The Amphibious Architecture Project explores interaction between above and underwater worlds.

Taking childhood dreams to a new level, Roderick Romero from Romero Studios has made a business out of designing and building tree houses around the country.  Each of the dozen or so projects require a unique and complicated architecture to conform to their environments.  Despite some incredibly beautiful designs, the philosophy behind the projects is that “Nature is the architect.”  Personal favorites include a cliff-side home in New Mexico and a lantern-house in the Santa Monica mountains built with salvaged lumber.
The tree houses are a perfect synergy between humanity and nature, creating a sanctuary in the sky.  The designs vary [...]

It’s hard to tell from the outside, but this beautiful home in Quebec was built with seven recycled shipping containers.  This 3,000 square foot home cost just $175,000 to build and was designed by Bernard Morin and Joyce Labelle from Maison Idekit Homes.  They specialize in building homes from a shipping container base and claim that the building time can be reduced to as little as a week and save a significant amount of money.  A chalet built with just three shipping containers runs about $45,000 and can be customized to the home-owner’s specifications.

The building itself is covered with urethane [...]

Hoping to replace the cramped, dingy trailers that have been implemented to ease California’s terribly overcrowded classrooms (ranked among the worst in the US), Project FROG is designing overflow educational space that is both conducive to learning and green. FROG’s classrooms are made of prefabricated, modular structures that can be arranged to match each school’s varying size and space needs, and maximize exposure to natural light (found to boost standardized test scores).
[via GOOD]

Vincent Callebaut Architects regularly produce some far reaching conceptual architecture. Their latest proposal is an ecological self-sustaining vertical farm to be located on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island adjacent to New York City.
The unique 128 floor, 700m concept design is spread over two oblong towers and suggests building a prototype of an urban farm in which a mixed programme of housing, offices, laboratories and farming spaces are vertically laid out over several floors and cultivated by its inhabitants. The architecture of the design proposes reinventing the vertical building, so associated with the New York skyline of the 19th and [...]

While it’s hard not to ask “What’s the catch?” upon hearing news about big corporations adopting socially conscious policies, the fact remains that whatever the reasons are behind these changes, their footprints are often large enough to create a significant impact. To that end, fast food giant McDonald’s opened a prototype “green” restaurant on the south side of Chicago last year in an attempt to test out a number of environmentally friendly upgrades to their preexisting template. 
Though none of the features are particularly revolutionary – skylights to let in more natural light, recycling rainwater for use in plumbing and better [...]

Anneli Rufus, coauthor of the recently published Scavenger’s Manifesto, takes us through a photographic preview of the David Brower Center, a multipurpose space in downtown Berkeley that will house non-profits working towards environmental and social action. The 50,000 square foot building, opening to the public on May 10th, has been designed to be “green from the ground up” and will serve as a physical reminder of the very principles it’s hoping to promote. Its construction highlights include the use of 53% recycled materials, collection and reuse of rainwater for many of the building’s plumbing needs and the installation of low-energy radiant heating [...]

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) recently launched a new initiative designed to address the design and management of cities across the UK.  The Sustainable Cities initiative gathers data from two years of research by a team of 30 experts and the English Core Cities group.  The goal to make cities low carbon has grown to a massive project addressing affordable housing, energy security and job generation.  The group has identified climate change as a direct challenge to the efficency of managing a town or city and have created this initiative as a framework of priorities for [...]

Green product design company MINIWIZ is known for their ingenious personal sized solar and wind power collectors. They’ve recently introduced a unique building material to their line up called the POLLI-Brick. It’s a recycled polymer architecture brick made of recycled PET plastic. The bricks are self-interlocking and possess impressive thermal and sound insulating properties. POLLI-Bricks strength and versatility will be shown off at the Taipei International Exposition in 2010, where they will be used to create a solar powered, LED lit wall at the Far Eastern Group Fashion Pavilion.
[via Inhabitat]

The Macau pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo is a whimsical looking, high tech construction. Designed by Carlos Marreios architects, the building takes the form of a giant jade rabbit lantern (inspired by the lanterns popular in ancient China’s mid-autumn festival.) Large balloons make up the head and tail of the rabbit, which can be raised into the air to attract visitors. The exterior structure is made up of a glass membrane wrapped with fluorescent screens to project content and signage to attendees on the outside. Keeping with the “better city, better life” theme of the expo, the Macau [...]