From natural building materials to the high-tech, browse through these pages to discover a variety of materials used in green building as alternatives to conventional materials.
Construction (and even demolition!) requires an abundance of resources and creates massive amounts of waste. Some of that waste is also toxic, such as that from asbestos. Current practices for constructing buildings and handling waste from demolition aren’t sustainable. Thankfully, […]
Screen reader version: Happy Feet: Eco-Friendly Alternatives Bamboo Best for: Pros: Cons: Cost Per Square Foot: Cork Best for: Pros: Cons Cost Per Square Foot: FSC-Certified Wood Best for: Pros: Cons: Cost Per Square Foot: Natural-Fiber Carpet Best for: Pros:
Narrator: Here at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, community members strive to live sustainably, and this plays into all aspects of daily living, including diet, energy consumption and housing. Members build their own homes from sustainable and natural resources, including straw bales,
Updated: March 6, 2020 What is hempcrete? Hempcrete is a unique building material, being a composite of a bio-fibre (hemp hurd or shiv) and a mineral binder (lime). These ingredients are blended together with water, and the moistened binder coats
Screen Reader Version Smarter and Greener: How cutting edge methods, materials and tech are making the world a more environmentally friendly and productive world. Cutting Edge Construction Methods Robot swarm construction What is it? Researchers at Harvard have built
Updated: March 6, 2020 One day I saw a bunch of old tires used as a retaining wall and that got me thinking about what other uses old tires are good for. I had a few thoughts about what to
IMAGE: This transmission electron microscope image shows cellulose nanocrystals, tiny structures that give trees and plants their high strength, light weight and resilience. The nanocrystals might be used to create a…Click here for more information. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The same
Part 2 of Building with Pumice (read part 1>>) This chapter tells how to build several different kinds of houses using building members of the kind described. Typical, practical models that have already been successfully built in various countries were
Everyone would like to live in their own home. Many people in industrialized countries occupy apartments in multistorey buildings. This situation involves lots of problems for which there’s no immediate solution. This book is intended to stimulate interest in a
Rammed earth, also known as taipa in Portuguese, tapial in Spanish or pisé de terre or simply pisé in French, is a technique used to build walls with earth, chalk, lime and gravel. It’s an ancient building method that has seen a revival in recent years as people seek more sustainable building materials and natural building methods. Rammed earth
