Tag: Materials

  • Who Wants to Live in a Maintenance Free House?

    Next to mortgage payments and building costs, maintenance costs are another expensive aspect of owning a home. Even if your home is as sustainable as possible, these costs still apply and get worse with age. Enter the Maintenance-Free House, designed by developers Realdania BYG and Arkitema Architects of Denmark, in collaboration with the Danish Technological…

  • Car Tires Recycled into More Efficient Anodes for Batteries

    Discarded rubber tires may soon find a new use. A team of researchers from the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have come up with a method of harvesting the carbon black from them, which can then be used to create anodes for lithium-ion batteries that provide power to plug-in electric vehicles and…

  • 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…

  • The First European LEED Platinum Home

    The LEED Platinum for homes rating is quite rare. In fact, the recently completed Italian BioCasa 82 is the first home in Europe to receive this high rating. BioCasa82 was designed by the Italian firm Rosario Picciotto Architects and constructed by Welldom, a company that specializes in green building. It is located in Montebelluna, a…

  • Waste House is Made of Garbage

    Waste House is a project recently completed by a team of 253 students and apprentices who were led by BBM Architects Director and senior lecturer Duncan Baker-Brown. The house is located at the University of Brighton’s Grand Parade campus and it is made entirely out of waste materials. It is quite an exercise in recycling,…