Home Style Green - Sustainable Design and Building

What's self-help housing and why is it important?

Canopy Housing Project is a self-help housing organisation based in Leeds, U.K., creating decent homes by renovating derelict ones. Steve Hoey has been running Canopy Housing for the last six years and I asked him why he does what he does. 

Also in this episode, the five essentials of self-help housing and Steve's great book recommendation.

http://canopyhousing.org

Direct download: 75_Self_Help_Housing.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:33am NZDT

Would you buy a prefabricated, modular home made in China?

Ecotech Homes are versatile, modular housing solutions. I caught up with their Major Project Director, Craig Nisbet just before he took off to Ghana to talk about prefabricated, affordable, quality homes.

I found out there are some good reasons to consider factory built, modular homes.

Direct download: 74_Ecotech_Homes.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:12am NZDT

'Affordable housing' is a term that's often misused to describe only the purchase price of a house. But to be truly affordable, the total cost of living in that house needs to be considered, including commuting, power bills and other utilities, maintenance and even health.

Daiman Otto understands that affordable housing means more than just supplying houses cheaply.

Daiman's involved in a number of exciting projects and he explains them much better than I could, so click on the links below to find out more:

  • CABA: Beautiful, affordable architecture
  • ARKit: Advanced prefabricated architecture
  • Analogue Structures: prefab Skunk Works combining resource efficiency, open source, micro-buildings, 3D & CNC technology and entrepreneurship
  • DKOtto.com
Direct download: 73_Affordable_Housing__Prefab_with_Daimon_Otto.mp3
Category:Prefab -- posted at: 9:59pm NZDT

Jessica Eyers is a passionate advocate for sustainable, green design. As I discovered during this interview, Jessica is also really interested in the science of green building and understanding what works and what doesn't work.

For more, go to http://homestylegreen.com/72

Direct download: 72_Green_Building_Design.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:40pm NZDT

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