green building
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Passive house mini-boom in NYC heralds furnace-free future
New York City and the rest of the tri-state area are getting their first wave of "passive houses," a type of construction in which a building is so well-insulated that it doesn't require heating in the winter.
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No, green buildings will not harm your health
Tuesday, Julian Pecquet published a howler of a story on The Hill's energy and environment blog, E2 Wire. The headline says it all: Report: 'Green' buildings could harm your health The piece is based on a lengthy report from the National Academy of Sciences, so it must be accurate, right? Yeah, well, don't start ripping […]
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Green buildings can now eat smog for breakfast
The aluminum giant Alcoa has designed a building panel that cleans both itself and the nearby air. The secret to this feat is titanium dioxide, the same compound that allows sunscreen to block the sun. In this application, when the sun hits a coat of titanium dioxide, the compound begins spewing electrons. According to Alcoa, […]
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Sci-fi skycrapers of the future
The cities of the future could combine dense living arrangements with energy innovation, according to the winners of architecture mag eVolo's annual skyscraper design competition. This design collects lightning and uses it to power hydrogen fuel cells. Some of the other winning skyscrapers are habitations, but others are recycling centers, turbines, and water purification facilities […]
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Visiting a house in Germany that generates more energy than it uses
During my trip to Germany last week, one of my hosts from the Böll Foundation and I took a morning commuter train up to Borgsdorf, north of Berlin, to visit an experimental passivhaus built by architect Oliver Jirka for his own family. Here’s your faithful correspondent on the scene: Digital readouts show hourly/daily/weekly output of […]
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Meet the woman leading the charge to green America’s schools
Recently I was at a climate conference dominated by Baby Boomers, mostly white men, droning on about the nigh-insurmountable challenges of climate change and laying out their ponderous academic theories for how to change things. In other words, a typical climate conference. Into this dolorous atmosphere came something different: a young woman, bright-eyed and quick-witted, […]
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How does your supermarket stack up to the world’s greenest grocery store?
The Whole Foods in Dedham, Mass. is bringing new meaning to the word “greengrocer.” It’s a showcase facility, which means it basically tries out all the company’s environmental best practices to see how they work in the wild. The result is a store with an inspiring combination of architectural and procedural innovations: The building’s steel […]
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Cities with the most energy efficient buildings: L.A., Houston, Detroit, Dallas
It’s that time of year, when the United States Environmental Protection Agency releases its list of the top 10 American cities [PDF] with the most energy efficient buildings. In this case, that means commercial buildings that have earned an Energy Star rating that signifies they consume 35 percent less energy and release 35 percent less […]
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Who’s got the greenest house on the planet?
It’s pretty easy to determine the biggest pie, or longest fingernails, or fattest twins. But what about the greenest house? AOL’s consumer finance site, of all places (they’re into journalism now!) has a nice roundup of what, exactly, it means to have a green home. There are a number of buildings that have claimed or […]
