UK Green Building Design

 Eco home, is slowly gaining its importance of late, due to its cost effectiveness. An eco friendly home is other wise shortly known as eco home as its built keeping in mind the environmental factors, with its prime intention of environmental conservation. It is in the welfare of the nature and environment causing no harm to the environmental balance. In complete tandem with the environment to put it in simple words.

Making use of building materials which uphold the concept of nature and environment, and causes no harm to the environment at any given time. It is not only environment friendly, but is cost effective and gives a very homely and cosy feeling to your house. With an additional aesthetic appeal to the building. Also considered is the fuel, which is less harmful and leaves no fumes in the environment and plastic that won’t decompose in the environment if thrown away, if used it will be disposed in a safe manner so that it doesn’t affect the environment in any way. Enough care will be taken in case plastic is used. In addition to this, eco home products are used in some houses, which not only looks good, but also does good. Such as cork stool instead of plastic ones, alpaca cushions, buckram light, organic sheep skin.

Eco homes basically highlight the concept of sustainable building design and emphasizes on sustainable lifestyles. Such homes are carbon neutral; and make use of power (from a number of different green sources) efficiently and imaginatively; with beautiful furnishings.

Create a beautiful, peaceful sanctuary within your home. With eco friendly items from around the world, makes your eco living a real pleasure. The key aim behind such eco homes is conservation of environment and revolves around the concept sustainable building design and sustainable lifestyles. With limited resources around the world, one should consider conserving the environment which is endangered and is heading towards depletion. Take enough care when you build your homes and reach out to eco home experts, and be a fully aware citizen who is takes responsibility towards his own environment and creates that aesthetic appeal that his or her house deserves. You feel good about your house and make the environment also smile with no harm caused to it.

The rising population of the world has a very important role to play in this. This is where living in homes that are friendly to the environment becomes important. That is because these homes are saving what the world has so that the future generations won’t feel the pinch. Take a step towards building an eco friendly home!

By: Kirthy S

Ecohome Improvement

Ecohome Improvement is your source for ecological and healthy home improvement products for all size projects. From non-voc paint stains, sealers too recycled glass countertops & tiles too cork and bamboo floors too.

Your Eco-Friendly Home - Buying, & Building.

Living in an energy efficient home made of eco-friendly materials is fast becoming a dream for many of us. No longer do we wish for a perfectly trimmed lawn.   

Nottingham Eco-Home Makes Old Victorian Super Green

Victorian gingerbread detail If you sometimes feel like you’d have to move to have a more eco-friendly home, check out the Nottingham Eco-Home. An old Victorian townhouse was retrofitted to be a super green home. 

New carbon efficient eco retirement home

Thu 26 Feb 2009 - One of the few remaining highly environmentally unfriendly Concorde aircraft has been retired to a newly-built eco-home at the UK’s Manchester Airport.

Medieval-style Eco-home

Green Issues news - A zero-carbon eco-home designed by scientists at the University of Cambridge uses double glazing to retain heat from the sun, yet stay cool in summer.

Converting Your House Into An Eco Home

There are a lot of people who would like to live in eco homes. Many people are looking for ways to reduce their own environmental impact and environmentalism, like charity begins at home. 

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What is Green Flooring?
There are many factors that decide the degree to which a particular product is eco-friendly or "green." Some floors are considered "very green" while others are only "moderately green" and others not green at all. The following questions can be extremely helpful in determining a floor’s greenness.

Is the floor made from a renewable source?
Can the floor be recycled after its useful life?
Does the floor emit harmful levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)?
Is the floor made from recycled materials?
How was the raw product and the final product transported?
How was the flooring manufactured?

A Number of Factors to Consider
Eco-friendly flooring is good to the environment in a few different ways and is often a matter of opinion. In some cases it may be up to you to decide what green qualities you favor most. Transportation, for example, is an important aspect to a product’s eco-friendliness and one that is frequently overlooked.

Stone flooring, which one might think of as natural and green, is not generally considered green because high-intensive machines are needed to quarry and shape the stone. On the other hand, stone is usually sourced and manufactured locally, which means less distance it has to travel. In the end it’s a matter of measuring the amount of pollution from all machines and transportation involved in the process.

