An Array of Utopian Flowers
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The Literary Labyrinth of Stephen T. Vessels
Posted on November 27, 2022 | No Comments - Indigenous Voices from the Northeast: Past, Present and Future
Posted on November 26, 2022 | 1 Comment - Microplastics Are Everywhere: What’s The Risk?
Posted on November 22, 2022 | No Comments - Solving the Climate Crisis Through Global Soil Health with Didi Pershouse
Posted on November 20, 2022 | No Comments - Visionary Art of Lakota Sundance Chief Marvin Swallow
Posted on November 14, 2022 | 2 Comments
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WilderUtopia in 102 Languages
‘Medicine Walk’ Featured in SBLitJo
Santa Barbara Literary Journal released ‘Bellatrix: Volume 3’ in June 2019, which among adventurous fiction, poetry, essays, and lyrics, features an excerpt of Jack Eidt’s psychic-animism fiction, Medicine Walk. Buy the book!
Design Archive
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Passive-Solar Greenhouse-Wrapped Nature House in Sweden
Posted on January 26, 2020 | 4 CommentsIn 1974, architect Bengt Warne designed the prototype for a greenhouse home to deal with the cold winters in Sweden. Rather than converting an existing structure and moving inside it, he built a normal house -- and then encasing it in glass -- a Nature House (or "Naturhus" ). Inspired by these designs, a family has created a home near Stockholm integrated with the elements of earth, water, air, and fire. The electricity bills have been cut in half, heated by an eco-friendly wood-burning oven and a hot water masonry heater. The greenhouse also shelters Mediterranean-style gardens that couldn't survive the Swedish seasons -- figs, kiwi, peaches, wine grapes, etc. -
Defensible Space: My Wildfire-Appropriate Retrofit Journey – Part I
Posted on November 16, 2018 | 1 CommentAs the Western U.S. continues with massive wind-driven, high-intensity wildfires that often turn deadly, Naomi Pitcairn recommends retrofitting homes on the Wildland Urban Interface for fire-resistant resiliency. This is Part I of a three-part series. -
A Marked Beast: Trump’s Son-In-Law’s 666 Fifth Avenue
Posted on March 27, 2017 | 1 CommentFrom a failed attempt to peddle influence to save an upside-down real estate venture, to a spectacularly autocratic design, Zaha Hadid's 666 Fifth Avenue captures the Trumpian moment, in all it's bejeweled phallic grandeur that the Bible's Revelations warned us about. -
Shipping Containers as Sustainable, Affordable Housing?
Posted on September 27, 2016 | 2 CommentsCan re-purposed shipping containers become the next inexpensive, quick to construct, green building solution for affordable housing? Danish "starchitect" Bjarke Ingels, as well as a recent Orange County, California, project, assert yes to all of the above, but there are limitations. -
Pruitt Igoe Myth: The Death of 20th Century US City
Posted on September 5, 2016 | 5 CommentsDestroyed in a dramatic and highly-publicized implosion, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex has become a widespread symbol of failure among architects, politicians and policy makers. A 2012 documentary unveiled the many witting and unwitting villains, including urban poverty, public policy enforced racial segregation, and urban disinvestment in favor of the White Suburban Dream. -
Public Art and the Psyche: Olafur Eliasson on Cities
Posted on July 15, 2015 | 1 Comment"City planning has been way too pragmatic for a long time." So says Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, who creates artistic environments that break down the industrial expanse of cities with faux-natural elements, hot sun, waterfalls, rivers, and take over the senses of their spectators. -
German Prefab House Generates Twice its Own Energy
Posted on May 9, 2015 | 1 CommentThe prefab Active House B10 prototype in Stuttgart can be built in a day, but its implications will be felt for years. Taking the passive house net zero concept one step further, this fully recyclable tiny house actively generates enough power for multiple properties through its rooftop photovoltaics. -
Starchitects and Spectacle: Sustainability Solutions Needed
Posted on April 8, 2015 | 1 CommentArchitecture must move on from an addiction to spectacle and fad, adrift in a sea of meaningless forms, leaving serious design and sustainability problems unresolved, says Peter Buchanan. But to do this will require a more critical perspective from architectural academe and the media. -
Buckminster Fuller’s World of Sustainable Design
Posted on July 27, 2014 | 2 CommentsBuckminster Fuller, architect, engineer, geometrician, philosopher, futurist, inventor of the famous geodesic dome, put forth an original form of sustainable living for humanity. He posited that systems thinking helps us understand our connectedness and dependence on our local biome. Watch the 1974 film "The World of R. Buckminster Fuller." -
