Archive for February, 2008
February 29th, 2008
Our Endangered Oceans: Smithsonian Special
Stumble it!
Our friends at Smithsonian.com have published an authoritative and moving feature at their EcoCenter on The Oceans. We encourage all of you to view it and learn about the fragile state of our seas and what we can do to protect them.
In the opening lines of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville describes the ocean as a tonic for the wounded soul. Lately, though, the part of Earth made up of water—some 70 percent—has hit a tempest of its own. Overfishing, a shifting climate and pollution threaten the future of many fish and coral species–and, in many ways, impact our lives on land. In the spirit of letting the sea ease one’s troubles, Smithsonian explores the problems, potential and fascinating phenomena of the great blue beyond.
Popularity: 1% [?]
February 28th, 2008
Hot Wheels: Electric Scooters and More!
Several hot green two-wheelers have come to our attention of late, and we want to share them with you. That’s how we roll.
Vectrix
This is a serious road machine. The Vectrix is the first 100% electric, zero emissions, highway-legal motorcycle. This puppy can move: zero to 50 MPH in 6.8 seconds. You don’t have to be green to want one of these! And they are coming out with a very cool three-wheel version soon. Check out the Vectrix.
GreenEMotors E-Cruiser
If the Vectrix is a bit much for you, then take a look at the E-Cruiser. This is a plug-in scooter that will get you where you’re going. It’s zero-emissions, street legal and cute as a bug. A $1 charge will get you 450 miles! GreenEmotor offers 2 styles, 5 colors, and 2 motor sizes to choose from. They also offer a 1-year warranty. Check out the Cruisers from GreenEMotors.
Bamboo Bikes from CalfeeDesign
If you want to go sooooper energy-efficient, how about a bamboo bike? Yes, we’re serious. CalfeeDesign is making bikes from bamboo. The bike is made from Bamboo that has been smoked and heat treated to prevent splitting. Lugs are available in carbon fiber or hemp fiber, for the all-natural look. The chainstays are available in carbon fiber for extra stiffness in the drivetrain. They coat the bamboo in tung oil as a sealant. It comes in road, mountain, recumbent, tandem and other styles. Do you have bike envy yet? I do.
Popularity: 1% [?]
February 27th, 2008
U.S. Cities Pedaling in the Right Direction
Will 2008 be the Year of the Bike? Washington D.C, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Arlington and Portland all have low cost bike-sharing programs in the works – with several set to launch in 2008.
Most U.S. bike-share plans will be modeled after Paris’ successful Velib program that is funded by advertising behemoth JCDecaux, who purchased the bikes as partial payment for Paris billboard advertising rights. On similar terms, Clear Channel Outdoor will run the bike-sharing programs in D.C. and San Francisco, according to the AP.
About 120 bicycles will be deployed in the first phase of the Washington D.C. program at 10 locations around the city. Details on membership pricing have not been announced yet. Apparently the bikes will be stored in user stations around the city and members can get access to the bikes using a special card. The launch date is not official yet but should be in in the late spring of 2008. (We hope!)
The simple efficiency of the bicycle, as a short distance mode of transportation, is amazing. If automobiles advanced to a place where they were soundless and ran on pollution-free, rapidly renewable fuel, they would still pale in comparison to a bike that offers low-impact exercise and is made with significantly less material. Ironically, the first widely popular “high wheel” bicycle came along in the late 19th century at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Many turn of the century innovations were a catalysts to our current climate crisis, yet excellent solutions, such as the bicycle, were invented at the same time. When discussing tactical solutions to global warming, noted environmentalist Paul Hawken says, “The technological solutions are here. I’m not saying that stunning new things aren’t being invented all the time, but that’s not the obstacle. The obstacle, of course, is ourselves”.
Well, it looks like we may be stepping out of the way when it comes to utilizing the time tested efficiency of the bike. Kudos to modern cities for jumping on the bike-sharing bandwagon and getting big business to pay for it!
Popularity: 1% [?]
February 25th, 2008
Green Prefab: pieceHomes
Recently I had the good fortune to interview Jonathan and Mary Jo Davis, co-founders of Davis Studio Architecture + Design and the new line of modular houses, pieceHomes. They have been working in the sustainable architecture field for many years, and have recently launched pieceHomes as a new venture.
Q. How did you get into green architectural design?
Jonathan: The first house I designed –right after college– was in Shreveport, LA. It was a custom home and a really a green home. It was located on a lakefront, so it was designed to be raised up for flooding, sited to take advantage of the views of the lake, and we carefully surveyed the trees and sited the house to save as many as we could. We incorporated solar hot water panels, geo-thermal wells for heating and cooling, heat-recovery units behind the fireplaces, into the design, as well as a self-contained sewage treatment plant that put out pure water right at the lakefront. We also used recycled brick throughout the house.
