Eco Brooklyn has been working on an interesting sustainable project in the Crown Heights area. The challenge is to build a fence using only salvaged material. How does this project work? Our green building team collects extraneous wood from the local company, U.S. Fencing Systems, Inc. The staff there are extremely gracious and are happy […]
Crown Heights Project – 100% Salvaged Material Fence Read More »
We are earthship enthusiasts here at Eco Brooklyn, and are currently speaking with a client who wants to build an earthship in New York State. Here are some ideas being thrown around between Michael Reynolds, Eco Brooklyn, and the client, that we may be able to help turn into reality. The schematic of this global
Earthship Project in New York Read More »
Here is a great film on planned obsolescence – the business model where a company deliberately makes products that don’t last, causing people to consume more. Clearly this is not sustainable. We’ve been doing it for just over 100 years and pretty much destroyed the planet in the process. Very worth watching.
Planned Obsolescence – Capitalism’s Ignorant Core Read More »
As I continue to grow as a green builder I become more and more childish. Adults might make it sound fancy by calling it my “inner child” but for me it just feels childish. And I love it. Part of this awakening is that I have a four year old son through whose eyes I
New York Green Contractor is Childish Read More »
I got an email from Jetson Green today with the title “Factory-Built Homes Are the Future”. This is quite the statement. With few exceptions throughout history homes have been built on site by hand. The idea that a home is built in a factory with high tech machines and then plopped down on the site
Factory-Built Homes Are the Future? Read More »
Eco Brooklyn recently completed a number of jobs in a building where there were children living. We renovated three children’s bedrooms, two bathrooms where they bathe, and two play areas. Doing this increased our focus on using non-toxic materials and building in a manner that created no dust. A toxin free green building process should
Building for Children Read More »
As a New York green builder, Eco Brooklyn is always interested in learning about what other sustainable design ideas are out there. Last night, I listened to an amazing TED talk that took green building to a whole new level. Michael Pawlyn, formerly with Grimshaw Architects, London, spoke about biomimicry and sustainable design and how
Biomimicry and the Eden Project Read More »
For those of us who live in historic homes we know that our period dwellings bring us both joy and frustration. The frustration is largely attributed to the endless repairs that classic Brooklyn Brownstones require and their not so efficient envelope. Eco Brooklyn has renovated many brownstones and knows first hand how challenging it can be
Das Haus: First NYC Passive House in BK Read More »
Last week, the interns from Eco Brooklyn went to the Net Zero Symposium sponsored by Das Haus in White Plains, New York to hear lectures and view a model of Das Haus, a passivhaus model made from two shipping containers that functions completely off the grid. The conference was held at the White Plains Public
Last Tuesday the EcoBrooklyn interns attended the dasHAUS symposium and tour in White Plains, New York. The touring exhibition features the mobile dasHAUS pavilion, constructed of fully functioning sustainable energy technologies. The pavilion’s design is inspired by the Technical University of Darmstadt’s winning Solar Decathlon entries in 2007 and 2009. The tour, organized by the
