DropNet Fog-To-Water harvester
(Blog posted by Emily Pilloton: 23-Feb-2010)
Imke Hoehler, an industrial design student at Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Germany, conceived of a beautiful design solution to an ugly problem: every year over 2.5 million people die because of lack of access to clean water. Hoehler's thesis project, the DropNet fog collector, is a device that literally harvests drinking water from the air, collecting water vapor from the air and condensing it into drinkable water for all. Each DropNet would have the capacity to harvest 10-20 liters of water per day, and an array of the pods could provide enough water for a small village. The construction of the DropNets has yet to be resolved though Hoehler imagines they can be ...Read More
NYC turns parking meters to bike racks
(As Published In InteriorDesign.net: 22-Feb-2010)
The Big Apple is making an effort to trade four wheels for two by ripping out parking meters and turning them into bike racks. The city plans to recycle 225 meters for the pilot program and replace them with gracefully designed circular bike racks. The city's bigger plan is to increase bike ridership threefold, and these racks are a great (and beautiful) step in that direction. The racks themselved are designed to fit into the old meter poles, which will actually save the city $200 per removed meter (the cost of ripping out the pole and filling in the hole. The city also plans to recycle the metal parts of the old meters.
Hutton’s sustainable design for BSU building wins first prize
(As Published In WIDN: 22-Feb-2010)
German architectural design practice Sauerbruch Hutton has won the first prize in an international competition to design a new home for Behorde fur Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt (BSU) or The Hamburg Ministry of Urban Development and Environment, in Germany.
The new BSU building consists of one high rise and two wing buildings. The street level floors are designed to house public BSU facilities such as areas for exhibitions and restaurants. The foot of the high rise structure accommodates a central lobby. It is conceived as an amphitheater, envisioned to host the exhibition of Hamburg’s urban model. The space will be visible through the large glass facade. The library and conference center can also be accessed from there.
The building is structured in seven separate ‘houses’, which are linked through a natural light-lit access road. Each house features an open staircase atrium. The atrium is designed to offer easy orientation, efficient vertical access, good distribution of natural light into interior spaces, and natural cross-ventilation.
One of the key objectives of the design was to reduce the building’s energy consumption by combining passive and active measures. The compact building volume uses renewable resources like natural lighting, natural cross-ventilation, and sun-powered heating. Energy harvested from geothermal and solar equipment is combined with a gas-powered heat and power unit. The design also ensures reasonable transparency, and protection from intense sunlight in the facades.
The new BSU building is slated for completion in 2013.
Bring 'Vinyl in Design' Course to Your Office for CEU Credit
“Vinyl in Design” is an educational program designed to familiarize architects and designers with the range of solutions vinyl provides for today and tomorrow’s design challenges. They will learn about vinyl and the environment, and how vinyl:
- is recyclable;
- is durable, strong and lightweight;
- requires almost no maintenance;
- doesn’t support combustion;
- is safe and inert in use;
- is economical;
- helps conserve energy and other natural resources;
- is made from one of the most abundant natural materials available.
Vinyl is the largest plastic used in building and construction. This one-hour PowerPoint presentation will cite case studies to demonstrate how vinyl was the solution to specific design challenges, and will explore new and innovative product applications to inspire architects and designers in their own projects.
“Vinyl in Design” is registered with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and applies toward the Health Safety Welfare credit and Sustainable Design credit. It is approved by the International Interior Design Association, American Society of Interior Designers and National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) for continuing education. There is no charge to bring this program to your firm or chapter meeting. Course instructor Terry Murphy, LEED AP®, and the Continuing Education Program Manager of “Vinyl In Design,” has detailed knowledge of vinyl technology and considerable experience in the interior design field.
Live! Web-Based Product Application Matrix for Sustainable Design Solutions
(Originaly published in Vinyl In Design)
Finally, the completion of an innovative new tool that will enable architects, designers, specifiers, and other members of the design team to evaluate, compare, and discover the benefits of vinyl products in the current sustainable business marketplace.
Posted on www.achievegreen.net are checklists for two prominent green building guidelines, geared toward design professionals who are specifying products for sustainable and high performance projects.
