Gorgeous solar-powered Colorado home produces almost all its own energy

Sustainability and a love for nature inspired Colorado-based CCY Architects’ design of the gorgeous Starwood Residence. Set on a ridge line, this luxury mountain home with floor-to-ceiling glazing overlooks the Roaring Fork Valley and Elk Mountains. Solar energy powers the energy-efficient Starwood Residence, which is capable of producing 70% of the energy that it consumes.

The Starwood Residence lies low on the landscape with a series of sloping rooflines that appear to echo the surrounding mountain landscape. Weathered steel wraps the home to blend the building into the natural backdrop, while exterior sunshades maximize access to natural light and minimize solar heat gain in summer. In contrast to the steel-clad facade, the interior is richly layered with warm textures, from stone accent walls to Clear Vertical Grain (CVG) Douglas Fir siding. Large panoramic windows appear to extend the living areas outdoors.

Related: Black Magic home sits lightly in a mountain oasis

In addition to daylighting, the architects improved the home’s energy efficiency with exposed concrete floors—used almost exclusively throughout the home—that provide thermal mass to absorb and release passive solar heat in cold months. The nearly energy-sufficient home draws power from a 7-kw solar array, 12 evacuated tubes for solar thermal, and a ground source heat pump for radiant cooling and heating. The weathered steel siding contains a high percentage of recycled material and all the concrete used includes a minimum of 20 percent fly ash.

+ CCY Architects

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Amazing plastic bottle architecture withstands earthquakes in Taipei

Plastic bottle architecture is fantastic at turning a problem into an eco-friendly opportunity. The amazing EcoARK in Taipei, Taiwan is one such example. Built from 1.5 million recycled plastic bottles, this massive pavilion is surprisingly strong enough to withstand the forces of nature—including fires and earthquakes! Designed by architect Arthur Huang, the nine-story $3 million USD pavilion is powered by solar energy and was built to the mantra of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.”

Constructed for use as an exhibition hall during the 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo, the EcoARK pavilion continues to spread its message of sustainability for seven years strong. Though Taiwan is home to one of the world’s most respected recycling programs, the country consumes a whopping 4.5 million PET bottles a year. To spread awareness about plastic waste, the Far Eastern Group, one of the world’s largest producers of PET products, commissioned architect and Miniwiz founder Arthur Huang to design and build the eco-friendly EcoARK.

As the world’s first building of its kind, EcoARK is an incredible architectural feat. The key to the EcoARK design lay with polli-bricks, a hollow building block made of recycled PET developed by Miniwiz. The polli-bricks were manufactured from over a million recycled plastic bottles melted down into PET pellets and re-engineered into a new bottle-like shape. The blow-molded polli-bricks feature interlocking grooves that fit tightly together like LEGOs and only require a small amount of silicon sealant.

Once assembled into flat rectangular panels, the polli-bricks are coated with a fire- and water-resistant film. The EcoARK’s curved and transparent facade is made up of these modular panels screwed and mounted onto a structural steel frame. Although the EcoARK weighs half as much as conventional buildings, it’s resistant to earthquakes and typhoons, and can withstand sustained winds up of to 130 kilometers per hour.

Related: Basurama transforms landfill trash into playgrounds in Taipei

Use of recycled plastic bottles isn’t the only eco-friendly feature of the EcoARK. The pavilion was built with low-carbon building techniques to maintain a zero-carbon footprint during operation. The building stays cool without air conditioning thanks to natural ventilation. The air inside the polli-bricks also provides insulation from heat and rainwater is collected and reused to cool the building. The polli-bricks’ transparency allows natural light to illuminate the interior during the day. Solar– and wind-powered systems generate the electricity needed to power 40,000 LEDs that light the building up at night.

+ Miniwiz

Images © Lucy Wang

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Escape into the glass rivers and lakes of these beautiful wood tables

If getting lost in a coffee table sounds improbable, you may change your mind once you see these beautiful furnishings. Artist and designer Greg Klassen transforms reclaimed wood into mesmerizing works of art embedded with glass rivers and lakes. Klassen, who we’ve featured previously, handcrafts unique pieces that mimic topographic forms in the Pacific Northwest.

Spotted by This is Colossal, Klassen’s newest works include a variety of coffee tables of different sizes and shapes, as well as wall hangings. “The collection is inspired by the exciting edges and vivid grains found in the trees sustainably taken from the banks of the Nooksack River that twists below my studio,” wrote Klassen.

Related: Amazing Abyss Table Layers Glass and Wood to Mimic the Depths of the Ocean Blue

Klassen uses a variety of reclaimed wood including maple, cottonwood, walnut, and sycamore. He uses the wood’s existing edges to inform the shape of waterways hand-cut from tempered blue glass. Each piece is one-of-a-kind and sells for thousands of U.S. dollars.

