Earthship on ABC TV

[Eclipse Now]

I love the designs. Please show me more.

The best place is the Inhabitat architecture threads.... just browse back their last few pages here and you'll get the vibe.

http://www.inhabitat.com/architecture/

 

Gives you marvels like this...

 

Robotic arms attached to the building would move the pods around to optimize growing conditions. Voids are created when the pods are reconfigured, leaving behind space for public parks or botanical gardens. Bio-fuel created within the pods is used to power the robotic arms and the remainder would be used elsewhere, possibly to assist construction. Once construction is complete, the pods could be taken and reinstalled on another building and be reused. As Höweler + Yoon says about the project “This is anticipatory pre-cycled architecture, capable of generating a new micro-urbanism that is local, agile and carbon net-postive.”

 

 

 

 

The desert city stuff was from this link, but the rest of the images are a bit more abstract and basically illustrate how the city shape itself would collect what water falls in the desert, and collects it underground to be continually recycled. The domes, I take it, are for closed loop agriculture without water loss. Local water, and local nutrient cycles (sewerage into food etc) are essential for a post-oil world anyway, so maybe this idea has legs in some format or other?

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/09/15/sietch-nevada-desert-oasis-for-a-drought-stricken-future/

 

 

 

 

 

One thing we shouldn't forget is that it's also energy efficient to keep structures that have already been built. Historic preservation is very important.

totally agree, IF the region we're discussing is worth preserving. However I think it is safe to say that much of the bland McMansion McBurbs are merely designed to give us a McLife, and so it would be better to consider how we can quickly add a 'town centre' to the suburb that a good level of density and diversity of function can be added in. With enough Urban Infill, supported by maybe trolley-buses (5 times cheaper than trams), and then the surrounding suburbs might have something to plug into. Without it, the same chaos in 'town planning' that we call suburbia will continue to dominate.

 

A great podcast well worth subscribing to (fee) in iTunes is

KunstlerCast

 

I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work.

 

- James Howard Kunstler,

from The Geography of Nowhere

 

There's a few more pages of Earthship images here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthshipkirsten/page8/

[lemit]

I have always been a fan of Lewis Mumford's city planning concepts. A lot of what you say reflects his liveable cities, in which there is a mix of buildings and landscaping, everything designed to prevent the need for powered transportation--including elevators.

 

I like design that complements the surroundings. The wasp's nest design doesn't look like it would complement any surrounding. It also looks like it might present some engineering problems.

 

Am I the only one who sees a vast difference between the first designs in this thread and the last? I would not want to preserve those buildings.

 

Except that, if they were still standing after several years and were, with any luck, the only ones of their kind, I'd want to preserve them for their historical significance. Preservation isn't only for the best design. It's also for the significant, the unusual, and the contextual. There are neighborhoods that should be preserved because as a whole they constitute history. There may well be parts that have to be excised, but that should be done only with caution.

 

My house is 50 years old, and a botched mix of 50's bungalow and ranch. But it's also in a designated historic neighborhood, so I am restricted in the remodeling I'm doing. That's fine. I don't want to change this house I've known pretty much since it was built. I want to keep it and the neighborhood and the city as much as possible. That's one of the things architecture should do.

 

--lemit

[Moontanman]

Many people get so caught up in green housing they forget that tearing down and building new is extremely energy intensive. Many of the older houses and building were built with superior materials that are not even available today. I know some people who are obsessed with the whole green thing that want to tear down the world and rebuild it but it's not only not practical it's not energy efficient either

[Eclipse Now]

Yes, but many people also seem to think that cities are stuck in concrete. ;) Well, of course they ARE but you know what I mean... that they are permanent. In reality, many domestic areas can be rezoned to include new density quite successfully in just 20 years.

 

Worldchanging: Bright Green: My Other Car is a Bright Green City

 

If we just REZONE a region with appropriate public transport and town planning provisions, with a long term goal of New Urbanism in mind, then natural attrition can take over. My main target is McMansion homes and suburban city design. McMansions only last about 50 to 60 years, are built from flimsy terrible materials, and are then pulled down. Instead of REBUILDING a mistake, why not prepare for the end of oil as the very optimistic article above suggests? Instead of energy efficient cars why not energy efficient (and trendier, longer lasting, and more economically viable) cities?