When Laura Hood bought 155 acres and a home near Wenatchee, WA, there was a caved-in root cellar near the house. Ten years later, the root cellar has been restored. The root cellar is thought to be the first white settler house built in the area by James Christiansen in 1886. It was described in … Read more
On a small island off New Zealand’s mainland is a building known as Te Kura Whare, which is designated as a “living building.” New Zealand law now recognizes the local terrain as a living entity, with legal rights of personhood. The Living Buildings framework, as set out by the International Living Future Institute, awards the … Read more
Windcatchers are a great example of the marriage between architectural design and the environment to help keep your house cool. For more than a thousand years, windcatchers have existed in and around the Persian Gulf, providing natural ventilation and passive cooling. Keeping cool through the summer involves controlling how all the elements in the house … Read more
A Copenhagen-based design studio has presented plans for a residential development that will be part of the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennial, whose theme is ‘How will we live together?’ The plan is for a ‘nature village’ which will eventually see a field in Denmark transformed into a completely new forest-neighborhood district comprising more than 200 … Read more
TECLA (an acronym for “Technology and Clay”) is a prototype eco-house built near Ravenna, Italy. It is made entirely by 3D-printing a material based on locally-sourced clay and is a collaboration between architect Mario Cucinella and 3D-printer manufacturer WASP. TECLA is a habitat consisting of two interconnected housing units, each covered by a semi-spherical dome. … Read more
In the heart of the Thar Desert in the Indian state of Rajasthan, this girls school was a pro-bono project by New York–based architect Diana Kellogg commissioned by a non-profit group. The school will serve more than 400 girls from households below the poverty line in the region where female literacy is just 36 percent. … Read more