+ Greg Klassen

Via This is Colossal

Images via Greg Klassen

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Navajo mum gets new lease on life with this solar-powered home

Design Build Bluff built this charming off-grid home for a mother of four in Utah. Suzie Whitehorse fled her alcoholic husband and moved into a tiny rammed-earth domed shelter on the Navajo reservation, but the tiny hogan was not suitable for a growing family. So the Utah Graduate College of Architecture and Planning stepped in. Using mostly earth, salvaged materials, and traditional building techniques, 18 graduate students put together a beautiful new home complete with solar panels and a rocket stove that has instantly given Suzie and her children a whole new lease on life.

With a footprint of just under 1,000 square feet, the new house was constructed using clay, sand, straw, and water bricks clad in recycled sheets of aluminum, and then accented with recycled shipping pallets.

It gets hot and dusty on the reservation in the summer, so the design team raised the house four feet off the ground with recycled telephone poles, which encourages wind-swept sand to settle below and cool air to ventilate the home naturally. Absolutely no mechanical systems are required to keep the house either cool or warm.

Related: Off-Gridd Rammed Earth House on Navajo Nation Catches the Wind

During winter, the desert quickly becomes cold and hostile, so the team built a wonderful rocket stove powered by small bits of kindling that heats up the whole house in a jiffy. The southern exposure is glazed for optimum solar gain, in-floor radiant heating provides more warmth if needed, and vertical solar panels heat water.

Finally, a gutted roof harvests rainwater, which is stored in a 2,000 gallon cistern buried underground. Please read our interview with Design Build Bluff’s founder Hank Louis to get a sense of other inspiring projects that have transformed the lives of lucky people like Suzie Whitehorse.

+ Design Build Bluff

Via Arch Daily

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C&A debuts world's first Cradle to Cradle Certified Gold T-shirts

A chain of clothing stories in Belgium has launched the world’s first Cradle to Cradle Certified Gold T-shirts. Available in two styles for women in up to 17 different colors, C&A’s tees mark the company’s first foray into apparel for the so-called “circular economy,” where products are designed to be reused or recycled rather than thrown away. The shirts, which comprise 100 percent organic cotton, represent what C&A calls a “positive ecological and social level never before seen for a fashion garment.”

California’s Cradle to Cradle Product Innovation Institute, which manages the certification mark, defines C2C Certified products as items that have been optimized for human and environmental health, material reutilization, renewable energy use, carbon management, water stewardship, and social justice.

Ratings are based on four levels: Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

Related: First Cradle to Cradle Platinum certified product is reclaimed Bark House shingle

C&A worked with McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, the recently formed Fashion for Good initiative, and two India-based factories to develop the tees based on Cradle to Cradle Certified criteria. Both Cotton Blossom and Pratibha Syntex, C&A said, needed minimal improvement in those areas.

“In nature, the ‘waste’ of one system becomes food for another,” Jay Bolus, president of certification services at MBDC, said in a statement. “The two new T-shirts illustrate the possibility by which we can transform what is currently a take-make-waste industry to one that is regenerative and closed loop to progress us toward a positive future. We worked closely with Cotton Blossom and Pratibha Syntex and throughout their supply chains to ensure the resulting apparel is not only attractive, accessible and affordable—but also a positive design.”

C&A’s shirts, which will appear in stores in June, use only materials that have been deemed safe for cycling as biological nutrients, making them safe enough to compost at home at the end of their lives.

Two additional styles, one for women and another for men, will debut in Brazil and Mexico in September.

Related: Freitag announces that their 100% compostable denim is about to hit shelves

“We are very proud to introduce our first Gold level Cradle to Cradle Certified T-shirts,” said You Nguyen, director of brands, womenswear collections, at C&A. “Taking inspiration from nature, these shirts were designed with their next life in mind. This means they can be reused recycled—or you can literally throw your shirts onto the compost pile.”

Nguyen added, “We believe in fashion with a positive impact and are excited to provide our customers with stylish products and render sustainable fashion available at great value.”

+ C&A

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8 thoughtful Mother's Day gift ideas for the eco mama in your life

Finding the perfect gift for the eco-conscious Mama in your life is a little more labor intensive than just running out for generic cards or super-market flowers at the last second. You want to find something that shows you really care – about her and about the planet. We’ve made your life a bit easier this year with a roundup of eight thoughtful gift ideas we think will appeal to the earth-loving mama in your world.

