Retired 747 Airplane Transformed Into Striking Malibu Home

Here at Inhabitat we’re huge fans of recycled airplane architecture, and it turns out that if you’re building a house on a sprawling property deep in the hills of Malibu, buying a

Reverse Graffiti Hits the Streets of Porto Alegre, Brazil

Reverse graffiti — removing paint or dirt from a wall to create a pattern — is a hot trend internationally, and many cities have had a hard time figuring out how to handle it

$1 Trillion Afghan Mineral Deposits Will Affect Green Technologies

Whether or not Afghanistan's mineral wealth, which includes a massive supply of lithium, proves to be good news for the troubled nation, it will almost certainly be good news for electric

Kevin Costner Announces That BP Will Use His Oil-Cleanup Machines

At a cameo appearance at a Congressional hearing on the BP oil spill, actor Kevin Costner announced that the company had ordered 32 of the half-million-dollar centrifuge machines he's been

Japanese Spacecraft Successfully Deploys First Solar Sail in Space

the Japanese space agency, JAXA, successfully unfurled a solar sail in space for the first time.

Open-Source Printer Made From Legos and a Felt-Tip Pen

I wrote yesterday that our love of Legos may be the strongest proof of our innate desire to build stuff. Here’s an unbelievable tidbit of evidence in support of that theory: YouTube user

Artist Jan Vormann Uses Legos to ‘Repair’ War-Damaged Buildings

Nothing attests to humans’ instinctual love of making stuff and taking it apart more than the Lego brick. The plastic toy has been featured in films and music videos and is the basis of

BP Refuses to Use Donated Hair Mats to Clean Up Oil Spill

We’ve written about a number of alternative ways to clean up oil spills using natural non-toxic materials ranging from peat moss to mats made from recycled hair. However even in the wake

Sewage Sludge Biodiesel Costs Just 10¢ a Gallon More Than Petrol

Photo courtesy American Chemical Society The key difference between biofuels that are truly green and those that aren’t is the source material: is it genuinely waste, or is it something

German Water Park Makes Wastewater Recycling Fun

With the weather heating up and summer right around the corner, we were excited to see this beautiful German water park recently showcased on Dezeen. Designed by Ooze and Marjetica Potrc, the

Update to Daniel Liebermann’s Radius House Preserves Organic Vision

Photo by Cameron Scott In 1960, architect Daniel Liebermann — who apprenticed under Frank Lloyd Wright — built a house on a hilly site in a new way, designing a structure that curved along a

Temporary Dutch Parking Garage Is as Green As It Looks

Here in the United States, we’re only starting to kick the habit of designing cities around cars. But in Leiden, Netherlands, designers were asked to build a parking garage that would last

Portable Solar Wind Turbine Keeps You Charged on the Go

How about this for an all-purpose gadget? Cheng Peng has designed a portable wind turbine with solar panels on its blades. The device is capable of generating enough energy to power your cell

First Seedbomb Vending Machine Lands in San Francisco!

Guerrilla gardeners in San Francisco have some new ammunition with the recent installation of the city’s first seedbomb vending machine! Designed by L.A.’s Common Studio, the

Hillside Residence is a Sustainable Gem in the Marin Hills

For almost as long as they’ve known each other, Scott and Tracy Lee have been designing and building the Hillside Residence, a sustainable gem in the Marin Hills. The house represents

New Photosensitive Smart Skin Could Cut Buildings’ Energy Use

Photo by Wonderlane University of California engineer Luke Lee and architect Maria-Paz Gutierrez are developing an advanced “skin” for buildings that would regulate temperature and

New Analytic Tools Encourage Greener Computer Code

Photo of Oracle cloud computing data center by Kevin Krejci With cloud computing starting to move from fantasy to reality, the question of the day is: How green is your cloud? Far from the

Hyper-Absorbant Peat Moss Could Clean Up Oil Spills Like Louisiana’s

A tiny Norwegian company has developed a super absorbent organic peat moss that is capable of cleaning up oil floating on water. The peat is scattered on the spill and absorbs the oil, and,

Green Tech’s Big Patent Problem

You may remember the battle that raged between pharmaceutical companies who wanted to hold on to their patents and African nations who couldn’t afford the non-generic price tag on the AIDS

San Francisco Launches First Crowd-Sourced Tree Census

Last week the city of San Francisco announced the first-ever tree census. Joined by the California Department of Forestry and the local nonprofit Friends of the Urban Forest, the city unveiled

Canadian Researchers Move Closer to Affordable, Efficient Solar Power

Enough solar energy hits the Earth in an hour to meet global power demand for an entire year: the trick is catching it, and doing it with equipment cheap enough to allow it to compete with

Artist Unleashes Fuel Cell-Powered Nomad Plants to Clean Rivers

Mexican artist Gilberto Esparza has unleashed a legion of solar-powered “Nomad Plants” that mosey along riverbanks in search of resources to sustain themselves. Each one utilizes a

From Bauhaus to HUF HAUS: Energy Efficient Prefab Homes

German company HUF HAUS is offering gorgeous green houses to the masses by bringing Bauhaus style to factory-made green homes. The company’s signature post-and-beam construction allows for

Smarter Turbine Placement Could Make Wind Power Reliable

There’s enough potential wind power in the world to meet demand five times over. The trouble is, wind isn’t reliable: if you live in Iowa, it doesn’t help you that the wind is

Seoul Gains An Underground Earth House by Byoung Soo Cho

Korean architect Byoung Soo Cho has built an underground house outside Seoul. Called Earth House, it’s not as fancy as some iterations of the subterranean abode, drawing instead on

Barcelona Introduces LED Streetlights That Cut Energy Costs by 1/3

If it weren’t already the case that no other city can hold a candle to Barcelona, it is now: the European city has begun using wireless LED street lamps — made by Spanish energy

Smart Meters Hit Bumps in the Road

Smart meters — utility meters that provide detailed, real-time information on energy use — promise an easy way to bring down residential power consumption. They help consumers sniff out

Affresol Makes Modular Homes Out of Recycled Plastic

While a party guest suggests to Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate that “There’s a great future in plastics,” nobody could have predicted that they’d one

OPOWER Encourages Efficiency With Energy Report Cards

Most Americans would have a fit if their credit card or cell phone company sent a dollar amount at the end of the month with no itemized description to match. But we tolerate it from our utility

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