Green building, the home of the future

he green building concept appeared at the end of the ‘60s and was based on integrating environmentally friendly building practices in the home.

The healthy house uses natural building and insulation materials such as wood, from sustainably managed forests, stone, clay brick, hemp, flax, sheep wool, goose feathers, etc. It integrates renewable energy, solar panels, photovoltaic tiles, the domestic wind turbine, geothermy, water treatment and recovery systems.
The main principles of sustainable building are also found in the HEQ (High Environmental Quality) approach.

In practice, there are numerous green community, green town, and green city projects in the study phase, being implemented, or already finished. We have all heard of BedZED in England, which has become a model in sustainable building, the Vauban quarter in Fribourg-en-Brisgau in Germany, or Dongtan in China, a promising green city project that should be unveiled at the Shanghai World Fair in 2010.

France also has its fair share of projects. The city of Grenoble, for example, has begun transforming ancient decommissioned barracks into a green quarter: 850 housing units on 8.5 hectares of land are planned and should turn out to be models from an environmental standpoint. Other initiatives, and there are many, exist such as in Narbonne, Douai, Lille, and Paris.

To learn more about green building and sustainable housing, there are many events scheduled each year in France. Lyon will host the Salon Bois et Eco Habitat (the wood and green building fair) from 19 to 22 September and Toulouse, the Salon Maison Bois et Energie renouvelable (the wood house and renewable energy fair) from 24 to 27 October.