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Slimming Down Skinny Buildings

In the building arms race, it’s not always about height and floor area.  You can hog the space all you want if land is ample and the building’s purpose calls for such spaciousness.  The truly marvelous constructions however are those…
neoli
October 27, 2013
Blog

LEED Pilot Credit Focuses on Gardens that Grow Food

There’s a new LEED Pilot Credit in town, and it involves gardening. Yes, gardening.  But more specifically, gardens that produce food.  Under LEED SSpc82 Local Food Production, projects can now avail of additional LEED points when they commit to maintaining…
neoli
October 17, 2013
Blog

Rethinking Our Green Building Insulation

Spray foam, once thought to be a green option for insulating green buildings and homes, is on the hot seat right now.  Treehugger released a five-parter series denouncing it last month, and advised us to give spray polyurethane foam a…
neoli
October 14, 2013
Blog

When LEED Factors into Green Building Appraisal

Tennessee-based LEED Accredited Professional architect Mike Leonard recently wrote an article on what really matters in LEED certification. Leonard makes an interesting point regarding the fact that appraisers have to take into account a fairly new factor in a building’s…
neoli
October 11, 2013
Blog

How to Read IPCC's Global Warming Report

By now you’ve probably heard of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report last Friday regarding global warming.  With several hundreds of scientists from around the world 95{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} sure that global warming is indeed happening and that humanity…
neoli
October 3, 2013
Blog

Non-Conventional Building Materials

Forget steel and cement for the meanwhile and let’s go back to basics. Seaweed power! Modern Seaweed House in Denmark (Image from Dezeen.com)                             Old-school builders were…
neoli
September 9, 2013
Blog

Climate-proof Buildings and Apocalypse-proof Castles

With the effects of climate change upon us, designers are making climate-proof buildings. One family takes a step further with an apocalypse-proof castle.   There’s this reality show on National Geographic Channel airing these days, and it’s about a castle…
neoli
September 2, 2013
Blog

Good-bye Animal Suffering. Hello, Lab Meat.

As a general rule we don’t eat meat that often.  It’s not some conscious effort to be a vegan, either for health reasons or out of respect for our fellow animals—we just like vegetables better.  But once in a while…
neoli
August 29, 2013