Green Flooring Options

Almost all floors can be made in a more green way. Although concrete is made with machines that contribute 5% of the world’s total CO2 emissions, it’s made locally and can be recycled at the end of its life. Tile flooring can be made from recycled tiles and even recycled glass. Carpet, once one of the main contributors to flooring landfill waste, can now be made with recycled plastic bottles and used at the end of its life cycle. Reclaimed hardwood flooring is becoming a popular alternative to new hardwood, and is taken from abandoned buildings, warehouses and barns.

Vinyl flooring is one floor that is left out of the "green club" as it’s made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a toxic building material. Tests show that PVC can outgas harmful chemicals for years after the vinyl flooring is installed. This not only creates an unhealthy indoor environment during its life, but also contributes to global warming once the floor is disposed of.

Cork, bamboo and linoleum pave the way for green flooring. All three floor types are sourced without harming the natural environment and share characteristics that are ideal for high-standard living. With these floors you can help the environment as well as enjoy a surface that’s hypoallergenic, antimicrobial and VOC-free. Of course, some manufacturers may use adhesives that contain a high level of VOCs, so consumers need to make sure they ask about this when purchasing.

How can you tell if a floor is green?
A number of organizations now give green labels to products that pass certain testing. Testing is different for every floor type. The Forest Stewardship Council, or the FSC, certifies hardwood flooring that’s made from socially and environmentally responsible forests. Carpet, on the other hand, is evaluated by the Carpet and Rug Institute’s Green Label program.

The Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a certification program developed by the U.S. Building Council to promote sustainable green building. While some organizations are only interested in specific building materials, LEED focuses on the building in its entirety. Buildings that are certified by LEED boast various benefits to the environment including conserving water and energy and reducing landfill waste.

In most cases, finding out if a floor is green may take some investigation on the part of the consumer. Use the preceding questions as a guideline when purchasing green flooring for your home. If you’re purchasing the flooring from a distributor, ask for the manufacturer’s contact information so you can ask them your questions directly.

Start Living Green
Start a life of green by donating your old floors to a local reclamation center. Every flooring type is disposed of differently; contact your manufacturer where you originally purchased the floor or do a local search online.

Find Green Flooring Information in One Place
It helps to have information from a reliable source to refer to when shopping for green flooring. FindAnyFloor.com (FAF), "The Web’s Flooring Authority," a site wholly dedicated to environmentally friendly flooring: Green.FindAnyFloor.com.

"Green.FindAnyFloor.com completes a trio of flooring information sites for our company," said FindAnyFloor.com founder and CEO Damien Patton. "FindAnyFloor.com was always intended to be the ultimate flooring site on the Internet for consumers. Pro.FindAnyFloor.com caters to flooring professionals. But our company is very environmentally conscious - right down to our in-house recycling and our purchasing of carbon credits. So it just made plain sense for us to put together Green.FindAnyFloor.com. While it will certainly continue to expand over coming months, I can honestly say that I think site visitors will be delighted from the outset with the depth and breadth of information, and how practical the site is."

As with its parent site, Green.FindAnyFloor.com is structured for easy use. Avoiding unnecessary "bells and whistles" and instead sticking with plain-English, neatly condensed information, the site guides the visitor through separate sections for a dozen of the most popular floors (including interesting choices like terrazzo), stockpiles of blogs and articles, analysis of supplemental flooring products (such as adhesives, trims and underlays), green organizations and standards, questions to ask retailers when buying flooring, and much more.

And, like its partner sites, Green.FindAnyFloor.com has been designed with accessibility in mind. There are approximately 60 million people in the United States alone with some form of disability. In the private sector, this fact is almost unacknowledged by companies with websites. Audio, visual, and mobility disabilities pose serious challenges for Internet users and these folks will find the FAF sites to be much more welcoming than most.

"We’re extremely proud of Green.FindAnyFloor.com because it’s a socially responsible website," said Patton. "But in these tough economic times, it also helps flooring consumers to be environmentally conscious and budget conscious at the same time. After all, there are few things in life that save you money better than good information."

Whether it’s the environment or the pocketbook, Green.FindAnyFloor.com offers flooring solutions that are kind to both.

By: Kirsten Kapson

Bamboo Flooring Reduces Health Risk

Flooring is the first thing that any visitor’s eyes will get stuck in the first entry. It is therefore a must to to have elegant floor for your home. Now, if you are in search for a nice option, then we advice bamboo flooring.

Things You Need to Know about Bamboo Flooring.

