Green Design
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Green home for sale in Quogue, asking $950K
The energy efficient home is for sale at under $1M. Features geothermal heating and cooling and mature landscaping.
Kentucky Coal Museum turns to solar panels
Once all 80 panels are up and running, the museum anticipates energy savings of $8,000 to $10,000 each year.
Tesla unveils its next-generation solar panels
The company’s website now shows a new page for solar panels, which sells a "sleek, low-profile design" with "integrated front skirts" and "no visible mounting hardware."
Flower-shaped solar panel follows the sun
The Smartflower can produce 40 percent more energy than traditional solar by tracking the sun’s path throughout the day.
This sustainable housing prototype features walls made of mesh
Brooklyn-based architectural design firm SO-IL (and one of Curbed’s 2016 Groundbreakers) has installed a prototype of a sustainable housing concept in a small courtyard in Milan for Salone del Mobile.
The rural renewable power renaissance
Solar and wind have made great strides across the country. Will Trump’s budget halt progress toward a greener heartland?
How dark-sky communities fight light pollution
Ninety-nine percent of Americans live under light-polluted skies. Dark-sky communities are working to change this.
Tesla will start taking solar roof tile orders in April
First announced last fall, Tesla’s solar roof tiles are made to look like conventional roofs, with styles like Tuscan and slate.
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MUFI’s urban agrihood to convert blighted home foundation into cistern, community space
In creating a sustainable urban agrihood, the team at MUFI is building a cistern to reduce reliance on the grid and irrigate the two-acre farm.
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Architecture students will turn Detroit home into resource for sustainable living
The students from the Netherlands, The Motown Movement, will build a resource center for sustainable housing, with the hopes of making energy efficient housing available for the masses.
This eco-friendly house in France cost under $200K to build
It was also conceived as an ‘experimental greenhouse’ with its pitched roof and relatively spacious interiors.
As Miami Beach battles rising seas, Dutch water expert offers advice
Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for Water Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, knows flooding
NYC’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral goes energy efficient
The new system of geothermal wells will make temperature easier to regulate, as well as cut energy needs and CO2 emissions.
Urban ‘Wind Trees’ generate electricity from breezes
The Wind Tree’s "leaves"—essentially micro wind turbines—work in wind speeds as low as 4.5 mph, regardless of the wind’s direction.
Cheery tiny house frames stunning mountain views in Vermont
Located near the Green Mountains, the simple, energy-efficient structure features a shed roof and a cubic form, but with two corners "subtracted" to create a porch entrance, and, on the opposite side, a dining nook of sorts
Tesla sets up giant solar storage facility in Hawaii
The new facility means that the Hawaiian island of Kauai can cut its diesel and petroleum consumption by an estimated 1.6 million gallons a year.
These tiny solar-powered lamps bring light to off-grid locales
Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has unveiled a third design in his series of solar-powered mini lamps created for people without reliable access to energy.
Net-zero California wine country home is all indoor-outdoor living
San Francisco-based and woman-owned firm Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects is well known for its sustainable and sight-sensitive—not to mention stunning—design.
MIT startup offers camouflage solar panels that will match any roof
Sistine Solar wants to help sustainability-minded homeowners who also care about aesthetics. So the startup is creating panel systems that can be customized to visually match a shingled rooftop, an ad, or any other image you can imagine.
Homeowners can now ‘rent out’ rooftop solar power and storage in Australia
Australians can forget Uber driving and Etsy shops. The hot new side-gig down under could soon be selling solar power.
Tesla plans to build 3 more 'gigafactories'
Tesla, the ambitious electric car company founded by Elon Musk, is having a pretty good year. But all that big business requires big buildings.
This California city could be first in the U.S. to reach net-zero energy
In 2013, Lancaster, CA required all new homes to install solar panels. Now it’s going a step further.
Heating homes with energy from data centers? Stockholm will try it
Unless they’re built on an ice desert, data centers can take enormous amounts of energy to cool. But over in Stockholm, the Swedish capital is trying to turn this energy burden into an asset.
New food waste-fueled delivery trucks will roll out for U.K. supermarket
Since 2012, Waitrose has used any unsold food that is not donated to create electricity through anaerobic digestion. Its latest endeavor goes a step further: ten of its new delivery trucks will use food waste as fuel.
Dystopian office tech uses sensors to track workers’ every move
In the fully developed "smart office," the boss is always watching. Already, hundreds of companies have embedded sensors in workspaces, lamps, cubicles, and computers to track the activities of workers.
Incredible green-roofed school blends into the mountain landscape
We’ve seen a fair number of charming green roofs, but few are as committed to the idea as this sprawling new school in Revin, France.
Ikea and Space10 are making urban gardening easier
The Growroom is a freestanding spherical garden that hopes to empower people to grow their food locally and bring nature back into cities.
High-tech canopy helps generate solar power while providing shade
The Sun&Shade is a light-reflecting canopy made of mirrors that automatically rotate to catch the sun’s rays and fling them at a photovoltaic panel. A working prototype was just unveiled this week.
Here are 10 U.S. cities where solar energy could take off
Solar panels aren’t just for sunny states like Arizona or California. A new analysis from Redfin and Sun Number compiles 10 Northeastern cities with lots of room to go solar.
Startup turns car exhaust into jet-black paint
Air pollution is the single biggest health risk facing urbanites. One startup is taking a novel approach to cleaning up the air, filtering the fine black soot from car exhaust and turning it into a line of artist-quality inks and paints called Air Ink.
Meet the country’s most sustainable home
The Desert Rain house in Oregon generates more power than it uses and recycles all its own water.
Giant net turns fog into drinking water in Morocco
Ever notice the droplets of water that collect onto spider webs? That’s the idea behind this rad new water-harvesting device.
Eerie wind turbine prototype flaps its wings like hummingbirds
The Tyer Wind Converter was inspired by hummingbirds—the world’s most energy-efficient bird. Instead of having three rotating blades like most wind turbines, the Tyer design has just two blades mounted like a set of wings atop the tower.
Paris’s new public urinals turn pee into fertilizer
Will these flower-topped receptacles prove effective in the city’s fight against public urination?
In rural Georgia, tomorrow’s smart, sustainable, solar highway is being built today
The Ray, a 16-mile test run for the roadway of the future, is off to a great start.
Denmark’s behemoth wind turbine is breaking power-production records
The facility has already shattered energy records by generating a mind-blowing 216,000 kWh of power in a single 24-hour span. That’s roughly equivalent to 20 years’ worth of power use of an average American household.
Tesla builds massive battery system to help power California grid
The project comprises 396 stacks of batteries capable of holding 80 megawatt-hours of energy. That’s enough to power 2,500 households for a whole day.
The Dutch have built a bridge made of cannabis hemp
They say to never burn bridges, but this one might be a footbridge too far.
China’s first aerial cycleway opens to bikers
Around the globe, cities are entering a new golden age of bicycle infrastructure. Xiamen’s new elevated bike and pedestrian bath is another example.