Building & Design Blog

The 5 strictures are likely difficult to achieve in every location and though I can understand why out of frustration you might want to say screw it, "I need a cave!" caves are not commonly an option.

There are many places where building underground is not particularly desirable either.

To incorporated all of these green strictures in one stand alone building is of course "possible", and worthy of the attempt. We learn things by going to extremes, that unfortunately we are unlikely to learn from less challenging goals, or environments.

"Integrated systems" must be employed for "maximum efficiency and comfort" is #5 strictures you list, and it is done now to a high degree not in one individual stand alone building, but in a city like NYC which is ironically very "green" when you look at energy efficiencies created by a really surprisingly well engineered infrastructure.

So though I am all for the attempt to achieve all of the 7 goals in one building, I don't view it as realistic.

I do think that the "beauty" of a building is extremely important.

Over the years I have gotten to the point where I would rather be poor and lonely in a beautiful place, than rich in an ugly place.

I have lived in Chicago, Toronto, Manhattan, Fort Lauderdale, Rochester, NY, Greensboro, NC, and a number of other cities and towns.

I am currently unemployed and wondering if I might have to move to find paying work.

Currently I live in the Carrboro, NC, Chapel Hill area.

It is some of the greatest real estate in the world and even John Edwards for whatever bad judgement he has displayed, bought 100 acres about 5 miles from where I live now, and where I once built a home with one of the temporary wives 5 miles in another direction on the same road.

Many factors are pushing me into poverty, and in a very real way one of my greatest fears is that I may need to move to an ugly area. "If you can't be good, Look good!" is what I say for an ugly environment saps the spirit in ways that diminish the human experience.

Truly those who build ugly buildings insult and assault all of us.

I agree with Transcendian that these objectives are better met by a collection of buildings than 1 single building.

As an example, 1 building can collect water from it's roof. With some difficulty, it may even collect more from site run off, but then the treatment cost to make it usable becomes high.

On the other hand, a city can collect runoff from buildings, sites, streets etc and absorb the cost of treatment over a sizable number of households.

For domestic housing it is frequently feasible to generate your own (solar) power. When the power grid was first established, the selling point to self sufficient farmers was that you never ran out of power. Generating our own now exposes us to that risk.

Many industries require more power than their roof area can provide. The extreme I saw was a painting contractor who did all his "factory" painting with the work balanced on tin cans in the paddocks of the farm which was his work place. The available roof area was that of a toilet and small office, while his power requirements were running a very large air compressor as well as numerous large water blasters and sand blasters.

We also can handle industrial pollution by encouraging industries to locate where the pollution from 1 factory provides anothers raw material.

In addition, the pollution from one factory can sometimes neutralize the pollution from another.

I once worked at a place where our waste water was alkaline and further down the river was a factory whose waste was acid. The city required us both to neutralize our wastes "fully" (I suspect honored more in the breach than the letter), even though the environment would be better off if we didn't. (What got through from us grew some of the healthiest mangroves on the river).

While it is desirable to solve the problems of the building/design activity on site, an area approach is probably likely to be better overall.

Incidentally, what happens to our objectives if the building use changes? This is quite a common occurrence.

Presumably the requirement for beauty would eliminate some of the monstrosities that architects and governments have inflicted on us in the past, but would it also militate against purely utilitarian industrial buildings?. While not usually ugly, these are not generally things of outstanding beauty.

I'm not sure what "improve the health and diversity of an ecosystem" means, (I suspect different things to different people), but if a building system is designed to minimize its impact on the environment as well as efficiently utilize whatever resources the site provides, I would imagine it would also fulfill that.

Basically looks like a typical airy fairy idea designed to look good on a submission to plunge the snout into the public trough (sorry, I mean "make a submission for a government grant to further the well being of the community"), when all that was really needed was to specify that it should use all available resources as efficiently as possible. (The wording reminds me of the grant application - which was successful - to "achieve land rights for gay whales". It sort of hits all the politically correct buttons without saying much).

That said, I shudder at the amount of bureaucracy which a local area approach would generate. If politicians, accountants and rabid greenies could be kept out it might work, but the chance of that is about the same as the moon being made of green cheese.

