Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.

The first week of spring kicked off with a bang for the architecture community as Japanese architect Toyo Ito was awarded the 2013 Pritzker Prize. Meanwhile Christo unveiled the world's largest inflated indoor sculpture in Germany and MIT researchers announced plans to 3D print a pavilion inspired by the technique that silkworms use to build their cocoons. Inhabitat also showcased several futuristic skyscraper concepts -- including the Soundscraper, which transforms auditory vibrations into clean energy, and the Zero Skyscraper, which is a post-apocalyptic survival structure. And we profiled some fascinating adaptive-reuse projects, including a grain elevator that was transformed into a student housing complex in Oslo and a Cold War-era missile silo that was converted into an underground home in Upstate New York.

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07:19

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.

March marks the start of spring, and this week we saw lots of fresh new unveils in the world of green architecture -- including the futuristic winners of the 2013 eVolo Skyscraper Competition. This year's winner was the Polar Umbrella, a buoyant skyscraper designed to rebuild the shrinking polar ice sheets affected by global warming. Some of our other favorites are these jellyfish-shaped PH Conditioner Skyscrapers, which combat air pollution while producing fresh water, and Project Nomad, an out-of-this-world mobile skyscraper that could terraform Mars to make it habitable by humans. Meanwhile architect Michael Charters designed "Big Wood," a prototype for a large-scale wooden skyscraper in downtown Chicago.

Filed under: Misc, Science

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07:34

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.

Now that green design is entering the mainstream, we're beginning to see the design community tackle larger, more ambitious projects using eco-friendly techniques. Case in point: This week, San Francisco transformed the Bay Bridge into the world's largest light sculpture by outfitting it with 25,000 LED lights. Because the lights are so energy-efficient, it will cost just $15 per night to run the installation. In Hamburg, workers are putting the finishing touches on the world's first algae-powered building, which is set to open this month at the International Building Exhibition. A company in Tokyo recently demonstrated a new skyscraper deconstruction technique that harvests energy from the demolition process and salvages almost every piece of the building for reuse. And in Copenhagen, work has begun on a combined ski resort and waste-to-energy plant, which will convert the city's trash into energy that powers the resort.

Filed under: Misc, Science

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07:19

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.

Silicon Valley dominated this week's news cycle, beginning with Yahoo's announcement that it will no longer allow employees to work from home. Some are crying foul, however, pointing out that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently installed a nursery in her office, and that unlike most mothers, she's allowed to bring her child to work. But while Yahoo's announcement may have ruffled some feathers, Google gave greenies reason to smile, as it announced plans to build a jumbo, green-roofed expansion at the tech giant's Mountain View headquarters. Not to be outdone, Samsung unveiled plans to build a garden-filled, eco-friendly Silicon Valley headquarters of its own.

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06:20