Located in North London on a site flanked by a railway embankment, the Keyhole House is a 3 storey ‘eco friendly’ single family project by the Crawford Partnership.

The house is accessed by a narrow ‘undercroft’ passage – not much more than an alley – between two neighboring houses, which creates an interesting entry into the project. Due to the site constraints, the house occupies the entire available plot – and creates an internal covered access ‘gallery’, which is top lit, that leads to the main house from the street.

From the street the house has almost no presence – simply a new doorway between existing homes. upon entering into the site, and the ‘access gallery’, one approaches a distinctly modern structure – open plan at ground floor, with full height continuous windows along the tree lines railway embankment, which provides natural shading to the home.

As previously mentioned, the project is ‘eco friendly’ – designed with triple glazed windows with external copper mesh shutters to balance solar gain, a green roof & grey water recycling system, a ground source heat pump system along with some solar hot water heating, and photovoltaic panels to generate a portion of the projects electricity.

Crawford Partnership is a small [10 people] firm in the London, founded by Alan Crawford in 1995.

‘Our projects are driven by a clear and concise design philosophy that is concerned with maximising opportunities to create interesting spaces and forms that combine dramatic use of materials and light, and address issues of sustainability and energy efficiency.’ – Alan Crawford, 2007 [from homepage].

::project via MoCo Loco::

::info and images from the crawford partnership::

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/vanke_center.php

Where Steven Holl Architects’ Linked Hybrid in Beijing envisions a system of residential towers connected by bridges like a dance circle, their new Shenzhen project, set for completion next year, lingers above the ground like a cubist flying dragon.

::more at treehugger::

‘Array Scottsdale’ is a condo project by Modus Development and architects [merz] project. Working with infill sites in areas that will both benefit from new development, and also have the infrastructure/community in place to support additional housing, Modus and [merz] design/build modern, green, housing.

The ‘Array Scottdale’ is made up of 9 townhouses, each with its own 2-kilowatt photovoltaic system – expected to generate about 28,800 kilowatt hours annually, offsetting around 30,000 pounds of CO2. Each unit will be around 1,800 SF – 2 bedrooms, den/office, 2.5 baths and a detached 2 car garage.

In addition to the PV panels on the roofs of the units, the project incorporates the use of ‘green’ building strategies & materials, and also uses passive heating and cooling techniques. Due to its ‘green’ considerations, the array is the first condo project to achieve Scottsdale’s ‘Advanced’ Green Building Rating and LEED accreditation.

My question is this: if ‘green’ design is the issue, and the development is within a ‘walkable’ part of the city [which [merz] says it is] – then why the 2 car garage? I’m just saying – why encourage multiple cars, and actually build spaces for them, when ‘green’ is your goal.

::via Jetson Green::

Lighting is a HUGE drain on power all over the world – with people leaving their home lights on at all times, retail spots actually needing lighting for such large portions of the day, and many buildings just never having their lights turned out [because of how long it takes them to heat up or something? seems like a stupid reason to me…].

So what’s the solution? Turn off the lights when you leave a room, set timers, use energy efficient lamps, etc etc etc…all great suggestions. A better solution tho, for those buildings that need lighting during the daylight hours, is to actually harness the light of the sun – and redirect it into your interiors.

We bring you “Hybrid Solar Lighting‘, from Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s ‘Solar Technologies Program’ – fiber optics that are connected to a ’solar collector’ [which tracks the sun’s position throughout the day], which filters the visible light into a fiber optic receiver. These fiber optics are then fed throughout the building, and the natural sunlight is blended with the standard florescent interior lighting – creating a more natural lighting condition within the building. This is not only saving some users up to 60% on their electrical bills, but is also increasing sales in some retail spaces [40% more?], and helping to address issues such as S.A.D. [seasonal effective disorder].

I know the image above is fuzzy – but follow it’s link, or this one, to view a pretty interesting video on this new solar technology.

::thanks to Austin and our archininjas over at SOSH for the link::

ed. note: welcome to my first post on my new macbook! my previous myninjapleasin’ machine, a toshiba satellite, suffered a terrible death on tuesday while I was at work [full glass of water on the keyboard = you need a new laptop, apparently].