Scrapbook‘s insight:A new net-zero-energy farmhouse in Virginia, which meets Passivhaus standards and is on track for LEED Platinum, is also built for sheep grazing on its roof.
It is most interesting to see the shift that the PassivHaus has provoked in looking back at elements and methodologies which once upon a time used to be the norm and were then taken for granted.
This is a beautiful example with pretty much every element: sheltering from the hillside, thermal mass, green roof, local/natural materials, natural light, shading…
Last week a friend sent me a “story” (made up, I am sure) about an elderly woman going to a super market where she asked for a plastic bag. She was confronted by a new breed of eco-warriors (the anti-plastic-bag-hero) who, in disgust, gave a lecture to the lady about her generation’s contribution to the world’s decline.
The story goes that she then went on to explain , with irony, the day to day practices that her generation has followed all her life which included; bringing bottles back to the local shops, washing and re-using baby nappies, buying locally, drinking tap water, going up the stairs rather than taking the lift, not watching tv etc….
The woman in the story was not my grandma, but it could have been because the first 12 years of my life were also like that. Then something changed … ironically as the first PC (an “Amstrad 1512″) arrived to the house, the world around us began to take a different shape. A shape which developed too fast, not allowing time to look back where we were going…
One generation, two generations, three generations and it would seem that finally, the time to assess has come, but has it really? will we finally learnt from our grandparents and their ancestors?
See on www.earthtechling.com