Bamboo flooring provides an excellent alternative to traditional hardwood flooring. Growing in popularity as an alternative, bmaboo flooring has many attractive features that make it a viable option for modern homeowners. …   Read more…

Cork and Bamboo Flooring.

Green Building Ideas is full of green resources, links, LEED info, Amazon books, Home Builders info, green building products and many more topics for green building.   

sustainable floors for eco-conscious homes

I’ve always known that laminate flooring is more plastic than wood so it’s not sustainable, it’s not eco-friendly and the melamine resin used contains formaldehyde, so it might be dangerous to one’s health.

Antique Pine Salvaged from a Demolition Site Becomes Eco-Flooring

Pioneer Millworks recently salvaged 50000 board feet of antique heart pine and white pine timbers from the old Delaware Hudson Rail Car Maintenance Shop in Oneonta, NY — part of the rai…   Read more…

Eco-friendly flooring is cozy and economical and suitable for …

Green living campaign has been very popular nowadays. Everyone seems very concerned about the earth, some of them are doing little thing but has a great impact to their life. Going green is somewhat more economical if we are able to …   Read more…

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We explore a recently proposed psycho-physiological way of measuring the space energy, vitality, or "consciousness" of a building. This modern research can be blended with an ancient spiritually-centered yet extant tradition of architecture - Vastu or Vedic Architecture - to culture harmony, peace, and the full creative potential of human life. We call this integrated architecture Integrous Vastu Vedic Architecture.

 

From Sick Building to Building for Wellness
We’ve all heard of "sick building syndrome" by now. So, how about "well building syndrome!" How far can we take architecture and the built environment in this direction? This article is going to explore a subtle and expansive view of "green building", and how it might be possible to blend human consciousness, the built environment, and the greater environment into a synergistic whole - a spiritual/holistic/integrous architecture, as it were. We call this architecture Integrous Vastu Vedic Architecture.

Creating Maximum Vitality in Our Living Space
What are we trying to get from architecture - certainly not just a "roof over our head". We would like to feel that life and relationships will prosper in the space we inhabit. This is the purpose of Integrous Vastu Vedic Architecture. It’s all about creating a  that has maximum "vitality" - has a "consciousness" that can fully support and nourish ours.

Inputs from Ancient Spiritually-Centered Architecture and Modern Psycho-Physiology
We shall explore how recent discoveries in psycho-physiology and an ancient architectural science of building and city design from the Vedic (ancient Indian) culture have come together to provide a design and construction system that promises to create space in which our potential for progress and growth - our spiritual advancement - may blossom fully.

The Power of Attention

A wise man once noted that whatever we put our attention on, its influence (its energy) will grow stronger and more potent in our life. Attention is always flowing out of us toward the environment. We spend so much time these days in, or interacting with, some part of the man-made environment - putting our attention consciously or unconsciously on it - that it is even more pressing to get the most out of our relationship with our surrounding man-made space.

The Continuous Impact of the Built Environment on Our Consciousness
The influence of architectural space is truly insidious. For good or bad it is quietly working its influence over us since we spend so much time in it, involved, one could say, with it. We hope to show how Integrous Vastu Vedic Architecture offers a systematic way of optimizing the influence on us of the built environment.

Ancient Vedic Culture, the Self, and Nature’s Intelligence
Many eons ago, the Rishis or "Seers" of the Vedic culture of ancient India came out with simple yet profound truths about the man-environment relationship and how to make it prosper. [Note: for the interest of our readers, Sanskrit words - Sanskrit being the language of the Vedic culture - are placed after the English definition.]

They basically observed that at the source of our thoughts, deep within the mind, we can contact the source of nature’s creativity. They called this area of life the "Self" (in English, Self with a capital "S") or Atma, and they went on to say that every individual’s Atma is totality - Brahman. All beings and structures of matter and energy in the universe share a common energetic source.

Integrous Vastu Architecture - Optimizing the Relationship between Man and Nature
Let’s apply this insight and cognition to architecture. Let’s get this common spiritual source and the principles governing its intelligence to "design" the space we live in and actively permeate it. This way we can always be one with that influence - unlimited energy, creativity, and intelligence. Integrous Vastu Vedic architecture is a design system that has come down from the insights and experience of the Vedic Rishis - ancient and modern.

