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There is a huge market for eco-friendly, sustainable merchandise, buildings and products. Frankly, it's about time the world started to focus more of its inventive and creative energy solving a problem that will only get worse without our greatest efforts behind it. In my research on sustainability, I came across an article about the most sustainable office building in the world today, located right outside Zurich.

This building is the ETH University's E-Science Lab - an appropriate place to earn the title of most sustainable office building on the planet. The building was designed by artist Adrian Schiess, and constructed by the architects from Baumschlager & Eberle, based in Austria; the sophisticated shading diagrams are designed to reduce or increase heat based on the time of year.

This is truly amazing: "The direction of the travertine stone panels and the depths of the balconies are dictated by the movement of the sun and vary from side to side. This ensures there is no direct sunlight entering the building between April and November while giving every floor a full-glass window looking out over the city," says journalist Beatrice Galilee.

Due to the tendancy of college departments to grow and shrink, the 1.2m module that governs the plan (as well as the services and technical aspects) was placed in the floor, instead of in the walls, in order to easily and cheaply change the size of rooms.

Adrian Schiess kept individual preferences in mind when he designed this building; each person can open or close their own window, and the heat will accordingly adjust to on or off.

These sustainable and eco-friendly buildings operate so miraculously, it seems they have a mind of their own - at least it's a mind bent towards innovation!