Building and Design

Greenfab was awarded LEED Platinum certification by USGBC for achievement in green homebuilding and design. This is Washington State’s first ever certified LEED Platinum, modular home.  LEED for Homes is a green home certification program that rewards homes that are designed and built to be energy- and resource-efficient and more healthy and durable for the…

We recently wrote about a house in Nigeria made from plastic bottles. It turns out there’s an exciting construction project involving discarded plastic bottles a little closer to home, as well. A town in Maine is building 26-foot bridge out of a plastic polymer derived from milk and laundry detergent bottles, the New York Times…

Full disclosure: I’m writing this post from San Francisco, where today’s weather is downright balmy for early December. But whether you’re also soaking up a warm spell or already in the throes of winter, it’s always a good time to think about ways to heat your home more efficiently. More than half of your home’s energy…

Out of a desperate need for housing and an over supply of plastic bottles, the Development Association for Renewable Energies (DARE) in Nigeria has come up with an ingenious solution – a house made of bottles, packed with sand, placed on their side and stacked up, and bound together with mud. The idea is not…

The first phase of a building project that’s being touted as the largest net-zero energy development to date opened its doors last week. While there’s still a lot of work to be done before the West Village development at the University of California, Davis is completed, the university and the project’s builders say it’s already…

The next big thing in green building materials may not be anything new or high-tech if the U.S. Forest Service has its way. The agency released a report this week highlighting the environmental benefits of one of the oldest materials around – wood. Specifically, using wood in building products and projects yields fewer greenhouse gas…

Want a sneak peak of what tomorrow’s best and brightest builders might have in store for us? Take a look at the 19 houses that are currently on display on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., vying for the top spot in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon competition. The event is a biennial…

  When the weather turns frosty, instead of cranking the heat in our homes way up, what do people generally do? They put on a sweater; usually a comfy wool one. Right? Nothing keeps you warm and dry like a great wool sweater or a pair of smart wool socks. If that’s the case, why…

A new, permeable paver designed to mitigate stormwater runoff is now available from  CalStar Products, maker of the award-winning fly ash bricks.  These pavers can be used in LEED projects in order to obtain credits for recycled content, regional materials, and stormwater design. Perfect for parking lots, alleys, and plazas, the paver is made with 40% post-industrial recycled…

Revolutionary thinkers in North American construction are seeing the valuable role of modular buildings. Moderated by Robert Cassidy, editor-in-chief of Building Design + Construction Magazine, a panel of respected construction professionals discusses where the industry is performing well, where it fails to perform, and using modular buildings to improve construction performance overall. Panelists include Kelsey…

Prefabrication and Modularization: Increasing Productivity in the Construction Industry. McGraw-Hill Construction recently released its latest SmartMarket Report, “Prefabrication and Modularization: Increasing Productivity in the Construction Industry” which provides insight into the role that prefabrication/modularization can have on improving productivity in construction. Through techniques that have been around for decades, prefabrication/modularization are seeing a renaissance as technologies,…

I read an interesting post this morning on Eco Snobbery Sucks, a blog I like because its tag line is “every step matters.” (As you must know by now, I’m a big proponent of making change in one’s life incrementally. As they say, “Revolution is a process, not an event.”) What struck me about Don Oppenheim’s…

Modular construction–like the stuff that the parent company of this blog, Greenfab, does–is a relatively unknown idea for much of the United States. Sadly, if someone brings up modular homes in general conversation, most people immediately picture an ugly double-wide trailer, completely ignoring the amazing and beautiful modular homes that have been designed and built…

I don’t know about where you are, but where I am, it’s full on summer weather and Friday which means it’s time for a round up of interesting sustainability stories (yes, I’m still on vacation). Enjoy, and I hope you’ve got some good summer weather in your locale. First off is the depressing but not…

During my time on the editorial staff of Sustainable Industries, one of my duties was to manage the annual Top 10 Green Building Products competition. I always enjoyed the task because I learned about so many amazing products that are out there. One of my favorite winners from last year, The Sloan Aqus Water Reuse…