Today GE announced the launch of GeoSpring, its most energy-efficient hybrid-electric hot water heater. They also announced the opening of their new GeoSpring manufacturing facility in Lousiville, KY, which is part of GE’s commitment to invest $1 billion and create more than 1,300 new U.S. jobs by 2014. According to GE, The GeoSpring uses 62% less energy and will save average users $325 a year on their electric bill – imagine the savings if you have shower hogging teenagers!

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Post tags: "energy star", efficient hot water heater, energy efficient appliance, Energy-Efficient Appliances, GE GeoSpring, Green Appliances, green collar economy, green collar jobs, green economy, hybrid hot water heater, smart grid

Boulder Electric Vehicle just sold the first commercial electric truck capable of hitting 70 mph to Precision Plumbing and Electric. The company’s new fleet will use only one half-kilowatt hour per mile (2-5 times better than a diesel engine), generate zero local emissions, and find a savings of $5,000 per truck per year. Not only do these 2-ton capacity work-horses get 120 miles on a charge, but they are designed and made in the USA! How’s that for green economy?

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Post tags: Boulder Electric Vehicle, Commercial Electric Truck, electric vehicle, green delivery vehicle, USA Made EV

Mom-turned-designer Kate Fagelman of Little Play Spaces has created a series of kid-sized recycled cardboard playhouses that are so cool we wish she made them for us ‘big-kids’ The French Cafe has a chalk board menu, shelves for the finest little cheeses,  menus and more. Fagelman also offers a Medieval Castle complete with a tower and a customizable family crest for the little knights and princesses of your home.

+ French Cafe $79

+ Medieval Castle $79

+ Little Play Spaces

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Post tags: build your own playhouse, Cardboard Cafe, eco-friendly playhouse, green kids gear, green kids projects, Little Play Spaces, recycled cardboard furniture, Recycled Play House

The people who brought us memory foam, satellite radio, invisible braces and the charcoal water filter are at it again. The brilliant minds at NASA’s Ames Research Center are working to create a carbon-neutral fuel and food source using floating plastic bags filled with wastewater and algae. Supported by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and the California Energy Commission, OMEGA (Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae) hopes to take advantage of the amazing amount of oils produced by some algea (up to 40 times more than soy per acre).

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Post tags: algae biofuel, biofuel production, biofuel research, carbon neutral fuels, NASA OMEGA, renewable energy

Gather is a restaurant located at the heart of the sustainable food movement in Berkeley, California. Designed by Nicole Sillapere of Sillapere Design, the beautiful eco restaurant is housed in the greenest building in Berkeley, The David Brower Center. The chefs serve up local seasonal fare from some Bay Area favorite farms like River Dog and Devils Gulch paired with biodynamic wines from Verdad and other eco wineries — places that are proving that responsible farming can heal the land. The restaurant itself is made of beautifully re-purposed materials like seat benches made from leather belts and banquet tables made from old high school bleachers.

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Post tags: david brower center, Gather, Gather Restaurant, green design, recycled building materials, recycled interior design, repurposed interior furnishings, Responsible food, seat belt bench, sustainable design, sustainable food

A new project in Cambridge, MA dubbed the “Park Spark” has dogs powering the street lights in their own dog parks. Designed by Matthew Mazzotta, a visual artist with a degree from MIT, the project uses dog poop from the park to produce methane, which is then burned to light the park at night. The project was funded through the Massachusetts Institute for Technology and a partnership with the City of Cambridge, and it will hopefully spark a dog poo-fueled revolution of biogas-powered parks across the country.

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Post tags: cambridge, dog poo power, green design, MIT, Poo Power!, renewable energy, Spark Park Project, sustainable design

Designer Andrew Kim has created a new Eco Coke concept bottle that minimizes the packaging’s environmental footprint while maximizing its efficiency. The square bottles are more collapsible, fit tightly with other bottles for efficient shipping and stocking, and are made from sugar based bioplastic.

