Architects Vidal & Sant’Anna have created a breathable and airy treehouse from light and noble materials on Brazil’s jungle coastline at Praia do Felix – photographed here by Fran Parente.

The owners were committed to the conservation and the preservation of the area, by integrating the house sensitively into the dense forest.

Overlooking the sea below, the minimal house is perched high up on the slopes of the Serra do Mar.

The house itself has been built as narrow as possible for human habitation, in order to preserve and protect the surrounding jungle.

Made of minimal amounts of wood and glass, the rooms are small, to achieve a sustainably minimal use of materials and energy.

Instead of energy intensive air conditioning; well-placed cross-ventilation and air vents in the roof are enough to provide interior comfort.

Although the rooms are tiny, they open on each side to decks that blend seamlessly into the jungle, expanding the space by blending in with their surroundings.

All the stairs are on the outside. Thus all the circulation from the service areas below which connects up with the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs can be on the exterior, requiring no roof in the mild and temperate climate.

The small house manages to fit three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, dining room, laundry area, kitchen and a spacious terrace into 155 square meters.

The result? A local icon; a beach house that is fast becoming one with its environment.

Via Plataforma Arqitectura

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A Sustainable Jungle House on the Sea Coast of Brazil

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The first ever submission from Egypt in next year’s solar decathlon is remarkable in its ingenuity.

Temperatures in Egypt’s deserts can range from 114 F in summer to 32 F in winter. This is a passive solar house that can be adjusted to work as a passive solar house in both the heat of summer and the extreme cold of winter.

The house is based on the slide out design of the humble matchbox. The double-layered screen also uses an ancient desert cooling technique, the Mashrabiya screen, a core element of traditional Arab-Islamic architecture – allowing for privacy and controling how much light and heat enters the building.

But in this case, making this mobile is key. The slide-out perforated facades are part of a passive solar scheme that make it possible to regulate temperatures inside by sliding the exterior faces across each other in various combinations.

In winter, it is a passive solar house warmed by the sun. The perforated screen of the exterior of the building is slid to each side to maximize solar gain through the huge south-facing glass greenhouse curtain wall. The sun’s heat is stored in thermal mass flooring of concrete.

To cool the same space in summer, the south side is closed off to reflect heat back out. The double facades are positioned so as to prevent heat or light getting in from the south, while allowing in light from the north.

The same thermal storage in the concrete floor now acts to retain coolness through the hot day. A ceiling vent helps hot air escape.

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Egypt’s First Entry in Solar Decathlon Based on Matchbox

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Costa Rica’s Hotel Punta Islita earns rave reviews from Miss Ecoglam – a jaded professional reviewer of eco hotels – who abandons the resort she should be writing about to enthuse about this one, a spread-out series of small villas comprising a luxury eco resort in Guanacaste.

Raves Miss Ecoglam:“I actually should be blogging about the Peace Lodge right now, which was where I was for the last few days but I am now at Punta Islita and had to write about this place straight away! Oh my god!  This place is incredible!  Hands down wins ‘Best Beach Resort’ from me!

Miss Ecoglam especially loved the cool water Jacuzzi that offers a refreshing dip in the tropical climate, the free mangoes fallen from the trees and looking so pretty on the sandy ground, the yoga class in the treetops…

…and that each cabin gets its own private lawn for naked romps (!)

Hotel Punta Islita has been the recipient of numerous eco awards including Condé Nast’s Most Excellent Eco-Resort.

But most importantly, the resort has earned a 4 leaves rating in its groundbreaking Certificate for Sustainable Tourism (CST) from the Costa Rica tourism board for:

1- Proper stewardship of our natural and cultural resources;
2 – Improvement of the quality of life of the local communities; and
3- Economic success, that can contribute to other programs of national development.”

CST isn’t an ecotourism seal. It is a set of performance-based standards that create guidelines that any country would want their development to follow, whether based on an ecotourism model or not.

Developing real eco tourism without destroying natural beauty demands imagination and hard work, and the government of Costa Rica has put long-term sustainability and social justice at the forefront of its planning.