The checklists demonstrate how vinyl products fit into systems designed and specified to meet green building criteria in the Green Building Initiative™ Proposed ANS 01-2008P: Green Building Assessment Protocol for Commercial Buildings and LEED®-NC v3. Product manufacturers are listed in alphabetical order within the checklist by types of vinyl products, which support systems that can contribute to credits within the green building rating systems.
Companies not listed that have sustainable green product criteria supporting potential credits within these green guidelines can provide their information to ablakey@vinylinfo.org at The Vinyl Institute, and it will be reviewed for inclusion in the checklist.
Webinars to help users walk through and review the “achieve green” product matrix will be scheduled in the next couple of months.
The Vinyl Institute represents the leading manufacturers involved in the production of PVC/vinyl resin in the United States, and promotes the value of PVC/vinyl products to society.
What Happens When Green Becomes Code?
(Originally published in Archi-Tech - December 2009)
Do buildings get better, or are lawsuits inevitable?
According to Liberty Building Forensics Group, the inevitable is about to happen – and most people don’t even know it’s coming. Green buildings are going to become, by codification, the law of the land. For some firms, this will mean business as usual. For other firms, this change will be cataclysmic.
ASHRAE produces standards that are adopted by most model building codes, and the ASHRAE Draft Standard 189.1P is the new Standard for the Design of High Performance Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings.
This new standard (currently in its final draft) is written in code language and will mandate that all new buildings be green buildings, thus eliminating the option of constructing anything less robust. Even if this standard isn’t adopted by all model codes, it will become the de facto standard of care. On the surface, this sounds like a good thing – mandating better-performing, more energy-efficient buildings – and it certainly does have many redeeming aspects.
But, according to Liberty Building Forensics Group, there could be a downside:
- Lack of Experience Will Increase Design and Construction Deficiencies. Many of the optional aspects of the current USGBC LEED guidelines will now be mandatory for designers and contractors. This means that, even if your designer or contractor doesn’t fully understand the key technical issues (e.g. envelope air barriers), they’ll still be required to use them. This practice of forcing designers and contractors to implement building features that they don’t fully understand creates a dilemma in the industry: either represent yourself as technically savvy or face certain extinction. Given these as choices, failure becomes more inevitable as firms design and construct buildings with components they don’t understand in an effort to keep the work coming in.
- Standard of Care Will Be Elevated. These new code requirements will automatically raise the required standard of care for the design and construction industry. This will increase the risk profile of their projects, and may (at least initially) trigger some exclusion clauses in their current insurance policies. What are now considered best practices will soon be considered the minimum standard of care.
- Regional Issues Not Addressed. The new standard mandates national green building requirements throughout the country with very little regard for the unique regions of the country where certain concepts may not be appropriate. This is almost always a problem when national standards are uniformly imposed on climates with unique requirements (e.g. hot and humid, very cold, or very rainy climates).
The inevitable result is that everyone will quickly morph into a green practitioner, and the true marketplace differentiators (those with experience and unique technical expertise) will become difficult to discern. While codes can dictate that the industry follows certain standards, it cannot mandate that they get correctly implemented – with an increase in design and construction deficiencies, and lawsuits being the inevitable result.
Recognizing that this new standard (due to be issued in final form in 2010) could be a game-changer in the building marketplace, what’s the path moving forward?
- Review a copy of the current draft version of ASHRAE 189.1P and begin to understand the impact of the new requirements on your firm’s business, insurance, risk management, and technical expertise.
- Identify what requisite skills and knowledge your firm will need once this new standard is implemented.
US Green Building Council Website
The Crowded World of Green Furniture
(As published in SmartMoney Magazine by Miriam Gottfried on October 9, 2009)
The struggling furniture industry is getting some much-needed cushion from some unlikely sources. Who’d have thought that things like “reclaimed” wood, bike rims and bourbon barrels might help the struggling sector pull through the recent retail sales funk? But according to estimates by Mike Italiano of eco-advocacy group Market Transformation to Sustainability, green furniture sales have grown 20 percent a year since 2007, to about $250 million. That’s still only a fraction of the $76 billion home-furnishings industry, but it’s one of the few signs of life there these days. Flip through any shelter magazine and it won’t take long to find trendy designer pieces likely to be Al Gore–approved—from corrugated-cardboard light fixtures (recycled!) to couches covered in surplus pup tents (reclaimed!). But mainstream chains like Ikea and Pottery Barn are venturing into eco-land too, using soy-foam cushions, water-based wood stains and certified “sustainable” wood legally harvested from responsibly managed forests. Read More...
Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation Unveils Floating House
(As published in Treehuggers.com)
The Float House, designed by Morphosis Architects, is the latest design to be built by Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation, which is helping families rebuild eco-friendly homes in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
It's like you're Noah and your house is an arc where people can take refuge from flood waters. Sound crazy? Think again.
Brad Pitt's Make it Right Foundation unveiled the first Float House on Wednesday. The home, designed by Morphosis Architects, basically turns into a giant raft in the event of flooding, rising up on guide posts that keep it from floating away. To say that this design floats my boat is an understatement; but there is one thing about it that my eco-heart can't love: The chassis that allows it to float has a polystyrene core.
Read More...
Building codes and regulations impede progress toward UBER-green buildings
July 30, 2009 Building Design and Construction
The enthusiasm for super green Living Buildings continues unabated, but a key stumbling block to the growth of this highest level of green building performance is an existing set of codes and regulations. Federal stimulus funds for green building and infrastructure projects are important drivers in the shift in how buildings are designed and constructed, but there needs to be a “greening” of the regulatory systems to fully meet sustainability goals.
Stepping in to help resolve the impasse is new report
by the Cascadia Region Green
Building Council entitled Code, Regulatory and Systemic Barriers Affecting Living Building
Projects, which presents a case for fundamental reassessment of building codes.
“Since the launch in 2006 of the Living Building Challenge, we have seen that regulatory barriers significantly impede the approval and construction of these cutting-edge green buildings,” according to Jason F. McLennan, CEO of Cascadia and the creator of the Challenge. “This report will reframe the conversation about building regulation and what is required to safeguard public health, safety and welfare. It serves as a great foundational document from which city and county jurisdictions can build upon to green their codes.”
McLennan notes that concerns about risks like climate change, resource depletion and
ecological health have not been included in building and development codes and regulations
up to this point. If those risks are taken into account, McLennan says “this report shows
that green buildings – and especially Living Buildings – pose significantly less risk to
society than conventional building. Therefore the regulatory environment needs to realign
behind the Living Building Challenge to safeguard the public well-being.”
The Living Building Challenge is a call to those in the design and construction industries to create
buildings that function like plants and are net-zero in energy, water and waste. There are
now more than 60 proposed Living Buildings in some phase of design or construction
throughout North America and beyond. The first two potential buildings that will seek the
greenest of green certifications recently opened: The Tyson Living Learning Center at
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Omega Center for Sustainable Living
in Rhinebeck, New York.
The report team, which includes primary authors David Eisenberg of the Development Center
for Appropriate Technology and Sonja Persram of Sustainable Alternative Consulting,
researched the issues surrounding regulatory barriers in the US and Canada. These
included an examination of the range of regulatory and other approvals
required to design and build leading-edge projects, as well as a survey of Living Building
project teams and interviews with experts throughout North America.
The Cascadia report includes recommendations to spur the creation of an integrated regulatory process that
encompasses Living Building goals. These recommendations include: Identify and address
impediments, create incentives to reach sustainability goals and launch education and
advocacy programs, among others.
“Green building has reached a tipping point,” says
Sonja Persram. “There is a growing recognition of our responsibility to address the
risks of climate change. Regulatory agencies must begin to enable best practices,
instead of simply preventing the worst from happening.”
King County provided some of the funding for this report because it “gives us the
opportunity to evaluate and improve ordinances, and take our green building initiatives
to the next level,” says Patti Southard, Program Manager for King County Green Tools. “The other driver for King County’s involvement is to be able to provide knowledgeable support to the growing market demand for higher levels of green building, which is fuelled by the Living Building Challenge.”
Access the executive summary and full report at: http://www.ilbi.org/resources/research/CodeStudies/codestudy3
About Cascadia
The Cascadia Region Green Building Council is a non-profit organization in both the US and Canada. Cascadia promotes the design, construction and operation of buildings in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon that are environmentally-responsible, profitable and healthy places to live, work and learn. Cascadia is one of the first chapters of the US and Canada Green Building Councils, and is the only international chapter in North America. It is also the originator of the Living Building Challenge. For more information, please visit www.cascadiagbc.org