I was also into camping, being outdoors, and sailing….it all tied together and made sense. After grad school I went to work for Frank Gehry….we did a building for a utility company over in Germany that was a showcase for green technologies… I was very much involved in that building. After leaving Gehry, I completed many projects with recycled materials and sustainable systems. These elements have always been part of my palette. And six years ago when Mary Jo and I met and started Davis Studio A+D, we made this our mission. We design for sustainability and we educate our clients about sustainability.
Mary Jo: Two years ago we built our own house and we wanted to use our house as a showcase to show clients that you could build it green and build it affordably. And now it is a prototype for our pieceHomes concept.
Q: Great—please tell us a bit more about the genesis of pieceHomes and where it is heading.
Jonathan: Through interactions with a client of ours several years back we were working through some ideas related to modular homes. We were interested, but we weren’t ready to try to break into the market. Prefab is a huge industry—especially on the East Coast—so to break into that market isn’t easy. But as we designed and built our own house we started to work with these modular concepts more. Then at West Coast Green we met Tim Schmidt who is the CEO of XtremeHomes. He was starting a new factory that builds green homes….and they are very flexible about what they will build. They will basically build a custom home in a factory—or 20 versions of a house, in modular pieces. So when we saw that they could provide the flexibility that we were looking for, we decided to move forward with pieceHomes. From their factory location, we’ll be able to serve the West Coast. Interestingly though, we’re seeing huge demand on the East Coast…particularly in North and South Carolina. It’s amazing. I never would have predicted it. That’s a market that has surprised us…and we’ll have to figure out how to serve it.
What’s interesting to us—we’re a small architecture firm and all of a sudden we come out with this line of factory-built homes and we’ve gotten exposure all over the world. We’re on peoples’ radar, which we never would have been able to do as a small architecture firm. It exciting but it also presents some challenges for us. We’re used to dealing with clients on a one-to-one basis, and now we have so many people coming to us on the modular front. It’s a different way of doing business. And we’re having to having to adjust our practices to meet the demand.
Mary Jo: I’m excited because off-site built has the potential to change the entire architecture industry. Home building has essentially not changed in centuries…but this is a real departure. Prefab could bring architecture to so many more people. We love that aspect of it.
Jonathan: And for us affordability is key. A lot of companies are selling their factory-built work at $400-500/suare foot—and they are gorgeous, but very expensive. Our goal is to produce some homes at the $200/sq foot level….we’d prefer to sell more smaller, affordable homes to more clients than a big, expensive home to a really wealthy client. We’re also looking at selling the whole package…we’re not selling a kit, we’re delivering the whole house, lock stock and barrel. In the future that would include furniture, linens… we want to create the full package—the client can say check, check, check, and get the whole thing delivered.
Q. Tell us about the projects you are working on now.
Jonathan: We are working on several homes now….the first one is a custom design. It’s called Rindge. It started off as a conventionally built house. But we realized we could build it in modules with some minor changes to the structural engineering. We realized we could save money and time going that way. It’s going to be in Playa Del Rey and we’re signing contracts now with the builders, so we hope to be done by the end of the summer.
Q. Are you hitting any roadblocks—challenges?
Jonathan: It’s a bit more work to do the permitting for off-site built—you have to get two permits—one for what’s built in the factory—and one for what’s done on the site. Two sets of drawing. But it’s not insurmountable. In California at least it’s a fairly clear process.
The second project we’re working on, we’re in early design phase. The client has an old one story house in Venice, LA. Right now they want a new garage and a studio space….but they eventually want a new house. So we’re going to take it in stages. First we’re going to do the garage with a studio module on top of it. That’s the first phase. Then we’re going to do a 2-story addition to the existing house—2 modules—which we would lift over the existing house. The third phase will involve deconstructing the existing house and then with another set of modules we would build a new house, which would connect to the 2-story addition. It would be a seamless integration. The new house will be much better related to the site in the end. Using modules allows us to do it in stages, and it allows the family to continue to live there while this construction is going on. We’re planning to do Phase 1 this summer.
Mary Jo: We’re also talking to people in SF, Seattle, Denver, Texas….and for some reason a lot of people were asking about building homes in Hawaii. But shipping these homes to Hawaii would be a trick!
Q. Tell us about the materials for the homes you’re working on.
Mary Jo: As much as possible, the exterior materials will be installed in the factory. This reduces cost and on-site work. We’ll be using materials such as cementitious panels, galvanized corrugated steel siding, Mangeris wood (from sustainably managed forests). We’re also looking into other materials such as Ecoclad.
As for the interior items, for all of the living spaces we’d offer cork or bamboo floors as the basic. We offer Expanko as well, which is a rubber-cork composite. Or Forbo. We use EcoTop for the counters. No VOC paints and finishes. We use vegetable-based oils on exposed woods. We’ll use formalhyde-free MDF cabinets. Of course Energy Star appliances and a tankless water heater. LED lighting as an upgrade. Whole-house water filters. Dual flush toilets, low flow water fixtures. In our house we used wheatboard…but now the price has gone way up. There are many upgrades available—Kirei board or Palmwood for example.
