Living suspended in the trees – if that’s your idea of freedom then these Free Spirit Spheres may be just the alternative habitat for you.  Free-thinking Canadian designer Tom Chudleigh has incorporated bio-mimicry into his design and manufacture of these spherical little dwellings which he suspends in trees via ropes and cables.

You can order a wooden or fiberglass sphere (they’re handmade and not cheap – $15ok) or rent one – (there are 3 units) on Tom’s property in the forest just north and west of Vancouver -  for roughly $125 – $190 per night.  By the way — no kiddies under 16; and though there is electricity, plumbing is rustic – note top photo above, lower left corner – the outhouse.

Definitely for free spirits who want that primordial connection to nature.

Is micro-living the next big thing?  Is a smaller footprint home the green building wave of the future?  Will people be able to handle living in a complete home that is smaller than most people’s family room?

The folks at Canada’s 12-cubed certainly think so.  They’ve envision these teensy dwellings to be used as a guest house, rental unit or studio.  Though these little houses can stand alone – they’re intended to be constructed adjacent to an existing home – so they can utilize the power, water and sewage systems of the larger structure.  They offer two models consisting of the 10×10 Pure (1,200 cubic feet) and the 12×12 Cappuccino (1,400 cubic feet) – both constructed of FSC Certified lumber and designed to be mounted on a block foundation.

The layouts feature a shower, toilet, bedroom, kitchen and living area – best thing, the little houses clock in at an average price of $24,500 CDN.

more info @ twelve3.ca

Designer Edgar Blazona and his company, Modular Dwellings, created this little prefab home for those with simple needs and a taste for clean, no-baloney design.  This tiny 208 square foot structure packs a bedroom, living space, full kitchen and separate bath – under a space-enhancing, 9-foot ceiling.  The whole deal fits on one truck and can be delivered with ease.

If you’re a clutter junkie this little guest house or backyard office probably isn’t for you – no room here for two cars, 3 kids, a dog, 4 pet turtles and a 4,000 piece Hummel figurine collection – for those trying to downsize, commute to work on a bike, consume less or build an inexpensive guest house, this just might be your eco-friendly solution.

Related:  previously on altCon

take a peek at our Prefab Category

How do you build a luxury vacation rental property in an exclusive and highly regulated building location? Go underground.  Talk about alternative living – Switzerland’s Villa Vals is built over the only thermal springs in the Graubunden Canton in Switzerland, and dug into the mountainside adjacent to the famous Therme Val hotel and spa .

Forgiving it all the designer luxuries – this makes going underground a very attractive prospect for those seeking to ski, hike or cycle.  Marketed with the tagline, “Dutch Design” meets “Swiss Quality” it evokes a bunch of design possibilities.  Add a few green amenities like geothermal heating & cooling and a gray water system and you’d really have something.

Ahh…an alternative to that stodgy old library you slaved away in, studying til all hours – hopped up on speed and coffee…I digress…This concept for a modern, green library is based on a series of elegant gardens instead of the Dewey Decimal System.

The building, as designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), envisions the structure as a living component of its community – a series of hanging gardens connecting both public and private spaces.

Outdoor gardens would feature restaurants, performance spaces and reading areas.  Indoors one would find a series of vertical gardens and ledges consisting of spaces for research, reading and meetings – all culminating in a beautiful roof garden.

Submitted for consideration in a competition to design the new library in Urtecht, Netherlands.

Strong, durable, lightweight Kirei Board is made from reclaimed sorghum straw, a renewable grass.  This board can often replace traditional, heavy, toxic particle board – which is typically made with formaldehyde based resins – and valuable wood, as a building and design component in furniture, cabinetry and flooring.

Kirei Board is made by Kirei USA which specializes in creating natural, non-toxic, sustainable materials for interior designers, architects and green builders.  They also create materials and surfaces comprised of eco-friendly bamboo and wheatboard.

