Living Future unConference 2015 Recap and REGENERATION Italy

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Living Future unConference in Seattle, Washington, USA, organized by the International Living Future Institute, the managing body for one of the most ambitious and visionary environmental building certifications available in the world - the Living Building Challenge. Two weeks later, I was again fortunate enough to attend the introduction of this certification here in Italy at the REGENERATION competition and conference hosted by Macro Design Studio in Rovereto, Italy. Here are my impressions from both events...

blackout-proof home graphic

The blackout-proof home: Passive House with high time constant

Last week, our region (Emilia, Italy) was pounded with what locals are calling "The Big Snow". With it came very tangible proof of just how fragile is our infrastructure, particularly our electrical grid. When my husband wrote this article, originally in Italian, FOUR DAYS after the February 6th Big Snow, more than 1000 homes in the province of Reggio Emilia alone were still without electricity, leaving 4,000 people to brave the cold, many without sufficient heating. How can we fix this problem?

Trends in Ceramics at CERSAIE 2013 (Bologna, Italy) | Houzz

Larger, thinner, and lighter. Textured, patterned, and combined. The overwhelming feeling from this year's edition of CERSAIE Bologna was that the ceramics industry is successfully launching this versatile material into place as a sustainable, cost-effective, technologically superior, and aesthetically pliable substitute for many other traditional building materials.