Israeli designer Ohad Lustgarten designed Shade and Shelter as part of his final project at Shenkar College of Design, the same center that spawned living lace made from bacteria. The six foot tall prototype constructed out of cardboard looks like a giant centipede when it is unwound but then coils up to provide a lightweight […]
Melilla is a curious place at the tip of North Africa that proves people with different cultural and religious backgrounds can get along perfectly well. One of two Spanish enclaves in Morocco, this multicultural city on the Mediterranean Sea hosts a melting pot of 70,000 Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, who don’t fight each other, don’t […]
If you are in Cairo, don’t miss these fun and fabulous recycling and upcycling workshops at Darb 1718 Following what looks like a very successful Recycling Art festival at the end of August, Darb 1718 are hosting a set of four recycling workshops this month. With sessions on the 9, 10, 16 and 17 of […]
Hayrettin Karaca, 90, faces up to six years in prison for championing the environmental causes to which he has devoted his life. Turkey is not a country where environmental awareness is terribly high. But one man has done more to solve this problem, as well as the forces that threaten Turkey’s natural habitats, than almost […]
The subject of humane milking is a slippery issue and frankly, until now, it wasn’t altogether clear who in Israel is doing the job well. If such a thing is possible. But Amalia Rosenblum spent months researching the country’s various milk-producing facilities to separate the meat from the industry’s bones, at the end of which […]
Giacomo de Stefano raises his hat as he rows into Istanbul’s Golden Horn, the final stretch of a trans-Europe experiment in sustainable travel. It shouldn’t be any surprise that a man who adopted Venice as his hometown loves to be near water. But the way 44-year-old de Stefano decided to raise awareness about this precious […]
Former English footballer Gary Neville’s $9.7 million eco-home was granted planning permission. But is this really what environmentally-smart building’s about? The ex-Manchester United club captain’s five-bedroom subterranean mansion will be the first carbon neutral home in Bolton, a city near the West Pennine Moors in England’s north west. The posh eco-home bears a striking resemblance to the Teletubbies’ house, where the starring […]
The best news to come from Better Place is an attractive $510 leasing plan per month which includes 1000 km. Israel’s Better Place, headed by the iconic entrepeneur Shai Agassi has just released news of an attractive leasing deal bound to win over new subscribers: for NIS 1990 a month ($510 USD), for 36 months, […]
Despite attending Egypt’s Bani-Suef University as a student of commerce, 24 year-old Mohamed Gooda’s passion has always been for science. Having pursued his interest in physics in his spare time, he’s come up with a theoretical method of improving upon the efficiency of the photovoltaic solar cells currently in use the world over. He believes […]
Rock Stadium by Lebanese design firm MZ Architects hasn’t been built yet but it has already won two coveted international design awards, including Best Future Building of the Year at the 2012 LEAF Awards. Marwan Zgheib accepted this year’s award for Al Ain’s sunken Rock Stadium in London on 21 September, sharing a slice of […]
Dates and goat’s cheese, a classic Middle Eastern combination that works as an appetizer, nosh, or dessert. Stately date palms grace many streets in the Middle East, giving the landscape an unforgettable silhouette. In Israel, municipalities prune their date palms and give out the big, rustling leaves gratis to those who like to roof their […]
“We’re one of the most environmentally friendly cities in Israel,” says Kfar Saba mayor Yehuda Ben Hamo. In Israel, each municipality raises a Jewish holiday temporary tent called a succah for the benefit of local workers and visitors. This year, the very first succah illuminated by solar energy will go up in the central-region […]
Earlier this year Cornell and Technion, Israel Institute for Technology won the privilege of developing a new tech campus and incubator on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Starchitects Skidmore, Owings, Merril (SOM) won the design competition and now plans are underway to turn the entire island into an enormous super-green net-zero energy campus complete with […]
IBM has unveiled a water-cooled microchip that produces solar energy at greater efficiencies than most cells and the waste water can be used to power desalination facilities. Wait, what? Let’s un-strip this sentence. A water-cooled microchip? IBM invented water-embedded microprocessors quite some time ago and have successfully put them to work in their Zurich-based SuperMUC […]
Meet Egypt’s new Solar Energy Association hoping to turn a country’s power crisis into eco-innovation. It’s dark at an upscale Cairo café. It’s not closed and service continues despite the only light coming from windows along two walls. The cause was an electricity outage. While it only lasted around 15 minutes, it was one of […]