Read the rest of Collapsible, Biodegradable Coke Bottle Proves it’s Hip to Be Square

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Post tags: collapsible container, Eco-Coke Packaging, eco-friendly packaging, green design, green product, sustainable design, Waste reduction

Windows are a two-way street when it comes to efficient green building. We need them for light, fresh air, beauty, and the connection they create to the outdoors, but even the most efficient windows, installed perfectly, are akin to having a hole in the wall as far as energy is concerned. Enter Peer +, who has developed a new type of energy-generating smart glass that can change its opacity to filter sunlight, significantly reducing the energy costs of solar over-exposure. You can select settings from bright to dark to private (scattering), and the windows will actually generate electricity from the blocked sunlight. Pretty nifty!

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Post tags: building products, dynamic windows, Peer+, PV Windows, Smart Energy Glass, windows

Bamboo forests are beautiful things — especially when they are cleaning urban air, soil, and water AND shielding communities from industry and heavily trafficked areas. Urban Biofilter creates bamboo forests on brownfields that are fed with wastewater. The harvested Bamboo then creates income in areas that are otherwise neglected through sustainable bamboo harvesting and timber production.

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Post tags: Bioremediation, brownfield reclamation, green design, green gardening, public space, sustainable design, sustainable landscaping, urban biofilter project, waste management

This week the International Living Building Institute released its new green building standard to the public at Greenbuild 2009. Version 2.0 expands on its already impressive focus to now cover social issues – any Certified Living Building must be net-zero energy, net-zero water, non-toxic, provide for habitat restoration on sister sites, and urban agriculture is mandated. The 20 imperatives, all of which must be addressed, go well beyond the simple efficiency standards that our industry seems content to comply with before calling a project ‘sustainable’. Seriously, read this thing!

Read the rest of Beyond LEED: Living Building Challenge 2.0 Certification Unveiled

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Post tags: "leed", Architecture, Certification, International Living Building Institute, Jason McLennan, Living Building Challenge, Social Justice, Sustainable buildings

If you were at West Coast Green this past weekend you would have surely noticed the elegant bamboo structures along the waterfront surrounded by beautiful native landscaping. What you may not have realized unless you looked closely is that the structure was actually supporting hanging gardens of marsh grass and was a way of preventing and remediating pollution from water runoff. A collaboration of The Natural Builders, Design Ecology, Floating Islands and Bertotti Landscaping, the installation was the talk of the trade show and highlight for us at Inhabitat.

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Post tags: bamboo sculpture, Bertotti Landscaping, Bioremediation, Design Ecology, Floating Islands International, storm water, The Natural Builder, waste water treatment, west coast green

While scientists work to increase the efficiency of photovoltaics, designers are striving to make them sleeker, more adaptive, and easier to install. Case in point: SRS Energy’s Solé Power Tile, a beautiful solar shingle that is designed to fit into standard Mission style roofs while generating electricity. We caught up with these ingenious modular solar panels at West Coast Green this year, where they stole the show alongside several other innovative solar designs.

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Post tags: Armageddon Energy, green design, renewable energy, Soalr Panels, solar tiles, SRS Energy, sustainable design, west coast green

Combining methods for urban farming with design thinking, MetaboliCity is a design-research project by Loop.pH that explores how designers can help create models for sustainable urban food creation. Set on catalyzing positive changes in the built environment, the name is derived from a vision of a city that metabolizes its resources and waste to supply its inhabitants with all the nourishment they need and more.

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Post tags: city planning, food growing, London Design Week, Metabolicity, urban agriculture, Urban Farming, urban gardening

We spotted this fancy multi-tasking toilet/sink by Roca at the London Design Festival. It’s obviously compact and perfect for any loft space or small apartment, and its sleek design houses a nifty self-contained greywater system that is capable of reducing water use by up to 25% compared to a standard 6/3-litre dual flush toilet. It’s a much trendier and elegant solution to existing sink to toilet greywater systems, and we’re excited that high design has embraced waste-water management.

