Belly of the Beast: Serpentine Residential Eco-Building
March 9, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design, Home & Garden, Nature & Ecosystems. ]
When faced with a difficult parcel of land on which to build, owners and architects are often moved to develop innovative solutions. But few are as strange, as eye-catching and as wonderfully in tune with the land as this one, known as Quetzalcoatl’s Nest. This may look like one of those dazzling-but-impossible architectural renders which will never be constructed – but this is an actual housing estate in Naucalpan, Mexico.
The owners of this plot of land had an exceptionally difficult series of problems to work around: the land was .5 hectares (about 1.2 acres), covered in slopes and pitted with collapsed caves left over from previous mining on the property. The very small flat, treeless portion of the land had to be used for parking. But maybe most challenging of all was that the existing plant life had to be left untouched. In the end, about 97% of the land was unsuitable for building on.
That is where architect Javier Senosiain stepped in. Presented with these restrictions, most architects would have simply thrown up their hands and walked away from the project, but Senosiain is known around the world as a master of organic architecture. He works with the shape of the land to create distinctly natural forms in buildings which would normally look like out-of-place boxes plopped in a natural setting.
As he took into account all of the requirements for the project, Senosiain began to think of the way a snake’s body curves and undulates. It was in this way that the impressive Quetzalcoatl’s Nest took shape. Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god considered to be the mediator between heaven and earth, embodied the compromises and partnerships taking place in this unique building project.
The main building is Quetzalcoatl’s body; it contains all of the condominiums of the development. Domed windows look out over the lush grounds. The homes are accessed via the walkway that runs along the serpent’s back. At one end of the Great Serpent’s body is its rattle, a three-story structure that houses the water deposit, guard’s post and machine room. The interior of each condo reflects the soft, curving, organic shapes of the exterior.
The head of Quetzalcoatl emerges near the parking area through the one preserved cave on the property, providing a platform on which one can stand and take in the breathtaking view of the surrounding canyon. One of the collapsed caves has formed a crater on the land, which the architect turned into a small pool which collects rainwater and is part of the self-contained sewage treatment system for the property. Stone walls also in the shapes of serpents wind through the land.
(all images via: Urbarama)
This astonishing property is unlike anything else in the world and it is truly a work of art. Coming home to an apartment that is in the belly of a mythical snake must be like stepping into a different world at the end of the day. The fact that the architect used natural, eco-friendly building techniques and relied on the natural contours of the land makes an already-beautiful project all the more impressive.
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Sects in the City: Organic Wildlife Cities Pop up in London
October 20, 2010 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Delana in Animals & Habitats, Art & Design, Nature & Ecosystems. ]
It seems that a large block of new housing has opened up in the in-demand London boroughs of Chelsea and Islington, though even experienced city dwellers would have a hard time packing their belongings into these housing developments. They are tiny apartment complexes built for birds and bugs: spontaneous cities meant to promote and increase biodiversity in the urban environment.
The tiny houses were installed by London Fieldworks, an artist collective that focuses on projects that emphasize the intersection of art, science and technology. As part of UP Projects’ Secret Garden initiative, the “Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven” installation seeks to add some biodiversity to the areas in which the new “housing developments” are placed. The houses, which resemble cells multiplying to take over the surfaces of trees, are meant to act as shelter and nesting spots for London wildlife while emphasizing the importance of urban green spaces.
The architecture of the more than 250 bird and bug boxes echoes the Georgian townhouses, red brick towers, and 1960s social housing developments that surround them: they feature the same modular, blocky shapes and close quarters. But these wildlife developments have been designed to be temporary and to grow with their support structure, unlike many human housing developments in London.
An interesting aspect of the project is the trees on which London Fieldworks chose to build the wildlife cities. The “tree of heaven” is actually Ailanthus altissima, an ornamental tree native to China that tends to choke out surrounding vegetation. To mount a biodiversity-creating project on a biodiversity-destroying substrate may seem strange, but the artists behind London Fieldworks believe that it adds another layer to the discussion.
