Tis the Season

As the Holidays draw closer gifts come to mind, and what could be better than a brand new magazine by yours truly, thats right our magazine is here, for your loved ones. You can find us on magcloud.com, and purchase your very own terra magazine.


Keep it Eco- Friendly Guys
Rapier, Romulus and River

The First Priest of Junk!

    Before we get this started, I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to Vince Hannemann, for being a lovely and willing interview-ee for this awkward interviewer.
    And now... Welcome, friends, to the Religion of Junk. This innovative new belief system is centered around a cathedral, located in south Austin, a religion that puts the highest of regards on beauty, architecture, recycling, sustainability, and most of all, JUNK. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you, The Cathedral of Junk! 
  Yes, yes, I know. This may not be an "actual religion". However, Vince Hannemann, creator of the famous Cathedral, has put new meaning to the words 'junk'. His 30-foot high, structurally sound, tower of so-called trash shows us that one man's trash, truly is another man's treasure. Mr. Hannemann uses C.D.s as a beautiful decoration, tires embedded in cement to pave walkways, and pieces of corrugated tin roofs, screen doors, wooden fencing, and pads to make a small hut. Empty bottles? set in concrete to create a striking wall. He even found moving pods, 5 for $25 bucks, and made storage sheds out of them. So, in the words of the King of Junk himself, "Just because someone's giving it away, doesn't mean it's junk". So, keep recycling, always reuse, and never pass up free samples at a grocery store. Thanks for reading, my charming followers, and until next time....
                  This is River, over and out! 


     
         

Topping It Off with Green

I spend a lot of time in downtown Austin and one of my favorite places to grab a bite is Austin Java in City Hall. Now the bathrooms in City Hall have always amused me, they have a two way flush to conserve water. These bathroom appliances intrigued me and so I decide to do some investigation. It turns out that City Hall does a lot more than up for one and down for two to help the environment.
The feature I find most amazing is the green roof. This covering over the front plaza not only provides shade for pedestrians on a hot summer day, but helps to filter the air, and storm water. The roof is made of various ground foliation over a strong yet thin membrane. The plants filter CO2 out of the air and put oxygen back in, and they filter storm water. This storm water is then collected and used to irrigate the various garden plots on the City Hall plaza. To learn more about the wonderful conserving ways check out City Hall’s site or look for a feature in city hall in Terra’s magazine in December.

Keep it  Eco-friendly Guys

Rapier

Agave...The Picture Of Green Design

10 minutes from ABIA... 6 miles from downtown ... attractive pricing... these are only a few qualities of the agave neighborhood. Agave is not what one would normally consider as a "normal neighborhood". The modern styled houses of the neighborhood separate it from the average bland neighborhoods. These homes have brightly colored exteriors, innovative floor plans and interesting landscapes.

These houses are landscaped with plants native to Texas, which in and of itself contributes to the overall goal of helping the environment. These plants require no more water or sunlight than what they already receive from this climate, reducing the amount of water normally used to water plants.

Agave homes also include a variety of green architectural techniques, such as spray foam installation and green appliances such as on demand water heaters and low flow toilets. The more green you put into the house the more "green" you're spending, right? WRONG!!! Designing smaller houses and not using extra material inside the home helps to keep the price of these houses from going out of control.

You may be asking yourself why do I need to buy a new house to be green? The answer is that you don't. You can swap out some of you appliances for energy star appliances and replace your old installation material with a more environmentally friendly kind and a number of other things. You could in theory give your home a green makeover, but in some cases it would be easier to build a completely new house from the ground up and make it green.

The next time you're in the area, drive through the neighborhood. It might not be your style in particular, but it may inspire you to consider sustainable architecture. Plus the houses are really cool, but that's just icing on top of the cake.

Stay Eco-Friendly Guys,
~Romulus

Green Living Fun Fact!

Hey terra-fanatics

Did you know...