Costa Rica has decided to use its resources to preserve, rather than exploit, the riches it was endowed with. As more and more travelers are looking for natural areas to visit, Costa Rica is reaping the fruits of its far-sightedness.

Over a million people now visit the country annually, and part of what they’re coming to experience is one of the very few nations in the world that is run on almost 100% renewable energy.

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Another Eco Hotel in Sustainable Costa Rica

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When I saw this image, I immediately recognized the distinctive quality of Mexican architect: Sebastian Mariscal.

We have covered his work on the Southern California Green Solar House as well as his experiments with charcoaling wood to get this interesting silvered blackened wood that you see used here on the exteriors.

He takes the simplest of life’s moments and imbues them with such peace through design.

His extremely restricted palette of colors and the natural richness of darkened wood is a traditional Japanese theme.

The simplicity wakes you up, and forces you to experience life right here, in a traditional Japanese approach to design, rooted in ancient philosophy, that is needed more than ever in today’s frazzled world.

By not grabbing for everything he achieves a distinctive purity of line and serene peace. Much of the view is shut off. This enables a focus on the here and now.

He shows respect for the creators of the world’s most sustainable material, wood, by providing an opening in the wooden fence for the trees to continue to manufacture building material…

He makes the human participant in nature, sleep utterly open to the warmth of sun and sky in Southern California.

But essentially, he designs homes for families to share and experience the beauty and joy of life.

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Sebastian Mariscal: Loving Design for Humans in Nature

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(Obviously, for climates that are hot and or humid and retain high temperatures at night, making use of thermal mass to store and release heat is not a good technique.)

Notice just how thick these walls are. These would block heat transfer on hot days, as well as it would hold in warmth inside on cold ones. This level of passive heating and cooling would qualify this house for PassivHaus certification.

The bathroom has been sensitively modernized with clearcut angles to contrast with the ancient walls.

The house is set in a village on a hillside looking out towards Italy across the Adriatic Sea, yet it is a region that is not fully European.

Once a key trading port of the Ottoman Empire, the region holds that mysterious quality of in between. But somebody, in some century past, built this marvelous example of energy-efficient building that has been so beautifully modernized.

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Ancient Passive Solar Stone House in Croatia

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Situated overlooking Switzerland’s Lake Lugano, this subtle, sleek and sophisticated residence and office offer a financial consultant and her family the security of heating with renewable energy.

The edgy and green design is by Milan-born Jacopo Mascheroni who, before before returning home and founding JMArchitecture, worked in New York City for Richard Meier (who we’ve covered previously: Are Cool Roofs Cool Yet?)

The sleek unusual curved glass pavilion is the upper floor, comprising the public spaces. Under it the remaining house is a reinforced concrete structure dug into the mountain on one side, but open to the views out to Lake Lugano on the other.

The kitchen is able to double as an office kitchen for enjoying a coffee with clients at the top of the house, with its simple and clean lines.

Upstairs has a little excitement and glitz with the curvy glass which echoes the perimeter wall. Peaking in the 1950s, the tiny town perched on a hillside overlooking Switzerland’s Lake Lugano has become a tourism spot. Almost half the houses are vacation homes.

The living room frames the quietly glamorous views of the lake and the charming historic village of Brusino Arsizio, that was first settled in Roman times.

But the family rooms on the ground floor below, are brisk and efficient.

As you reach the bedrooms on the ground floor, partly carved out of the mountain on one side, the space opens up to views to a private garden on the other side.

The stairs back up from the family area of the financial consultant’s home are as clearcut and straightforward as numbers.

Oval skylights seen on the deck here shoot daylight down into the bathrooms downstairs. The house has geothermal heating and all of the glass is filled with Argon gas, that insulates the home from the chilly Swiss mountain winters.

Photographed here with a light dusting of snow, the “ground” is also actually a green roof planted with ground cover that also serves to insulate the family rooms beneath.

The numbers add up for green living here!

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Financial Consultant’s Live/Work is Green, Crisp and Cool

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More than 4,000 international engineering, architecture and interior design students competed in this year’s solar decathlon, an annual competition run by the US Department of Energy in an attempt to drive the development of clean energy powered and efficient building.

