Bankrolled by Hsieh, The Downtown Project plans to invest $350 million in up to 200 small businesses, dozens of tech start-ups, and a diverse mix of other public resources and amenities. The ultimate goal: To create the sort of dense, walkable, mixed-used Shangri-La championed by the urban theorist Jane Jacobs in her 1961 classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities.Â
Put another way, Hsieh would like to make downtown Las Vegas a more compelling social network, a feature-rich platform that encourages frequent chance encounters, fruitful knowledge exchange, and over the long term, greater innovation and productivity. Where abandoned liquor stores now fester, yoga studios shall one day bloom. : Continue reading :
Category Archives: sustainable architecture
Hotel of the Month: Santorini
Material Girl
Eco House
The Sustainable Lifer and a Failed Rio+20?
What should happen after the “disapointing” climate change talks in Brazil?
Part of the series of videos by Globescan and SustainAbility project. Watch others here.
Crowdfunding the Regenerative Home
Let’s create the Regenerative Home. With this proposal, we are raising funds to showcase technologies for homes that are ecological, affordable, and appropriate for these times. We will build the second prototype this summer in Colorado (earlier version shown in the intro video). Throughout the construction we will document in film and photography. The building plans will be available this year online for $10. Plus, in a subsequent fundraising effort next year, we will assemble an online documentary film about the process so others can learn from and recreate these ideas.
The movie above shows you what the Hiperadobe (a type of Earthbag) earthen wall system looks like in action. The Regenerative Home design uses the hiperadobe system for the walls, and an ancient Nubian adobe vault method to enclose the space. This was used by humanitarian architect Hassan Fathy. It is still popular today in many countries because it minimizes the use of wood by replacing it with earth, and is very durable. Similar adobe vaults that are thousands of years old still stand today. The Regenerative Home uses this age-old roofing technique with additional reinforcement to ensure safety and longevity. (Fund here)
Detachable House
These structures can be moved if a hurricane approaches in hours…
Practical Post-Scarcity
What these guys are doing is amazing, check out Open Source Ecology for your building needs…
Roll Prefab
Net Energy Positive Passive House
The Passive House in the Woods in Hudson Wisconsin officially clocked a net-energy positive meter reading in 2011.
What does that mean?
In short, it made more energy than it consumed. While we predicted this with our energy models, we found and learned through monitoring that some equipment and appliances use more energy than assumed. On the flip side, user behavior plays a major role as well and can effectively lower energy consumption over the predicted model. (Source)