Cooling

Living Walls for Cooling and Beauty

Small leafed tropical climbing vine

The vine shown in this photo grows well in the tropics on just about any material, such as the raw concrete block wall shown here. Plants are excellent for absorbing the infrared light that we feel as heat. Of course you must have noticed how much cooler it is in the shade of a tree. Plants don’t just block light, but also they continually perspire, and this evaporation is an “endothermic” which means that it cools the water vapor down. Green Plants for Beauty Covering a few walls of your house, or perhaps some normally ugly retaining walls, will beautifyRead the Rest…


Air Flow in Green Building

Airflow through a house

I have titled this website “Airflow and Shade” because I personally consider them to be the two most important factors for tropical green building. It seems obvious that you’d like to have a nice breeze flowing through your home, but so many people, including most architects, build houses that don’t allow for an appreciable amount of fresh air, so I thought it was important to revisit the obvious so that when you’re planning your home, you can build it right, and insist that your architect focus on this aspect. Great airflow isn’t about machines or purchasing any special equipment. It’sRead the Rest…