Can One Call Mitch Kapor’s Berkeley House "Green"?

Kapor Klein House model, Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects There is a fight going on in Berkeley, over the construction of a house for Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus and creator of Lotus 123, the program that made personal computers useful. Neighbours, architects and others call it “absurd” that the house should be called green, saying its 10,000 square feet is far too big. One neighbour complains that “green building begins with using ‘just enough’ and preserving what already exists.

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Can One Call Mitch Kapor’s Berkeley House "Green"?

SolidWorks Sustainability Software Helps Designers Make The Greenest Products (Video)

Images via SolidWorks How can designers make products that they can be sure have a minimized environmental footprint? The software they use during the design phase can make all the difference.

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SolidWorks Sustainability Software Helps Designers Make The Greenest Products (Video)

EU Says It Will Back Bluefin Tuna Trade Ban – And Then There Was Japan…

photo: Yusuke Kawasaki via flickr. The US has agreed to back an international ban on trade in critically endangered bluefin tuna , and now the European Union nations will do so as well, with Malta being the only dissenting vote.

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EU Says It Will Back Bluefin Tuna Trade Ban – And Then There Was Japan…

How Cisco’s Packaging Diet Saves $24 Million a Year

The technology giant has implemented three best practices as part of a sustainability pilot project that are netting huge savings in materials and transportation costs as well as waste management.

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How Cisco’s Packaging Diet Saves $24 Million a Year

Underwater Skyscraper is a Self-Sufficient City at Sea

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Underwater Skyscraper is a Self-Sufficient City at Sea

Core77 Design Contest Winners Tend To Tents

The results of Core77’s One hour design challenge are in , and I am pleased to note that I called it, picking the Lifetent for our earlier post. I was really hoping that none of the many container versions would make it into the finals; as Cameron Sinclair noted three years ago in ICON: “Every designer in design school wants to do these sorts of projects, and there’s no benc…

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Core77 Design Contest Winners Tend To Tents

Lifetent: A Portable Emergency Shelter That Folds Into a Backpack

Core77 ’s latest 1 Hour Design Challenge asked designers to create solutions for pop up emergency shelters to aid those afflicted by a natural disaster such as the Haiti earthquake . Winners were just announced , and Dan Ostrowski took home the honor with his Lifetent, a portable shelter packed into a backpack that also can carry a water supply

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Lifetent: A Portable Emergency Shelter That Folds Into a Backpack

$16,064 ‘Sofa Boat’ is All-Electric, But Still Just a Floating Sofa

Unveiled at the Abu Dhabi Yacht Show , this all-electric “ Sofa Boat ” is quite an, er, interesting concept. Touted as a “3.5m floating fun platform,” the boat can run for 12 hours on a fully charged battery and is zero-emissions.

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$16,064 ‘Sofa Boat’ is All-Electric, But Still Just a Floating Sofa

IBM Developing Chips That Carry Information Using Pulses of Light

At the moment, electrical signals transfer information between computer chips using copper wires–a process that sucks up a lot of energy. But now researchers from IBM have developed a process that scraps the copper wires completely and instead uses pulses of light to communicate

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IBM Developing Chips That Carry Information Using Pulses of Light

US EPA to Ease Carbon Rules on Small Businesses

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testified in front of a Senate appropriations subcommittee Wednesday about the EPA’s planned carbon permit policy . Last year Jackson told lawmakers the EPA would regulate all businesses with emissions above 25,000 tons per year.

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US EPA to Ease Carbon Rules on Small Businesses

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