San Antonio-based Lake|Flato, an architectural firm with several AIA COTE Top 10 green projects, this week announced its latest endeavor in the world of prefab with the Porch House.  Porch House is an eco-friendly home that combines factory-built modules and custom outdoor elements, such as porches, breezeways, carports, and terraces.  The result is a contemporary, site-specific, LEED-certified home that can be delivered in about six- to nine-months after the inception of design.

Read more »

This is one of the latest sustainable prefab homes from Seattle-based Stillwater Dwellings.  The home has three bedrooms, two and a half baths, and 2,300 square feet with a signature soaring butterfly roofline, a great room, and 360-degree views of Sauvie Island, Mount St. Helen, Mount Hood, and Mount Rainier.  After solar panels are installed, the owners expect to submit paperwork in line with LEED Gold certification.

Read more »

King County in Washington has about 26,000 acres of parks and open spaces with trails, trees, and streams.  To help people stay overnight in these areas, the county held a design competition — Little Footprint, Big Forest — to create an overnight structure from a surplus, reclaimed, 20-foot shipping container.  The winning design was just announced and it comes from none other than HyBrid Architecture, the firm behind the cargo container-based Sunset Idea House 2011.

Read more »

• Start by thinking small.
• The beginning of the end of suburbia.
• Is it possible to build a home for $1000?
• How do you actually build a Passive House?
• Ithaca grows a cohousing EcoVillage.
• How to build a greener city.
• LEDs as task lights.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for updates, article summaries, newsworthy links, and other site news. Also, check out the latest green jobs in our list.

This week DuChateau Floors announced that the company is bringing European-style floors to the U.S. market with an eco-friendly hard wax oil and FSC-certified woods. DuChateau has eight distinct collections with long-length, wide-plank, or parquet patterns that have been hand scrapped, smoked, wire-brushed, and treated for a vintage, old-world look. They’re made for interior commercial, retail, and residential applications, whether on the floor, ceiling, or wall.

Read more »