Q. Will you seek LEED certification for pieceHomes?
Jonathan: We’re talking about it….certainly if the client wants it, we will do it. And all of our homes will be Build-It-Green certified. We can offer the possibility of homes getting LEED certification but not do it as a standard process. If the client wants it, we can go for it. Build it Green is more flexible. It’s a California based rating system and it’s an easier process. We’re planning to do that for all of the homes. A highly rated Build It Green house it’s quite comparable to a LEED house.
Q. Well thank you so much for your time and insights. We’ll be very interested to see PieceHomes popping up across the landscape over the next few years!
Mary Jo: Thanks—we’re excited. Green and modern are merging. It’s a great time.
Popularity: 7% [?]
February 24th, 2008
Green Magazines Abound
Put down that eye candy magazine – you know the ones I am talking about! How about picking up a thought provoking and environmentally inspiring magazine to read? There are now a variety of great green publications to choose from, and we thought we would review a few of our favorites here at Low Impact Living. Some are very technical and some are more about living a green lifestyle, but all of them are chock full of great ideas, thoughts and innovations.
Before we get into the reviews, we should note that any publication geared toward the green consumer should be making an effort to print on recycled paper or FSC certified paper, and using organic inks for print. Some publication companies might even be going the extra mile by using green energy to power their operations or offsetting their carbon footprint by purchasing credits. Also, used magazines or newspapers should ALWAYS go into the recycling bin and not the trash upon completion. Better still– try reading your favorite magazines online and save the paper altogether!
Green Magazines We Love
Natural Home offers environmentally concerned homeowners the information they need to practice earth-inspired living. It features articles that discuss topics about the home, gardening, remodeling, redecorating, health, and inspiring projects for the eco minded. Often you can source a fabulously yummy organic recipe or get an idea for using an old household item and turning it from trash to treasure.
Plenty is a newer magazine that provides a little more insight into the green world around us with articles about current environmental issues. Their motto is “It’s easy being green” and their goal is to prove it through awareness and knowledge. You will find tips for DIYers and cool new products for your home or office. In every issue, you will find updates on People, Technologies, Eco-Travel, Green Gear, and much more. Plenty is about eco-conscious abundance, and true to the title, there is an abundance to be gained every two months from this magazine. It is sold at retailers like Whole Foods and also available online.
Another great green lifestyle publication is Mother Earth News. It focuses on sustainable living and offers great nitty-gritty do-it-yourself green projects. It also covers renewable energy, organic gardening, natural health and other topic areas.
Eco-Structure is on the more technical side of green design and technology. You can always count on them to introduce you to the latest innovation and have some very detailed analysis articles about green technologies and the performance of green buildings. This magazine is not for the beginner in green design, but it will launch you into a new realm of knowledge. The most helpful aspect comes from the laundry list of all the resources and products used for every project mentioned in the magazine. For all you design professionals, this is a HUGE help and time saver when doing research for current green projects. I am constantly fascinated by the articles in Eco-Structure and look forward to its arrival every month for a true cover-to-cover read. It is a free subscription and well worth checking out.
Environmental Design and Construction is a magazine for the academic in all of us. Although it is probably the most senior green magazine on the racks, it is often overlooked in favor of its fancier and newer counterparts. It should not be dismissed since it is always chock full of educational resources. It is best known for its annual comprehensive list of green resources and products called the “Green Book”. If you are a design professional, building professional, or facility owner, add this guide to your shelves and link this website to your favorites. It is truly an oldie but goodie.
GreenSource Magazine Aside from solving the mystery of when it will arrive in your mailbox, this newcomer to the racks is a winner. The leader in Architectural books and magazines, McGraw Hill Construction, has teamed up with the staff of Building Green for content and articles. McGraw Hill Construction is a powerhouse for all kinds of construction and building resources including Architectural Record and Sweets catalogs which are found in every Architectural office. Building Green is a leader in environmental education and information and is best know for publishing Environmental Building News and the GreenSpec directory. GreenSource focuses on actualizing a green building and the process involved. For all you LEEDers, this is a great magazine to guide you through the LEED rating systems and implement it into construction projects.
Dwell has always been on the leading edge of modern style and design. Although it is not specifically a “green” magazine, you will find many green references, products, and information in every issue. Dwell is extremely popular with the consumer market as a leader for providing information about modern dwellings. The Dwell empire even has its own trade show every year in San Fransisco. It is a very progressive magazine and you can count on it every month for introducing something new and unique. My only complaint is the overwhelming pages with advertisements, and often from companies that are unrelated to the design industry. Aside from this, Dwell is a great coffee table magazine and will always inspire you intellectually every month.
The anxious anticipation of the arrival of your favorite magazine holds a different value in every person. I am like a kid in a candy store when mine arrive! We would love to hear about other green magazines and publications that you look forward to reading every month for the latest and greatest environmental news.
Popularity: 2% [?]
