This is the Home of the Future, which is on display at the BC Hydro Power Smart Village in downtown Vancouver. It's hard to tell, but the home is actually made with two shipping containers and wrapped in cedar and pine beetle wood cladding. In addition, according to a press release, the showcase project is designed with local and recycled materials, as well as energy-efficient appliances and other conservation technologies.
Modular home manufacturers are all getting into smaller and greener homes these days. We've mentioned the i-House from Clayton Homes and the Osprey from Nationwide Homes, but another modular company, Excel Homes, also has a small green home called the The Prairie View. The design is inspired by the Prairie House Style with its open interior plan and horizontal exterior lines. Designed to be completed for under $100,000, this 945 square-foot home has one bedroom, one bathroom, and abundant open space for everything else.
Last year, we mentioned a community of 23 solar-powered homes, The Mews in Atwater Village, under construction in Los Angeles, California. We now have some images of the model home and news that The Mews will have grand opening this weekend from 1-5 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Each home comes standard with a grid-connected, 1 kW solar photovoltaic system, as well as three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms.
This scenic observatory, referred to as OceanScope or ContainerScope, presents a beautiful reuse of old shipping containers in Songdo New City, Incheon, South Korea. First noticed at and according to Dezeen, OceanScope was designed by Minsoo Lee and Keehyun Ahn of AnL Studio from three, old, cheap shipping containers.
I just noticed this translucent surface material on Inhabitat yesterday, and it looks interesting. Bio-Glass is a Coverings Etc product that the company claims is both 100% recycled and recyclable. Like many other products on the market, this one is made with recycled bottles. However, according to Building Green, the product is made with either pre-consumer or post-consumer recycled content, or mixture of both, depending on the color.
By looking at it, you wouldn't know that this home was built in 1709. Or that it was on the "most endangered" list of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. But this newly restored home is a model and showcase of what can be done when sustainability intersects with preservation (or, to be more precise, restoration). Located on nearly an acre lot in Connecticut, the Stone/Shelley House was completed recently by Gulick and Spradlin.
