Passivhaus: The Greenest Building Standard?

The Passivhaus has its roots in the USA in the seventies, when Amory Lovins proposed super-insulated houses that could be warmed by a hair dryer. They caught on in Germany, where Passivhaus

Cargo Bikes Make A Comeback

There’s nothing new about cargo bikes; they were once very common delivery vehicles, and they make a lot of sense for carting heavy loads. As Treehugger’s outdoor correspondent

Why Is Everybody Tearing Down Paul Rudolph Houses and Buildings?

Paul Rudolph was one of the dominant architects in the sixties and seventies, who understood how to build with the climate instead of fighting it. Yet so many of his buildings are now gone or

Big Steps To Make Our Cities and Buildings Better

There are a lot of things wrong with the way we build our cities, and in these hard times, there is a lot wrong in the way we are rebuilding them, or unbuilding them as the case may be. These

Hydroponics Are Hot

Olympic medals are not the only thing that come out of Vancouver, Canada; it is also a hotbed of hydroponic creativity. TreeHugger contributor Sami Grover has suggested that equipment developed

Wearable Architecture: Our Clothing Becomes Our Houses

What is a house, anyways? For the designers of the Veasyble wearable shelter, isolation and intimacy are important. They reflect on “the change in our relationship with the domestic

The Best of The Toronto International Design Festival

There have been many design events circling around the big Interior Design Show in Toronto for years, but this is the first time they have all been rolled together into one big festival. The

Architecture For Humanity and A Different Approach to Haiti

Red+Housing Emergency Housing by OBRA Architects Inhabitat recently wrote about Emergency Shelters and Disaster Relief For The People of Haiti and how Shipping Containers Could Provide

Taking Stock of Stock House Plans

Go into any bookstore or search on words “Stock House Plans” and you will find thousands of them, mostly junk. Perhaps 50% of are stolen and just about all of them get twisted and

Themes, Memes and Dreams in a Decade of Architecture

The blogs are full of “best of the year” lists, but architecture moves more slowly – it takes a long time for ideas to get built, technologies to evolve and for knowledge to

Fun, Games and Stunts at COP 15

TreeHugger's man in CopenHagen, Matthew McDermott, has to deal with more than just climate change; the place is evidently crawling with people pushing all kinds of agendas and issues, sort of a

Dubious Dubai: The Towers We Will Never See

One of the sad things about the recent demise of the construction boom in Dubai is that we will no longer have so many wonderful architectural renderings to show. Some come from talented

The Green Façades of Édouard François

Inhabitat has done a lot of coverage of living walls, particularly those of French botanist Patrick Blanc. They are complicated things, requiring pumps, hydroponics and a lot of care. If they

TreeHugger Reports From Greenbuild 2009

Just last week Treehugger joined thousands of designers, builders and architects in Arizona to check out all the latest advances in sustainable building at Greenbuild 2009. By the time we got

TreeHugger’s Slow Gift Guide

I know, it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but this year Treehugger is starting early and are taking it slow. Let's face it: with all that rushing, consuming, and bargain-hunting, the holidays can

Garden Sheds Are an Explosion of Architectural Experimentation

Mark Twain had a garden shed; he called it “the loveliest study you ever saw…octagonal with a peaked roof, each face filled with a spacious window…perched in complete isolation on the

Fabulous Flatpack Furniture

Over at TreeHugger we are saps for furniture that can slide under your door; flatpack isn't just made by IKEA. Designers like Eric Ku are doing it with humor, inventing a flatpack alphabet - his

The Kitchen of the Future Today

The kitchen of the future was going to be so high-tech. Frigidaire's Dream Kitchen of Tomorrow had it all; an IBM punch card recipe file, automatic dispensing and online TV ordering. And that's

Lessons We Can Learn From Old Buildings And Apply to New Ones

Buildings consume 76% of electricity generated; they create 48% of our greenhouse gases; a quarter of our waste in landfills comes from construction. Yet we continue to tear down perfectly good

Green Roofs Are Changing the Way Architects Design Buildings

Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant & Butik, photo Luanne Lozier Green roofs are wonderful things; like a thick blanket, they keep roofs cool in summer and warm in winter. They have been around