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From forests growing on skyscrapers to homes powered by nature itself, these groundbreaking buildings are proving that sustainability can be spectacular. One of them is in India
News18
Imagine living in a tower covered with thousands of trees, a home built almost entirely from bamboo, or a house that stays cool in extreme heat without relying heavily on air conditioning. Around the world, architects are rethinking what a sustainable building can look like. Some of their most innovative creations have now been brought together in a new book, and one of the standout projects comes from India.
As architects and builders look for ways to reduce the environmental impact of construction, a new book by architecture writer Philip Jodidio spotlights six homes that are putting sustainability into practice.
Featured in Homes for Our Time: Sustainable Living, the projects from across the world show how design, materials and construction methods can help lower a building’s footprint. Jodidio argues that sustainability should be assessed not only by how efficiently a building operates, but also by the environmental cost of creating it.
1. The Japanese Home That Works With Nature
Tucked away in Gifu, Japan, Niwa-no-ie is designed to blur the boundary between indoors and outdoors. Instead of dominating the landscape, the home embraces it, allowing natural light, ventilation and seasonal changes to become part of everyday living. The project reflects a growing movement in sustainable design that prioritises harmony with the environment rather than imposing on it.
2. India’s Climate-Smart Brick Wonder
Ahmedabad’s entry in Philip Jodidio’s Homes for Our Time. Sustainable Living is a brick cube designed to help the home stay cool through passive means. Instead of leaning on energy-intensive air conditioning, the project uses climate-responsive planning to work with the city’s heat. It is a reminder that some of the smartest ideas in sustainable design are also the simplest: build with the climate, not against it.
3. Bali’s Bamboo BreakthroughIn Bali, bamboo has been turned into a serious building material, not just a rustic one. Architects are using it to build striking modern homes that feel light, inventive and closely tied to their surroundings, with a much smaller footprint than many concrete or steel structures.
4. Milan’s Vertical Forest That Changed Cities Forever
Few sustainable buildings have captured global imagination like Bosco Verticale in Milan. Designed by architect Stefano Boeri, the twin residential towers support hundreds of trees and thousands of plants directly on their façades. The vegetation helps absorb carbon dioxide, improve biodiversity, reduce urban heat and lower energy consumption. The project has become a global symbol of biophilic design and was named the world’s tallest building in 2015.
Boeri described the concept as creating a building that serves as a “home for trees and birds” as much as for people.
5. The Australian Tower Covered in 85,000 Plants
One Central Park in Sydney is a good example of a project which brings greenery to a new dimension. It is known for its unique vertical gardens which consist of more than 85,000 plants, state-of-the-art water recycling and heliostat systems that provide light to shadowed spaces.
6. Homes Designed for a Low-Carbon Future
Philip Jodidio’s new TASCHEN book, Homes for Our Time. Sustainable Living brings together 63 projects from around the world and treats sustainability as more than a building’s day-to-day energy use. The focus is also on how a home is made in the first place through lower-carbon construction, recycled and biodegradable materials, and designs shaped by sun, wind and rain.
Taken together, the projects point to a clearer direction for architecture: build with less waste, use fewer resources and work with local climates instead of fighting them. That is the bigger message running through Jodidio’s latest collection — sustainability is no longer just about efficient operation, but about reducing impact from the first brick to the final finish.
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