Matt Hickman Blog

Pre-teen tiny house builder finds joy in composting toilets, bubble insulation
Having graduated from the pink playhouse stage, 12-year-old Sicily Kolbeck is building a 128-square-foot solar powered abode as a place to 'bake cupcakes, to read and to hang out with friends.'
Home-powering trash incinerator ski slope breaks ground in Denmark
Finally, something that combines trash incineration with puffy parkas! After a significant delay, work begins on Bjarke Ingels Group's waste-to-energy plant-cum-urban ski resort in Copenhagen.
Hold your breath: A look inside Tokyo's coffin-sized 'share houses'
I'd say move over Hong Kong, but I don’t think there's enough room. In Tokyo's Times Square-esque Shibuya district, a new breed of 'share houses' offer impossibly tiny accommodations for around $500 a month.
A razing, a retrofit and a glam remodeling prospect [Friday news clump]
This week in DST delights: Zsa Zsa Gabor unloads the ultimate Bel Air remodel job, a 'Real Housewife' gets permission to raze a historic Star Island estate and a Westport abode receives a Passivhaus retrofit.
Anybody home? A visit to an uninhabited Chinese 'ghost city' [Video]
Leslie Stahl of '60 Minutes' gets the chance to say 'empty' and 'desolate' a lot during a tour of Zhengzhou, an eerie testament to China's bloated real estate bubble spurred by unchecked development.
Houston landfill diversion scheme finalist for Mayors Challenge prize
Although Houstonites may be good at a lot of things, recycling is not one of them. And knowing that residents may never come around, the city proposes a technologically advanced solution dubbed One Bin for All.
From Cree, a budget LED that won't make Edison roll over in his grave
Longtime LED innovator Cree makes a game-changing jump into consumer lighting with inexpensive 40W and 60W replacement bulbs that resemble the energy-hogging incandescents of yesteryear.
Texas developer eyes shipping containers in shale boom housing shortage
A developer begins work on a 70-unit shipping container apartment complex in Texas' housing-strapped Eagle Ford Shale region with the goal of attracting folks who will stick around beyond the oil boom.
In New York, 'organic' dry cleaners harbinger of gentrification
The latest indication that you may soon be priced out of your New York City neighborhood? The presence of dry cleaners that eschew — or at least claim to eschew — traditional chemical solvents.
Renewable rules: Lancaster, Calif., requires all new homes to have solar power
Led by a solar-loving Republican mayor and blessed with plenty of sunshine, this Mojave Desert city will require all new single-family homes to be equipped with solar starting in 2014.

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