Hout Bay Green Faire - Sat 29 Oct 10am

One of our favourite events on the green calendar. The Hout Bay Green Faire 2011 has something for everyone. You'll be able to find information and products for greening your lifestyle and lowering your ecological footprint, gifts and entertainment for the kids and yummy local and organic food, plus a whole lot more. An authentic green exhibition in the open air! (remember sunscreen, depending on weather).

There is a REALLY COOL line up of talks on the day, view the Hout Bay Green Faire Programme here.

Some highlights include:
Sue Visser showing you how to make and use probiotics for garden and human health.

Andy Le May on sustainability as the new norm the "realisation that what each of us does is essential in forging the world we want our kids to live in.”

Anthea Torr providing insight into living in peace and harmony to heal ourselves and the planet.

Rod Tritton uncovering some mind-expanding mysteries in his new book Exploring Mystery, Changing History, Taking Responsibility

Tony Budden on the process

The Hemp House in all it's sunset-lit glory

After we had attended Tony Budden's talk a couple of Tuesday's back at , we had been super amped to check out his new home in Noordhoek.

Speaking about his own experience with hemp, Tony says:

‘I fell in love with hemp when I saw my first bit of cannabis fabric. It is so strong and durable...Then we started Hemporium . The work we do helps change the perception of hemp- we chose to make clothes because they are such a tangible product. Hemporium has been a good

Aurecon building - the first in South Africa to achieve a 5-star rating
The Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) has announced the launch of the Pilot Certification Programme of the 4th Green Star SA rating tool – the Green Star SA Public & Education Building PILOT Rating Tool.

Funded by the Construction Industry Development Board, an agency of the Department of Public works (DPW), this latest tool enables the GBCSA to rate public and education buildings such as community centres, libraries, museums, school and university buildings, places of worship, indoor sports centres, entertainment, exhibition and convention centres, public transport terminal buildings and more.

“This is an exciting expansion of the suite of green building rating tools available from the GBCSA,” says Brian Wilkinson, CEO of the Green Building Council of South Africa.

pic: jaana's kitchenWe invite you to a practical workshop that is designed to give you knowledge and skills to help you build your own natural home.

The workshop will be led by Jill Hogan, founder of McGregor Alternative Technology Centre who has over 14 years of experience in natural building, restoration and workshops on all aspects of natural homes and has an incredible amount of knowledge and first hand experience.

Cob is soft and curvaceous so is very comfortable. It is also warm in winter and cool in summer. You can build your furniture into the walls giving more floor space.

Janna decided as her house is oval she does not want straight lines in her kitchen so our challenge is to build her an oval kitchen. The kitchen is going to be in the corner of the house shown in the picture above.

Francis Kéré received a standing ovation at the Design Indaba 2011 Conference earlier this year - see why. His amazing presentation shows how this architect from Burkino Faso improved lives of fellow villagers from Gando (his rural home village) by building a school. He formed an ngo and raised $50 000 dollars to build the school. While Western aid agencies and well meaning donors construct buildings using materials like concrete, these fail after a few rainy seasons in West Africa. Kéré's use of natural, local materials (clay), local skills and intelligent design results in beautiful buildings that communities are proud of. African architecture should stop copying the West, engage the real needs of the people and regard the environment, says Kéré.

Speak2@scientist

Earlier this month the Sci-Bono Center in Johannesburg invited Dr Vosloo of Sasol Technology to present a view of the future of renewable energy from an industrial perspective.

Vosloo was clear to state that he was seeking a renewable energy source (or sources) that had the potential to provide energy at a national level, and that could be made economically viable. For these reasons he dismissed biomass energy, hydropower, wind energy and wave energy – as each of these, to him,

Love this pic. It's one of a series of such pictures on Inhabitat.com - well worth a look-see. It appears that Norwegians, at any rate, have been planting greenery on their roofs for years...

Design Indaba conference
Designing for social change was a theme that ran deep and featured early in this year's Design Indaba Conference. Some Sprouts attended the Young Designer's Simulcast - these were the social designers we were inspired by.

Francis Kéré
Francis Kéré, who received the first standing ovation at this year's conference, is a highly talented yet humble architect who comes from the small village of Gando in Burkina Faso (West Africa.) After being approached by the village community to save their school which was near collapse Kéré and friends founded the Schulbausteine für Gando (School bricks for Gando) association in 1999.

Jill's cob guest houseWe find the house via a combination of directions from McGregor’s locals and the ability to follow our noses once we have the rather obvious house in sight – there are not many homes in McGregor that look quite like it. Outside is a sign – cobbits cottage. It’s an apt description of what stands before us, built completely out of earth and serving as MAT’s headquarters.

a sandpit made from an old tractor tyreEvery year millions of car tyres wear out. When one considers the number of cars on our roads and you times that number by four – just think of the number of tyres that we are chucking out every year! Yes some are retreaded, and their lives extended, and some are recycled and turned into other products. Many however end up as rubbish - they exist in our landfills, where they take an extremely long time to degrade and slowly leach toxic chemicals that pollute the environment.