This year’s affordability contest cut home costs by 33% compared to the 2009 competition, as Energy Secretary Steven Chu pointed out at the closing ceremony.

There are lots of great ideas. One of the most intriguing is a new shelter home designed to help victims of disasters adjust psychologically after losing their home.

Chicago’s entry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Re_home offers a more sustainable housing solution for communities following a natural disaster. According to the team – who are aiming for a balance between good design and smart planning -

In addition to the sustainable green aspects – like the solar panels here to provide clean green electricity –  that we expect to see in a solar decathlon entry, the Re_home responds not just to the physical but also to the all-impoortant emotional needs of displaced families.

Thus the Re_Homes focus on design that evokes feelings of comfort and security, along with memories of better times. So often, design for disaster housing looks only at the most basic shelter needs of displaced families, overlooking the emotional trauma of losing a home.

A flexible open plan floor plan makes it possible to be adjusted for two bedrooms if needed, by partitioning off part of the central living space.

This rapid-response solution for families affected by natural disasters uses low-cost materials and a straightforward construction plan, with solar electric power straightforwardly incorporated along the porch overhang the full length of the home.

The Re_home’s modular design allows the home to be transported via trailer in two segments and erected quickly on-site. If disaster strikes, the house can be mobilized quickly to its new location, and assembled within several hours to effectively shelter a family of four.

A new home.

“From a home that filters polluted water, to a home that can house disaster victims, to homes that fit right into a Midwestern neighborhood or at the top of a New York City apartment complex, you’ve taken this year’s competition to a whole new level,” Energy Secretary Chu told this year’s competitors.

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Chicago’s Solar Decathlon Entry Designs Comfort After Disaster

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Captured in these intriguing photos from Fernando Gomulya is a complex and interesting house marked by inlays of ornate tropical hardwoods set in the south of Jakarta, a region still dominated by lush, tropical forest.

Offset by the stark cool whites of stucco, the fascinating patchwork of woody windows make a gorgeous contrast, both in detail and variation. TWS & Partners have extensively recycled ancient woods, beautifully oiled for a long second life.

The extensive recycling shapes the design. The framing for the windows using the recycled woods determines the patchwork shapes outlined.

“Those various forms are in together creating a patchwork pattern of façade” they say, “because we retain the original different size of them. On some part, we combine exposed concrete roosters to explore more patchwork look.”

Offsetting the warmth and storied history of the ancient oiled wooden windows with the coolness of the stark white plaster work is a smooth black stone tile flooring.

Because the very tropical house is open to the outside air in so many places, the flooring throughout has to be as durable as exterior finishes.

These cool floors help cool the interior spaces as well, along with the breezy cross ventilation provided by the multiple recycled windows.

The very, very open interior plan with its exciting zig zag shapes connecting it all throughout, is not just beautiful, but it also helps move breezes.

In each space, the columns and beams are just exposed with its natural concrete plaster color, among the white walls.

Underneath the tile roof, is more recycled wood. The humble box packaging becomes the wooden structure for the roof applied with wooden ceiling finish.

“We are using recycled wooden window which are various from top hung opening, swing opening, and fixed, they may are with louver or clear glass” say the architects.

In addition to the great reuse of recycled materials, the architects chose a super efficient terra cotta tile for the roof. “Terracotta roof tiles with no glazed finish are used to have more responsive values to the environment, because it balances the heat in very short time by its open pores” say the architects.

This unglazed clay roof reduces the heat going in to the house by 70%.

A truly inspirational green home.

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Recycled Tropical Hardwoods Fill Jakarta Eco Home

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Cox Power Architects were the winners of the 2011 RIAI Awards for “Best Housing” for a small settlement: Kilmeena Village. The brief was to create a new community center and child care space and 14 new houses for the Mayo County Council.

Given the traditional setting in rural Ireland, and since future residents would be drawn from the surrounding countryside, an informal pattern of grouped farm buildings was chosen for the form of the new village.

