Category: Design
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112: Durability and Sustainability
What’s the link between durability and sustainability? Brett Little explains that there’s no point in building a zero energy house, if it only lasts a few years. The Green Home Institute is focussed on empowering people to make healthier and more sustainable places to live. Working closely alongside the the USGBC, the Green Home Institute offers…
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111: Permaculture isn’t Muesli
Andrew Stephenson has always seen architecture as a unique opportunity to turn people’s dreams into reality. Andrew and his family learnt a lot about living well in small places when they lived, travelled and worked together in a luxury bus for 5 years. See their home and some of their adventures at fun4five.com. Designing, building and…
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108: How to make a sustainable house
How do you make a house sustainable? Talking to the team at Sustainability House would be a good start. Sustainability House believe that all buildings should aim to have low embodied energy, use energy efficiently, generate electricity, collect and recycle water, be passively thermally comfortable and provide safe indoor air quality. Sounds reasonable. But how…
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104: Architecture in Harmony with the Earth
Can you imagine meeting someone at university with similar interests, falling in love with them, then starting a practice together offering complementary design services to provide beautiful, functional architecture in harmony with the Earth? Sounds pretty idillic. And it’s what Matthew Swett and Sarah Birger have done to create Taproot Architects. Throw in the fact that they…
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103: It’s All About Airtightness
Derek Ward’s strength is the science that connects good design with good performance. Clioma House specialises in ‘airtightness and effective insulation’. They help bridge the gap between the drawing board and the construction site. Call the Experts, Early The sooner you think about how much you want to do in relation to performance, the cheaper…
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102: The Technical Side of Building Green
Matthew Vande and partner Amy Musser created VandeMussser Design to help with ‘the technical side of building green’. They found a great problem when they moved to North Carolina – builders who wanted to do right thing, but didn’t know what the right thing was. Matt, Amy and their team now help builders and their…
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101: Vernacular Construction
Episode Foundations (the bottom line at the top) Invest up front in a good designer and you’ll save during construction. Vernacular construction is about designing and building appropriately for the local conditions. For a sustainable home, focus on insulation and ventilation.
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How 475 can help you achieve a high performance home
So, you’ve decided you’d like a really good home. One that’s comfortable, healthy and energy efficient. That’s great, but unfortunately it’s not (yet) standard practice. Hopefully you can find a good designer to help (try this list if you like). But you’ll also need some good, non-standard products. This week I spoke with Ken Levenson…
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Sustainable Building with Logs
Three years ago, John Donovan built a demonstration log house on his property in Waitakere, Auckland. The images in a recent newspaper article caught my attention, as did the mention of ‘eco’ and ‘efficient’. So I tracked John down to get his thoughts on sustainable building with logs. And we talked about pyramids… Te Huia Log Homes…
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The Business of Architecture
Mark R. LePage is Director of Fivecat Studio, specialising in high end residential rebuilds and renovations. He is also the Entrepreneur Architect and is passionate about the business of architecture. Mark R. LePage @EntreArchitect is passionate about the business of architecture Click To Tweet Getting into Business Mark experienced the joy or running a successful business…