neoli

Blog

LEED Now Encourages Cradle to Cradle Certification

As we wait for the November launch of LEED v4, it’s worth noting that our favorite sustainable building rating system now includes Cradle to Cradle Certification. This is the result of a majority vote (a whopping 85{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab}) by members of…

neoli24 July 2013

Blog

Living Simply in a Small, Simple House

A recent trip to Davao, a city in Mindanao, Philippines made us realize the various degrees of sustainable living. As with any city, the farther you get from the center, the simpler the people’s lifestyle becomes. Farther still—in the outer…

neoli20 July 2013

Blog

Saving Elephants Through Radioactive Carbon

Yes, this is supposed to be a blog on sustainable building, but once in a while let’s veer away from all that and delve into something about the natural world. Specifically, saving elephants. A baby elephant follows its parent. (Image…

neoli12 July 2013

Blog

Green Museum for a Green World

Seasoned travelers know well enough to stay away from museums when visiting a new city. It’s in the outdoors where life and culture thrives, they argue. Not within the safe, enclosed walls of buildings. But there is still something to…

neoli3 July 2013

Blog

Quick Green Buildings in a Fast-Paced World

The quest to raise the world’s tallest skyscraper is officially on. Named Sky City, the 220-floor green building is an ambitious well-intentioned project by the Chinese firm Broad Sustainable Construction. After much delay from securing construction permits and other bureaucratic…

neoli11 June 2013

Blog

Edible Landscapes for Our Office Building Gardens

We’re used to seeing PETA vegan campaigns featuring celebrities clad only in various produce. This time around, the Virginia-based animal rights organization is giving us an idea of the scope in which veganism is currently embraced by all of America. …

neoli8 June 2013

Blog

Spray-On Solar Cell Prepares to Make a Debut

Traditional silicon-wafer cells and thin-film solar cells have an upcoming rival—solar cells of the spray-on kind. Spray-on solar cells for glass windows (Image from newenergytechnologies.com) Since 2010, New Energy Technologies based in Columbia, Maryland has been busy developing their breakthrough…

neoli31 May 2013

Blog

Let’s Have Bird-Friendly Buildings Once and for All

In the U.S., as many as one billion birds die each year from accidentally colliding into glass windows of buildings. We can’t get our head around this number—one billion—and yet that number apparently is already a conservative estimate. The Aqua…

neoli23 May 2013

Blog

Smart Paint, Carbon Dioxide, and the Building Sector

One of the more disheartening news reports we read about last week was the one about carbon dioxide reaching a new record level—400 parts per million, as measured in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii. For scientists and environmentalists, this…

neoli18 May 2013

Blog

Upping Our Cities’ Walk Score | Why Walkability Matters

In Ray Bradbury’s classic novel Fahrenheit 451, there is a teenage girl named Clarisse McClellan who likes to walk while everyone else drives around in their big, important cars. Actually, they don’t just drive around; they zoom, as fast as…

neoli9 May 2013