Homeowners struggling to afford insurance through the federal government are just one presidential signature away from getting help they desperately need. (MORE: Avalanche Buries Highway) Thursday the Senate passed a bill to ease big flood insurance premium increases faced by hundreds of thousands of homeowners and allow below-market rates to be passed on to people buying homes with taxpayer-subsidized policies. The bill significantly rewrites a major overhaul of the flood insurance program passed two years ago. The 2012 changes were...

(JupiterImages) If you're looking to upgrade your home to solar power, a new retailer is getting in the game: Best Buy. This week, the company announced it's partnering with energy company Solar City to provide customers in-store estimates on solar savings, the Los Angeles Times reports. (PHOTOS: Coastal Homes Re-Imagined) The service will be provided in more than 60 stores across Arizona, California, Hawaii, New York and Oregon, according to Best Buy's website. The company has been working to turn...

More than 123 million Americans live near the coast, and NOAA says that number will continue to rise, putting 40 percent of the U.S. population in the line for dealing with a potential hurricane. There's little doubt that building our homes differently will save lives, families and even money in the future. And that's exactly what fueled Spanish artist Dionisio Gonzalez to design his "Dauphin Island" series. Dauphin Island sits just south of Mobile, Ala., bordered by the Gulf of...

The Quiet Treehouse by Quiet Mark and John Lewis, designed by Blue Forest. (www.blueforest.com) The Quiet Treehousegoes far beyond a child's backyard fort.It's a modern, high-tech home designed to bring you closer to nature by living among the trees without all the loud racket of modern life. The Quiet Treehouse was designed by Blue Forest, a company known for hundreds of eco-friendlytreehouses around the world. The firm envisioned"atranquil tree home … designed to evoke the mystery and magic of a...

Chris Robinson is building a boat in the backyard of his Palo Alto, Calif. home. This web designer is not much of a builder, nor is he a sailor.But this boat isn't your average boat. It's a tsunami escape pod Robinson calls"Tsunamiball." "I am not expecting a tsunami in Palo Alto," he tells weather.com. "Building the tsunamiball is more of a design challenge than a disaster preparation for me," he says. Robinson works on the tsunamiball in his backyard. (Chris...

Courtesy: NLÉ A floating school in Lagos, Nigeria we featured on weather.com has been nominated as one of the 2014 Designs of the Year from the London Design Museum. The Makoko Floating School was designed by NLÉ, an architecture firm with offices in the Netherlands and Nigeria. The school opened for use in the spring of 2013, two years after NLÉ founder Kunle Adeyemi visited the fishing community and learned that the school building was in bad shape from constant...

Lilypad Lilypad, by Vincent Callebaut Architectures, is a floating city prototype. (Copyright: VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES - WWW.VINCENT.CALLEBAUT.ORG) Lilypad is an amphibious city prototype by Paris-based Vincent Callebaut Architectures. The architects were inspired by Victoria amazonia, more commonly known as the "queen" of the water lillies. These giant water lillies are also tough, and can hold the weight of a small child. The floating city could house more than 50,000 people, as well as offices, shopping malls, and places for people...

(Getty Images) No-Cost Ways to Save Turn off everything not in use: lights, TVs, computers, etc. Check the furnace or air conditioner (AC) filter each month, and clean or replace it as needed. Dirty filters block air flow through your heating and cooling systems, increasing your energy bill and shortening the equipment's life. During hot months, keep window coverings closed on the south, east, and west windows. In winter, let the sun in. Glass fireplace doors help stop heat from...

The 606 is Chicago's renovation of the Bloomingdale Trail, an old elevated railway. The new project will stretch nearly 3 miles and will connect four neighborhoods with new parks and a mixed-used trail. (Courtesy of The Trust for Public Land) An abandoned elevated railway on Chicago's northwest side is undergoing a rapid transformation into a 3-mile long greenway called the 606. Nature will take center stage along the 606. The Trust for Public Land, along with the city of Chicago...

It looks a bit like the Hunger Games arena Katniss brought down with her bow and arrow in "Catching Fire," but the vision behind this futuristic biodome is about protecting homes, playgrounds and delicate plant life from pollution. Architect Rajat Sodhi and his firm Orproject are behind the Bubbles for Beijing design concept. (MORE: Most Secluded Homes on Earth | Is THIS Your Future Home?) Rendering shows 'Bubbles for Beijing' concept. (Orproject) "I want to enclose part of the city...

A garden covers three top floors of an apartment building in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong province. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) A two-story tall rooftop garden on a high-rise in south China may be an absolute gardening feat, but neighbors say it's hiding something illegal. The Daily Mail reports a businesses man used the overgrown garden to hide two extra floors he added onto his penthouse in Guangzhou. (PHOTOS: Secluded Homes|Incredible Garden Towers) According to London's Daily Express, neighbors were worried the extra...

Ferny’s place, Cuming County, Neb., 2007. (Nancy Warner) Photographer Nancy Warner traveled to the Great Plains to document the disappearing farms and tell the stories of once-bustling buildings that are now abandoned, places where animals used to roam that have now been taken over by nature. For Warner, surveying the disappearing farmhouses was also personal. “The photographs are an exploration of my childhood memories. Growing up I spent a lot of time on farms of aunts and uncles in Cuming...

A rendering of Physalia, a floating garden prototype, navigating through waterways in Prague. (Copyright: VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES - WWW.VINCENT.CALLEBAUT.ORG) Plants are the heartbeat of life, from producing oxygen to regulating the water cycle, and that's whyParis-based architect Vincent Callebautbelieves his floating garden can clean polluted rivers. Scientists predict rising sea levels and dwindling fresh water supplieswill place a heavy burden on people around the world in the decades ahead. Callebaut, who is recognized for his work in sustainable architecture, created...