Smart Energy

Open Source Ecology is developing and testing the Global Village Construction Set, a set of tools to build replicable, open source, modern, off-grid resilient communities. By weaving open source permacultural and technological cycles together, we intend to provide basic human needs while being good stewards of the land, using resources sustainably, and pursuing right livelihood.

With the gift of openly shared information, we can produce industrial products locally using open source design and digital fabrication. This frees us from the need to participate in the wasteful resource flows of the larger economy by letting us produce our own materials and components for the technologies we use. We see small, independent, land-based economies as means to transform societies, address pressing world issues, and evolve to freedom.

via Open Source Ecology – Open Source Ecology.

Great Expectations & Kochuu, 2 films on DVD
review by Brian Charles Clark, who gives the pair 4 stars

There’s a funny TED Talk video called “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics” about how to make a good – and a bad – TED Talk. One way to go bad is to talk about architecture. We may be safe in generalizing from TED to the general culture: architecture makes most people grow faint and causes their eyes to roll.

Which is weird, because in and around architecture is where we engage with other people the most. Buildings great and small are pretty much exclusively where we conduct the four F’s — the two familiar ones, fight or flight, plus the two even more familiar ones that everybody forgets to put on the F-list: freeze (or space out) and fuck. Architecture is where we live all the fundamentals of, well, life. From coffee to water cooler to toilet to bed, we really, really need architecture to help house us. Read the rest of this entry »

Solar tiles from SolTech

One of clean technology’s greatest challenges is the common perception that it is an eyesore – from wind turbine-hating NIMBY‘s to solar-quashing building codes, there’s a multitude of superficial fronts mounting against good green design. One smart solution that’s sure to curtail complaints from noisy neighbors is this set of gorgeous glass solar-thermal roof tiles designed by SolTech. The sturdy, modular shingles utilize a simple system to store energy from the sun to heat your home, and they’re quite beautiful to boot.

via SolTech’s Gorgeous Glass Tiles Heat Your Home With Solar Energy | Kohler.

Tom Zeller, Jr. in the New York Times’ “Green” blog:

the nation’s building stock plays a bigger role in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions than many Americans might realize — accounting for as much as 40 percent of primary energy use, 70 percent of electricity consumption and nearly 40 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions.

Why? Well, one reason, according to Laura Briggs, a professor of architecture, interior design and lighting at Parsons the New School for Design, is that for most of the 20th century, the architecture and design world has remained quite separate from engineering.

“The main hurdle to seeing more energy-efficient building is a lack of knowledge,” she said in an interview last summer. “We’ve done a really bad job as educators in linking building sciences with architectural aesthetics.”

via When Green Building Is Not Green Enough – NYTimes.com.

A great TED talk by inventor, surgeon and all-around brainiac Catherine Mohr on building green.

In a short, funny, data-packed talk at TED U, Catherine Mohr walks through all the geeky decisions she made when building a green new house — looking at real energy numbers, not hype. What choices matter most? Not the ones you think.

via TED Blog: Building green: Catherine Mohr on TED.com.

Nathan Good is an architect with a passion for the environment, green home building, and energy-efficient design. With over 25 years of professional experience, Nathan was recently named one of the Top 50 Architects in the Pacific Northwest by NW Home magazine for the third straight year. His firm, Nathan Good Architects PC, is distinguished by its portfolio of award-winning homes, wineries, galleries, bridges and community-oriented facilities.

Now, Nathan and his team of architects are ready to share their passion with a wider audience via the internet and their new company blog.

“A blog is a great resource for new information and ideas, and we want to share our knowledge about sustainable, green architecture,” Good said. “It allows us to provide more detail about the green homes and building projects we’re working on, as well as point-out how design is part of the green equation. Hopefully this will help others learn more about design and building green.”

On the blog, visitors will find postings on green building techniques, innovative design projects, earth-friendly materials and energy-saving innovations. Even some of Nathan’s sketches from his personal journal, which he’s been keeping since his architectural studies at Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, will be part of the discussion.

To read more, visit the blog at http://www.nathangoodarchitects.com/blog.

I think of the Pacific Northwest as being at the forefront of thinking in terms of environmental design in the US. And the Northwest is relatively close–interestingly close–in climate to the UK. We’re pretty close in terms of energy commitments. What we have in the UK that’s different is a much stronger regulatory framework.

via An Interview with Peter Clegg | Rethink Energy and Design.

Architect, author and educator, Peter Clegg, is a senior partner with the London based firm Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. Peter visited the Northwest in late 2009 for Cascadia’s  Transformational Lecture series sponsored by BetterBricks, where he caught up with us to discuss the current challenges and opportunities within sustainable architecture.  The following is a brief excerpt of the conversation.  Read the full interview here.

The Design Conference is held annually in different locations around the world. The Inaugural Design Conference was held at Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London in 2007. The Second Design Conference was held in conjunction with the University of Miami, USA in 2008 The Third Design Conference was held in Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany in 2009 The Fourth International Conference on Design Principles and Practices was held in University of Illinois, Chicago, USA 2010.

The fifth conference is scheduled for Feb. 2 – 4 in Rome.

The Design Conference is a presenter’s conference, comprised of numerous parallel sessions.
The Conference organising committee is inviting proposals to present 30-minute papers, or
60-minute workshops or 90-minute colloquium sessions. These may be:

• Academic or research papers, or
• Presentations describing educational initiatives.

Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal

Conference participants may submit papers to the Design Journal, before the Conference and up until one month after the Conference. Papers submitted for publication will be fully refereed. The publication decision is based on the referees’ reports.

For those unable to attend the Conference in person, a virtual registration will provide participants access to the electronic version of the Journal, as well as the option to submit papers to the Design Journal.

For more information about the Journal please visit the Publish Your Paper page.

Eco-bling describes unnecessary renewable energy visibly attached to the outside of poorly designed buildings – it’s a zero-sum approach. If you build something that is just as energy-hungry as every other building and then put a few wind turbines and solar cells on the outside that addresses a few percent of that building’s energy consumption, you’ve not achieved anything.

via Is renewable power “eco-bling”? Report raises question – Green House – USATODAY.com.

See further: Paul McFedries’ Word Spy, the “word lover’s guide to new words.”

A feel-good elevator short, this film brings together local Washington state and national leaders in green building, climate change, manufacturing, and work-force development to make the case for green buildings capacity to create jobs and boost the economy while not further imposing on our environment. The transcript is available here. For more info about the film and the economic outlook expressed therein, contact Rachael Jamison, Green Building Coordinator (Washington Dept. of Ecology), at (360) 407-6352 or email rjam461@ecy.wa.gov.