Whole Travel Blog

Horses love the outdoors, so why not give them sustainable homes? That’s exactly what Blackburn Architects, a full-service architectural planning and design firm based in San Francisco and Washington DC, is doing. Their Greenbarns use passive lighting and ventilation, specify low-VOC materials for construction, and even offer additional solar panels and rainwater harvesting to take them almost competely off the grid.

Greenbarns - Let Your Horse Be Green

While the US Green Building Council (USGBC) does not yet have LEED certification for agricultural buildings, simply putting solar panels on the roofs of these barns could have a significant impact on the environmental footprint of ranches and farms around the world. A single barn roof of solar panels can often power an entire farm in the Midwest, and most farms have 2-3 barns.

Eat Green, Live Green?

A new trend has emerged in Germany: converting old farms into “Heuhotels” or hay hotels, where guests literally spend the night on a bed of hay.

This trend isn’t just new, it’s also cheap and eco-friendly since guests bring their own sleeping bags and towels.

For a list of “Heuhotels,” visit www.heuhotels.de or check out this New York Times article about it.