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
Context, climate, craft and sustainability form the pillars of traditional Indian architecture and provide precedents for new cities and structures. Indian architecture seeks identity through local materials with modern techniques. Deeply meshed with cultural and climatic significance, the following materials continue to build contemporary Indian architecture: Jaali is a local term for “perforated block”, and … Read more
Glacial Lake Lugano in Switzerland’s Italian-speaking canton of Ticino features some grottoes lining its shore. These natural caverns represent authentic Ticino and define the lifestyle of its people. Grotto Descanso is a village tavern housed in a simple stone building with a shaded terrace overlooking the lake. There is a huge wooden door near the … Read more
When Pete Holmberg wanted a log house on some property in Minnesota he found a company that could build such a house with logs sourced from an old-growth forest of red pines planted in 1831, more than 120 years before the evergreen became the official state tree. “I was originally going to do milled logs, … Read more
The manufacture of concrete, steel, and glass uses vast amounts of raw materials and water and emits copious amounts of greenhouse gases per year. A staggering 8% of total global carbon dioxide emissions come from cement manufacture alone. Moreover, embodied carbon, which is carbon released over the entire life cycle of a building, including end-of-life … Read more