Most of this is best achieved by local groupings rather than individual buildings, but the citizens should be given more say than the government.

Sorry about the length of this rant.

"Living Buildings" - The whole concept conjures up visions of the "Little Shop of Horrors". Bring in an incandescent bulb and you get your guts ripped out.

Give me a big ugly factory filled with people doing honest labor and providing for their families and not relying on the green weenies handing out tax dollars for fairy tales. If I hear the word sustainable once more I think I'll barf.

Hello everyone,

I have idea for such house, and it would even be safe from earthquake and flood. It would harvest rainwater but also condense water from air, would cool its glass walls and at same time heat the water. Its glass panels that would be building elements for outside walls would contain LCD layers that would enable making shade or projecting pictures or looking television. If owner would become bored by scenery, such walls could have one great picture of scenery from somewhere else, even updated in real time to simulate clouds and Sun movements and such. It could have its own Wind and Sun Power Stations on the roof as well...... It could be situated on the lake, even in the sea, if owner wont mind occasional sea sickness :-)) That is because it would already float in middle of big swimming pool or small artificial lake where also fishes could be farmed for food. It could produce some Biogas while processing its waste water, which could then be used for car fuel or collected and turned into fertilizers in specialized factory. Garbage (non organic waste) would be burned in its own incinerator using energy of Sun, and even metals could be separated and melted into blocks of metal for sale. Paper would be recycled as well, and even glass could be melted and sold back to glass factory.

What more would You want? Yes!

In poor countries where bamboo grows, its trunks could be used instead steel pipes, even for plumbing, if necessary, furniture could be made from it and so on. But, considering that some parts should be made of stainless steel, it could replace only 30% of whole construction, but cost of turning bamboo trunks to be fitting for such use may cost more than mass produced steel parts and prefabricated walls would do........ Then, who knows, they are making bamboo parquets nowadays, so maybe also walls and floors could be made from it and with built in closets and so on, which if mass produced may not be so expensive, specially when mass use of my Wind and Solar Power Stations would bring down cost of electricity....

Same design could be made on larger scale or smaller if necessary. Also, owner would be able to choose how furniture would be arranged beforehand, and maybe also change this from time to time........ Walls could be polished metal only, or covered with thin plates of fire protected wood, to make it hard to set and spread fire inside (which would also be case if bamboo would be used as it has to be fire safe, even if it not burn so easy by itself).

If mass produced it would be affordable, too.

Originally it was meant to be small 3-5 stories shopping center combined with presentation hall/small cinema with 100 - 250 seats, restaurant and living space for owner and workers, so there would be savings in transport costs for personnel also.

Furniture would be built into the walls, (such as closets, shelves or storage space) or would be able to be pulled out from hideouts (beds, for instance) or pulled up or lowered into floor (tables, for instance) unless owner would like it to stand around permanently. By such tricks restaurant could be turned to dancing hall, be part of >>Demonstration Room<< or it could be turned into small cinema. Same way one room can be multifunctionall, being living room, work studio or bedroom at push of the button. Same way kitchen could be turned into dinning room and so on. Less automation and less gadgets, cheaper price would be, and more affordable. Moreover, all could be upgraded later when owner would have more money to invest. It would be possible to combine several houses together to stand as one, but each would be functionally autonomous and self sustained.

Only, I have first to earn money from my other inventions to be able to start building such houses.

Beside this, I have idea for 3D printing of house with all piping and plumbing built into the walls, but that I described in my earlier posts in another thread, so who would like to know may go there and read.

Already I have companies interested in realisation, even based just on my descriptions, but I intend to patent that ideas also first of all......

Regards from Croatia, homeland of one of greatest inventors, Engineer Nikola Tesla!

The dynamic has changed, no longer can one configure to maximum profits and screw the environment.

Deal with it, become socially responsible, yeah Getty had the right idea waaay before now. Can't we too do the right thing without needing 100's of thousands of lives impacted first.

Have we not learned anything??

I'm not an environmentalist but I would want my children there, I won't expect someone of lesser estate to be forced to cope with my indiscretion, that is something with which I can not up with put.