sustainable design

Rainbow Prefab Duplex is the First Certified PassivHaus in British Columbia

Rainbow Prefab Duplex is the First Certified PassivHaus in British Columbia

Each home in the Rainbow Passive House Duplex is 1,500 square feet and comes with an unfinished basement, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. The home achieves a 90 percent reduction in energy use because

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SCF Arquitectos Unveils Plans to Restore Earthquake-Devastated Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Haiti

SCF Arquitectos Unveils Plans to Restore Earthquake-Devastated Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Haiti

The 2010 earthquake all but destroyed the historical Cathedral, a source of national pride. After removing the ruble, the shell of the church has remained, but soon construction will begin to restore what

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Merritt Crossing is a Sustainable Affordable Housing Project for Seniors in Oakland

Merritt Crossing is a Sustainable Affordable Housing Project for Seniors in Oakland

Merritt Crossing is located on the corner of 6th and Oak Street in Oakland. The dense project worked to match the surrounding feel of the residential homes as well as address the visual and noise impact

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Cantilevered Bioclimatic House Breathes Through its Roof in Greece

Cantilevered Bioclimatic House Breathes Through its Roof in Greece

Located in Paiania just outside of Athens, an area that shifts from industrial to residential, this striking new home consists of stacked metal containers clad in light panels. Well-insulated to prevent

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Sure Architecture’s Perforated Yinchuan Exhibition Center Reflects Islamic Architecture in Northwest China

Sure Architecture’s Perforated Yinchuan Exhibition Center Reflects Islamic Architecture in Northwest China

Sure Architecture's Yinchuan Exhibition Center is designed to unite the Chinese and Arabic Axis while also functioning as a premier cultural institution. The building's perforated facade features carved

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Chinese Millionaire Launches Line of Canned Air to Raise Awareness for Hazardous Smog Problem

Chinese Millionaire Launches Line of Canned Air to Raise Awareness for Hazardous Smog Problem

Billionaire Chen Guangbiao is taking China’s air pollution problem into his own hands - by launching a line of canned air. In a move that rivals a scene out of Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, the entrepreneur

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House H: Y Beams, Hanging Floors and Irregular Cutouts Transform a Tiny Japanese Home

House H: Y Beams, Hanging Floors and Irregular Cutouts Transform a Tiny Japanese Home

In order to create a playful sense of expansiveness on the inside of the Matsudo City home, Shinozaki decided to give it a large roof and fill the space in-between with eight Y-shaped wooden frames. From

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The Voltmaker Charges Your Gadgets Off-Grid With Kinetic Energy

The Voltmaker Charges Your Gadgets Off-Grid With Kinetic Energy

Sick of your batteries dying at the very moment you need to make a call, flick on a flashlight, or find your position on a GPS when you are lost in the outdoors? Introducing the Voltmaker - an innovative

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Soak Up the Sun at Casa de las Olas’ Solar Powered Eco-Escape in Tulum

Soak Up the Sun at Casa de las Olas’ Solar Powered Eco-Escape in Tulum

Located just south of the touristic city of Cancun, Tulum attracts an array of eco-tourists seeking the adventure within a natural and barely touched landscape. Days are spent exploring the world’s

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Stackable Urban Beehive is Perfect for Beginner Beekeepers

Stackable Urban Beehive is Perfect for Beginner Beekeepers

Seeking to help restore the world's declining honey bee population, designer Rowan Dunford has created a simple, stackable beehive that makes it easy for anyone to raise bees. Dunford's aptly named Urban

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Michael Johansson’s Precisely Stacked Sculptures Give Found Objects the Tetris Treatment

Michael Johansson’s Precisely Stacked Sculptures Give Found Objects the Tetris Treatment

Michael Johansson’s’s stacked creations can be found taking refuge in the unnoticed empty spaces scattered throughout dense urban sprawl. Whether the works are packed between two buildings or piled

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The Cultured Landscape Sets Out a Strategy for Sustainable Transformation of an Australian Brownfield

The Cultured Landscape Sets Out a Strategy for Sustainable Transformation of an Australian Brownfield

Rather than simply let the Latrobe Valley revert to a supposed “natural” state, NAAU proposes a new urban design that retains and adaptively reuses “the significant industrial infrastructure as a

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Construction Begins on Moscow’s Green-Roofed, Geometric Kuntsevo Plaza

Construction Begins on Moscow’s Green-Roofed, Geometric Kuntsevo Plaza

Taking over an entire city block, the Kuntsevo Plaza will provide 250,000 sq m of retail space, entertainment, residences, class-A office space, rooftop decks and public plazas. The contemporary design is

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Ferrer Arquitectos’ PITA & Tecnova Buildings Promote Green Building in Almeria, Spain

Ferrer Arquitectos’ PITA & Tecnova Buildings Promote Green Building in Almeria, Spain

The Pitagoras and Tecnova buildings provide high tech research and office space for Almeria as part of the new Parque Científico-Tecnológico de Almería (PITA). Designed by Ferrer Arquitectos, the

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Haus am Steinberg is a Charming Wedge-Shaped Addition to a Historic Wine Cellar in Austria

