Home Style Green - Sustainable Design and Building

Wolfgang Feist is attributed as the co-founder of Passive House along with Bo Adamson. Feist, a German physicist collaborated with Adamson from Sweden in 1988 to developed a number of ultra-low energy research buildings.

Passive House is now 25 years strong and at the time of recording, Wolfgang was preparing to attend the 20th International Passive House Conference back where it all began in Darmstadt, Germany.

http://homestylegreen.com/156

Direct download: 156_Wolfgang_Feist.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:35pm NZDT

It’s tempting to say that Prefab’s time has come, but I don’t think this does justice to prefabricated building. As Pamela Bell has explained previously on the Home Style Green Podcast, Prefab is not new. But the enthusiasm shown during this week’s PrefabNZ CoLab event here in Auckland suggest that prefab will play an increasingly important role in the delivery of buildings.

Some would even go so far as to say, there’s a revolution about to happen!

Here are some of my highlights from a well attended and inspiring conference.

http://homestylegreen.com/155

Direct download: 155_PrefabNZ_CoLab_2016.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:28am NZDT

Adaptive architecture and innovative insights from California, with Matthew Baran of Baran Studio Architecture.

http://www.baranstudio.com/

http://homestylegreen.com/154 

 

Direct download: 154_Baran_Studio.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:53am NZDT

Paul Dowsett and his team at Sustainable.To are dedicate to creating affordable, healthy and energy efficient homes, because that's what Paul believes is 'the right thing to do'.

And as for the extra cost? Listen in to find out...

http://www.sustainable.to/
http://homesteylgreen.com/153

Direct download: 153_SustainableTO.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:52pm NZDT

Remember when the main choice you had for light bulbs was 60 Watts or 100 Watts? Things have progressed a long way since then, and mostly for the better, especially when you consider that the average incandescent light bulb is only about 10% efficient. Most of the energy ends up as heat rather than light.
Now we've transitioned through compact fluorescents (CFLs) to light emitting diodes (LEDs), there's a lot more to understand about what makes a good light.

In this episode, I speak with David Maunsell from Switch Lighting to uncover the details about why some LEDs are much higher quality than others. Unfortunately it's still the Wild West out there in lighting retail land. Hopefully this can help you figure out what's important for lighting.

http://www.switch-lighting.co.nz/
http://homestylegreen.com/152

Direct download: 152_Switch_Lighting.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:20pm NZDT

There's so much that could be said about two days of great Passive House presentations in Melbourne, but I've challenged myself to boil it down to one point per presentation. If there was one takeaway from the second South Pacific Passive House Conference, it was that Passive House has arrived in the Southern Hemisphere and it's going to grow, because it works!

http://homestylegreen.com/151

Direct download: 151_SPPH_2016.mp3
Category:Passivhaus -- posted at: 11:29am NZDT

Glenn Harley is a builder of energy efficient homes in Canterbury. After being attracted to the natural, healthy feel of strawbale construction, Glenn now produces high performance homes with lots of insulation and airtight envelopes.

http://harleybuilders.co.nz/

http://homestylegreen.com/150

Direct download: 150_Glenn_Harley.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:53am NZDT

In the town of Invermere, about 3 hours west of Calgary in British Columbia, there's a workshop where high performance, energy efficient homes are constructed all year round, regardless of the weather. 

http://collectivecarpentry.com

http://homestylegreen.com/149

Direct download: 149_Collective_Carpentry.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:03am NZDT

Graham Hunt goes into a lot of detail when researching the local climate that will impact the comfort of a home. Designing for your climate includes an analysis of both the macro - the temperature, rainfall and humidity of the region, but also the micro - the local wind, shading and exposure of a particular site.

We discuss why this is important and how to do some of the basics.

http://homestylegreen.com/148
http://gehunt.com.au

Direct download: 148_Graham_Hunt_Climate_Responsive_Design.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:21am NZDT

Who's the most influential person in a real estate development, the architect, the owner, the builder...? What about the developer?

Real estate developers are often seen as the bad guys, out to make a bunch of money without really caring about the quality of homes of lifestyles resulting from their work. Steve Glenn's philosophy however is that developers have a huge potential to control what gets created in real estate and he's passionate about creating a good product. The mission of Living Homes LLC is "...to create homes and communities that inspire people, foster family and community interaction, and make modern life easier, healthier and more comfortable..."

http://livinghomes.net
http://homestylegreen.com/147

Direct download: 147_Living_Homes.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am NZDT