Is Geotectura’s Sun Sail just another clever design, or is it redefining Israel’s building policy? Bold and innovative, the Israel-based firm Geotectura produces otherworldly designs with a social conscience that even Bill McKibben might endorse. Their CT-cubes and hovering high-rises rival any science fiction graphic, while the X2S shelter, designed to provide physical and medical refuge […]
New water conservation faucets, solar-powered residential construction, Red-Dead Canal protests and more headlines related to Israeli cleantech and the environment. Image via n0nick. During the week of July 13, 2010, researchers from Ben-Gurion University received the first US – Israel energy independence grant for their light water reactor research. Motorized bikes are catching on in […]
Sun, wind and solar updraft, could this skyscraper be the world’s first dual power plant and residential building? It’s not easy to shine in Dubai, where architecture and design have captured all the world’s firsts: the tallest skyscraper, the largest collection of artificial islands – so large they are said to be seen from space. […]
Dosier’s fearlessness of the science of construction sets her apart from her peers [image courtesy of flickr] We were so intrigued by Professor Ginger Dosier, the Architect at Sharjah University who grows bricks by combining sand, common bacteria, calcium chloride and urea, that we decided to dig deeper. Some architects, like those at Geotectura, develop mindbending […]
The third “Think Green” conference, held in Amman this week, encourages green buildings and sustainable communities. [image of an apartment building in Amman via: Sezgin Aytuna] We heard about Jordanian Queen Rania’s activities earlier this week, and now we will hear what HRH Princess Sumaya Bint El Hassan has been up to. For the past […]
Young Israeli and Palestinian Architects Are Invited to Join World Renowned Architects for a Week of Green Building Lectures, Site Visits, and Workshops. With cooperation from Friends of the Earth Middle East, Hebron Polytechnic, and the Porter School for Environmental Studies (among many others), the International Non-Profit Organization ECOWEEK has announced that from July 25th […]
“The Sufi Order International (SOI) community desired to build an interspiritual temple called the ‘Universel’ at the Abode of the Message located in the Berkshire Mountains near New Lebanon, New York,” taken from Geotectura’s online literature. Although we previously covered their Greenest Building in Israel, which is currently in the process of acquiring LEED certification, as […]
Image credit: © 2009 Farshid Assassi, Courtesy of BNIM Architects. The International Living Building Institute Offers an Earthier, more Holistic Building Standard. The Omega Center for Sustainable Living (above) and the SF EcoCenter (below) are Potential Candidates for Certification. Twenty-three years ago, when then Chair of the United Nation’s World Commission on Environment and Development […]
Tel Aviv highlights green buildings, spaces, construction techniques, and gardens during its annual “Houses from Within” weekend. [image via: Ykravitz] One spring weekend every year, for the past few years, Tel Aviv celebrates its architecture and invites the public to learn about the special structures that get to call the city their home. These structures […]
The king willed it – so it was built…Michael Arndt questions the ‘greenliness’ of KAUST, granted the US Green Building Council’s highest LEED certification possible. The American Institute of Architecture recently hailed The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) as one of its top ten most environmentally responsible building designs. This follows other […]
Central Tel Aviv, Cira 1940’s: A Sustainable Idea Then and Now All over the Middle East, many old and often historical buildings are being torn down in order to “make way” for new, modern ones. This trend is especially true in cities like Cairo, Egypt and Tel Aviv, Israel, where the quaint and classical architecture of the “colonial […]
The Jerusalem Seminar in Architecture, an international conference series initiated in 1992, is devoted to discussing contemporary issues in the fields of architecture, urban planning and design. And since green design is one of the most important issues in contemporary architecture, the last conference (25-27 of January, 2009) was on the subject of Green Design: […]
We’ve had our eyes on Greek-Israeli green architect, Elias Messinas, for a while. President of the NGO ECOWEEK (active in Greece, Cyprus, and Israel), and an environmental consultant to the Kramim Eco Village project in Israel, he’s also been busy over the past year in organizing a “green” civil engineering lecture series for the city […]
Israeli architect Zvika Tamari (of TeaM Architects) recently proposed a conceptual plan for a Globe Ecological Hub in Modiin, a city in the center of Israel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. What is a Globe Ecological Hub? In Tamari’s conception, it is an organically shaped, grass-roofed eco-dome located in the center of the city and […]
With the unbearable heat of a Middle Eastern July upon us, many of us try to find ways to stay cool. Though regular energy-guzzling air conditioning is tempting, some of us will try to relieve our consciences with more energy effecient cooling methods, such as using the cross breeze or a solar powered air conditioner. […]
Can’t stand the climate change heat? Why not move underground? For Reynard Loki and Jennifer Daniels, the future might lie, for some people in places such as Israel or Australia, in what they are calling Underground Desert Living Units, UDLU for short. Loki began working on the idea in March 2008, and he later found […]
Carbon emissions from the building environment are globally one of the major contributors to climate change. On average up to 50% of all carbon emissions are related to domestic use of energy – our household consumption. How then will our personal conduct have any influence on the global climate? The answer to that is it […]
Slated for a 2011 finish date, Knafo Klimor Architects look to be the first Israeli firm hired to design a green building in China. Their concept: to bring the greenhouse inside the house. The team breaks from the model, where historically, Israelis look to the United States, or at least Europe to fulfill their design […]
Two things were clear from attending the International Renewable Energy Conference that took place in Eilat this week. The first is that Israel is now a world leader in clean energy. The second is that there is a small but growing group of players in the field who see this not just as a huge […]
Within a few years Israel’s greenest building will be located at Tel Aviv University (TAU). That’s the goal of Joseph Cory of Geotectura. He and two other architecture companies have won first prize in an architectural competition to design a 4,000 square meter green building for TAU’s Porter School of Environmental Studies (PSES). Cory’s partners […]
Mifal Hapayis (the Israel National Lottery) is opening new windows of opportunity for environmentally aware artists and designers. This year, the Arts and Culture Council turned to the public for suggestions on areas worthy of support and the people spoke up! Letting in a breath of fresh air in more ways than one, the new […]
During these tough times in the south of Israel and Gaza, it’s heartening to discover that some events are continuing, and that the determination to green things up, either by accident or design, continues apace. Here at Green Prophet, we’ve kept a keen eye on green design and sustainable architecture, both here and abroad. I […]