1. Ladies-only outdoor adventure

Adventurous outdoor Moms will love REI/Outessa’s three-day retreats, where they can dabble in rock climbing, yoga, paddle boarding, and more while being treated to chef-prepared and locally-sourced meals. After a weekend spent with other nature-loving women, Mom will come back ready to tackle parenting and life with feeling connected and rejuvenated.

2. Jewelry

Andrea Bonelli’s gorgeous handmade jewelry (like the above pink sapphire necklace) incorporates recycled and ethically mined stones and metals. Bonelli is also a member of Ethical Metalsmiths and gives back through the Toolbox Initiative, which provides jewelers in West Africa with tools and supplies to encourage their ability to work autonomously. If the sky’s the limit for the Earth Mama in your life, gift her with a premium piece from Monique Pean, beloved among the eco-celeb set for her sustainable and unique pieces, who counts former First Lady Michelle Obama as a fan.

3. Books

Whether purchasing a physical book or the e-version, you have plenty of choices that will expand Mom’s reading horizons. A few of our hot picks: Phenomenal, which has readers join a new mother as she traipses across the planet in search of migrating butterflies in Mexico and lightening storms in Venezuela and Lab Girl, the bestselling and intriguing memoir of geo-biologist Hope Jahren. Others may enjoy How To Read Water, which provides insightful instructions for forecasting the weather by looking at waves or using puddles to figure out directions. If the Mom you’re gifting these books to has little ones, earn bonus points by also gifting her some time and a quiet space to actually read them.

RELATED: 11 Eco-tastic gifts for Mother’s Day

4. Ceramic breakfast bowl

These hand-painted and hand-thrown Moroccan bowls from Raven & Lily are wonderful mood boosters for Mom when she’s throwing down a bowl of cereal amidst the before school morning chaos or snacking on some dried fruits and nuts for a midday break. It’s no coincidence they are also perfectly sized for use as a chai or latte “mug”; the bowls also come in a mini size and are pretty enough to corral rings, change, keys, or perhaps chocolate chips. 10 percent of sales goes towards an after-school program in Morocco that provides academic support, life skills mentoring, and leadership coaching.

5. S’Well water bottle

We probably all have a reusable water bottle (or five) at home, but somehow they manage to migrate to kids’ backpacks or end up on spouse’s desks. S’Well’s sleek BPA-free stainless steel water bottles are triple wall insulated to keep beverages cold for 24 hours or hot for 12. The limited edition Terra bottle is decorated with lush flora and fauna; we’re also loving the Elements collection, inspired by natural beauties such as pearls and marbled stone. A portion of S’Well’s sales go towards supporting clean and safe water supplies in vulnerable communities. Staying hydrated, whether Mom’s adventures take her on a hike or to the carpool line, never looked so pretty.

6. Flowers

No sad, tired, on-their-last-stem arrangements here: Bouqs partners with local artisan florists around the country and sustainable farmers around the world to provide vibrant custom bouquets. In certain areas of the country, a “bouq” can even be delivered on demand within hours, a lifesaver for spouses and children who perhaps procrastinated a bit too long. All the vendors in this “farm to table” arrangement approach practice sustainable farming that minimizes waste.

Want to give Mom the gift that keeps on giving? Consider gifting a living plant that can provide beauty (and clean air) to her space for years. Any potted plant will do nicely, but if you’re looking for an easy, low-maintenance gift idea, moth orchids (phalaenopsis), in particular, are beautiful, usually easy to find at your local market, extremely low-maintenance (you barely need to water them), and great indoor-air cleaners.

RELATED: 7 indoor plants that purify the air naturally

7. Edible goodies

INNA Jam’s jams, shrubs, pickles, and salts are next-level delicious. With a focus on organically grown produce from a 150-mile radius of the company’s California kitchen and a strict seasonal sensibility, Moms and anyone who gives these treats a try will fall in love with the flavorful, jewel-toned, single-origin jams as well as the game-changing shrubs (basically a fruit/vinegar/sugar syrup). Other ideas? Try hand-crafted, non-GMO pickles in flavors including Maple Bourbon Whiskey Sour from Brooklyn Brine or a 111-year-old dehydrated sourdough starter.

8. Art

Adjusting to life with kids often means mamas have to modify their travel and adventure expectations. If she can’t lay her eyes on a far-flung island or peak in real life for the time being, playful and cheerful wall art that brings to mind her love of nature may be a temporary salve. Printed on FSC-certified or recycled paper, options from Graphic Anthology include abstract geometric trees or mountains, Scandinavian design-inspired fish, and a sweet reminder to all to Go Outside and Play and would make also great additions to a nursery, kitchen, or family room. You can even pick up a gorgeous Mother’s Day card while you are browsing the site.

Lead image © REI/Outessa

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