Amara Holstein
A former editor at Dwell, Amara recently left the glamorous life of a magazine staffer to pursue her freelance writing dream. She has written for Sunset, Wallpaper*, the Architect’s Newspaper, VIA, and Apartment Therapy.
Power Plastic
Every hour, enough sunlight hits the earth to power the entire planet for a year. But since they’re pricey—and, let’s face it, generally unattractive—solar cells are still woefully underutilized and most sunlight lays fallow.
Living in a Material World
Americans have always held a soft spot in their hearts for futuristic materials, from the amazing light-weight properties of titanium to the chance to conquer Superman with kryptonite.
Indoor Garden Kits
Dear Dwell,
I'd like to grow edible herbs and plants, but since I live in a tiny apartment with no outdoor space, I'm looking for a garden I can grow on my kitchen counter. Can you help?
Leave it to Beavers
It’s not unusual for New Yorkers to have problems with their neighbors; after all, many a co-op brawl has started over a little late-night noise. But it is rare for the downtown crowd to have a beef with a pack of rowdy beavers—which is exactly the situation in which architect Lynn Gaffney and her husband, financial portfolio manager Bill Backus, found themselves recently at their weekend home in the tiny town of Sharon, Connecticut (population: 2,968). The beavers, who reside in the swamp behind Backus and Gaffney’s house, generally keep a low profile, but every so often let loose with a torrent of logs and sticks that block all the nearby drainage pipes, making a watery mess of local roads and forcing residents to haul away the detritus.
Houston, We've Solved a Problem
A bird flying over Houston, Texas, sees only a sprawling canopy of trees. It seems the perfect nesting place for creatures both avian and human alike; unfortunately, the green ends at the tree line. All of those leafy branches shade a city that appears to care little for sustainable design, with cars that chug gas by the low-mileage gallon and oversized houses that dominate the persistently expanding cityscape.
Magic Mountain
Architect Ko Wibowo designed a house of prodigious proportions beneath the hulking rise of Mount Ranier.
Retail Therapy
In the great American quest for more stuff, big-box stores are nirvana, laden with cheaply priced items by the ton, from diamond earrings to toilet paper. So isn’t it a good thing that many of them now tout sustainability? It is, of course, a little more complicated than that.
Suburban Flight
It’s become an all-too-familiar scenario all across America: A city’s downtown, once a thriving place to live and work, has slowly withered and become decrepit.
Lucky's Break
With a very limited budget and no construction experience, Lucky and Kim Diaz overhauled a wreck of a house into a sweet, 1,100-square-foot Los Angeles home with just $55,000 and a whole lot of stubborn determination. Here is their story, as told by Lucky.
Totally Tubular
On the roof, amidst an array of native wild grasses and shrubs, six banks holding 180 small thermal solar collection tubes provide hot water year-round. This new technology, made by Apricus Solar Company, is less common than the flat solar plates often used for thermal heating.
