The House Arc is the brainchild of Bellomo Architects. The small-footprint, modular, off-grid housing solution is designed to be shipped in pieces (fabricated locally if possible) to a site and erected by the user or community. The designers envision the freestanding tiny-house as an emergency housing solution for communities located in warm weather climates struck by natural disasters — like earthquake-ravaged Haiti and hurricane-battered New Orleans. The first House Arc prototype has been built and installed on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The house has a simple layout the features large windows that provide natural light, maintain views, and funnel in ocean breezes to cool the interior. A rooftop shading trellis diffuses sunlight and limits heat infiltration. The raised structure (no foundation) allows air to flow underneath for cooling and has little impact on site terrain and ground permeability.

The House Arc’s modular construction allows for quick on-site assembly. The structure is designed to assemble like a piece of modular furniture (think iKea) with a kit of parts and an easy-to-follow, graphic installation manual.

Rooftop solar panels (see rendering above), a rainwater capture system and other customization can further enhance the design’s green quotient. In addition, several units can be combined to create a larger domicile like the one in the rendering below.

Related: House Arc and other sustainable ‘Arc’ designs can seen @  bikearc.com, which specializes in modular bike parking systems and structures.

via: designboom.com

More great eco design on The Alternative Consumer

Jackson & McElhaney Architects of Austin, Texas create structures that embody their philosophy of earth-friendly design. We’ve chosen to feature the Blanco Residence – a fine example of their tastefully efficient and unpretentious style.

The 3,200 square foot home retains many of the materials and characteristics of the converted barn that comprises the main residence. The second floor (formerly the hay loft) of the main house features a large open space containing the living room and kitchen. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms comprise the first floor.

Dormers added to the north and south roof walls provide light and ventilation, while also offering expansive views of the surrounding Texas Hill Country.

A gigantic, light-filled screened room connects the main house to the studio, elegantly curving around a large, old oak tree. A catwalk near the tree offers a direct path between living room and studio.

The project is a fitting expression of  Jackson & McElhaney’s goal to “conserve and preserve the earth, water, air and energy as passively as possible.” Their sustainable residential and commercial work has received many local, state, national and international awards.

The Delancey Underground project has an ambitious goal: The group seeks to transform an abandoned trolley terminal forlornly hidden beneath New York City’s Lower East Side, into The Big Apple’s first underground community green space.

The massive, decaying space lies beneath one of the least verdant areas of the city. The forgotten unused space is nearly the size of Gramercy Park. The designers envision the utilization of advanced solar technology to channel sunlight underground, enabling plants and trees to grow.

The organization, obviously inspired by the overwhelming popularity of the West Side’s High Line Park, is currently seeking donations to move the project into the next phase.

Related: High Line Park video on The Alternative Consumer

Looking to perch yourself above ground and really commune with nature? Treehotel is branching out and now offers rather posh mirrored prefab cube abodes ready for tree-mounting. Designed by Scandinavian architects, Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård, as a turnkey solution, Treehotel handles construction, transportation and installation at your tree-loving location of choice.

A simple yet luxurious eco-friendly hideaway, exterior walls are made from reflective “spyglass” whereby infrared film placed within the glass makes Mirrorcube visible to birds and other animals. The film is invisible to humans. Interior walls are wood with windows allowing natural light, warmth and vistas; ladder leads to rooftop terrace, your personal stairway to heaven.

The centerpiece of the space is the living tree, hug it at your leisure; built-in queen size bed and ash ladder come with the space, as do all lighting fixtures and furnishings. Electricity is (more…)

The Carraig Ridge Passive House is an innovative home designed for those who really want to get away from it all; additionally, the energy self-sufficient prototype has been designed with a potential 300-year, cradle-to-cradle lifespan.

The project is the vision of architects Les Eerkes and Steven Rainville in association with Tom Kundig and Olson Kundig Architects. The prototype calls for nine homes to be developed in a cluster of 3 to 5 acre lots, with the intent that the development of a small portion of the property will partially fund the creation of a 4,000-acre Canadian nature reserve.

Each building is seen meeting the ambitious goal of cutting energy consumption by 90%, with an energy consumption target of 4kbtu’s/SF per year. The home would feature: a large photovoltaic solar array, hot water heat exchange and storage, and other energy efficient components. The building’s design has the additional goal of creating a positive relationship with both its inhabitants and the surrounding landscape.

With multiple design approaches, alternate forms of the building are envisioned as well – either burrowing into the earth and stretching out to the prairie, or hovering above the ground and being sheltered by trees.

Much of the building will be pre-fabricated and assembled on-site to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and reduce environmental impact. The ease of assembly also means the units can be disassembled and removed from the landscape when their lifecycle is complete.

related: more green architecture

Designer Mohsen Saleh is developing a “lightfarm” concept that specifically engineers a building’s facade and rooftop to maximize the collection and concentration of solar energy via HCPV, (high concentration photovoltaic cells). The energy captured is then used for heating and power generation.

The design is estimated to be much more efficient than conventional photovoltaic installations which produce 12% to 19% efficiency.  The sunlight hitting the building’s facade is concentrated by thin plastic fresnel lenses under a glass covering, it’s estimated that a few square centimeters of HCPV utilizing this technology could generate electricity for the household at a phenomenal efficiency return of up to 40%, while diverting the other 60% of solar energy, which would normally be waste, to heat-sinks for water and space heating purposes.

The home in the accompanying renderings was designed by Nasser Taghavi.

Casey Brown Architects, or more specifically – Aussie architects Caroline Casey and Robert Brown – created this minimalist, two-story copper clad tower as an off-grid retreat for one of their clients. The location of the structure, a remote mountain sheep station, necessitated it being prefabricated off-site, transported to the location and erected. The small footprint house is called both “Permanent Camping” and the “Mudgee Tower.”

The sides of the camp open up to reveal tremendous views of the surrounding landscape, and when closed, protect the building from the elements, brush fires and interlopers. (more…)

This year, New Zealand is happy to be the first finalist from the Southern Hemisphere to make it to the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. As New Zealand sees the light of the sun everyday before the rest of the world, they have named the home the First Meridian Light House.

The design concept for the house was inspired by the traditional Kiwi bach, a New Zealand holiday home.

Kiwi culture places heavy value on socializing and being outdoors.  (more…)

There’s something about micro wind turbine technology that gets my imagination fired-up. I believe it has a similar effect on Italian designer Piero Ceratti, who has conceptualized his Eagle Nest Hut (pictured in renderings above + below) as an off-grid bed and breakfast in the sky.

The self-sustaining, mountaintop hostel is designed to be powered by 80 micro wind turbines that would feed, and store energy in 18 lithium ion batteries. It’s reasonable to assume that an unobstructed mountaintop will be buffeted by strong enough winds to keep the hut’s array of horizontal turbines whirring 24/7. (more…)