This beautifully-restored adobe granary in Tunisia keeps food cool without any kind of mechanical intervention. The benefits of earth architecture have been well-documented on Green Prophet, so we were very excited to discover these wonderful adobe granaries called Ksar (Ksour is plural) on our Tunisian journey. Possibly built as early as the 12th century by […]
Egyptians researchers believe that sugar beets like those pictured above can help to clear the country’s stockpile of land mines. 20% of the world’s land mines are planted in Egypt, where they have killed or maimed a total of more than 7,000 people in the last 25 years. They are scattered in the western desert […]
Earth-loving kibbutzniks applied their green building techniques to the luxury Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Jerusalem. Residents of the Neot Semadar Kibbutz in Israel’s Negev desert have been constructing green buildings for decades, but they’ve never operated beyond their own turf – until now. Tasked with resurrecting Jerusalem’s Palace hotel as the 223 room Waldorf-Astoria, world-renowned Turkish […]
With some creativity and design aesthetic, cardboard box forts are taken to a whole new level. Cardboard is becoming an eco-friendly material of choice for furniture design, and sustainable designers have put it to many uses. It is used both for chic contemporary cardboard thrones as well as cardboard cribs and doll cradles. Bringing cardboard […]
This amazing moat bridge parts waters in the Netherlands like Moses and the Red Sea! Thanks to theological scholarship (or in my case, thanks to MGM and Charlton Heston) everyone knows how Moses split the Red Sea. Architects have now imitated that miracle with a sunken eco-bridge that allows safe pedestrian passage through far less-daunting waters. Four […]
There are more land mines in Afghanistan than there are people, so Massoud Hassani turned a childhood toy into an extraordinary wind-powered bamboo mine sweeper that destroys and tracks them.
Dubai-based couple develop proven green technologies guide for like-minded architects. There are more than 60 proven ways to harvest nature’s power and convert it into clean, renewable energy, but knowing where to find information about these various applications isn’t always so easy. Enter Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian from the Land Art Generator Initiative. The […]
These designed cotton bags are way cooler than plastic. Plastic bags are undoubtedly bad for the environment, but sometimes it’s hard to get motivated to carry reusable bags with you for those spur-of-the-moment trips to the store. Serious and devoted DIYers and plastic bag avoiders may make their own reusable cloth shopping bags out of […]
We have collected five inspiring stories that point to the possibility of a freer, greener Tunisia TIME Magazine paid allegiance to the brave hearted souls in the Middle East North Africa region who rose up against despotic regimes by naming “The Protestor” as their 2011 person of the year. Known now as the Arab […]
Islamic architects piped sunlight into homes using star-shaped skylights but Brian and his wife installed Solotubes. One of the first changes my wife and I made to our house was to install a Solotube in the kitchen. This device consists of a translucent dome on the roof which is connected to a highly silvered six […]
Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta who do not have access to the electrical grid have been developing home grown renewable energy plants. Palestinians living in the Masafer Yatta village have been secretly pursuing wind and solar energy projects in order to mitigate a serious shortfall of energy in the village. But the 150,000 residents that […]
The LEED-hopeful Siemens headquarters in Masdar City has been awarded the coveted 2012 MIPIM future projects award. It wasn’t long ago that the first batch of photographs depicting the new Siemens headquarters made its way through the virtual world, but the LEED Platinum-hopeful building designed by Sheppard Robson has already scooped a coveted architecture award, […]
MIT researchers say that soon all we’ll need to harvest our vast solar resource is grass and stabilizing powder. While Masdar and Suntech and other solar energy projects are laboring under expensive, high-tech materials in order to improve their energy-absorbing capability, MIT researchers in the United States are taking a different approach: using grass. (No, […]
Through his free movie First Earth David Sheen is passing on the positive transformation that occurred in his life after learning about ecological architecture. When David Sheen first decided to make a film that depicts the history, necessity, and straight-up sensibility of ecological architecture, he had no idea what a massive task he had […]
This Foster & Partner’s project completed in 2004 is green and deeply respectful of its environment – why did they change their design approach? In 2004, Foster & Partners completed this gorgeous Chesa Futura apartment building in Switzerland using a combination of modern modeling tools and ancient construction techniques. Situated on the edge of a […]