Work will soon begin on the 44-story Renaissance Tower in Istanbul, Turkey. The only thing authentically Turkish here is its zip code. Image via FXFOWLE Located on the Asian side of Istanbul at 606-feet, which is taller than most of its skyline neighbors, this “chiseled obelisk” of an office block is meant to highlight an eastern […]
An underground underwater city and water complex idea an alternative to floating islands? Climate change is causing sea levels to rise, so much that the president of the Maldives wants to locate his island nation. Some parts of the world are preparing themselves for this new reality, while urban planners look for new solutions to […]
Dubai-based Jonathan Eric Defante plastic “eco-brick” pitch won him a UN Citizen Ambassadorship. Jonathan Eric Defante submitted his “One Bottle, One Life” YouTube pitch to the United Nations as a potential solution for poor recycling performance around the world. The Filipino man living in Dubai suggested that people can build their own homes made out […]
Lifeguard shack on drummer’s beach in Israel is soon to be upcycled into a unique new boutique “pixel” hotel. We’ve heard of pixelated screens and buildings, but pixel hotels are a new phenomenon that started as an art project in Linz, Austria. Now these tiny hotels established in unusual, typically abandoned urban settings – whether […]
Unless you are a really big fan of tornadoes and hailstorms, it’s time to ditch the car (or at least carpool), grab a bus, or pick up your bicycle. For so long scientists were reluctant to draw relationships between increased pollutants in our atmosphere and certain climate change events. Bill McKibben and others started warning […]
Masdar will break ground on a new Facade Test Center in a few months. It will research the most energy efficient building materials on the market. Masdar is constantly reinventing itself in order to ensure that the Gulf’s first genuine low-energy and low-carbon building project succeeds, and its latest reincarnation may well become one of […]
The groundbreaking net-zero energy NYCTech Campus designed as a collaborative project between Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell University will also be one of the world’s most environmentally-friendly campuses. The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has earned considerable esteem as a world leader in clean technology – a reputation that matched Cornell University’s […]
High water demand is putting pressure on scarce water resources and destroying the agricultural sector in Gaza Water shortages are a widespread and common problem for the people of the Gaza Strip, between Israel and Egypt. There just isn’t enough water for the growing population and an Israeli blockade which limits imports and exports means […]
A hastily constructed building in Israel designed in 1972 seemed like a good idea at a time, but now it has evolved into a bizarre eyesore and a sanctuary for the country’s Orthodox Jews. We’ve seen many funky buildings on Green Prophet, including Moshe Safdie’s famous Habitat ’67 and beehive shaped architecture in Syria, but the […]
Netanya’s efficient new twisting tower will be powered by geothermal energy and transform this once-obscure Israeli city. We have a real soft spot for earth architecture, such as Nader Khalili’s gorgeous domes and arches fit for space, and these amazing Syrian beehive-shaped buildings that have lasted hundreds of years, but we also acknowledge the great […]
The Taj mall in Amman, Jordan seems as current and eco-sensitive as a polyester leisure suit. Costing in excess of $170 million and with a total floor area of 150,000 square meters, Amman’s newest mega-project is located in a middle class residential area, skirted by vacant lots of grazing goats and humble concrete houses. Access to its underground car park […]
The Haramain High Speed Rail Project (HHR) in Saudi Arabia recently broke ground, which bodes well for the future of the Kingdom’s environmental/energy footprint. Phase II of Saudi Arabia’s 276 mile Haramain High Speed Rail Project (HHR) is now underway. The Kingdom is getting 35 swanky new trains and 4 stations designed by Foster + Partners […]
Dirty, polluted, and badly managed: Understanding Cairo, The Logic of a City Out of Control goes beyond the usual rhetoric “The Egyptian middle classes and intelligentsia, as well as a sizable slice of the foreign community, love to deplore what Cairo has become. Crowds and congestion, pollution, garbage, chaos, gridlocked traffic, horrendous architecture, and no […]
We’re so thrilled to announce that Geotectura has finally broken ground on Israel’s very first LEED Platinum Building. We’ve been waiting for this happy moment since November 2008 when Geotectura together with Axelrod-Grobman Architects and Chen Architects first won a prestigious international competition to design TAU’s Porter School of Environmental Studies. After years of information gathering and […]
At the ongoing Eye on Earth summit in Abu Dhabi, there has been a lot of talk about sharing environmental data. But we question whether knowledge is enough. As early as 1930, a British engineer named Guy Calendar warned that increased carbon emissions as a result of industrialization was beginning to raise the global surface […]