green building

D-Build Documents the History Behind Reclaimed Home Materials

Want to buy floorboards that come with a rich history? Turn to D-Build, an online marketplace for reclaimed home materials. The prototype site, designed by Rob Englert and Grant Meacham, will sell material from dismantled homes and ...READ»

Show Me the Green Money - How to Find Stimulus Funding for Your Cleantech Business

As the US economy slowed, the US Government stepped in with the $787 stimulus package passed in February 2009 as the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA).  A big chunk of the stimulus, about $67 billion worth, is ...READ»

Beacon of Greenwashing Gets Go Ahead

Gazprom, the giant Russian oil company, secures approval to build the tallest, "greenest" tower in Europe, in the heart of St. Petersburg. Some say it'll be "monstrous." It'll also be a 77-story middle-finger to the low-carbon movement.READ»

Good Intention and Rounding Errors: Occupational Hazards of Sustainable Design

An occupational hazard of working in sustainable design is the constant reminder that everything has impact. For everything in your field of view, materials and energy were wrestled from the ground and shipped around the earth in ...READ»

NASA to Break Ground on Super-Green "Sustainability Base"

The new office will set a high bar for intelligent, self-monitoring building design.READ»

What's Even Greener Than LEED? The Omega Center

An educational center in New York might be the world's first building to earn a tough, ultra-green designation.READ»

Not Your Grandpa's Storage Barn

A clever storage barn helps a builder stay on the right side of preservationists--and generate some extra cash.READ»

Three Ideas for Creating a Zero-Impact City Block in Dallas

How would you create a city block that was fully sustainable? A competition to redevelop an entire block of downtown Dallas asked urban planners to do just that, and the finalists have just been announced.READ»

Bamboo Living's School is Earthquake and Hurricane Safe

Traditional brick school facades could become a thing of the past as educational institutions aim for sustainability. Last week, I took a look at Project FROG's modular school design, and now Bamboo Living has announced that the ...READ»

6 Ways for Obama to Green Public Housing

Yesterday in Denver, members of the Obama administration outlined how $4 billion will be spent to green the nation's public housing projects. $500 million will be spent on training workers to do the retrofitting work, and the rest ...READ»

How Can Cities Create a Green Economy?

The "Green Cities: How Urban Sustainability Can and Must Drive America's Climate Change Policies" report, released yesterday by Living Cities, explores the ways in which big cities can combat climate change, create better ...READ»

Four Architecural Visions of the Green House of the Future

The Wall Street Journal recently challenged architects to design a green house of the future. This morning, the paper unloaded the designs, that come from four firms: William McDonough, Rios Clemente Hale, Cook + Fox and Mouzon ...READ»

Propaganda Alert: Study Tries to Debunk Green Building

The New York Times let us down this week when it uncritically recycled a report on green building that was clearly skewed by the interested party commissioning it. The study issued by the Commercial Real Estate Development ...READ»

Portland, Oregon Giving "Feebates" to Green Builders

Portland, Oregon officials think they can entice green builders with a new "feebate" program. Under the proposal, developers of commercial buildings that measure 20,000 square feet or larger will be charged up to $3.46 ...READ»

Green-washing, through Green Design

It's not only the virtuous who are jumping on to the green-building bandwagon: Companies hoping to burnish spotty track records are hopping on as well. The blog Green Building Elements did a helpful service, gathering ten of the ...READ»

Super-green and Super-fast: The Vitruvian Building System

In exactly one month, open voting will begin for Google's 10^100 contest, that asked inventors to come up with ideas to change the world, and help as many people as possible. You can already find some of the ideas online; one ...READ»

Edward Norton's $9,000,000,000 Housing Project (that's $9 Billion)

The actor's "family business" has helped shelter tens of thousands of Americans. Now it is taking on the credit crunch with innovative financing and a green-building initiative.READ»

• High Point: Seattle's Green Community
• The 10 Best Social Enterprises of 2009
• The Social Enterprises of the Year
• Mercy Corps: The Bank of Banks
• The Academy for Urban School Leadership: A Teacher-Training Residency
• DataDyne: EpiSurveyor
• Civic Ventures: Silicon Valley Encore Initiative
• The Institute for OneWorld Health: Not-for-profit Drugmaking
• The Acumen Fund: Portfolio Data Management System
• Husk Power Systems: Rice-Fired Electricity
• Hopelab: Video Games for Health
• Do Something: An IPO

Cool Roofing For All

While the green building movement is making great progress most buildings still waste a great deal of energy, often through the roof. When the sun beats down on a roof it can heat up the rest of the building as well, making air ...READ»

Building the Low Carbon Economy

The financial crisis seems overwhelming, with dire warnings that things may still get worse, bailout or not. People are worried about what lies ahead for business, but believe it or not the news is not all bad. There are still ...READ»

Opportunities to Turn Wasted Energy into Money

Beyond the financial crisis of the moment, long term challenges and business opportunities remain, including energy efficiency. Wasted energy is a major drag on the US economy, and improving energy efficiency is a major opportunity. ...READ»

The Green Housing Boom

Forward-thinking architects and real-estate developers are already envisioning the post-bust cycle of home building. And smaller is better.READ»

• Building Green Homes
• How Big is Too Big?
• The King of Green Investing
• Silicon Valley's Angel Investors
• The Music Industry Goes Green
• Music Goes Green
• Can Carbon Credits Slow Global Warming?
• The State of the Climate Change Debate