Buying vintage furniture is super green, but it’s not always easy to find pieces in great shape, especially upholstered items.  Lotus Bleu has fixed that problem for us.  They offer vintage pieces redone in new, modern fabrics.  Lotus Bleu is located in San Fransisco, but if you’re not in the area, you can order right online.  Current items for sale are displayed in addition to items that have already been sold, to give you an idea of what might be available at any given time.

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There’s some stunning green work being featured on Dwell right now as a result of the "How Green Are You?" competition.  The basic idea of the competition, co-sponsored by Dwell and the AIA, is to find inspiring entries assessed on their sustainability, functionality, originality, cost effectiveness, and design.  Entrants can provide up to four images and a simple, 250-word description of the project — about all you need to find some incredible designs.  I understand 100kHouse (pictured above) just entered their project, but I didn’t see it on Dwell yet.  Below are a few of my favorite entries so far. 

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Just a little over a year ago, on May 4, 2007, Greensburg, Kansas was smashed by a tornado that pretty much decimated everything.  Since that time, the city has made news all over the world for its ambitions to rebuild everything in an environmentally-friendly way.  City buildings larger than about 4000 sf will be LEED Platinum, etc.  So this building, 547 Arts Center, is an example of the green reconstruction process going on in Greensburg.  547 Arts Center is the first building certified as LEED Platinum in Kansas and has some incredible green elements — not to mention three small wind turbines twirling away above the roof line. 

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Sometimes the images just don’t tell the whole story and that’s where some quality video will do the trick.  I stumbled upon this video while doing research for a prior story and was blown away by the modern, green home.  It’s ridiculous — probably a dream residence for many of you out there.  The passive design, combined with good insulation, high performance glass, solar thermal panels, radiant flooring heating, and an efficient system, keeps this home operating very efficiently. 

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The team at Diseño Earle was kind enough to pass along some info and images of their stunning design of The Eco Home — a knockout that’s aiming to be the first ‘zero carbon’ footprint home in Andalucia, or even Southern Spain for that matter!  D Earle designed the home with two objectives in mind: (1) zero carbon footprint, and (2) reduce operating costs to almost a self-sufficiency level.  The 6995 sf home, which is absolutely enormous, will be built with 75% less waste than a traditional design and operate 80% more efficiently than a similar sized home.  And although the home design was constrained by the narrow, non-flat site, you can tell there was no restraint in creating the ultimate, luxury, green pad. 

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