Insights from Quantum Physics on the Source of Creation
Interestingly, modern quantum physics is also coming to a similar conclusion regarding the nature of the foundations of our physical universe. Deep inside every grain of physical existence at the Planck scale (a very small distance size of 10 to the minus 33 centimeters, that is 1 divided by the number 1 with 33 zeros after it parts of a centimeter) all the force and matter fields of nature are unified. This is the source of all of nature’s energy and creativity. From or within this unified field, the universe as we see it unfolds.

Films that Explore the Basis of Nature’s Intelligence and Human Consciousness
A recent film "What the Bleep Do We Know?" explored these ideas in modern language and caught the public imagination. Another fascinating view is the PBS series "The Elegant Universe" with superstring theorist Brian Greene.

The Relationship between Consciousness, the Body, and the Environment
Getting back to the Vedic Rishis, they were in touch with this unified field within their inner space - their minds. By getting to know their own inner space intimately, and its source, they were able to come to useful conclusions about the outer space of the body and environment, and how to link these inner and outer spaces positively so that we can fully enjoy the world we find ourselves in. From their deep meditations, the whole system of Yoga came out - the target always being to get the most out of life by developing our full potential.

The Vedic Goal of Life - Yoga: Union with Cosmic Intelligence - Enlightenment
They considered that full human potential was achieved when human consciousness is fully identified (24/7) with that totality of nature’s intelligence and its formidable cosmic organizing power! All desires - Kama, codes of ethical behavior - Dharma, amassment of resources or wealth - Artha, are aimed at this target, they said. A human soul fully resonant with this cosmic intelligence, this unified field, they called liberated, free - enlightened. We shall see how Integrous Vastu Architecture offers an environmental or living framework in which human prosperity can flourish and human consciousness may even achieve true unboundedness, freedom, liberation - Moksha.

Vedic "Technologies" for Mind, Body, Health, and Environment
All the technologies that have come out from the tradition of knowledge brought to light so long ago by the Vedic Rishis have always had as their bottom line this goal of full human blossoming. Yoga is for that, AyurVeda - the Vedic health care system - is for that, and Vastu - Vedic architecture (also called Sthapatya Veda and VastuVidya) - is for that. We could even call Integrous Vastu Vedic Architecture an environmental health-care system - optimizing space energy for clearer thinking, feeling, perception and holistic or integrous action.

Self-Realization through Designing Enlightening Spaces
Imagine: creating a space to live in that will spontaneously keep you in touch with who you are deep inside - the unified field.

Is It Worth the Effort Designing according to Vastu principles?
Well, it all sounds good in theory, but how can we know if it is worth the effort to apply the principles of building design laid out in the Vedic texts - the Vastu Shastras. Let’s look at some of these principles at this point.

Examples of Vastu Principles in Building Design

• Buildings should be oriented to the cardinal directions for best and harmonious influence, with doors only to East and North. Doors to the South should be avoided at all cost
• Sunrise with respect to a Vastu building should not be delayed more than a few minutes due to topographical features (such as hills etc.)
• Building sites should be flat or sloping down to the East, North East or North, but not sloping down in other directions
• Bodies of Water should be to the East, North East or North
• Vastu buildings should not be near graveyards, places of public entertainment/meeting, bars, slaughterhouses, nor near pylons and the high tension electric cables they are carrying (this last insight coming from the "modern" Rishis).

The Challenge of Creating Truly Spiritual Space
So many principles, all to create living spaces that will make life flourish. The challenge is finding suitable sites that fulfill all the conditions, and this is all in addition to the actual integrous design of Vastu buildings (involving often more than a thousand mathematical and geometric specifications and computations that require many decisions in their fine tuning). The modern Vastu architects can apply the various principles to the best of their traditional knowledge, with faith, but is the final design really able to deliver the promised effects?

Assistance from the Research of Dr. David Hawkins
Here the work of a modern psychiatrist should be mentioned - Dr. David Hawkins, MD, PhD. He showed that the simple kinesiological principle that the body reacts to a statement of truth by being strong and to a statement that is false by becoming weak could be used to develop a scale of consciousness. This scale of consciousness, or measure of energy, can be applied to validating the "truth" and effectively the energy of any "thing", be it an abstract idea, a person, a building - anything really.

The Kinesiological Response - Evaluating Energy and Consciousness
He found in his research that the kinesiological response of the human musculature was not a localized response involving just the body-mind of the tester but was the localized expression of the response of the entire field of universal consciousness (the unified field of nature’s energy). His books are a great read and provide a fertile ground for scientific research in the future for serious scientists (and skeptics) who wish to explore the mind-body-environment connection.

