slums.
The predictions for the most part come from subscribers to the theory of “peak oil,” which [...]
- A mastermind of green design - China Daily
This site in Sandao, Hainan province, has been recreated in the virtual online world of Second Life where the public will design an “Eco-friendly Community” that will later be built on the actual site.
When David Greenberg stumbled across a cluster of tree houses while trekking the jungles of Maui, he felt a sudden and mighty [...]
- Envisioning a world of $200-a-barrel oil - Los Angeles Times
“Throughout our history, we have grown on the assumption that energy costs would be low,” said Michael Woo, a former Los Angeles city councilman and a current member of the city Planning Commission. “Now that those assumptions are shifting, it changes assumptions about housing, cars and how cities grow.”
Push prices up fast enough, he said, [...]
- Build eco-towns in urban areas, not the countryside, say council chiefs - Telegraph
Eco-towns should be built in urban areas and not in the countryside to stop them becoming “dormitory towns” where people have to drive somewhere else to work, town hall chiefs say.
Eco-towns should be built in urban areas, council chiefs claimEco-towns ’should be built in urban areas’
A new report from the Local Government Association also warned [...]
