Blue Designs - Architectural Designers

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Showing Tag: "solar power" (Show all posts)

Solar Powered Safari Lodge offers Sustainable Luxury in Botswana

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Sunday, April 9, 2017, In : Energy Efficiency 


If visiting the rich wildlife at the Okavango Delta is on your bucket list, consider a stay at Sandibe Okavango, a sustainable safari lodge in Botsgo simultaneously blends in with the landscape and stands out from lowana that boasts a light environmental footprint. Designed by Michaelis Boyd and Nick Plewman, the recently reopened Sandibe Okavancal architectural typology with its curvaceous timber-clad form. The striking and sculptural 24-bed lodge overlooks the banks of the Sandibe River, a ...

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Dropping Costs in Renewable Energy spurs rapid shift to Clean Energy

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Saturday, April 8, 2017, In : Renewable Energy 

Welcome to the clean energy revolution – with or without Trump. A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), and Frankfurt School – UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance reveals plunging costs in renewable technology have generated a whole new world of power. Unsubsidized renewables in more countries are now the cheapest new form of energy.
Renewable energy detractors love to claim it’s too expensive, but th...

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Russian Ice Skating Rink doubles as a Solar Powered outdoor Cinema and Geothermal Spa

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Tuesday, March 28, 2017, In : Architecture 

This solar-powered ice skating rink for a natural lake in the Kamchatka peninsula, Russia, is designed to double as an outdoor cinema and natural geothermal spa. Photovoltaic panels and geothermal turbines provide enough energy to keep the lake at frozen temperatures, power the cinema and LED lighting , and still pump excess energy back into the grid. Margot Krasojević Architects designed the project as a fully self-sufficient multi-use structure that reflects the fluid nature of its immedia...

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6 Ways to add Passive Solar Features to Your Home

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Thursday, March 23, 2017, In : Energy Efficiency 

6 ways to add passive solar features to your home.

Looking for a way to reduce that electric bill, lower your carbon footprint, and show off to your neighbors? The good news is that you don’t have to build a brand new home in order to reap the benefits of sustainable building techniques. Here are 6 ways to passively solarize your current home so you can slash electricity costs, cut emissions, and impress your friends with science.
Thermal Mass
Have you noticed that your pool tiles stay hot eve...

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5th Grader builds off-grid solar powered tiny house shelter for just $10.

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Thursday, March 9, 2017, In : Sustainability 

One fifth grader took a school project to a whole new level with an entire renewably-powered mobile tiny home. Ten-year-old Callie Hilton designed Callie’s Coop, an off-grid shelter powered via a small solar panel that boasts its own rainwater capturing system and composting toilet. The whole thing is light enough that Callie can move it herself, and by using reclaimed materials, she kept the cost of the project to under $10.
Callie’s Coop is Callie’s fifth grade project; she and her cla...

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Science meets Architecture in a robotically woven, solar active structure.

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Thursday, March 2, 2017, In : Renewable Energy 
New York's MoMA PS1 will feature a shelter installation that uses robotically-knitted solar fabrics that absorb and release light. Winner of the art institution's Young Architects Program competition, the canopy from Jenny Sabin Studio is photo-luminescent by night and cooling by day, with a misting system that delivers a cooling spray when someone comes near.
The installation includes long fabric tubes that hang from the canopy stalactite style, and make up part of the site's multi-sensory e...

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New Silicon Nanoparticles could finally make Solar windows commercially viable.

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Monday, February 27, 2017, In : Renewable Energy 

The trend toward integrating solar into homes and buildings seems to be taking off. First Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled his rooftop solar shingles that are invisible when viewed from the street. Now, researchers at the University of Minnesota and University of Milano-Bicocca have developed technology that could usher in a future with photovoltaic windows harvesting renewable energy from the sun. The research, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Photonics, demonstrates that high-tech silico...

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Solar Power System could provide clean drinking Water in rural India for the first time.

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Monday, February 20, 2017, In : Sustainability 
A solar-powered purification system could slake the thirsts of rural India with clean drinking water for the first time. This would be no ordinary feat. Tens of millions of people in India lack access to potable water, and roughly 600,000 Indian children die every year from water- and sanitation-related diseases like diarrhea or pneumonia, according to UNICEF. In the country’s most far-flung regions, where 70 percent of India’s population lives, toxic bacteria routinely fouls at least hal...

