In this video we’re excited to share the re-created 1000-year-old Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. We visited the site last fall and had we really enjoyed learning more about the settlement, but also about the traditional construction techniques they used for the turf dwellings and workshops.
General
Pizzeria Pronto Outdoor Pizza Oven
Make healthy homemade pizza in your backyard. “The Pizzeria Pronto® is Pizzacraft’s deluxe outdoor pizza oven that will change pizza night forever! It’s lightweight, portable and safe on any surface. It’s incredibly easy to use. Simply hook it up to a propane tank, let it pre-heat for 10 minutes, and you’re ready to go.
Tiny house village being built for homeless veterans in Oregon
“After a successful collaborative effort to set up the Kenton Women’s Village, City Repair is partnering with [other NGOs] to create a sleeping pod village for 15 houseless veterans in Clackamas County for version 3.0 of Partners on Dwelling (POD) initiative.
Couple makes garage home + campervan a consistent life combo
“Bryan and Jen Danger spend most nights on the road in their converted Sprinter van, but when they’re back home in Portland, they sleep in their converted garage. They rent their 3-bedroom home (attached to the garage), as well as the garage when they’re not in town.”
Avoiding Gridlock in Your Home
The typical gridlock image is of being stuck in your automobile in a traffic system that has bogged down because it cannot handle the volume of traffic. You feel helpless because you have to use the car, but it’s not getting you where you want to go. You are locked into a dysfunctional system.
I use the term “gridlock” in your home to refer to a similar situation: you are locked into using the electrical power grid because it seems you have no choice, and if you look at the big picture, the system is dysfunctional. Electricity provided by the grid, at least here in the southwest, comes primarily from coal. Burning our finite supplies of fossil fuel to produce energy, with the byproduct of considerable pollution–especially the carbon dioxide that is increasingly blamed for global warming–would have to be considered dysfunctional.
How to Design Your Dream Green Home
Are you dreaming about that cozy, energy efficient, green home that suits your needs perfectly? Finding such a home can be next to impossible. Perhaps the best way to realize this dream is to design and build your home from scratch, so that it fits your preferences for location, aesthetics, principles, and budget. This article will guide you through some of your basic choices to help you design an ecologically sensitive abode. My experience of designing, building, and living in my own home has been extremely satisfying!
The very first consideration in good home design (as opposed to house design) is where to build. The location is paramount, not only because it must fit your needs for proximity to work, schools, and shopping, but also because it must provide space for privacy, gardens, solar access, and all those intangible qualities that create a sense of place. A green home is one that is built to last for a long time, so it might as well be built where it can become a homestead.