People helping people. Is there a better way to burn a few calories? Habitat for Humanity Jordan (H4H) recently teamed up with Sahhyieh Jamia, a community association in Deir Alla (Salt province), and American Community School to help build homes in a village near Salt. You’d think this architect would record the event with artsy construction […]
The protest at its height : nearly 400,000 people jam into Kikar Medinah in Tel Aviv Israel’s seven week housing and economic protests against high housing prices and the rising cost of living in general is finally coming to an end with the dismantling of numerous ‘tent cities’ in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other locations […]
Solar panels at a testing site in Abu Dhabi. (photo by Jesse Fox) According to a report published this week in Globes, Israel’s public housing company Amidar is set to begin installing photovoltaic solar panels on the roofs of its buildings. And with 72,000 housing units in its portfolio, that could add up to a […]
Way before there were electronic ways to condition our temperatures, cooling methods were built into the architecture of traditional Middle Eastern homes. Such as the beehive homes found in Syria.
If you’ve heard about the demise of the kibbutz movement, then you may also know that financially strapped communal farms have recently climbed out of debt by building suburban-style detached housing developments and selling them to upwardly mobile Israelis. Suburbanizing kibbutzim and moshavim (village settlements), along with several new suburban-style towns like Shoham (near Ben […]
Windows are one of the most significant costs in building projects or home renovations. Next to that are the bills homeowners have to pay for heating and air conditioning. Solving two problems under one roof — literally — is an Israeli company Alubin that has developed all-season reversible windows. The solution is also good for […]
(Map of Nurit, from Google Earth) It’s one thing to adopt environmentally conscious behavior, such as recycling, taking public transportation, and saving water or electricity. But that’s not enough for the future residents of the now developing community of Nurit. They plan to live green. That’s because the Mt. Gilboa town of Nurit is set […]
If you don’t know what a yurt is, have no fear. Most people don’t (including yours truly). But yurts, with their portability, suitability for nature trips, and simple low-tech structures are highly suitable for eco-tourism – so they definitely deserve our attention. And it certainly is exciting that yurts are entering the Israeli tourism scene. […]
Green Ps (that’s a new abbreviation we made up today), are of the notion that only people who are housed, employed, healthy and happy can take on extras like yoga classes and only then start worrying about issues such as climate change and the environment. That’s why we were happy to see that the US […]
A few weeks ago, we were driving our “tourist” mom from Canada around the country, when we accidentally took the wrong cut-off and found ourselves somewhere in the middle of east Jerusalem. Excited by seeing the children riding around on donkeys and the general sense of chaos, Mom commented on how very different this place […]