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Design (for) Disaster: 14 Emergency Shelter Concepts
September 17, 2010 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Steph in Art & Design, Home & Garden. ]
Emergency settlements made up of flimsy, impersonal white tents could be a thing of the past as architects offer up incredible designs for disaster shelters that are portable, easy to assemble, durable, comfortable, adaptable and made of eco-friendly materials. Ranging from an improbable pop-up skyscraper on an amphibious vehicle base to quick & cheap pallet houses, these 14 designs prove you don’t have to live like a refugee when hurricanes, earthquakes and other disasters strike.
MASTODON Pop-Up Mobile Skyscraper
(images via: evolo.us)
How do you house as many people as possible, but with a small footprint? Look around any city and you’ll see that the answer is in a skyscraper – but such high-rises are hardly portable. Except for the MASTODON ‘Transiet Response System’. Designed by Adrian Ariosa and Doy Laufer, the mobile skyscraper is on an all-terrain amphibious vehicle base that transports the pop-up tower structure to the emergency site. The concept – which includes solar panels, wind turbines and a rain catchment system – may seem unachievable at the moment, but it’s an interesting idea to work from.
Modular Housing for Humanity
(images via: metropolis mag)
It starts out as a small triangle, but unfolds into a four-by-eight-foot room that can not only withstand years of use, but can be used as a basis for more permanent housing. Architects Deborah Gans and Matthew Jelacic created this compact concept for the Architecture for Humanity competition after studying both immediate and long-term disaster housing and realizing that permanent homes are often constructed around emergency settlements. The unit, made of scaffolding, is easy even for elderly people to assemble and the beams are strong enough to be used as structural support in long-term construction.
Instant ‘BiniShelter’ Pops Up in Minutes
(images via: binisystems)
Disaster housing needs to be mobile, low-cost and easy to erect – and all of those qualities certainly apply to the ‘BiniShelter’, which resembles a more permanent dwelling but assembles in just 30 minutes. Designed by Dante Bini, the house can be made from whatever materials are on hand, can be customized into larger structures like schools, and even floats in floodwaters.
Sandbag Structures by Nader Khalili
(images via: archnet)
“To build simple emergency and safe structures in our backyards, to give us maximum safety with minimum environmental impact, we must choose natural materials and, like nature itself, build with minimum materials to create maximum space, like a beehive or a sea shell,” says Nader Khalili, the creator of the emergency sandbag shelter that has since evolved into low-cost, eco-friendly permanent housing called Superadobe.
Adaptable Metaplate Disaster Shelter
(images via: the design blog)
A long way from disposable, flimsy tents, the ‘Metaplate’ disaster shelter by Singapore designer Kelvin Yong is made from durable but inexpensive materials like cardboard impregnated with resin and can accommodate piping, drainage and other necessary domestic facilities. The prefab housing simply folds up into a rectangular structure, making it very easy to transport and assemble.
Recyclable Translucent Recovery Huts
(images via: recoveryhuts.com)
Not only is the Recovery Hut a quick-assembling modular structure made from four stackable sections that weigh no more than 60 pounds each – it’s also fully recyclable, eliminating the waste that can come from a disassembled emergency settlement. Recovery Huts are also translucent, letting in lots of natural light, and if one 85-square-foot hut isn’t big enough, they can be connected into larger homes.
MyHab Disaster Shelter
(images via: myhab)
They may be small and squat, but MyHab shelters offer respite from the elements – and they’re multi-purpose. The recycled plastic and waterproof cardboard MyHab is often seen at festivals in the UK (rented for a pretty penny) in little mud-proof villages complete with clean bathroom privileges. And since MyHab is biodegradable, it eliminates all of the tent detritus usually left behind at such gatherings.
