Blogs & Ecology

We cover the thriving green gingerbread architecture scene, where architects still can find work, the ingredients and the mortgages aren't toxic and meltdowns are expected if you carelessly leave your work outside. We also show the occasional un-treehugger entries:

We do a regular series on TreeHugger about almost useless kitchen appliances that just take up space, or are what the Unclutterer calls "unitaskers"- devices that do only one thing that you need rarely.

The other side of the story is that many people, including most people in big cities or small apartments, have really small kitchens and just can't accommodate much of anything besides the basic stove, sink, fridge and a few pots and pans. New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman develops and tests his recipes for his cookbooks and articles in a kitchen that is seven feet long and six feet w...

Photo of what your desk could look like as you're inventing the next most amazing green gadget via saschapohflepp

With two new gadget design competitions coming up, you could be the next big thing to hit the green gadget industry if you put on your thinking cap!

We previously presented Michelle Kaufmann's GingerLotus, her green gingerbread house of the season, and compared it to her efforts last year. Not to be outdone in the exploding green gingerbread housing industry, HOK's Toronto office has thrown the LEED-H book at the problem for a Habitat for Humanity Gingerbread Home design competition. ...

ECONA, not to be confused with the Econo or the ECO Showerdrop, is a water-saving device that could change the way you view (literally!) your water consumption at home. This gadget won the Concurso Nuevo Diseño 2008 (New Design Competition) in the ecodesign category.

Image: DESIGN 21

Photo of Palace of Fine Arts via 23am

Out of 43 great innovations submitted to the California Clean Tech Open, a small handful of winners were chosen last night at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts to receive a "start-up-in-a-box" prize, which includes the equivalent of $100,000 in cash and business services to help get their technology off the ground.

Industrial designer James Thomas loves bikes, and blogs about them at Bicycle Design. He thinks that most bike designs fail for people taking up cycling as a serious mode of transportation.

TreeHugger has discussed Solar One before, and George had posted a video of Solar Two

Now it appears that the proposed education facility has won the whacking big Holcim Award, $100,000 provided by one of the world's largest cement and aggregate companies to honour the best in sustainable construction, what some might call a bit of a contradiction but I will let that one pass. ...

Strip malls are in trouble across North America as the economy tightens and people aren't filling their new houses with junk any more. Even when they were busy, they were not exactly the most efficient use of resources. Late last year the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) invited architects to determine what ideas they had for urban farming, live/work, revitalization of strip malls in Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tempe. MOS architects of New Haven, Connecticut of all places, took first prize with its Urban Battery that charges us up with wind and solar power combined with a vertical algae farm....

20 architects designed houses for the Gene 20 Architecture International Project. MVRDV "designed a house which maintained gigantic window scene, within this window scene there consist various elements of spatial topics, each spatial topic, according to residential demand, is able to reformat, to reach the maximum desired living atmosphere."

huh?...

I am a big fan (and used to be a big user) of Sketchup, the easy-to-use drawing software that Google now gives away. They teamed up with Dwell Magazine run a design competition encouraging designers to "think about your idea of a comfortable and sustainable dwelling, and to share it with the world."

The winner is Drew Wilgus, whose entry "stood out for its sustainable elements, integration into the local landscape, keen material use, and striking aesthetic."

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We have shown a lot of small kitchens but this one, designed by Nojae Park for the annual Electrolux Design Lab Competition, takes (and bakes and stores) the cake....