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Storytelling design is the first step towards a healthier future for patients at the Evangelisches Konigin Elizabeth Krankenhaus children’s psychiatric hospital in Berlin. Designed as a collaborative effort between the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Dan Pearlman Creative Agency, the center creates a fantastic narrative that guides patients on a journey to “Elise Island”, a safe place to play and rest hosted by Princess Elise.

Read the rest of Children’s Hospital is a Sheltering Haven that Proves Design Heals

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Post tags: childrens design, Dan Pearlman, Dan Pearlman Creative Agency, Evangelisches Konigin Elizabeth Krankenhause, green design, inhabitat, modern design, social design, socially sustainable design, sustainable design

Since we last mentioned his efficient home built for under $70,000, Caleb Schafer's been quite busy.  He has a new website for Simple Modern Homes with a number of new home designs.  He's also doing new work with new clients, and one home in particular looks interesting.  Referred to as CL24, the design is for a 2,000 square-foot green home in Canyon Lake, Texas. 

What's most interesting, perhaps, is the fact that CL24 will come in below $150,000, including land, utilities, and septic.  It's Texas -- where land isn't necessarily scarce or expensive -- but we definitely like this aggressive fusion of style and affordability.  

Schafer says Simple Modern Homes' designs are simple, but not one corner has been cut.  It's not about creating something that's cheap, it's about creating a no-frills, quality home. 

CL24 will be built with advanced framing techniques, spray biofoam insulation, galvalume siding, and a four-unit high efficiency heat pump mini-split system from Mitsubishi.  We'll circle back around when CL24 nears completion to follow up with more detail. 

[+] Simple Modern Homes.

Rendering credits: Simple Modern Homes.

Properly monitoring your energy consumption can now be more than just comparing and doing some calculations. With the Wattbox, you can now get a gadget that practically learns householders’ energy habits relating to their central heating and hot water usage patterns and provides immediate feedback on consumption.

So if you are tired of paying atrocious bills, the Wattbox could very well save the day for you. The device has a simple display with buttons for ‘More Heat’ or ‘Less Heat’ when the automatic decision doesn’t meet the user’s needs. It also shows how much more, or less, energy is being consumed as a result of their choice.

(Source) Gizmag

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The Wattbox Will Help Lower Your Energy Bills

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Whether it is Summer or just a plain hot day, here is a cool way to show and teach your kids the process of solar power. This comes in the form of a kit called the Solar Seagull Kit.

It runs on a solar 1.4V-350mA power supply and measures just 160×190m. It weighs only 180 grams and comes with a foam board. The only problem is that the manual comes in Japanese.

Price: $52.00

(Source) Japanese Trend Shop

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Solar Powered Water Fountain Kit

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Grab it, bend it, twist it, snip it, yank it, hold it, crush it. Five minutes in the octagon with Randy "The Natural" Couture? Thankfully, no. Those are just a few of the many fun things you can do with a pair of Multi-Headed Pliers. This cleverly designed tool consists of rubber-gripped handles and three interchangeable heads, which easily snap on and off of the handles. In this case, three heads really are better than one.

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The Windy City area is capitalizing on its most famous attribute with a new wind-powered electric vehicle charging station.  Located in Highland Park, 30 miles outside of the city, the charging station uses electricity generated by Illinois wind farms for law firm Emalfarb Swan & Bain.

The charging station is the second in the country and the first in the continental U.S. to be powered by wind.  The other station is located in Maui, Hawaii.

The charge port was installed by Carbon Day Automotive, a distributor of the EV-charging leader Coulomb Technologies.  Carbon Day has also created a Solar Charge-Port that not only juices up EVs, but also collects, filters and recycles storm water through a Grey water filtration system for irrigation use.

via Green Car Advisor

 

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A new federal agency charged with reporting on climate change is being formed.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will set up the Climate Service using members of the National Weather Service and other NOAA offices.

Climate operations have been spred out among NOAA offices, but with more and more requests pouring in for information concerning climate change, officials decided to combine those efforts into one main office.  The Climate Service will be headquartered in Washington, D.C. with six regional directors elsewhere in the country.

