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| This Beautiful Passive House Can Be Built in Just Four Days Posted: 24 Mar 2014 08:00 AM PDT An inexpensive sustainable home that you can build yourself over the course of a long weekend might seem like a pipe dream, but French architectural firm Multipod Studio is making it a reality. Their Pop-Up House is made primarily of polystyrene blocks and, according to Multipod Studio, can be built with nothing more than an electric screwdriver, even by someone with no previous construction experience. The finished house is an impressive 1,614 square feet and includes three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, living area, office, and terrace. Besides the polystyrene blocks, the home is composed of a spruce wood frame and laminate wooden floor.
The home has an airtight thermal envelope and, in sunny climates, requires no heating system at all. In areas that do require a heating system, the Pop-Up House is inexpensive to heat thanks to its excellent insulation. Everything about the house is removable and recyclable, so even at the end of its useful life it won’t create an environmental burden. The Pop-Up House, in addition to meeting the rigorous specifications to be designated a passive house, is expected to cost only a smidge over $40,000. That price is just for the house and labor, however, and doesn’t include the installation of plumbing and electrical systems. The house isn’t quite out of the prototype stage just yet, so you’ll just have to wait to get your own easy-build house. Keep Going - Check Out These Great Related Dornob Articles: |
| Soft Rocker: Sculptural Solar-Powered Outdoor Lounger Posted: 23 Mar 2014 02:00 PM PDT Lay back and relax outdoors with your laptop, tablet or phone without any fear of losing juice. The SOFT Rocker by architecture students at MIT is a teardrop-shaped lounger with built-in lighting and solar panels that power up small electronic devices. Flexible solar panels follow the curve of the rocker’s ‘roof,’ feeding a 12 amp-hour battery that provides power via USB to gadgets and even chilled drink dispensers. The rockers rotate on their bases so the users can follow the movements of the sun throughout the day. The user also has the power to angle the solar panels higher or lower depending on how they lay inside the rocker, acting as a ‘second axis’ of the solar tracker. The MIT team wanted an interactive experience, making energy generation something the user can participate in rather than something that happens behind a fence or wall in a large-scale facility. The rocker is made of flat MDF panels developed using the ‘zipshape’ process, in which flat-packed materials are laser-cut in a way that resembles rows of teeth and then interlocked with each other to produce a strong yet flexible result. The individual panels are glued together and then vacuum-sealed in plastic bags until dry. Keep Going - Check Out These Great Related Dornob Articles: |
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