Tag: alternative energy
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Shipping Container Inspired Disaster Relief Housing
The firm Garrison Architects in collaboration with New York City recently unveiled the prototype of a modular prefabricated housing system. The structures were developed for quick deployment in the event of another hurricane like Sandy, or other natural disaster. By the looks of it, the houses were also very much inspired by shipping container architecture.…
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Skyscraper Made of Waste
The French design firm Chartier-Corbasson has come up with an innovative skyscraper, which would be built using the recycled waste of its occupants. The so-called Organic London Skyscraper would be constructed from panels that are made from recycled plastic (e.g. plastic bottles, …), which would all be sorted and refabricated on site. The skyscraper is…
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Reciprocity House is Worth Watching
Maison Reciprocity, or Reciprocity House, is one of the entrants in this year’s Solar Decathlon Europe competition. In a nutshell, it is an energy-efficient, highly sustainable modular home, which aims to set the standard of low cost, and low impact building in the future. It is a joint effort between Appalachian State University and the…
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Fuel Cells to Heat and Power Homes
When looking into off-the-grid heating and power sources for the home, those interested might soon be getting a new option. The Dresden, Germany-based Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS) has joined forces with the heater manufacturer Vaillant and together they have come up with a domestic fuel cell system, which uses natural gas…
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More Environmentally Friendly Solar Cells
Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a new solar cell that uses tin instead of lead perovskite as a collector of solar energy. This cheap and environmentally-friendly solar cell can therefore be made without any high-tech equipment or hazardous materials. The new solar cell developed by the team uses a structure called a perovskite and…