Sustainability

greenhouse home in Sweden
Design, Sustainability

Passive-Solar Greenhouse-Wrapped Nature House in Sweden

In 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.

permacvulture, ecological garden
EcoJustice Radio, Sustainability

Creating Resilient Ecosystems & Regenerating the Planet – EcoJustice Radio

Erik Ohlsen is the director of the Permaculture Skills Center, a vocational training school that offers advanced education in ecological design, landscaping, farming, and land stewardship. Creator of the the Eco-Landscape Mastery School online training program, Erik is also founder of Permaculture Artisans which specializes in design and installation of ecological landscapes and farms throughout California. Carry Kim interviews him on EcoJustice Radio.

Tejon Ranch by Nick Jensen
EcoJustice Radio, Sustainability

Centennial Project: Suburbs Sprawl, Health & Environment Suffers

Tejon Ranch Centennial Specific Plan (or Centennial) is a massive planned city in a unique, rare, fire-prone wilderness of grasslands and mountains, a residential and commercial development in LA County. Nick Jensen from the California Native Plant Society, and Jack Eidt from Wild Heritage Planners and SoCal 350, discuss the dangers to urban sustainability, fiscal health of LA County and the impacts on wild and endangered plants and animals with host Jessica Aldridge.

Iannis Xenakis
Sound, Urban Land

Iannis Xenakis and the Notion of a Cosmic Utopia

Iannis Xenakis, the Greek-French experimental composer and protege designer for the famous architect Le Corbusier, advanced theories of the vertical “Cosmic” city as the only sustainable way forward. Here, he wrote this essay in 1966, decrying decentralization (read: suburban sprawl) in favor of building up, up, up…5 million inhabitants to be housed in a single megastructure, a hyperbolic paraboloid of more than 3,000 meters high and 50 meters wide.