Although each of the dwellings draws on traditional design, the style is also modern and has a purity of line that draws on the best of both styles. The materials chosen are traditional – slate roofs, stone, traditional damp-proofing using painted render, and concrete. The individual houses are identified by their numbers spelt out in traditional Gaelic names from áon, dó, trí and ceathar.

The community center in the background has been lowered slightly into the ground, which reduces its visual impact, preserving a village feeling. The sunken placement also helps moderate energy use within the building, as the earth moderates both cooling and warming felt outside.

The angles of the buildings create a sheltered town center feeling, suggestive of a village green, with cobblestones used to as a guard against unfriendly mud.

“A novel aspect of the finished project is the construction of a managed wetland using a Willow Plantation to provide tertiary treatment of effluent from the waste water treatment system” say the architects.

“This produces an exceptionally high quality of effluent treatment to protect the landscape, streams, shoreline and environment around the village. The willow crop is fertilised by the nutrients contained in the organic waste and is then managed and harvested for wood fuel bio-energy”.

House depths are narrow to allow living spaces to have sunlight on all sides. This is an important psychological factor in the very green and verdant isles of Ireland, which gets that way because of its very high rainfall.

There is a variety of house designs within the constant of one design aesthetic that draws on tradition. But each of the houses is slightly different, avoiding repetition.

Attics are functional rooms. Because many of the gables are slightly tilted in plan, a sense of physical security is fostered. Surveillance is improved by overlooking from windows in the gables of adjacent dwellings. A central gated communal garden grows community spirit as well.

Borrowing from the layout of traditional villages in the region, with a mixture of house types, sizes, tenures and design, the very high density created hearkens back to a very familiar layout, putting walkability at the center of the project – like a medieval village.

Because of this, Kilmeena Village is a germ of sustainable development to anchor future development, regardless of future growth around it.

Via Arch Daily

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Traditional Eco Housing Wins Ireland’s “Best Housing” Award

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Checking in at the new Yotel designed by London architects Softroom and New York studio Rockwell Group is a stylish event. Overhead a purple electronic ticker provides up-to-the-minute information on weather reports, news and Yotel events and information.

The sleek floor is white polished concrete, a finish more often associated with contemporary art galleries.

Visitors at the New York Yotel that just opened in the vibrant theatre district of Manhattan are able to check in their extra bags at any time at these computerised kiosks – where their luggage is stored or retrieved by a giant robotic arm.

Guests arriving early, or wishing to deposit their bags for the hours between check-out and final departure are able to entrust their belongings to the power and security of Yobot – a giant white robot arm.

Amusingly, this spectacle is visible from outside, making this distinctive robot butler service a theatrically lit feature revealed through a huge window onto the lobby and through to the street outside. When not thus occupied, this robotic butler is free to cavort freestyle for the gawkers on the street.

But the real service is the design. When Yo! Sushi restaurant magnate Simon Woodroffe’s first Yotel opened at London’s Gatwick airport in 2007 it earned raves from users: “Cool stuff and those colours make it look cozy, yet pretty modern and hip.”

Another comment: “I was very impressed. The rooms make the most of the limited space available and the stylish interior of the cabin makes the room feel cosy, light and airy.”

While the bedrooms are as serene and elegant as you need for relaxed sleep, the public spaces are also designed to make a hip yet comfortable style statement too. Yotel is trying for a look of affordable luxury, by creating technologically sophisticated and vibrant spaces.

A variety of public meeting spaces are spread throughout the surprisingly large space in notoriously cramped Manhattan, at over 17,000 square feet covering the entire  the 4th floor. In a city renowned for its ‘lobby culture’, Manhattanites enjoy hotels as a place to see and be seen.

These public spaces spread through the entire fourth floor can be large or small, quiet and intimate, or loud and stylish.

The bathrooms are just as well thought-out and easily modern and elegant as the rest of the Yotel.

Unlike the first Yotels, which were conceptualized as simple sleeping cubicles, larger suites are also incorporated into the design offering.

But the bottom line at the New York Yotel, as it is in the previous Yotels at airports: quick access to a good night’s sleep, much needed after a long flight.

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First Yotel Opens in New York City

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