EcoTucson » Architecture

University of Arizona Downtown Launches Sustainable Cities Project

Kate Kaemerle — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:44:57 +0000

Taking on the challenges of creating sustainable cities in the 21st century, University of Arizona Downtown has launched a new partnership to address the many complex issues of crafting a sustainable future for Tucson while leading the way for other cities.

The Sustainable City Project will address many areas, including renewable energy, climate change, economic development, affordable housing, transportation, water management, public health and ecosystem conservation.

From the UA News:

Through the UA partnership, the project is designed to build and support teams composed of University faculty members and students representing a diverse array of academic disciplines – architecture, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, environmental science, geography and development and public administration – and representatives from local and state agencies, community groups, developers, business and industry.

“This initiative is a great opportunity to make UA research on sustainability – especially in climate, solar energy, water and ecology – more relevant and accessible to our local community and for the University to better understand the needs and future of our city,” said Diana Liverman, co-director of the Institute of the Environment.

The Sustainable City Project is based at UA Downtown in the historic Roy Place Building at Stone Avenue and Pennington Street in Tucson. There, UA faculty members and students can connect with city officials and staff, community leaders and project developers for dialogue, vision, analysis and development of sustainable scenarios for the future.

UA Downtown also serves as a forum where academic, civic, cultural and business leaders can meet to discuss sustainability scenarios for the future of Tucson and Southern Arizona.

For the rest of the article, click here.

Smallest legal apartment in California is tiny, but still has everything you need

Kate Kaemerle — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:00:56 +0000

An experiment in small living, Patrick Kennedy designed a tiny studio apartment in San Francisco where 42% of all households are singletons.

It may be a mere 160 square feet, but transformer-like it has a sofa that turns into a bed, a bench that turns into a dining table and two chairs and an ‘appliance garage’ where the fridge, microwave and toaster are tucked out of sight when not in use. The apartment feels sleek and modern like a high end hotel.

Designer Kennedy has spent a lot of time camping in an Airstream trailer and knows how to make every square inch count. He makes this small space feel bigger with high ceilings, big windows with a big view, quality materials and a surprisingly big bathroom.

It really makes you think about what you need versus what you think you need. Even my 750 sf townhome feels humongous after looking at this efficient space.

Source: See the original article and video of the space here.

Solar Geekfest – 5th Annual Solar Decathalon in DC

Kate Kaemerle — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 21:58:49 +0000

If you love solar technology (and who doesn’t) then you’ll love the Solar Decathalon. Teams of college students from around the world compete to build solar-powered homes on the National Mall in Washington D.C. It’s a solar geek’s dream come true. Innovative design and the latest technologies combine to create beautiful, energy sipping architecture.

From http://www.solardecathlon.gov/:

This is the fifth Solar Decathlon, a ten day event featuring 20 teams of college students who have designed and built solar-powered homes. It’s an educational and promotional endeavor, designed both to stoke public interest in solar technology (which, despite recent growth, still accounts for less than 1 percent of U.S electricity production) and prepare American kids for their future jobs laboring in the great clean-energy factories. Previous decathlons were held on the National Mall, where crowds could marvel at the “solar village” of gee-whiz houses temporarily installed in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol.

The U.S. Department of Energy sponsors the event and has photos and video on their website here.

More photos from National Geographic here.

Sustainable Tucson Film Night: “First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture”

Kate Kaemerle — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:35:51 +0000

Tonight is Film Night at Sustainable Tucson’s monthly meeting. The free film “First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture” is about a paradigm shift to building healthy homes in ancient ways – out of the earth itself. It explores using local building techniques across four continents.

The film is part of Sustainable Tucson’s ongoing project on “Becoming a Desert Community” by presenting relevant films to build natural dwellings and create a thriving community.

Sustainable Tucson General Meeting
Monday, August 8th, 5:45 – 8:00 pm
Joel D. Valdez Main Library 101 N. Stone
(free lower level parking – off Alameda St.)

From the Sustainable Tucson website more information about the film:

Our Main film is “First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture.” Length: 90 minutes.

First Earth is about a massive paradigm shift for shelter-building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over four years on four continents, it proposes that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, we must transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages.

First Earth is not a how-to film, but a why-to film. It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context, under all socio-economic conditions, from third-world communities to first-world countryside, from Arabian deserts to American urban jungles. In the age of collapse and converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, for material reasons and for spiritual reasons, both personal and political.

First Earth features curving art-poem dwellings in the Pacific Northwest in Canada and the US; thousand-year-old apartment-and-ladder architecture of Taos Pueblo; centuries-old and contemporary cob homes in England; classic round thatched huts in West Africa; bamboo-and-cob structures now on the rise in Thailand; and soaring Moorish-style earthen skyscrapers in Yemen. Featuring appearances by renowned cultural observers and activists Derrick Jensen, Daniel Quinn, James Howard Kunstler, Richard Heinberg, Starhawk, Chellis Glendinning, and Mark Lakeman as well as major natural building teachers Michael G. Smith, Becky Bee, Joseph Kennedy, Sunray Kelly, Janell Kapoor, Elke Cole, Ianto Evans, Bob Theis, and Stuart Cowan.

We hope to see you there. Bring a few friends and neighbors.