Hans Hollein: Creative Force of Postmodernist Design
Posted on June 10, 2014 | No CommentsHans Hollein, artist, designer, theoretician and Pritzker Prize-winning architect from Vienna, who breathed postmodernist life into everything from buildings to furniture to tableware, died recently. Julie Iovine writes on this multi-dimensional creative force, particularly known for his museum design, including Vienna’s Haas House (1990) and Frankfurt’s Museum of Modern Art. -
French-Designed Flower Towers Planned for Casablanca
Posted on March 21, 2014 | No CommentsFrench architect and urban planner Edouard François' latest following the vertical garden trend: A quartet of flower towers in Morocco that will be planted with bougainvillea and jasmine. -
Small Architecture: On Glass Houses Built Over Stone
Posted on January 29, 2014 | 2 CommentsIn 2012, Nick Olson and Lilah Horwitz quit their jobs for a time to build a West Virginia mountain hideaway cabin, a tiny summer house made with recycled windows. This is the result. -
Spain: Landscape Restoration on the Cataluña Coast
Posted on November 20, 2013 | No CommentsIn a landscape driven nature restoration on the coast of Cataluña, a former Club Med returns to the wild. Landscape architects EMF teamed up with architecture firm Ardèvol to remove over 400 buildings and transform the landscape into a series of meandering pathways and coastal viewpoints. -
Earth Sheltered Homes: Energy-Efficient, Living With the Land
Posted on May 6, 2013 | 8 CommentsEarth Sheltered, energy-efficient houses are bright, airy, dry and quiet. Though popular now among advocates of passive solar and sustainable architecture, Earth Sheltering has been around for nearly as long as humans have constructed their homes. -
Haiti: Rebuilding Sustainably with Earthbag Houses
Posted on January 28, 2013 | 4 CommentsHaiti’s recovery from the devastation of the 2010 earthquake, plus repeated hits by tropical storms and hurricanes, calls for creative, low-tech, earth-based alternatives. Konbit Shelter, a pairing of international designers including the street artist Swoon with local artisans, have advanced earthbag construction as a viable solution to disaster prone areas. -
Arcosanti: Paolo Soleri’s Visionary Eco-City Prototype in Arizona
Posted on January 18, 2013 | 6 CommentsA visionary eco-city in the Arizona desert, Arcosanti is an urban laboratory created by Paolo Soleri. Based on the concept of Arcology, or ecological architecture, it presents a compact, sustainable, energy-efficient urban form that confronts environmental destruction, economic collapse, and social dislocation. -
BioMilano: Italian Eco-Vision Grows 26-Storey Vertical Forest
Posted on January 15, 2013 | 2 CommentsBosco Verticale or Vertical Forest, the first phase of BioMilano, a re-envisioning of Milan, Italy, with an eye toward ecological urbanism, integrating tree and skyscraper, city and wild. -
Affordable and Green: Net-Zero Home in Washington DC
Posted on December 27, 2012 | 2 CommentsEMPOWERHOUSE is a community-based approach to sustainable urban development showcasing the design of two affordable, energy-efficient solar powered homes and a neighborhood learning garden for inner-city Washington DC and beyond. -
Agricultural Urbanism: Designing Cities as Edible Ecosystems
Posted on December 8, 2012 | 5 CommentsThe world’s population is expected to rise to 10 billion by 2050. Yet with 80 per cent of the planet’s usable farmland already cultivated, the effects of climate change wreaking havoc across large areas of existing farmland, and more than 10 per cent of humanity going to bed hungry every night, growing enough sustenance for three billion new mouths is not going to be easy. -
Frank Gehry: Toronto’s Trio of Living Sculptures
Posted on October 23, 2012 | 2 CommentsDeveloper David Mirvish hopes his string of sculptural towers in Toronto arts district will provide an antidote for the banality of the traditional glass box condo tower. “I am not building condominiums,” he said at the announcement. “I am building three sculptures for people to live in.” -
Earthship Biotecture: Self-Sufficient, Off-the-Grid Communities
Posted on October 16, 2012 | 5 CommentsPassive solar Earthships provide electricity, potable water, sustainable food production, with contained sewage treatment, and can be built anywhere in the world. Renegade eco-architect Michael Reynolds' construction and design process called Earthship Biotecture creates beyond LEED Architecture, a sustainable green building design made of natural and recycled materials.
