Tools

Designing Highly-Sustainable Buildings

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Earlier this month I participated in a webinar titled Designing Highly-Sustainable Buildings featuring the Sketchup software team, along with Sefaira, a plugin that calculates various aspects of energy use pertaining to the design. A representative from an architectural firm that uses the software explained how they go about their designing, which is mostly for commercial … Read more

Earth Building Online Academy

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I just found out about the Earth Building Academy and their online courses. They have been teaching for 20 years and recently ran a free online pizza oven course and had confirmation that online courses really work. They currently are offering a 3 month series of online classes that starts on Monday, January 18th and … Read more

Are Green Building Rating Systems Really Sustainable?

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Professor Janis Birkeland is an honorary professor at the University of Melbourne who has taught sustainable planning and architecture at several universities. Previously, she worked as a planner, architect, and lawyer in San Francisco to gain insights into the impediments to sustainability. The following are her thoughts about green buildings  and the rating systems that … Read more

The Half-Acre Homestead

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Shelter Publications has done it again! Lloyd Khan and his partner, Lesley Creed, have produced a gorgeous peek into their alternative lifestyle in the book The Half-Acre Homestead: 46 Years of Building & Gardening. As with all of Lloyd’s books, this one is full of hundreds of full color photos, arranged in delightful spreads. The … Read more

Finding Good Tools in Developing Countries

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Good quality tools can last decades if properly cared for.
Good quality tools can last decades if properly cared for.

Getting good tools in developing countries is challenging since the market is flooded with very low quality products. Often the tools are worthless within minutes or a few hours of use. Sometimes they never work. For instance, I bought a screwdriver a few weeks ago that stripped out on the first screw. This is not unusual. It’s actually very common in poor countries.

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