Expanding, Food-Producing Airdrop Houses
(images via: inhabitat)
What if disaster response teams could just toss magic balls out of their aircraft, which would grow into food-producing, water-filtering temporary shelters? As crazy as it sounds, this concept might just work – someday. Loaded into standard military aircraft, ‘Airdrop Houses’ are 3-foot diameter spheres made from a sponge-like material that expand up to 7 meters in diameter once they hit floodwaters. All the water that’s absorbed by the house is filtered into potable water. Once they set, seeds embedded in the walls start to sprout and provide food. It’s not viable yet, but like so many other design concepts, it could provide the basis for something that really does work.
Shipping Container Pop-Up Village for Haiti
(images via: inhabitat)
Shipping containers sit in port cities around the world, empty and unneeded. So it’s no surprise that imaginative designers are coming up with creative ways to put them to use, including this pop-up village for earthquake survivors in Haiti. Designed by Montreal organization Vilaj Vilaj, the community of 900 shipping containers would house 5,000 people and would provide open spaces, parks, and playing fields. Each 320-square-foot shipping container home would come complete with running water and bathroom facilities.
Sphere Emergency Response Shelter
(images via: tuvie)
After a disaster, members of a community – especially family units – feel a strong need to band together and communicate. Designs that emphasize socialization, like the Sphere, help meet this need. The Sphere is simply a circular configuration of connected tents with a courtyard in the center. Family groups get shelter from the elements and privacy but also companionship; a sense of community remains intact despite all they may have lost.
Almost Free Pallet House
(images via: i-beam design)
Making use of materials that are free and readily available locally is perhaps the best plan possible for emergency shelters, which makes pallets a great choice. I-Beam created this emergency shelter using pallets for the walls, ceiling, floors and even some built-in furniture inside. Local materials can be used to finish the building like straw for insulation and cob or plywood for the exterior sheathing.
Paper Houses by Shigeru Ban
(images via: shigeru ban)
Giving victims of natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes paper houses may seem like a cruel joke, but paper-centric architect Shigeru Ban has proven that paper tubes are a strong, durable, cheap and simple way to build emergency shelters. Ban’s disaster housing has been used everywhere from Rwanda to Kobe, Japan.
Accordion-Like ReCover Shelter
(images via: coroflot)
Sturdy, inexpensive and surprisingly cool-looking, the accordion-like ReCover Shelter by Mathew Malone is made from food-grade recyclable polypropylene that is folded and stacked for easy transport and is quickly and easily erected by just one person. It can be tied down to protect against the wind and simply zip-tied to additional units to form larger structures as needed.
Fold-Out UberShelter
(image via: tuvie)
Here’s an emergency shelter that looks more like high-class camping or a candidate for the ever-growing tiny house movement: the UberShelter by Rafael Smith. It’s constructed using recyclable and reusable materials and all of the walls fold up and lock into place. The units, which feature fabric canopies for shade, can be connected side-by-side or stacked into multi-story dwellings.
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Eco Homes from the Earth: 7 Ways to DIY
March 15, 2010 by admin · View Comments
[ By Steph in Art & Design, Home & Garden. ]
Wouldn’t it be nice to own your own green dream home, made with recycled and natural materials and packed with custom features? Whether you’re an experienced builder or have never picked up a power tool in your life, you can build a natural eco-friendly home with user-friendly, low-cost materials like cob, cordwood, straw and the dirt and wood from your own land. These 7 natural building techniques produce beautiful homes with a small ecological footprint and tons of personality.
Earthships and Hobbit Houses
(images via dominicspics, ECOnscious, Earthship Biotecture)
They seem to be a living part of the very earth itself, often with nothing but a façade and some windows to betray the presence of a home in the hillside. And earth-sheltered homes built partially into the ground come with some incredible benefits, like the ability to absorb and regulate heat from the sun for comfort in all seasons. Earth-sheltered homes can be built entirely underground, bermed (covered with earth on one to three sides) or built into a larger hill with just one side open. Earthships and ‘hobbit houses’ are common forms of earth-sheltered homes.