A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

☺Romulus☺

***By the way...those smiley faces are not because I like contaminated fresh water, just saying.

Living Walls 101

Now, before we go any further, I’d just like to make one thing clear. This has nothing to do with the parlor walls from Fahrenheit 451, so you can take some deep breaths, and put your apocalypse pants back in the closet. So, what are living walls? Well, thank you for asking, dear readers. A living wall is a vertical garden that can be hung in or outside a building, in which the vegetation can grow, if given plenty of water, without soil. We can all concede that these would be a beautiful addition to a city scape, but you may be asking why these would be otherwise beneficial. Well, don't panic, because I'm here to tell you!

-Improved Air Quality: on both indoor and outdoor living walls, the plants will improve your air quality through biofiltration

-Space: in a packed urban environment, this is the perfect way to maximize space usage, and let all the apartment owners out there grow that garden they always wanted

-Insulation: outdoor living walls with both insulate and shade your house, and indoor living walls will provide insulation. This can dramatically cut your heating bill, and work to muffle the noise from the street

-Wildlife: the plants in your living wall may be visited by friendly woodland creatures, such as birds or butterflies

-Food! I know you all love food, and what better way to grow your own delicious fresh fruits and vegetables than this? well, this blogger doesn't know of one

-Beauty: Of course, these look amazing!

Well, now that you're convinced that these are the future of green architecture, there's only one thing you still need to know... How to make your own! 

And now, truly thou art the ecological architects of the 'morrow. Adieu lovely readers, faithful friends, and 'til next time... STAY GREEN!

River, away!

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

Hey Guys --

International Listings created an article naming and describing 10 beautiful houses made out of what most would consider trash. If you're looking for a way to make your lifestyle more green check out these homes and see what some people came up with...

Earthships...

In Taos, New Mexico these earthships are very common. The house in the picture on the right was built using a tire frame filled with earth, and then plastered with adobe or cement to hide the tires. Earthships come in a variety of mediums such as empty aluminum cans instead of tires and it's not just what's on the 

outside that make these homes so eco-friendly. Earthships commonly use ecological concepts such as solar and wind power and grey-water systems to help the environment. The thing I find so intriguing about these Earthships is that they don't resemble a normal house at all. The Earthship in the picture looks like a castle. If I were to pass this house the first thing I would think of would be "Woah! That's an awesome looking house!" not "Woah! Look at that advancement in sustainable design." Usually when I think eco-friendly house I assume it to be very modern, solar panels everywhere, but they don't all have to be like that, especially not this one.

Plane House...

This house built out of a Boeing 747 plane, reinforces the idea that you can recycle almost anything. 

David Hertz, an architect in Santa Monica, California, is the mastermind behind this magnificent piece of work. Hertz found the plane at the Aviation Warehouse for $70,000 - $100,000 (which is relatively cheap), however the home owner Francie Rehwald, planed to spend at least 2 million dollars on the project.

If we can take an old plane and reuse it to make a beautiful house think of what else we could make homes out of!

Recycling Your Old House...

The Quimby family in Portland, Oregon had to demolish their old home, but instead of just tearing it up into useless pieces they strategically took it apart saving things like windows, doors, flooring and more to reconstruct their new home. If and when they need a part that couldn't be reused from their old house they made sure that that item was green. The Quimby's didn't give a specific price but Mrs.Quimby said that it saved them thousands of dollars, which makes sense. You're not building a house completely out of new products and your not buying a new home all together. If you're interested in doing something like this the Building Materials Reuse Association is a non-profit organization committed to educating people on avoiding landfill waste and pollution, reducing the amount of resources being used, creating markets and increasing cost-effectiveness and more.

I guess it's true what they say, one man's trash really is another man's treasure.

Stay eco-friendly guys,

-Romulus

*** I didn't include all of the houses listed in the article so to read about the ones that weren't mentioned here check out the 10 Amazing, Beautiful Houses Built from Trash article on International Listings ***