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We love our gadgets, but can they make life more comfortable? Warren McLaren looks at a few gizmos to maybe make our lives a little bit greener.
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Elaborate plans to reduce carbon emissions are not uncommon amidst growing concerns about environmental practices. Environ writer Warren McLaren investigates the latest governmental initiative, the CRC for Low Carbon Living.
Solar energy has been going through a tumultuous time of late, BPN looks at the current state of play.
Necessity is, we are told, the mother of invention, and when humans attempt to survive in the decidedly inhospitable environment that’s beyond Earth’s atmosphere our inventive spirit knows no bounds.
A house may be defined by its four walls, but it only becomes a home by what they contain. We see what 14 green-leaning Australian designers feel should occupy the insides of our abodes.
Given the wealth of green content that BPN has served up, Warren McLaren writes, especially since formally incorporating Environ into its editorial mix way back in 2002, readers might be forgiven for assuming that green building design was all pervasive, and dominated the architectural scene.
Unfortunately the undeveloped greenfield site or the knock-down-rebuilt, is not where environmental nirvana is to be found. Rather, Warren McLaren writes, the path to a more sustainably responsible future lurks quietly in our commercial building stock.
Most of the talk (and action) of green design and eco architecture is premised on having a clean slate, a blank canvas, on which to conjure up more award winning, high star rating, icons of sustainable creativity. Yet the vast bulk of our buildings are already with us. Seven out of eight million Australian households live in existing separate houses and/or terrace/town houses. This is where the biggest bang for buck resides, if we really want to affect environmentally positive change. We need to swivel our focus onto our rather copious stock of energy inefficient brick veneer (and similar) homes. And eco retrofit them. Warren McLaren lists some "bolt-on" that require little or no renovation to an established dwelling, but will appreciably reduce the building's environmental impact and save on running costs.
Warren McLaren reports on the new wave of housing in Australia which aims to not contribute to climate change.
Our politicians and radio shock jocks might be arguing over the need for action on green issues, but, for the most part, practitioners in the built environment industry are embracing the need for change. Warren McLaren presents a selection of events, conferences and competitions that – in addition to BPN’s own Sustainability Awards – are aimed at improving the sustainability knowledge and skills of design professions.
Some things, Warren McLaren writes, are so ubiquitous we rarely give them a second thought. Yet their impact transforms the way our world turns. Take the big boxy shipping container, for example.
Home owners eager to lessen their ecological footprint are generally unable to take an eco-house for a test drive. But they can experience a green display home and develop an appreciation for how responsible design can result in low impact living within a modern, comfortable abode. Warren McLaren describes just a smattering of the eco display homes with open doors.
