Jeans repurposed as planters — awesome sight to see in San Francisco. ❤
Missing today’s Houston Social Media Week #Instacrawl. Instead, I’m hanging out with great City of Houston staff and talented Houston-area students who are interested in learning more about recycling. We’re judging students’ work in using salvaged materials to decorate recycling carts. Love this one covered in plastic bottles and cardboard. Not a typical Saturday, but a good one!
Via contained:
Via unconsumption:
A collaboration exploring the use of shipping containers as affordable, sustainable, energy-independent housing receives federal grant
It may not be a McMansion, but the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown’s Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship [RI-CIE], and two state-based architects have partnered in a first-time collaboration to design and potentially commercialize an off-the-grid, sustainable and energy-efficient home from [used] shipping containers. A class of RISD students this spring is researching and developing design plans for the sustainable home, and if the idea is judged viable, experts from RI-CIE will assist in finding the best avenues to take the homes to market.
“This collaboration between RISD and Brown has great potential to create jobs and provide affordable, sustainable housing … ,” said U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Full story: Live in a Shipping Container, Say RISD, Brown | GoLocalProv.
The two participating architects, Brown grad Peter Gill Case and RISD alum Joe Haskett, whose company is collaborating on the project, were involved with a multi-story shipping container office project in Providence, described in this earlier Unconsumption post.
I am a proponent of using rehabbed shipping containers for residential and commercial purposes, and look forward to following the RISD-Brown project’s progress.
Related: Find other shipping container-oriented Unconsumption posts here.
The fact that the project received a federal grant (akin to a Good Housekeeping stamp of approval!) gives it much credibility. If a viable design results from this project, it could provide an attractive option in the housing mix of the future. Hope there’s one or more successful outcomes from this initiative.
Reblogging myself so this post shows up here, in addition to appearing on the Contained and Unconsumption sites. :)
Nice series of green roof photos.
Via urbangreens:
“New York’s Empire State Building gleams in the windows of architectural firm Cook + Fox. Specialists in green buildings, the designers wanted their own space to reflect the fact that more plants in more places make for more livable cities.”
Photograph by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, National Geographic
How do you keep 25,000 panes of glass out of the recycling stream?
Via unconsumption:
Instead of ordering 6,514 new windows, contractors are refurbishing the existing windows and improving their thermal resistance (and performing the work from inside the building).
“[Empire State Building owner Tony] Malkin says he’s saving about $2,300 per window and avoiding the environmental impact of trucking new windows from the factory and old ones to recycling.”
“If you can retrofit the Empire State Building, you can retrofit anything.”
Read the rest of the USA Today story here, spotted on Twitter via Architectural Record, @ArchRecord [Thx, Laurie!]
The USA Today piece doesn’t mention LEED certification, but I’ve read elsewhere that when completed, the renovated Empire State Building is expected to qualify for LEED Existing Building Gold and an Energy Star rating of 90, placing it in the top 10 percent of energy-efficient buildings in the U.S. Quite impressive for a 79-year-old, 102-story building. Now if more building owners would invest in retrofits/upgrades …
Via urbangreens:
goats on a green roof—i dig this.