Category: Architect
-
159: Darryl Sang Certified Passive House Designer
Why Architecture? Darryl originally chose engineering as his profession, but seeking to combine his creativity with his analytical skills, he eventually followed his father’s footsteps into architecture. Why Passive House? A growing number of Darryl’s clients have been wanting to invest more in their properties in order to use fewer resources and have a truely comfortable…
-
157: Sustainable Landscapes with Hitesh Mehta
Hitesh Mehta I originally contacted Hitesh Mehta to talk about sustainable landscape architecture, but he offers a lot more than that. Hitesh has travelled the world advising and helping designers of ecolodges. He enjoys all aspects of architecture as well as photography, environmental planning and writing. To find out more about his recent work, visit…
-
154: Adaptive Architecture
For Matthew Baran of Baran Studio Architecture, California, Adaptive architecture means much more than just designing for the local climate. We create cities in places where maybe they’re not supposed to be. This, combined with continued pressure on natural resources and climate change creates a need for adaptive architecture. Matthew Baran Matthew was drawn to architecture…
-
153: Simple is the New Smart Home
What makes a ‘smart home’? Paul Dowsett and his team at Sustainable.To are dedicate to creating affordable, healthy and energy efficient homes, because that’s what Paul believes is ‘the right thing to do’. I think that a pretty good definition for a ‘smart home’. And the best way to achieve it? Keep it simple. Simple…
-
151: Passive House is Here
There’s so much that could be said about two days of great Passive House presentations in Melbourne, but I’ve challenged myself to boil it down to one point per presentation. If there was one takeaway from the second South Pacific Passive House Conference, it was that Passive House has arrived in the Southern Hemisphere…
-
148 Designing for your climate
Graham Hunt goes into a lot of detail when researching the local climate that will impact the comfort of a home. Designing for your climate includes an analysis of both the macro – the temperature, rainfall and humidity of the region, but also the micro – the local wind, shading and exposure of a particular site.…
-
146 Can you afford an architect?
Angus Crowe of True North Architects believes that you definitely can afford an architect. In fact, you can’t afford not to have one. Learning from the Tropics The tropics might seem a world away from very cold climates, but these regions do share one trait – they both required good design in order to achieve…
-
142 Bamboo is Sustainable
Bamboo Technologies, LLC (Bamboo Living) design and manufacture structurally certified bamboo homes. Founded in 1995, Bamboo Technologies has produced over 350 homes in Hawaii and around the world. I spoke with founder David Sands about why bamboo is sustainable and a great building material. Bamboo is Sustainable The speed at which it grows is a key reason why…
-
139: The Future of Green Design
The terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘eco’ are not obvious on Adam Taylor’s website. They are there (see if you can find them). But perhaps the future of green design is embedded in good design. Not something separate. Homestar Practitioner Among other things, Adam is a Homestar Practitioner. There’s nothing particularly special about this nowadays, except when you…
-
136: Thermal Mass Is Not That Useful
I recall visiting one of the fist 8 Homestar homes in Christchurch and being surprised that this new show home had a suspended timber floor. The double layer of insulation gave the floor a very impressive R-value, far better than any concrete floor slab I’d seen recently. All well-and-good, I thought. But thermally, surely it couldn’t be…