Photo by Nin Solis – Living Inside
Article by Anna Bisazza

Deep in the Mexican countryside of Valle de Bravo — a lush escape about two hours’ drive from Mexico City — Emiliano Garcia and Helene Carlo found the perfect spot to build an eco home. Partners in life and in ASPJ, a Mexican architecture and landscape design studio, the couple had a burning question: can we build more sustainably and cheaper, and in a way that can be widely copied?

The main structural element is a concrete cube that supports the rest of the house.

“It was important for us to prove its feasibility and to be able to make our structure replicable, not only a one-of-a-kind,” says Garcia. The couple are keen for this type of building to become the rule rather than the exception.

La Lomita is named for its hilltop position, from where it looks out on to the picturesque surrounding mountains from its secluded spot, and is accessed by a small dirt road. The structure is distinguished by an unusual single arched roof and an open facade with corrugated metal finishing that loosely evokes the image of an aircraft hangar, but there are many other experimental features meticulously planned by Garcia and Carlo that are not immediately obvious.

“Being able to take weight off the building, bringing it to half of what it would normally be in a conventional build, was a really successful outcome,” says Garcia. The main structural element is a concrete cube that encloses two bathrooms and the staircase. It supports the rest of the house, which is built primarily in wood. “This means we’re not intervening heavily in the foundation by digging deep into the ground and building concrete slab layers. Here, we managed to separate the house from the ground, only attaching it to the necessary structural points.”

A second critical aspect for Garcia and Carlo was the traceability of materials and controlling as much as possible their impact on the environment. To build the columns, floors and walls — which amounts to 70% of the house — they used recycled laminated wood made from boxes for the transport of car parts in Volkswagen and Audi factories. “This is FSC-certified wood from Europe and we’re giving it a second use as OSB [oriented strand board], a material that is gaining popularity these days.”

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/25/ready-to-soar-inside-a-dramatic-eco-home-in-mexico

NYTimes
By Ivan Penn
March 13, 2022

“Citing more blackouts, wildfires and higher electricity rates, a growing number of homeowners are choosing to build homes that run entirely on solar panels and batteries.”

NEVADA CITY, Calif. — In the Gold Rush, Northern California attracted prospectors looking for financial independence. Now, this area is at the vanguard of a new movement — people seeking to use only the energy they produce themselves.

Angry over blackouts, wildfires caused by utilities and rising electricity bills, a small but growing number of Californians in rural areas and in the suburbs of San Francisco are going off the grid. They can do so because of a stunning drop in the cost of solar panels and batteries over the last decade. Some homeowners who have built new, off-grid homes say they have even saved money because their systems were cheaper than securing a new utility connection.

www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/business/energy-environment/california-off-grid.html

From Maui Surfer

Dear Lloyd,

Thank you for your amazing blog. Here is a photo of New Zealand’s first off-grid coffee bar, I thought you might like it.

Kind regards,
Bill (Choquette)

Solar panels cover the roof of UCI’s Student Center Parking Structure. A new study co-authored by Steven Davis, associate professor of Earth system science, shows that the U.S. can meet 80 percent of its electricity demand with renewable solar and wind resources. Steve Zylius / UCI

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 27, 2018 – The United States could reliably meet about 80 percent of its electricity demand with solar and wind power generation, according to scientists at the University of California, Irvine; the California Institute of Technology; and the Carnegie Institution for Science.

However, meeting 100 percent of electricity demand with only solar and wind energy would require storing several weeks’ worth of electricity to compensate for the natural variability of these two resources, the researchers said.

“The sun sets, and the wind doesn’t always blow,” noted Steven Davis, UCI associate professor of Earth system science and co-author of a renewable energy study published today in the journal Energy & Environmental Science. “If we want a reliable power system based on these resources, how do we deal with their daily and seasonal changes?”

The team analyzed 36 years of hourly U.S. weather data (1980 to 2015) to understand the fundamental geophysical barriers to supplying electricity with only solar and wind energy.
Read More …

As I’ve said before, this is the 21st century online Whole Earth Catalog. Same M.O.: People like us writing reviews of cool stuff for other people like us. It’s embarrassing how many things I’ve obtained after reading about them here. These aren’t frivolous purchases; all the stuff is useful to me, stuff I’d never have known about otherwise.

I must point out I have a massive conflict of interest here. I’ve written a lot of CT reviews, and these guys are good friends.

That said, I periodically want to turn people onto this rich source of ad-free advice. It’s just madly useful. Take a look: https://kk.org/cooltools

Write a review and they’ll send you an email of new tools weekly.