TED talk on building with clay and ...community

Once again, a very inspiring TED talk, now by Diébédo Francis Kéré, who was educated as an architect and looked for a way that his community in Burkina Faso could benefit from his education.

Living Building Challenge: green building certificate

Living Building Challenge is another green building certification programme, but it aims at going much further than BREEAM or LEED. It considers 8 performance areas: site, water, energy, health, materials, equity, beauty and process. It has been launched in 2006 and is supported by the Living Building Institute since 2009.
A document with the Living Building Challenge Standard, extended descriptions of case studies and further information can be found on their website.

boek Duurzaam bouwen in Vlaanderen

Source: DO Vlaanderen

Het Departement Duurzame Ontwikkeling van de Vlaamse Overheid heeft een boek gepubliceerd waarin 10 duurzame bouwprojecten beschreven worden die op de ene of andere manier door hen financieel ondersteund werden.
Het is een mooi Voorbeeldboek Duurzaam Bouwen in Vlaanderen - Momentopname in 10 projecten geworden.

Adaptive reuse of buildings

Source: WebUrbanist

As the number of existing buildings is already huge and most buildings do not perform well environmentally, adaptive reuse of buildings might be one of the ways to improve the environmental performance of the built environment.
WebUrbanist presents some examples of amazing adaptive reuse and of building conversion projects.

Principles for nearly zero energy buildings

source: Ecofys

The recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in 2010 introduced nearly zero energy buildings (nzeb) as a future requirement for all new buildings in the EU from 2021 on (public buildings from 2019). In this frame ECOFYS and the Danish Research Building Institute made a study on the principles for nearly zero energy buildings.
Report and summary can be found on the website of Ecofys or on the website of BPIE (Building Performance Institute Europe).

Building with mud and steel frames

Source: No Tech Magazine - Marcelo Cortes

No Tech Magazine shows 2 nice examples of building projects with mud and steel frames: one from the Kazakh architect Saken Narynov and one from the Chilean architect Marcelo Cortes.

Building with bamboo

Source: design boom via webecoist

Bamboo is a fast growing and strong material that might perfectly fit as sustainable building material, under the condition that it is not transported over thousands of kilometres.
Some nice examples of bamboo buildings can be found on Webecoist. 

A very nice bamboo building is the Green School in Bali. And there is a very inspiring TED talk by John Hardy, the founder of this school which is not only a beautiful building, but also an educational project that teaches children how to build, garden, create and get into college.

On Transition movement

An alternative way of dealing with climate change and peak oil through local environmental and social initiatives, this is more or less what transition movement is about. It started in the UK, but it quickly spreads all over the world.
A more detailed description can be found on wikipedia.
Information on the UK transition network can be found here.
For those interested in transition towns and how this works in reality, certainly take a look at what happens in Totnes, UK, the first transition town.

Also in Flanders, Belgium, the transition movement is spreading out.

• All kinds of initiatives in Flanders can be found on http://www.transitie.be/ (in Dutch)
• For those interested in the transition movement applied to the built environment, the website of Transitiearena Duurzaam Wonen en Bouwen is a good starting point (in Dutch).
• An interesting website on the transition movement from a Flemish researcher, specialized in sustainable materials

Opnieuw op bezoek bij ...

De komende weken kan je weer verschillende bedrijven en gebouwen bezoeken die op de ene of andere manier met energie en duurzaamheid bezig zijn.

Bedrijven zetten op zondag 2 oktober hun deuren open voor geïnteresseerden tijdens de  'Open Bedrijvendag'. Het thema voor 2011 is 'materialen in beweging': meer dan 35 bedrijven verspreid over heel Vlaanderen tonen hoe de kringloop van materialen door recyclage en recuperatie van afvalstoffen kan gesloten worden.

Energiezuinige woningen kan je bezoeken in november. Wat vroeger 'Open Klimaathuizen' heette en 1 weekend duurde, is sinds 2 jaar 'Ecobouwers Open Deur' en neemt 2 weekends in beslag, 5-6 november en 11,12 en 13 november.

Insulating render based on aerogels

The Swiss Research Center EMPA developed a highly insulating render based on aerogels that can be used for renovation of buildings.

More examples of biomimetic design

Habitat 2020, China (image via Webecoist)

Webecoist collected 12 more examples of biomimetic design, this time inspired by the leafs of plants. Many of the examples are related to buildings. But once again, although these nice examples are inspired by nature, this does not mean that they are intrinsically sustainable.

Tree structure for the Qatar National Convention Center

source: www.designbuild-network.com

The new Qatar National Convention Center, QNCC, that will be finished in 2011, aims to be the first convention center with a gold LEED rating according to the standard of the US Green Building Council. The concept of the building is designed by Yamasaki Architects based on a design by Arata Isozaki.
Striking is already the tree structure at the main entrance that supports the canopy of the building. Buro Happold is the design consultant for the tree structure.
Although the building strives for a high sustainability level, it is questionable whether this structure is the most material efficient solution. More details and renderings of the building can be found on Designbuild Network.