Highlights From Last Week - LamiDesign IBU News, DO RESEARCH's Big Move, MKD mkLotus

So hard to get back into the swing of things. I'm one of those people heavily governed by inertia. When I have momentum I keep it until something slows me down or changes my direction. When I have to build up speed again it goes sooo sloooowly.

To make things easy on myself I'll recap some interesting developments that happened while I was away:

Michelle Kaufmann and her firm MKD introduced a new model of her very green, prefab homes - the mkLotus. As usual, top marks for modern style, sustainable design and materials, and viable prefab. Love the green roof on this one. Via Prefab Wednesday on The Good Human.

Image credit - MKD site

The wonderful blog DO RESEARCH sprang back into high gear and fired off a flurry of nice posts in the last week or so. It has such a wonderful feel to it. If you haven't visited in a while check back with 'em. The big news is that they're soon relocating back to the USA from Reading, and now the time has come to put research into reality for a new home ... what will they DO?

Finally, the biggest news of all. Greg La Vardera posted a sneak peek of the LamiDesign IBU Building System on his blog. This is his take on a viable, modular, sea container based housing system that can be convincingly pitched to building authorities. I think that Greg's experience with stock plans and the EcoSteel houses puts him in a good position to succeed. Should be really interesting to see what happens with this. These concept layouts show just how versatile the IBU system could be.

Image credit - LamiDesign Blog

I saw some other neat things around the web, and as always put them in my shared Google Reader in the sidebar (does anyone ever look at that????) so you can browse that if you want. But these three were the real biggies of the week. I'd say I missed a pretty big week :( but the good news is it looks like there'll be more to come!

Green Roof Links, Eye Candy from Dwell

Following my enthusiasm for green roofs yesterday, here are some links for more info:

• greenroofs.com - extensive info, articles, examples, etc.
• What is a Green Roof or "Living Roof" - via BuildingGreenTV.com
• Sweet Sedum - nice article on Metropolis.com
• greenroofs.org - "Healthy Roofs for Healthy Cities"
• Wikipeida Entry - actually some good info and links
• Seattlepi.com - good news article
• materialicio.us - good post

Of course, I wouldn't do this post without some eye candy - I'm looking forward to seeing the completed Dwell Home II and it's living roof (I really love this house)! Apparently, they're finally clearing all the pre-construction hurdles and will start building soon!





I also really liked this house in Dwell, and its green roof:





Image credits - dwell.com

Cool Modern from Denmark - Christensen & Co Arkitekter

Today I came across a hip blog called Design Spotter, and they had a post on a small rural cabin by the Danish architecture firm Christensen & Co Arkitekter. I clicked on over and was thrilled with what I saw: fresh, modernist designs with a green streak. The houses the firm shows on its site include lots of modest homes for real people. They're really cool looking too, really sharp.

One thing that struck me was how original the floorplans are. When you're talking about modernist homes you see a lot of the same thing, and a lot of it isn't really that good. Christensen has some super layouts. They do small bedrooms too, which you probably know by now is something I'm in favor of as a way of saving space for larger rooms where you do most of the real living.

Here's what they say about their approach to environmentally friendly design:

"Sustainability is no longer a field for pioneers; it has become a legal requirement and consensus in the building process. However, visionary solutions are rarely derived from the mainstream. At CCO our ambitions far exceed the revised building regulations of 1 January 2006. Several of projects are at the absolute forefront in this field."

What a great attitude! Embrace it and better it! Be the leader!

Here's a few pics of the residential projects I really liked:











That's some impressive stuff. Lots of green roofs in their work! And some interesting geometry, not just the typical plain modernist box. Nice integration of outdoor living spaces too. I'd move my family of four right in to any of these homes. I can't say that about a lot of stuff I see, but with these plans I really could.

Via Design Spotter.

Image credits - Christensen&Co site

Green Roofs in a Great Book - Sustainable Environments by Yenna Chan

I picked up another cool book today, Contemporary Design in Detail - Sustainable Environments, by Yenna Chan. It was just published in April, and it's really good.




Sustainable Environments is absolutely loaded with some of the coolest houses going, many of which I've talked about here in this blog, like: Steven Holl's Little Tesseract House, the ever-exciting C2C Home winner, and Shigeru Ban's Bamboo Furniture House. Other featured works are from noted firms like Arkin-Tilt, Pugh+Scarpa, ZEDFactory, and the good folks at Rural Studio.

One of the neatest things about the book is that roughly half the projects shown in it have green roofs. I love green roofs, I've already decided the home I build someday will have one, and I can't understand why on earth every new home shouldn't have one.

I like the green roof in the book done by Balmori Associates for the Solaire Building, a green residential tower in NYC which was chosen as an AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects. They have great pics of it on their site, as well as a short video that talks about all the benefits of green roofs, like helping to reduce the urban heat island effect, mitigating air pollution, absorbing stormwater and reducing runoff, and providing a green space for residents. There's another great video on the Solaire's green features here.





Green roofs rule! We need a green roof revolution in America!

Sustainable Environments is one boss book. Find it and read it.

Image credit - Rockport Publishers, AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects,