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Building Green Homes & Careers (A Lesson in Problem Solving ) - - the award-winning Casa Verde program in Texas puts at-risk youth to work building environmentally-friendly homes for low income residents.

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A Pattern Language - - Before you design your house, straw-bale or whatever, Have a look at this. It's summary of Christopher Alexander's incredible model for designing livable places. Alexander traveled the world, taking note of ways of building and living that work especially well. He distilled them into "patterns" that can be described and modeled. The patterns are layered, in levels of detail, all the way from "Independent Regions", about distributing and governing cities and towns, to "Necklace of Community Projects, which describes how to transform the town hall into a vibrant, community center, to "Things From Your Life", about decorating your personal space. NOTE: This site requires Javascript and requires a paid subscription. Alas, it used to be free.

Building Green Homes & Careers (A Lesson in Problem Solving ) - - the award-winning Casa Verde program in Texas puts at-risk youth to work building environmentally-friendly homes for low income residents.

Earth Sweet Home - - in Brattleboro, Vermont, aims to create an experimental green home that is completely bioregional, biodegradable, and recyclable.

Houses to Save the Earth - - It looks like the typical suburban house, but the ceramic floor tiles are made from flourescent bulb casings and car windshields, the rugs from plastic jugs, and the roof from cement and sawdust. This article describes Paul Loken's recycled house in Missoula Montana. (16k)

How to Build a Straw Bale House - - in one easy lesson, For more details check out A Guide to Building Using Straw Bales and How to Build with Straw Bale.

Straw Bale Slides - - A whole page of pics of Straw Bale buildings. Get inspired!

Strawbale Construction - - The hottest development in sustainable (and affordable) housing.

The Composting Toilet - an ecologically responsible solution - - Our current sewage-treatment system would be a joke if it weren't so tragic. There is a better way, and it doesn't require massive construction, or floating a bond issue. Scandinavia leads the way: As far back as 1982, there were 300,000 composting toilets installed in Scandinavia. At least one Swedish municipality currently equips 70% of new housing with composting toilets and plans on 100% by the year 2000. (9k)

Sustainable Sources - - Recognized by the United Nations Local Government Honours Programme at the 1992 Earth Summit as one of 12 exemplary local government initiatives from around the world, The Austin Green Builder Program was the only program recognized from the United States. Their entire 400 page book is now online, in the form of a website. Some of the many topics are- Indoor Water Conservation, Xeriscape, Passive Solar Design, Radiant Barrier and Ridge-and-Soffit Venting, Solar Hot Water, Heating and Cooling Systems, Ductwork, Fans, Electro-Magnetic Fields, Wood Treatmen, Engineered Sheet Materials, Earth Materials, Home Recycling and much more.

Towards a Sustainable Masonry Heater - - Paul Hawken uses the humble masonry heater as a concrete ;) illustration of the principles of sustainability. Read it then scroll to the top for a summary/review of Hawkin's book The ecology of Commerce. (20k)