These are just a handful of the amazing homes entered in the Solar Decathlon, a global competition to design the most efficient and sustainable solar powered house. Check out more photos and coverage of the event at Inhabitat.

This new interactive data visualization for GE is a pretty neat way to calculate which household items are most costly in terms of watts, dollars, or gallons of gas. By clicking on and off the icons, you can customize it for your own home. Apparently heating and cooling appliances (central air, water heater, furnace) are the biggest hogs in your house, so they should get the most attention. The site also shows how long it would take for a new Energy Star appliance to pay for itself in savings.

The design of the site is by none other than Pentagram. Check out some of the nice icons they made below.

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Domestic Transformer

Holy minimalism! Hong Kong architect Gary Chang is a master of efficient living. Using a sliding wall system and smart lighting solutions, he can convert his tiny apartment into 24 different rooms.

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These are some pretty sexy looking conceptual illustrations for Infinite Harvest, a Colorado based organic farming venture. With ambitious plans that include vertical farming techniques and renewable energy sources, Denver design studio Legwork helped create a futuristic vision of sustainable urban agriculture.

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Model Town

An awesome illustration by Leif Parsons for a GOOD magazine article:

When you look at places like Chicago’s Millennium Park or the High Line in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, what stands out is how marvelously nature and urban density can interact—and how that union can serve community gatherings.

A great looking poster by Petter Ringbom for Green Patriot Posters.

How cool looking is this new green-roofed apartment building in Amsterdam? More info and photos here.

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Great signage for Vancouver’s Olympic transit line. From an interesting interview with the city’s planning director on preparing for the Olympics and beyond:

All of our facilities are readily convertible into civic and community uses. We know how our facilities are going to be used the day after the Olympics are done, essentially. And they’re all part of making our livable city even more livable.

Behold, the home of the future. This model of sustainable living is currently on display in downtown Vancouver. Made from two shipping containers and wrapped in cedar and pine beetle wood, the home features local and recycled materials, energy-efficient appliances, solar panels, and a green wall on the exterior that shows how you could insulate the structure from hot and cold temperatures.

Via Jetson Green:

Perhaps the size of the home alone is a good signal of the form shelter will take in years to come.  It’s a mere 680 square feet, which is quite different from the average home of today.

More info on the home at BC Hydro

I’m pretty in love with the concept of IdeaPaint, which you can use to turn any paintable surface into a dry-erase board. I’m not sure why this hasn’t existed for years already, but it’s good to see that it’s out there now. It looks like it takes a bit of time to install, but it’s half the cost of a whiteboard, better-performing, more environmentally-friendly, and you can fill your entire wall with it.

Has anyone used IdeaPaint yet?

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