Read the rest of Sleek Sink/Toilet Combo is an All-in-One Greywater Recycling System

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Post tags: green design, greywater recycling system, roca, sustainable design, w+w, washbasin + watercloset, Water Issues

Recent RPI Masters of Architecture graduate Henry Miller has devised a way to reuse waste plastic as an aggregate in cement, circumventing the energy-intensive process of plastic recycling. By grinding up landfill-bound plastic and mixing it with portland cement, Miller was able to create a material just as strong as traditional concrete made with mined aggregate. The ingenious solution netted miller first place in the “Component Category” of the second annual Concrete Thinking for a Sustainable World competition.

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Post tags: Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, building materials, concrete, Henry Miller, Plastic Aggregate Concrete, Plastic Concrete, Portland Cement Association, Recycled Concrete, Recycled Materials, RPI

StrawJet, of Ashland, Oregon, has developed a unique process for the creation of structural building components from a variety of waste agricultural stalks. Essentially, they have created a machine that takes waste stalks and creates a tightly wrapped beam which can then be applied to many different facets of construction. The cables are made and wrapped without glues, resins or chemicals and are made completely from waste material. As long as we are growing food there will be straw, so why not use it creatively?

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Post tags: CASBA, Green Building, Malawi, natural building, reuse, SOAIA, Straw Building, StrawJet, Sustainable Building, Waste Straw

Are living green buildings just around the corner? A report recently released by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers suggests that sealed containers of algae photobioreactors could be integrated into the sides of buildings to produce biofuels and sequester carbon, adding a whole new meaning to the term ‘green building’. As the algae grows it sucks up CO2 from the surrounding air which can then be stored.

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Post tags: algae buildings, algae power, Architecture, biofuels, Green Building, green design, Renewable Energy, sustainable design

In the forests of Meghalaya, India, the War-Khasis people have discovered a patient way of crossing the many rivers of their wet region. By guiding the roots of an abundant species of rubber tree, they were able to create a living system of bridges that are in some cases over one hundred feet long and can support the weight of 50 people!

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Post tags: Designing with Nature, grown bridges, India, Living Root Bridges, Living Root Bridges of Cherrapunji, Meghalaya, Root Bridges, Rubber Trees, The Root Bridges of Cherrapungee, Tree Bridges, tree roots, War-Khasis

Grandmas make some pretty awesome things – pies, sweaters, and techinically, you. But can you say that your grandma ever made a village??? Ours certainly didn’t. Between 1956 and 1981 Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey built Bottle Village using tens of thousands of bottles in mortar. The village is “an otherworld of shrines, wishing wells, walkways, random constructions, plus 15 life size structures all made from found objects.” The 1/3 acre lot in Simi Valley, CA is literally littered with the various structures that Ms. Prisbrey created as a hobby, constructive creative outlet and playful reminder of the joy of upcycling.  Unfortunately, a 1994 earthquake has left the village damaged and in need of repair, but recent media attention has helped bring in new visitors and a renewed interest in preserving this wonderful and unique place.

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Post tags: Bottle Village, Creative Re-use, Creative Reuse, LA Times, Recycled House, Simi Valley, Tressa "Grandma" Prisbrey, Ventura County

So much of the green design that we see here at Inhabitat is efficient and looks cool in renderings, but the human aspect of sustainability, and the real value of our built environment is too often a rarity. Not so in the case of this modern homeless shelter in Dallas, which recently won the AIA’s National 2009 Housing Award. Called The Bridge, the sleek shelter was designed by Overland Partners Architects in collaboration with CamargoCopeland Architects, and provides not only a visually striking addition to the neighborhood, but a safe haven for people to turn to when they have nowhere else to go. According to the press release, the shelter’s surrounding area has seen a crime reduction of 18%, which in itself is a testament to the power that design can wield when it is executed with a vision of bettering lives.

Read the rest of Bridge Homeless Shelter Cuts Neighborhood Crime by 18%

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Post tags: AIA National Housing Award, AIA/HUD Sectretary Award, CamargoCopeland Architects, ED+C, homeless shelter, Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, Overland Partners Architects, Sustainable Homeless Shelter, The Bridge