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Flat-Packed Refugee Shelter Wins Best Design Of 2016 By Design Museum In London

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Tuesday, January 31, 2017, In : Sustainability 
IKEA Foundation and UNHCR's refugee shelter has been named the 2016 Beazley Design of the Year by the Design Museum in London, selected as the winner of Architecture category. Designed by Johan Karlsson, Dennis Kanter, Christian Gustafsson, John van Leer, Tim de Haas, Nicolò Barlera, temporary refugee shelter gives a response towards the global issue of population displacement.
Better Shelter pipped the 5 other category winners to claim the overall prize. Better Shelter is a social enterprise...
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Students build Solar Devices for Rural Hospital in Africa.

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Wednesday, January 25, 2017, In : Renewable Energy 

 A group of graduate students at Grand Valley State University recently created devices that provide solar power when electricity fails at a rural hospital in Malawi. They then made the 22-hour trip to southeastern Africa to deliver and install the devices, according to a press release.  
Embangweni Mission Hospital is in an area where electricity is often disconnected, and the results can be fatal.
Martha Sommers, an American physician currently working in Madagascar, frequently experienced th...
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New recycled plastic sidewalk harvests energy from the sun

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Saturday, December 17, 2016, In : Renewable Energy 
New recycled plastic sidewalk harvests energy from the sun -Imagine a colorful modular paving system that snaps together “like LEGO bricks” replacing dull pavements currently populating today’s concrete jungles. Hungarian startup Platio designed that paving system to make our sidewalks do more for us. Their paving system, made with recycled plastic, offers firm ground while harvesting clean energy from the sun.
Platio’s paving system harvests power from the sun via monocrystalline sili...

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Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy by next year

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Wednesday, December 14, 2016, In : Renewable Energy 
Google just announced that it will be fully powered by renewables before the end of 2017. The tech giant has been growing its solar and wind investments over the years, and is now making a final push to achieve 100 percent renewable energy through additional purchases. Google initially announced its 100-percent goal in 2012, and this week’s announcement confirms the company will hit the target next year. http://inhabitat.com/google-says-it-will-run-entirely-on-renewable-energy-by-next-year/

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Sweden’s new ICEHOTEL 365 uses solar cooling to stay open all year-round

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Monday, December 12, 2016, In : Green Building 
Sweden’s famed ICEHOTEL, perhaps the “coolest” hotel in the world, has just unveiled a permanent luxury lodge made entirely of ice. The newly-designed ICEHOTEL365 has all of the chilly charm of its sister hotel, but will be open 365 days a year thanks to state-of-the-art solar-powered cooling technology that will keep the structure frozen during summer months. http://inhabitat.com/swedens-new-icehotel-365-uses-solar-cooling-to-stay-open-all-year-round/


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Scientists blend photosynthesis and quantum physics to improve solar cells.

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Tuesday, December 6, 2016, In : Sustainability 
Scientists blend photosynthesis and quantum physics to improve solar cells. Four physicists at the University of California, Riverside decided to blend photosynthesis and quantum physics to work towards greener solar cells. Plants effectively regulate energy flow from the sun, but since current affordable man-made solar cells hover around just 20 percent efficiency, the scientists decided to take cues from vegetation.

Current solar cells require feedback controllers and voltage converters to m...
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Elon Musk says Tesla’s solar roof will be cheaper than ordinary roofs

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Monday, November 28, 2016, In : Renewable Energy 
Elon Musk says Tesla’s solar roof will be cheaper than ordinary roofs. He also says the energy-generating roofs will last longer than typical roofs, so, said the real-life Iron Man, “Why would you get anything else?”

At first Tesla solar roofs will be a premium product, according to Bloomberg, as the company’s slate and terra cotta tiles are 20 times more expensive than asphalt singles. But that factor could become irrelevant because of reduced shipping costs. It’s expensive to ship ...
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Revolving solar-powered home for veterans wins California’s first tiny house competition

Posted by Blue Designs - Architectural Designers on Thursday, November 10, 2016, In : Green Building 
Santa Clara University students recently won California's first tiny house competition with 238 square feet of technological and design genius. Called rEvolve House, referencing its ability to track the sun throughout the day to optimize solar gain, the prototypical home was designed in collaboration with Operation Freedom Paws as a low-cost housing solution for veterans training their own service dogs.  To read more go to:- http://inhabitat.com/solar-powered-revolving-home-for-veterans-wins-...
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