Kjellgren Kaminsky Architects have designed six new passive house designs for presentation at the Stockholm Housing Fair occurring October 9-12, 2008.  Shown in collaboration with Emrahus, these prefabricated, zero energy designs present a compelling concept for what is possible with good design and conscious materials.  Passive houses, using the definition of KKA on their website, "are extremely well-insulated buildings that are largely heated by the energy already present in the building."  Passive homes attempt to rely as little as possible on extra mechanical systems — they conserve first and foremost.  Scroll through these six passive home designs and leave a vote for your fave:

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Earlier this month, the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design announced a total of 66 buildings as winners of the prestigious and coveted American Architecture Awards program.  One of those buildings was Tom Eliot Fisch’s and LMN Architects‘ design for the City College of San Francisco’s (CCSF) new performing arts center.  As you can tell from the rendering, it’s going to be a beautiful, contemporary structure with tons of green features and natural lighting.  Scheduled to be complete in Spring 2010, the performing arts center will target LEED Gold certification with some of the following features:

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Based in Portland, Oregon, Stardust Glass is offering recycled glass tiles with a hip style.  The company is owned and run by artists Megan and Jason Coleman.  Their mission is to protect the earth’s resources by creating tiles from 87%-100% recycled glass while producing completely hand-made, boutique-style pieces. 

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So here’s the deal.  The Harbinger SG Blocks Showhouse was bad out.  Everyone I talked to loved it.  You might think that a shipping container home would feel closed-in and constrictive, but this home certainly wasn’t.  At 1700 sf, everything felt just right to me.  I was able to sneak into the Exhibit Hall early enough to get some killer images (in case you couldn’t be there), so let’s talk a walk through the Harbinger House below.

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Here’s the story: A handful of entrepreneurs nurtured a graduate school business plan into an actual company called PFNC Global Communities.  The acronym stands for “por fin, nuestra casa,” which is translated as “finally, a home of our own.”  PFNC’s purpose is to convert shipping containers into affordable housing for those who most desperately need it around the globe.

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