I copied this from my email. Worth reading and writing. Greetings! This is the moment that supporters of legalizing beekeeping in NYC have been waiting for. The Department of Health is proposing changes to it’s Health Code that would once again make honey beekeeping legal in NYC! Between now and Wednesday, February 3rd, you …
Here is a cool insight into nature. It is by Michael Pollan. He also talks about the Polyface Farm which is run by “grass farmer” Joel Salatin. Joel is interviewed a lot in the Food Inc Movie. Check out the talk below, follow the links above. All very cool stuff. Not directly connected to green …
The book “New Green Homes” by Sergi Costa Duran, Liliana Bollini and Ethel Pohl is a focused book. It is an architects visual study of modern homes around the world. They claim the homes are green but I didn’t really see that. What I did see was a study of a very specific architectural style, …
I’m seeing two styles in green building. One I call the Hobbit house and the other is the Glass Box house. One looks like the past, the other the future. Here are some examples of the Hobbit house. Hobbit Houses are: low tech, low embodied energy, dark, local materials, high thermal mass, part of the …
This is the season of phone calls from clients needing Eco Brooklyn’s help with their brownstone extensions. The problem is always the same: they are cold. They call us up because we are Brooklyn brownstone insulation specialists. Here are my observations having seen and fixed extensions for a while now. There are two types of …
Brooklyn Brownstone Extentions and the Stack Effect Read More »
This book has a long title: Building Green: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative Building Methods Earth Plaster * Straw Bale * Cordwood * Cob * Living Roofs. But then again it is a big book. Written by Tim Callahan and Clarke Snell this book overflows with 600 pages and 1500 images. The book aims …
I had been avoiding the movie Food Inc for a while. I’ve seen lots of animal rights movies: they are depressing. They make me angry because of the barbarity and frustrated because I feel helpless. But one evening I was feeling especially brave. It turns out the movie is UPLIFTING! Sure it jumps all over …
“To leave the land no worse than you found it” is the manifesto of Gentle Architecture, a concept coined by Architect Malcolm Wells, who recently died. He made an impression on the green movement of the 1970’s and his work is getting attention with the new green building movement we are currently having. There are …
Malcolm Wells, Champion of ‘Gentle Architecture,’ Dies at 83 Read More »
I was just blogging how much we like earthen floors because for one it doesn’t use CO2 producing concrete. Then I decided to calculate how much CO2 your typical Brownstone basement would produce if you poured a concrete slab. Answer: Almost ONE MILLION cubic feet of CO2 is let off to pour a simple brownstone …
The correct way to finish off a brownstone is to put lots of insulation and then a concrete slab, right? Correct maybe but not the greenest way. Concrete creates way too much CO2. The greenest way and a great alternative to concrete is to put lots of insulation and then an EARTHEN floor. Yes earth, …
