What the Club Sandwich Generation looks like in Tokyo, where it is unusual to renovate instead of starting from scratch.

It's wood, it's small, it's resilient.

Sumitomo Forestry has a lot of wood to use up.

Deep overhang controls light, provides privacy for bedrooms upstairs.

Yo Shimada designs a house for a family that believes if you've got it, flaunt it.

Watch these beautiful Japanese macaques at Wild Snow Monkey Park who have truly mastered the fine art of relaxation.

This quiet retreat has an interesting interior of overlapping layers that welcomes the outdoors in.

Meet the 'Japan pig,' a newly discovered pygmy seahorse that is as tiny as it is beautiful.

In Japan, celebrating the transient beauty of flowers is a beloved custom when the cherry blossoms spring to life.

It seems that GMOs are again steamrolling their way through our legal system. Back in December it seemed there may be a light at the end of the tunnel when a federal judge ordered that 258 acres of genetically modified sugar

The disaster at Fukushima may have faded from the news cycle, but the radioactive waste it left behind isn't going anywhere. At the Saitama sewage treatment plant, 169 miles from Fukushima, workers are dealing with tons of

It sounds ridiculous: how could an element on the periodic table be an endangered species? The scientist, James Elser of Arizona State University, who is asking if we need a 'Red List' for phosphorous uses the

Manure and fertilizer runoff is harming communities across the country. A new interactive map illustrates how, and showcases the people who are doing something about it.

The show is 101 years old, but this year it's the newcomers that are making their mark.

Straight outta Humboldt, this app is a great intro to the "art and craft" of brewing your own compost tea for boosting microbial activity in the soil and improving yields.

Could human urine be used on a commercial scale to fertilize the food we eat?

The problem may seem immense, but there are many good solutions.

It's time to put a stake through them and build efficient Passivhaus buildings.

Selling energy efficiency is hard, but the UK Labour Party got it right.

In which I try to clear up some misconceptions.

Peter Rickaby says he has "never been more optimistic about the possibility of change," but it will require some radical action.

In a bid to meet the city's goal of recycling 60% of its waste by 2015, Seattle is turning its sights on food scraps that end up in the trash.

These are interesting times for the Passive House movement in America, and this should be a very interesting conference.

And it is beautiful too.

You are not just buying a box but a full service design/build package. Could this take container architecture mainstream?

A Seattle educational non-profit hopes to crowd-fund a series of portable, off-grid shelters for some of the city's homeless, which local high school students will design and build with the help of professional architects and builders.

I could write this post in my sleep, it is such a tired playbook that happens so often in real estate development.

It really could be the future of sustainable, green and healthy housing.

Which really, is how every building and office should be designed.

These delicately formed hand-crank and motor-activated art installations blossom and grow perpetually.

Seattle architect Mike Eliason describes what he learned about their housing policies.

Residents and businesses alike are joining the Lonely Whale Foundation to help stem ocean pollution by giving up plastic straws for the month.

There's no 'turning into a pumpkin at midnight' because the pumpkin is where it's at!

Jeff Bezos said “Alexa, open The Spheres” and it evidently worked.

Or is it a missed opportunity?

Passive House multifamily buildings use almost no energy and don't cost much more than conventional buildings. They should be everywhere.

According to the Spanish newspaper El País last week, Spain will be the first big buyer of CO2 emission rights from Eastern Europe, in order to fulfil the Kyoto Protocol. In 2007, Spain's emissions had

From Almada, Portugal, where residents will be able to swap recyclable materials for free rides on

Photo via StringBike The Bike, Unchained A group of designers in Hungary have done away with what has long been a staple of bicycle design, those oily old chains, with their creation, the StringBike. Instead of being propelled forward the traditional

It sounds like a plot-line from a bad 1950's sci-fi movie, but unfortunately there's nothing fiction about it. Several towns in western Hungary were flooded today with a toxic red sludge after the waste product from

Wastewater or sludge storage lagoons are designed, in part, based on statistical probability of annual precipitation and evaporation amounts. The data behind these estimates generally don't take into account contemporary

A state of emergency has been declared in Hungary where four people are dead, 120 injured and six missing as torrents of red toxic sludge, the byproduct of bauxite refining for aluminum, burst from a containment pond and poured through six villages in

Stand Up (On Your Bike) And Be Counted I've already written about Copenhagen's cyclist counter a while ago. I still think it's a great idea, not only to count cyclists, but as a subtle tool to show the strength of the local bike community and to add a

Hungary already has a ban on genetically modified crops, so this is a bit more complicated than it may seem at first. As PlanetSave reports Hungary has destroyed approximately 1000 acres of maize fields found to

They call it green. I call it too much.

One designer tackles how the ubiquitous egg carton could be rethought in order to waste less.

London's international embassies are showing off their countries' design as part of the London Design Festival.

Hold on to your pants as we show you how to solve the last mile problem.

A tiny apartment in a new tourist hotspot is remade with clever modern elements to maximize space.

Using a self-invented "multiluminous" painting process, this artist transforms ordinary rooms into starry environments.