Haus am Steinberg is a Charming Wedge-Shaped Addition to a Historic Wine Cellar in Austria

In order to prevent it from interfering too much with the original design, the gabled addition meets the roof lines of the original cellar while still maintaining something of its own identity. The

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Roeland Otten Camouflages Ugly Public Utilities with Giant Photographic Installations

Roeland Otten Camouflages Ugly Public Utilities with Giant Photographic Installations

From afar, passersby may not notice Otten’s awesome photographic installations at all. Taken from the same vantage points at which they are mounted, each side of his photographic coverings depict the

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OYD Design’s Flatpack FL Inout Chair is Made From Recycled Wood Waste

OYD Design’s Flatpack FL Inout Chair is Made From Recycled Wood Waste

OYD Design's FL Inout Chair is a flatpack lounge chair designed to offer comfort, ease of use and aesthetics while minimizing material use. The chair is made from polyester web and it features a wood

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LA River Restoration Moves Forward With Opening of the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk

LA River Restoration Moves Forward With Opening of the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk

The LA River begins in the San Fernando Valley and moves east and then south through LA county. Flooding in the early part of the 19th century led to the river being walled up in a concrete canal to

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Hoover Buildings by Frank Halmans are Doll Houses That Suck Up Dirt and Debris

Hoover Buildings by Frank Halmans are Doll Houses That Suck Up Dirt and Debris

The Hoover Buildings by Frank Halmans come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but what they have in common is their actual connection to a vacuum cleaning mechanism. There are small handheld buildings

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Loopcamp: Giant Musical Recycled Paper Cylinders Rise From The Dusty Desert Plain at Burning Man

Loopcamp: Giant Musical Recycled Paper Cylinders Rise From The Dusty Desert Plain at Burning Man

Black Rock City is carefully organized in a giant semi-circle with grid rows that all face the open desert, and the scene of the final burning event. Malka Architecture installed their recycled cylinders,

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SpaceLiner Will Zoom from Europe to Australia in 90 Minutes Flat

SpaceLiner Will Zoom from Europe to Australia in 90 Minutes Flat

Researchers at the German Aerospace Center are developing a hypersonic “SpaceLiner” that would zip half way around the world in 90 minutes flat. The 50-passenger airplane would piggyback off of a

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Sleeping Around: Belgium’s Pop-Up Shipping Container Hotel Is Always On the Move

Sleeping Around: Belgium’s Pop-Up Shipping Container Hotel Is Always On the Move

Pop-up stores are pretty common, but hotels less so, largely because of their need for reliable and consistent infrastructure. The makers of Sleeping Around wanted to apply the same principles of pop-up

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More House: Cantilevered Home Makes the Most of a Small, Funky Plot in Spain

More House: Cantilevered Home Makes the Most of a Small, Funky Plot in Spain

The plot was almost square with a protruding band, so the best solution for this family was to stack the house vertically. The material palette used - reinforced concrete with a light timber facade -

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Exterior Automobile Airbags Could Save the Lives of Pedestrians and Bicyclists

Exterior Automobile Airbags Could Save the Lives of Pedestrians and Bicyclists

A helmet is a bicyclist’s only line of defense in the event of a collision, but what if they had the protection of airbags? Dutch car manufacturer TNO has developed the world’s first exterior

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Recycled Shipping Pallet Pavilion Springs Up in Christchurch, New Zealand

Recycled Shipping Pallet Pavilion Springs Up in Christchurch, New Zealand

Christchurch, New Zealand suffered a number of devastating earthquakes in the past 2 years, which left almost 200 people dead and thousands without a home. Now artists and architects are rebuilding the

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Gorgeous Ceramic and Wood Cup Designs by Jorge Diego Etienne Keep Liquids at the Perfect Temperature

Gorgeous Ceramic and Wood Cup Designs by Jorge Diego Etienne Keep Liquids at the Perfect Temperature

Here at Inhabitat we love the work of contributor Jorge Diego Etienne — the designer behind this beautifully simple mug that harnesses natural heating and cooling properties. Working with Casa

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SMPL Design Studio’s Latest Energy-Efficient Prefab Duplex is Prepped for the Cold in Canada

SMPL Design Studio’s Latest Energy-Efficient Prefab Duplex is Prepped for the Cold in Canada

The YK Duplex 2 was constructed at SMPLy Mod Prefab Homes' factories, which are located north of Edmonton, Alberta. Design was handled by their sister company SMPL Design Studio and developed by

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Dennis Maher Transforms His Home into a Living Art Exhibition of Found Objects

Dennis Maher Transforms His Home into a Living Art Exhibition of Found Objects

Maher is the current artist-in-residence at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the city’s main art museum. Also an assistant professor of architecture, Maher has dedicated his artistic side to

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Temporary Timber Huts Pop Up at the Red Bull Music Festival in Spain

Temporary Timber Huts Pop Up at the Red Bull Music Festival in Spain

The idea for the RBMA music festival in Madrid was to create an inspiring space with superior acoustic properties that could be erected really quickly and then eventually dismantled without a trace. This

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