bPSE Structural Engineering

Designers, engineers, inventors, and crafty gadgeteers, it's time to get the brain juices percolating and submit for the 2010 James Dyson Award. The competition is put up by the James Dyson Foundation, founded by the British inventor responsible for the now-iconic Dyson vacuum cleaners, the Airblade hand dryer, Air Multip... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image: Knossos Induction Lights Are Close, But No Cigar Most people who have been following lighting tech seem to be convinced that light-emitting diode (LED) lights are the future, but it's always good to see new research being done on them. The more sure we are that they're the way to go, the better. It always sucks to invest a lot of time and money into something only to later realize that it's not nearly as good as we were first led to believe (*cough* corn ethanol *cough*). Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have conducted the first cradle-to-grave assessment of LED streetlights, and the... Read the full story on TreeHugger

The guys who run FreeGreen, the free homeplan website, are so smart; they could have just hired architects to do plans, and would have had to go to the trouble of deciding which architect to hire; instead they write a brief and run a competition. Now they have the work of hundreds of architects to chose from; established firms with the works in the drawer, young designers hoping to be discovered. But they are not the only ones who benefit; everyone can look, vote and learn from over 400 submissions. The challenge was to "re-envision the typical suburban home in an ecologically conscious manner that also reflects today's modern lifesty... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via Nectar For people who aren't satisfied with the fact that the greenest thing about their coffee table is the mug of organically grown joe resting on top of it, finally there's a truly appealing alternative in the Voltpot. Not only does its grassy surface bring a bit of oxygen producing plant-life to your living room--the metabolic process is captured and converted to energy to char... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo: Monica M. Davey/Feature Photo Service for IBM 13 Billion PET Plastic Bottles are Thrown Away Each Year Certain things are harder to recycle than others. While it's relatively easy to make a new aluminum can out of an old aluminum can, making a new plastic bottle out of an old one is a lot harder. Currently, most recycled plastic is not truly recycled, but rather downcycled to a lesser use. But thanks to a breakthrough in green chemistry by IBM and Stanford researchers, this might be about to change!... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Lloyd Alter Many small towns are experiencing a comeback these days; a combination of aging boomers and the green movement, combined with technology that lets people work just about anywhere make them a viable alternative to urban and suburban life. Sami has written extensively in TreeHugger about the Transition Town movement, where people are looking for resilient communities that can survive in a crisis. Smaller cities also have character, walkable main streets, apartments above shops that could be attractive to relocating urbanites. Then there are towns like Br... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image from minkyu.co.uk. Last week we wrote an idiosyncratic view of the candidates for the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year awards. With over 100 items in seven different categories, it is an Oscar-worthy show of the international design world's best work of the past year. And the winners are... As predicted: the folding plug! Given the size, weight and general clunkiness of the existing UK converter plug, <a href="... Read the full story on TreeHugger

We have noted that UltraTouch insulation from recycled cotton is great stuff, but I still get upset when I see their pictures of kids putting their heads on it; it has borax, a known respiratory irritant, added as a fire retardant and to keep out vermin. All cellulose insulations do. Now Alex Wilson at <a href="http://www.buildinggreen.com/live/index.cfm/2010/2/11/Alexs-Cool-Product-of-the-Week-SafeTouch-Polyester-Batt-Insu... Read the full story on TreeHugger

The eVolo Skyscraper competition is always one of the most spectacular speculative ideafests of architecture, with entries from all over the world, this year from 42 different countries. There are always some entries that just pop out, that demonstrate a different way of looking at buildings. They are rarely the winners though; the jury usually is as eccentric as the entries. This year is no different, giving first prize to a design for a vertical prison "where the criminals are taken off the street to a place within that community and while serving their sentences, they continuously contribute to that particular community yet remain separated; a vertic... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: ManTownHuman "We, in ManTownHuman, believe that a more critical, arrogant and future-oriented cadre of architects and designers can challenge the new eco-centred, bureaucratic, anti-intellectual, fragmentary, localising consensus and in this way can lay the ground rules for overcoming the cosy rut in which architecture now finds itself." Every now and then a subject for a post comes along that is so wrong headed that I struggle with whether I should fan the flames of publicity, or leave it well alone. But as the rece... Read the full story on TreeHugger