Too bad we all couldn’t experience the luxury of getting away from it all, comfortably embraced by the branches of trees.  For those lucky enough to afford it, the German design firm, baumraum, creates just such habitats – futuristic treehouses that place their inhabitants in an alternative universe – high above the earth among tree branches, birds and clouds.

The King of the Frogs treehouse, (above and below), is located in a small private garden in Münster.  This sleek space hovers above a flat pool, framed by high bamboo stilts.

The house’s terrace, made of Tatajuba wood, rests on four stork-like stainless-steel stilts – some steps and a small catwalk lead visitors to the cabin.

The curved cabin, perched above the middle of the pool, rests on eight asymmetrical arranged stilts. Large curved glass at the gables and slim windows at the sides lighten the interior and give a bright and transparent look to the cabin.

Comfortable, minimalistic furniture adds character to the interior.

Below - a look at a couple of other projects:

Baumraum has created their unique structures in Germany, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Brazil and the USA.

via: ifitshipitshere.blogspot

No, this isn’t George Clinton’s weekend home.  Green architect and off-grid design expert Michael Reynolds and his Taos, New Mexico based architectural firm, Earthship Biotecture, have been thinking outside the box for 40 years or so.

Their Earthship design incorporates recycled tires for wall construction and insulation; rammed earth for heat and cooling effects; wind + solar energy; recycled, found and indigenous materials; greywater systems; a greenhouse and a rainwater capture system.

Features: uses rainwater/snow melt 4 times, eliminates utility bills with solar and wind energy systems, sewage runs through indoor and outdoor treatment cells and is reused in food production etc., construction insures comfortable living temperatures in any climate without wires or pipes.

Plans include designs for one, two and three bedroom Earthships.  Come to think of it, this might be just far enough off-grid for George Clinton.

Related: previously on altCon,

Green Building (entire category)

(2007/04/17) green-home-building-part-one/

(2007/01/27) rammed earth – natural building

Innovative alternative energy companies will soon be having a bigger impact, both in our energy and transportation infrastructure, and on Wall Street.  One such company,  Envision Solar International – a global solar planner, architect and inventor of clean energy systems – officially became a publicly traded company, yesterday.

Envision Solar is the first company to invent and build structures for generating solar energy from the millions of acres of unused, underutilized parking spaces.  Parking lots that previously just provided a home for your car while bouncing vast amounts of heat into the atmosphere can now become a clean energy source with the potential to optimize power production during hot summer afternoons when electricity is most valuable.  Envision Solar is helping top companies like McDonald’s, Dell, Johnson & Johnson and Kyocera (pictured above) with their green efforts by installing solar parking arrays that visibly demonstrate their commitment to sustainable energy.

As of today, Envision Solar has designed and/or installed more than nine megawatts of solar arrays for (more…)

Take the best attributes of prefab construction and trick them out with a variety of customized green components – that’s what L.A.-based Sander Architects has been doing for quite some time.  Their Hybrid House concept is home design they’ve developed over the last few years using a prefabricated metal frame, skin and roof.  The design offers major economies by using prefabricated building (warehouse) fabricators to manufacture the most expensive parts of the houses at a fraction of normal costs.  These part prefab,  part custom residences offer a “best of both worlds option” in green home building.

The home featured in this post is the Residence for Briard – the greenest Hybrid House Sander has built.  Green approaches and materials include: greywater systems, passive heating and cooling strategies, cistern to capture rainwater for watering the landscape, recycled blue jean insulation, sunflower seed wall board, bamboo flooring, marmoleum, structural steel frames from recycled steel, and a bunch more.

Residence for a Briard came out of conversations with the owners who found an old bungalow in Culver City which they initially envisioned as a renovation.  After discussions with architect Whitney Sander they realized that they could take advantage of his Hybrid House to build a ground-up duplex for only slightly more than the proposed budget of the renovation.

A big issue – accommodating the design needs of the client’s huge dog (a Briard – for which the home is named) which influenced many of the home’s design components – from stair design to finishing materials.

Project cost:  $500,000 — 3,800sf @ +/- $130sf; (includes site prep, foundation, hookups, all construction hard costs).