Mahesh Krishnan could easily live a luxurious life, but instead, he chose to lead a more sustainable lifestyle. He constructed a mud house on the outskirts of Bengaluru, all within 125 days and using just Rs 18,500 ($235 US). After quitting his job in the hospitality sector he started learning basic life skills like natural … Read more
Natural slate, which can be used for both roofing and facades, is a material with one the lowest contribution to emissions and environmental impact. Life-Cycle Assessment can be used to assess and quantify possible environmental impacts associated with a product or process, which compiles the inputs, outputs and overall potential environmental effects of a product … Read more
In 1978 the Howards were urban professionals. Wanting a simpler, more meaningful life on a smaller budget, the family-of-4 lived on $18K/year, reducing costs to $10K/year after moving to their “intentional” Colorado homestead. They moved into an abandoned double-wide trailer on their 35 acre property and began raising chickens and goats for milk, as well … Read more
The 2015 quake that saw the collapse of predominantly brick, mud, and mortar buildings in Nepal, fed the public perception that concrete structures are more durable. But civil engineers and architects say technologies like rammed earth would be environmentally more sustainable and earthquake-resilient. Nepal’s domestic cement production more than tripled from 3 million tons to … Read more
This 3,000-square-foot home in Vadodara, India, with three bedrooms and a pool, was built for a couple with two sons. They wanted an eco-friendly, well-ventilated home with plenty of natural light and an aesthetic blending with nature. “The layout is a simple one, divided in two blocks — one with all the living areas and … Read more
In her book Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism, Julia Watson proposes to revalue the techniques of construction, production, cultivation and extraction carried out by diverse remote populations who, generation after generation, have managed to keep alive ancestral cultural practices integrated with nature, with a low environmental cost and simple execution. While modern societies try to … Read more