Cleaner Greener China

For anyone looking to come down from 30,000 feet to get their hands dirty with Green Buildings, then I recommend checking out this Saturday’s GIGA event (1:00 – 5:30pm).
Full details are at their website (click here), but here is the basics:

Schedule:
13:00 – 13:30: registration and networking
13:30 – 13:45: event introduction and welcome
13:45 – 14:20: case [...]

Was walking through Lujiazui this afternoon and notice this sign in front of Super Brand Mall.  Good to see that in an area that seems to see a new sete of cranes every week someone is advertising they are going LEED.
Perhaps, they can catalyze a competition among developers?  Or perhaps the mayor will just follow [...]

Less than 6 months away, a lot of discussion surrounding the Shanghai EXPO’s green content has been taking place as the pavilions are close to being finished, and a number of initiatives by the various pavilions have themselves looked to show their “green”.
… and there is also the UNEP Expo Report, which spends 150 pages [...]

“China’s Urban Billion” – Episode Teaser from Green Dragon Media on Vimeo.

Here are a few from the Chengdu Jinjiang Express hotel.
At 120 RMB a night, the 12 sqm hotel room was literally was packing in as much efficiency as possible.
Building materials aside (I thought it best not to rip open a wall), I give the hotel credit on a number of fronts.
1) Double Paned Windows
2) Water [...]

When researching sustainability in the building sector, one will come across a lot of new technologies for how buildings can be made better… meters, cement, solar panels, insulation, and so on.
However, at the same time as we are celebrating these technologies and the architects who are able  to incorporate them into their buildings, it is [...]

In another, don’t pop the bubbly story, Patel Architecture Inc. announced that they have completed the design of a 5-Star China Hotel To Be Carbon-Neutral
For those of you who are saying… Wait a minute, URBN hotel in Shanghai is the first carbon neutral hotel, you would be right… and wrong.
Where this story really is interesting, [...]

In another example of the fact that anything is possible through technology, money, and design, Coop Himmelblau has put forward this creation:
The facade’s design is driven by solar and wind powered energy generation. The second skin of the building will be lined with photovoltaic cells and will feature mechanisms to provide natural ventilation, reduce wind [...]

With so much of China’s energy waste coming from its buildings (up to 70%), building, operating, and maintaining efficient buildings will need to become a greater focus within China’s overall sustainability strategy.
It is a topic that Edward Ziegler has studied and written some excellent articles on, and it is a the focus of a 518,000 [...]

With dozens of cities in China urbanizing all at the same time, and at a pace matched at no time by anyone else, making sure cities are planned and built properly is a must.