Applying Kinesiology to Optimize the Influence of Living Space
Applied to architecture, we immediately have a way of testing if land and environment is appropriate for development or redevelopment, and how its energy or consciousness tallies with the needs of the client. We now have a practical tool to evaluate how effective a building or space, and the land it occupies, might be in supporting the life of the inhabitants.

We also now have a way of not just following tradition in "blind faith" but a way of measuring how specific Vastu principles and computations can optimize the living space - the space energy. We even have a method of deciding which tradition of Vastu or any architectural system, for that matter, would prove the most appropriate for a particular time, place, and client.

The "Feel" of Vastu and Evaluating Space Energy
One can feel the nourishing effect of a Vastu building with an East or North entrance. One can certainly evaluate the energy or "consciousness" of the space within the building via the Scale of Consciousness and kinesiology. But these subjective measures can also be tested via objective scientific research - yet to be done.

Scientific Research on Vastu Principles
One can perform research on how Vastu can improve the quality of life by taking, for example, just one principle of Vastu: auspicious door entrances. Take a city laid out on a North-South East-West road grid and see if the people using the South entrances and West entrances of their homes and offices are having a harder time in life (through appropriately designed questionnaires) compared to people with North and East entrances.

Summary
In this first article, we have explored the relationship between the space we live in and the unified field of nature’s intelligence, energy, and power. We have talked about how it might be possible to entrain that energy into our living space and lives via an ancient system of spiritual architecture called Vastu or Vedic Architecture. Principles of Vastu - Vedic Architecture - are joined with kinesiological methods numerically evaluating the energy or consciousness of buildings (through the Scale of Consciousness developed by Dr. David Hawkins) to create a modern holistic architectural system. This system is called in this article "Integrous Vastu Vedic Architecture". Thus, we have a basic way of constructively tuning the built environment to both the outer space of our environment and the inner space of our mind and personal consciousness. In this way, architecture can promise to expand our life towards the state of full human potential called enlightenment.

More articles will follow going more deeply into the principles of Integrous Vastu Vedic Architecture.

References

Scale of Consciousness
Research by Dr. David Hawkins, MD, PhD
VeritasPub.com

Superstrings
A quantum mechanical theory of the unified field
PBS.org

Leading Vastu Architect in the Tamil Tradition of India
An Introduction to Ganapati Sthapati
TamilNation.org

Leading Vastu Architect in the Kerala Tradition of India
An Introduction to Kanippayyur Krishnan Namboothiripad
KeralaTourism.org

Vastu Texts
Vedic architectural background reading by modern authors
ChooseTeacher.com

Vastu in the News
The Return of the Temple Arts
HinduismToday.com

Integrous Vastu Vedic Architecture
http://blogcolony.com/access/MAILTO:info@IntegrousVastuArchitecture.com

By Lakeraj Dikshin
Published: 5/1/2007

Sparks of Light » Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da (non tradotto)

Gordon.Dalaya incorporated principles of Vedic or vaastu design, based on ancient Hindu texts. "We’re not Vedic architects per se," KGD principal Tsutomu Ben Kishimoto says. "…   Read more…

The first house of Vedic astrology gives the high prediction

Dr.Rajendra Raaj Sudhanshu is the astrologer of India who practices “stellar KP system (vedic), on, Medical astrology, Astro-Vastu, Indian astrology, Vedic astrology. For more you vi fef sit …   Read more…

Vastu: Indian Feng Shui

Vaastu is the science of the ‘living place’ or the dwelling. It can be compared to the Chinese Fung Shui. It focuses on harmonizing life according to the architecture, interior design and the …   Read more…

Health, Wealth and Vastu: VASTU

Vastu encourages you to imitate Nature and divine Creation by beautifying your own spaces. References. This article was originally published at the American Institute of Vedic Studies. …   Read more…

Authenticity Of Vastu Science of Indian architecture

Vastu is one of the most ancient sciences of Indian architecture and is composed of specific rules, regulations and directions, set down by sages of the vedic times. For the modern society it …   Read more…

vastu consultation service - Planning the house or office

Vaasthu sastra. Atharva Veda Vaasthu shastra is the science of direction that combines all the five elements of nature, namely earth, water, air, fire and space and uses them to the benefit of humank…   Read more…

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