Case Studies
Designing an effective sustainable drainage system can be a bit of a challenge at the best of times, but it's ten times worse when you're trying to come up with something that will work for an area of very flat land, with an underlying seam of clay and a high [...]
Carol Atkinson's interest in straw construction arose during her studies for a Master's degree in architecture at the Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth - and she's been putting theory into practice ever since. Originally setting out to add a straw bale cottage as part of a diversification of the family's [...]
Building a carbon neutral home is a pretty big challenge in itself, but when your chosen site is on Britain’s northernmost island, it becomes a massive undertaking. But in 2002, having owned a plot of land on Unst in the Shetlands since the 1980s, Michael Rea and his wife Dorothy [...]
Reusing carpet or other floor coverings is one of the most sustainable ways of approaching the flooring problem. By using flooring material that some one else has discarded you are not only saving that from going into a landfill site, but also preventing the use of energy and materials that [...]
While the machines may not actually have taken over in the nightmarish way that the visions of the future portrayed in the Terminator or Matrix films would suggest, there is no escaping the fact that computers do run the world. With everybody from the NHS to your next door neighbour [...]
Hydrogen has long been hailed as the future of air travel, but with aircraft manufacturers having largely put most of their plans to develop hydrogen burning ‘cryoplanes’ on hold, at least for the moment, that had seemed rather less certain of late. Now, however, all this may be about to [...]
The sea has always played an important part in British history, and as the technology necessary to recover some of the vast amount of energy swirling around our coasts in the form of tidal currents improves, it looks as if it will continue to shape our lives in the future [...]
There’s nothing new about the idea of getting energy from algae. It has been known for years that some kinds of these simple plants can yield over 1,500 gallons of oil per acre – that’s more than three times the amount that can be produced by palms and a staggering [...]
The push toward underfloor heating continues with designers and ecologist alike singing it's praises. It's expensive to install unless it's part of a new build or complete re-fit though, so will lower utility charges eventually claw back the installation cost? Checking out the Report A report from the Underfloor Heating [...]
A small family of eco-lodges in Spain could well be one of the most attractive sustainable developments you’ll ever come across. The Tarifa eco-lodges were designed and built by specialist sustainable building company Blue Forest, based in Tunbridge Wells, Sussex and are breathtaking in their beauty. You can just imagine [...]
An award winning children’s centre in a picturesque area of Wales is helping to keep the Rhondda Valley “green.” The valley, known across the globe from the classic film How Green Was My Valley, is home to the Rhydyfelin Children’s Centre which incorporates a range of environmental and energy saving [...]
A Construction Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) at a UK college is an education in itself. The Genesis Centre at Somerset College in Taunton is a £2.5 million educational resource funded by the South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) and the Learning and Skills Council. With education at the heart [...]
Red Kite House in Oxfordshire is a shining example of a new build project which ticks all the boxes when it comes to environmental awareness. The building, home to a regional office of the Environment Agency, replaced eight smaller offices in different areas so it immediately had a positive impact [...]
An award-winning project at the University of Surrey has led to an impressive “newish” campus without the impact of demolition and rebuild. Surrey, like many universities in Britain, had a number of buildings from the late 1960s and 1970s, which were looking dated, had major fenestration failures and were becoming [...]
When looking for good examples of sustainable build, there can be few more fitting candidates than Nottinghamshire’s Hockerton Housing Project (HHP). Over the past few years, Hockerton - the UK’s first earth-sheltered, self sufficient ecological housing development - has helped to educate people from across the globe about “green” developments, [...]
In the quest to live a sustainable life the three key words are reduce, reuse and recycle and flooring, whether it's carpet or solid flooring like wood, tiles or laminate, should be a prime candidate for reuse and recycling at least. We spoke to Jim Derry in North Yorkshire who [...]
Many large organisations use CHP (combined heat and power) to produce electricity and hot water – but what about the “wasted” output of low grade heat? In the majority of cases, this excess heat is just dumped into atmosphere – when it could be serving a useful purpose. At the [...]
The virtues of carpet tiles, from a sustainability point of view, have been examined in a number of articles on this site. Here we look at a real life example where a committed recycler used surplus carpet tiles from an office to make a garden shed and summerhouse more comfortable. [...]
Renewing carpet during a home renovation can be an expensive affair, not only for the householders pocket but also for the planet. But a combination of being careful with money and a sense of ecological responsibility resulted in a great solution to a problem stair carpet in one couple's home. [...]
Reusing carpet, tiles and other flooring materials is a great way of keeping them out of the landfill and using people's cast-offs doesn't seem as seedy now that the whole of the United Kingdom is obsessed with saving money. Reusing Makes Sense for Tenants Where it can really pay though [...]
Dr Ken Yeang is a UK-based architect, with a principal practice in London and a sister company in Malaysia, and many professorships and architectural positions around the world, including the US, Hawaii, and Shanghai. He is known as both an architect and an ecologist, bringing into all his designs and [...]
David Lloyd Jones is a British architect, based in London, who has for several years specialised in designing and building sustainable schools. Through his architectural practise, 'Studio E Architects', Lloyd Jones and his team of architects and designers have won several contracts and competitions through a recent British Government scheme [...]
Michael Pawlyn is a young British architect and designer who applies the green principle of biomimicry to his work. This means learning from nature, or studying the designs and structures found in the natural world - both in plants, materials, and other species, and copying them into the design of [...]
