For the past couple years we at Eco Brooklyn have invested a lot of time learning how to create natural ecosystems in the New York environment. Our work has paid off with the near completion of the gardens at the Eco Brooklyn show house. Here is a sneak preview of our front yard pond and …
In my ongoing self education on green building I watched a movie tonight called Forks Over Knives. Food and building are intimately connected, just like fast food and habitat destruction are connected and healthy food and green building are connected. Keeping our “temple”, our body, healthy is so important. What kind of building you live …
As I was walking to the subway after work today, I passed a man who was leaving a few belongings on the sidewalk in front of his house. He is moving to DC tomorrow and, instead of just throwing the stuff away he couldn’t bring with him, he was leaving it out for passerbys to …
Do you ever think about where all that water goes when it rains? In a natural system, most rainwater gets absorbed in the ground where it falls. It gradually flows, or percolates, through the soil until it reaches the water table (the point in which an underground area is saturated with water.) As the water percolates through the …
Green building and eco-sensitive design is currently at the forefront of our modern ethos. What this means for the green builders, contractors and architects of NY, and the world, is a period of dramatic change and challenge is ahead if not already begun. A change in the way we think about new buildings and construction, …
The Living Building Challenge- Winner of the 2012 Buckminster-Fuller Challenge Read More »
Last week I wrote a blog post after I calculated the energy savings per year and the payback period for a Split AC/heat pump versus a Window AC. The results were interesting. It should me that the price differential between the two alternatives would only be around $47 a year. This would mean the payback …
We at EcoBrooklyn engage in a number of exciting green building projects and experiments throughout the year, but with the hot months ahead at the top of our list is the natural pool for the show house and with its completion so close we can almost feel the cool, energetic, life infused water on our …
In my early twenties I was a vegan for ethical reasons. It only lasted a year because I did not know how to eat a good vegan diet. But ever since then I have been a vegetarian who eats meat….Yes I know that makes no sense. Anyway, now as a New York green contractor I …
I spent the day in the Eco Brooklyn garden with seven interns today hauling salvaged blue stone around and working on the natural swimming pool. Typically we are working around the pool so they have their shoes off. But today I had them wear shoes to protect them from the heavy stones they were hauling. …
As a green NY builder we are very interested the possibility of harnessing the massive tidal energy that surrounds Manhattan. The Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) program began in 2002 with the goal of building an underwater tidal farm. Four years later in 2006 the installation of the first full scale (5m diameter rotor) turbine …
