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A Sustainable Jungle House on the Sea Coast of Brazil

Architects Vidal & Sant’Anna have concocted a sustainable and airy treehouse from noble materials on Brazil’s jungle coastline at Praia do Felix – photographed here by Fran Parente.

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Egypt’s First Entry in Solar Decathlon Based on Matchbox

The first ever submission from Egypt in next year’s solar decathlon is remarkable in its ingenuity. This is a passive solar house that can be adjusted to work as a passive solar house in both the heat of summer and the extreme cold of winter.

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Another Eco Hotel in Sustainable Costa Rica

Costa Rica’s Hotel Punta Islita earns rave reviews from Miss Ecoglam – a jaded professional reviewer of eco hotels – who abandons the resort she should be writing about to enthuse about this one, a spread-out series of small villas comprising a luxury eco resort in Guanacaste.

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Sebastian Mariscal: Loving Design for Humans in Nature

When I saw this image, I immediately recognized the architect. The author of Pursuing Wabi (which means a simple way of life free of ornateness or ‘just enough and no more’) runs Sebastian Mariscal Studio. We have covered the architect’s work on his own house Green Solar House as well as his experiments with charcoaling wood to get this interesting silvered blackened wood for the exteriors.

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Ancient Passive Solar Stone House in Croatia

This gorgeous old stone house overlooking the Adriatic Sea in Croatia is the perfect example of great use of passive solar and thermal mass.

One of the earliest ways that we learned how to moderate temperatures in houses was to build with stone. Using materials with high thermal mass like wood, masonry and stone can make a big difference in reducing the energy needed to make a house comfortable.

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