Progressive Meandering

Bridgette Steffan of INHABITAT writes:

Outside of Rio de Janeiro, on a beautiful little beach with amazing blue water, sits a little house with a flowering roof that shades and protects like a big tropical banana leaf. Designed by Mareines + Patalano, the open air abode is meant to encourage interaction and connection between man and nature. With verandas and open spaces in between rooms and no corridors, the tropical beach house is an ideal place for social gatherings and parties. The open layout also takes advantage of trade winds that blow in from the sea, providing natural ventilation and passive cooling.

Truly stunning. My words can’t possibly do this justice! Enough said.

Mike Chino at INHABITAT writes:

Recently St. Lucie County in Florida announced that it has teamed up with Geoplasma to develop the United States’ first plasma gasification plant. The plant will use super-hot 10,000 degree fahrenheit plasma to effectively vaporize 1,500 tons of trash each day, which in turn spins turbines to generate 60MW of electricity - enough to power 50,000 homes! Cutting down on landfill waste while generating energy is a pretty win-win proposition, and the plant will also be able to melt down inorganic materials to be reused for other applications, such as in roadbed and heavy construction.

I think it’s important to remember that, while reclaiming as much energy as possible from a process is admirable, this process is NOT a green electricity source. It will always require more energy to vaporise the waste than is recovered by using the “syngas” to drive turbines.

Here we have a great piece of green product design, a few minutes playing and you’ve got enough energy for a charge. For more details hit the link after the pics.

Via: Inhabitat.

This fantastic beach house by DeMaria Design makes use of old shipping containers. If only more new builds re-used existing materials in such an innovative manner…..

Via: Inhabitat.

A wonderfull example of green design, the LED light bulb. Various frosted bulbs provide a warmer, more incandescent light than most LED lights. Designed to fit existing sockets but with a 30+ year lifespan!

Via: Yanko Design.