The agency will still have to be approved by congressional committee, but if it clears all necessary hurdles, it should be up and running by the end of the year.

via Huffington Post

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Human rights organization, Survival International, has taken out an ad in Variety magazine pleading with James Cameron to help the Dongria Kondh tribe of Orissa, India. The organization points to similarities between the Na’vi in Avatar and the Dongria Kondh.

“Just as the Na’vi describe the forest of Pandora as ‘their everything,’ for the Dongria Kondh, life and land have always been deeply connected,” says Survival International’s director Stephen Corry. “The fundamental story of Avatar – if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids – is being played out today in the hills of Niyamgiri in Orissa, India.”

Survival International, which was established in 1969 and campaigns for the rights of indigenous tribal people, is hoping to get the attention of the award winning director by explaining that, “Avatar is fantasy… and real.”

In the advertisement, Cameron is asked to watch a 10 minute film about the Dongria’s plight. Check it out below!

I’m just saying.

The inmates may all be crazy, the place may be haunted, and Leonardo DiCaprio might just lose it — but at least the owners are keeping it green topside.

Shutter Island opens February 19th. Check out a trailer for the Scorsese flick here.

In a forthcoming keynote address to the Green Cities conference of the Green Building Council of Australia, green building guru Jerry Yudelson intends to tackle a important concern in the sustainable building world: performance.  His keynote, entitled “If it doesn’t perform, it’s not green,” is at the center of a hot button topic that seems to be taking on new fervor these days. 

Yudelson, principal of green building consultancy Yudelson Associates, said in a press release, "The major focus of the green building movement has become the performance of green-rated and green-labeled buildings … what we’re seeing is many high-level rated green buildings falling well short of predicted performance.”

Perhaps, Yudelson is referring, at least in part, to a study by Cathy Turner and Mark Frankel, “Energy Performance of LEED for New Construction Buildings.”  In general terms, after examining the performance of 121 newly constructed LEED buildings, the authors found that several buildings use more energy than the code baseline and an even greater number use more energy than predicted. 

The so-called performance gap in new green buildings – the difference between design and actual building performance – has led to some changes to LEED certification by the USGBC.  The newest version of LEED requires projects to monitor and report on energy and water use data.  The data isn’t used to yank certification or demote previously certified projects – at least not yet – it’s designed to move towards a system where actual energy and water information is available to both stakeholders and certification bodies. 

Yudelson, author of several books and one on greening existing buildings, says buildings that fall short of initial performance claims should receive a reduced level of certification as with existing certified buildings: “Certifying existing buildings as green uses actual performance data; new buildings should be held to the same standard … it’s unacceptable to give green certifications to new buildings that don’t meet the same standard.” 

The fourth annual Green Cities conference will be held in Melbourne, Australia, where Jerry Yudelson will speak on February 23, 2010.  Given the importance of the topic, I expect those who can’t make it to the conference will be able to catch a similar speech here in the states.

In a forthcoming keynote address to the Green Cities conference of the Green Building Council of Australia, green building guru Jerry Yudelson intends to tackle a important concern in the... Preston Koerner

Can you imagine living in a high-rise apartment building where the 360 degree views are of fishes and saltwater? Although just a concept now, this upside-down, underwater eco-skyscraper could be the future of building, especially if sea levels rise as predicted and we end up living in a water world. Designed by Victoria BC-based firm Zigloo, the Gyre is a floating eco-development meant to be both a research station as well as an off-shore resort with shops, restaurants, gardens and recreation. Powered completely by the sun, wind and ocean, the Gyre would offer a zero emissions stay for both tourists and researchers hoping to gain a better understanding of the ocean’s ecosystem.

Read the rest of The Gyre: A Floating Upside Down Eco Skyscraper

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Post tags: "wind power", eco resort, eco skyscraper, floating development, floating underwater eco-skyscraper, ocean power, renewable energy, Solar Power, Zigloo

With green considered the new gold, many corporations are looking to jump on the sustainability bandwagon. The issue is finding a way to make the programs effective and impactful. Employees, customers, vendors and corporate watchdogs are looking to determine whether the programs are meaningful or just lip service. The question becomes, “How do you create [...]