(images via: simondale.net)
Among the most famous examples of a ‘hobbit house’ is “A Low Impact Woodland Home”, self-built in Wales for about 1000-1500 man-hours (over four months) and £3000. Creator Simon Dale used stone and wood from the property, straw bales covered in plaster for the walls, and lots of reclaimed and salvaged materials like hardwood flooring, doors and windows. The reciprocal roof, covered in plastic sheeting and mud/turf, is surprisingly easy to build and looks incredible.
Cob
(images via: ziggy fresh)
How can a house made of mud last 500 years? The short answer is, the combination of clay, sand and straw – known as cob – is extremely strong and durable once it dries, and can withstand fire and severe weather as well as practically any other material. This ancient building technique is among the easiest and least expensive ways to build your own sustainable, healthy green home.
Just ask “Ziggy”, a resident of the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri who built his own cob cottage for just $3,000. Ziggy breaks down the costs, all materials used, time frame and the entire process including lots of photos at his website, “The Year of Mud”.
(images via: eco-sense)
These hand-sculpted homes give the builder practically endless creative opportunities for organic forms, built-ins like bookcases and benches, and even artistic details. But cob houses don’t all have to be free-flowing and eccentric. Take a gander at the Eco Sense house, located in Canada, which wouldn’t look out of place in a suburban neighborhood.
Cordwood
(images via: daycreek, cordwood masonry)
From far away, it looks like stone masonry – but get up close and you’ll see that cordwood buildings are actually made from wood stacked firewood-style, and mortar. Debarked logs ranging from 12 to 36 inches can be arranged into walls either in load-bearing round structures or in combination with post-and-beam framing. Soft woods like cedar and pine are used because they are more stable, with less expansion and contraction. These walls offer both insulation and thermal mass. As with any natural building technique, it’s labor-intensive, but easy enough that practically anyone can do it.
(images via: home-n-stead)
While the mortar typically used for cordwood construction is made from Portland cement, lime and water, some people are beginning to combine cordwood building with cob in place of mortar, as in the owner-built cordwood home above.
Straw Bale
(images via: building with awareness)
“I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!” It seems like straw would be the worst possible material to depend upon for stable shelter, but in fact, straw bale building produces thick walls with excellent insulative qualities and surprising strength. As with cordwood and cob, straw bale walls can be load-bearing or can be combined with post and beam framework as needed to gain building permits.
(images via: solarhaven.org)
The straw bales are stacked on top of a masonry foundation, anchored to each other with wood stakes or bamboo poles, and finished with a breathable earthen or lime stucco that allows the walls to breathe, preventing moisture accumulation in the straw. Straw bale structures have been found to be remarkably fire- and pest-resistant.
Rammed Earth
(images via: rogers rammed earth)
Fireproof, termite-proof, storm resistant, extremely low-maintenance and literally dirt-cheap: all of these qualities make rammed earth an attractive natural DIY option for owner-builders. Popular in hot, dry places like Australia and the American Southwest, rammed earth uses compressed dirt blocks as building bricks. The dirt is often from the home site, typically packed into a wood wall former, and the results are stunning and well suited for modern home designs.
(images via: rammed earth)
While tamping of the earth into bricks can be made easier by a pneumatically-powered tamper, it’s entirely possible – and much cheaper – to get the job done manually. Rammed earth buildings last indefinitely and results in energy-efficient buildings that keep temperature fluctuations to a minimum.
Earthbag Building
(images via: dornob)
(images via: mother earth news, tiny house design)
Earthbags can be an ideal alternative to cob in areas where the soil has a low percentage of clay, and they also make it easy to construct domes and other rounded structures. Earthbag buildings can be bermed with earth to create an “underground” structure that looks like a seamless part of the landscape.
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Once their conventional usefulness is up, shipping containers can be transformed into spectacular, modern buildings like hotels, museums, homes and shops. 3 Comments - Click Here to Read More
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