Archive | Green Architecture RSS feed for this section
New ways to catch some rays
Photovoltaics may generate clean electricity, but they’re expensive and difficult to integrate with a building’s fabric. Will the next generation of PV technologies tackle these problems? Travel round mainland Europe and you’ll find photovoltaic panels everywhere — in fields, on houses, and on crinkly-tin sheds. Germany leads the way, with 240,000 PV units installed last [...]
Continue reading...Building a Greener America
10. September 2008
Architect Edward Mazria challenges the building industry to reach carbon neutrality by the year 2030. Forget the common icons of global warming. Fuming tailpipes and industrial smokestacks, it turns out, are less culpable for climate change than a set of offenders hidden in plain sight: buildings. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, buildings are [...]
Continue reading...Green Roof Planned for PECO Headquarters
9. September 2008
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Joined by civic leaders, PECO is set to unveil its plans today for a 45,000-square-foot living roof atop a section of the headquarters for the Philadelphia-based electric and natural gas utility. The planting of the green roof is an element of the utility’s five-year, $15.3 million initiative to become more environmentally friendly. [...]
Continue reading...What Can Architecture Learn From Nature?
9. September 2008
A leaf unfolds, its parts self-assembling from a slurry of nutrients, using ancient blueprints encoded on a molecular level to spread into a photosynthesizing, thermal regulating, pest-resistant and water-repelling surface. Our greatest technologies look mild compared to such simple, integrated eloquence. To modify an adage from Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable [...]
Continue reading...
15. September 2008
0 Comments