The Crib: An Eco-Smart Prefab by Broadhurst Architects

In the days of yore, elevated corn cribs were used on farms to store dry corn and protect it from rodents. Today, Maryland's Broadhurst Architects have adopted the classic American structure as design inspiration for The Crib, a contemporary prefab that can be used as a weekend retreat, a backyard office, or a guest house. The Crib makes intelligent use of sustainable and recyclable materials......read more

The Green-Roofed Gullesfjord Station

With the beautifully executed Gullesfjord weight control station, Norwegian architects Jarmund/Vigsnæs prove that green roofs are not just the province of expensive homes and high profile public buildings. Resting at the border of one of Norway's pristine national parks, the truck inspection station is integrated seamlessly into the natural landscape, with an ambitious vegetated roof that......read more

Recycled Plastic Bottles Create Colorful Car Canopy

Nebraska designer Garth Britzman has made what may be one of the coolest recycling projects we've ever seen. Britzman collected 1,500 plastic pop bottles and partially filled them with colored liquid to create an amazing, wave-like parking canopy for his car. Called (POP)culture, the stunning installation seeks "to stimulate creative alternatives for recycling and reusing materials." More info......read more

Surrealist Art Meets Green Architecture in an Austrian Home

Surrealist sculpture and green architecture collide in this hillside Austrian home that might make M.C. Escher blush -- and Mies van der Rohe cringe. The detached house, designed by Weichlbauer Ortis Architects, is covered in a soft synthetic turf, offering a strange yet somehow literal take on green wall design. With willfully superfluous windows extending from other windows and weirdly placed......read more

Pave by Joan Sandoval

In all types of design, the happiest place is where simplicity, utility and beauty intersect. Pave, a Barcelona road bike shop designed by architect Joan Sandoval, is nicely ensconced in that happy spot. The clean, minimal build-out features back-lit boxes for displaying bikes, a cycling lit library where visitors can hang out and drink coffee, a lounge area for watching races, and showers for......read more

California Commission Boosts Building Energy Standards

The California Energy Commission today unanimously approved upgraded building energy efficiency standards that one commissioner called "the strongest in the nation." The new standards, which take effect Jan. 1, 2014, include a host of common-sense standards designed to save energy, from insulating hot-water pipes to making sure that air conditioner installations are inspected for sufficient air......read more

Green Climate Fund HQ by LAVA

If Germany's bid to host the Secretariat of the Green Climate Fund is whawt the future of sustainable architecture looks like, sign us up. Designed by the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA), the proposed building is certainly worthy of the firm's name, with sweeping, curvilinear forms inspired by the rolling Rhine valley landscape around Bonn. The proposed building meets the highest......read more

Tom Fruin's Kaleidoscopic Watertower Lights Up Brooklyn

Brooklyn artist Tom Fruin has unveiled his latest structural installation, Watertower, a stunning multicolored water tower made from 1,000 pieces of salvaged Plexiglas. The work adorns a historic watertower that sits atop of Fruin’s Jay Street studio in Brooklyn's DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) neighborhood. This is Fruin's fourth architectural Plexiglas-and-steel project......read more