Smart Energy

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.

KJ and I just watched Gargabe Warrior and we recommend it to all interested in green building.

Oliver Hodge’s award-winning documentary chronicles the life and work of visionary Michael Reynolds, the radical architect-engineer who has been designing and building self-sustaining, eco-friendly homes out of disposable materials for 30 years. Battling opposition from bureaucrats, politicians and big business, Reynolds strives to show the entire world that “Earthship Biotecture” is the key to preserving mankind’s future on earth.

And here’s what Narz has to say on Amazon:

Garbage Warrior will not give you the latest cutting edge information about sustainable design (though it certainly is a great primer), nor is it a full biography of Mr. Reynolds (though it covers the period of his life relevant to the film superbly) or of the ins, outs & tangents of the Earthship movement. What it did do, for me, is whet my appetite for more & reminded me why I am interested in this type of thing to begin with. This movie is pure inspiration, what you do with it & where you take it is up to you!

It’s a nasty habit, this human tendency to prognosticate. As someone famous once said, Prediction is hard; especially about the future. But they trendy are trending once again with New Year’s predictions, lists of things to come, and other varieties of magicxal thinking so we’re going to wrap ‘em and roll ‘em on it.

A few days ago we brought you Earth Advantage Institute’s top ten list of trends in green building for 2010. Today we find seven more (actually, these mostly duplicate the Earth Advantage list) trends of highly effective green builders:

• “Rightsizing” of homes. A larger home no longer translates into greater equity. (Right, and a good choice for #1, as the Obama administration pumps money into cleantech, including for the hiring of local resource conservation managers.)
• Off-Grid Ready buildings – also known as  Net Zero Buildings. (We’re eager to see a design that actually works; here’s our critique of one that likely doesn’t.)
• Eco-districts. Portland, Oregon, is already on the bandwagon with this one, encouraging the creation of greener communities where residents have access to most services and supplies within walking or biking distance.
• Home Energy monitor and display. (A lot of gadgets of this nature were revealed at the recent Consumer Electronics Show; see Treehugger for a round up of devices.)
• Energy labeling for homes and office buildings.
• Building information modeling (BIM) software.  With buildings contributing roughly half the carbon emissions in the environment, CAD software for building design has produced new add-on tools with increasingly accurate algorithms for energy modeling as well as embedded energy properties for many materials and features.
• Financial community buy-in to green building. [We blogged about a UK community leading the way in this trend.)

“Cleantech”: at this point, it’s more of a venture capital bit of jargon than anything else, but Shawn Lesser of Sustainable World Capital (as reported by cleantech.com) has compiled a list of the top-ten research institutions in the U.S. doing work in cleantech. Washington State University is number ten.

With legacy expertise in agriculture, power and applied engineering, WSU’s Clean Technology program is rapidly growing in the cleantech-centric Pacific Northwest. Plant science is the engine behind the opening last year of the Bioproducts Science and Engineering Laboratory, Battelle’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and the recently funded Washington State Algae Alliance. One of the main objectives is the commercialization of aviation biofuels with partner Boeing Commercial Airlines. Notable cleantech spinouts: GoNano, Ajuga Biosciences, BioGasol, Schweitzer Engineering Labs, and Integrated Engineering Solutions.

Architect Johnna Barrett has plans for five ready-to-build homes ranging in size from 1,800 to 2,500 square feet. The series of plans are called SUSTAIN houses and they look pretty good. (Wish I could say the same for the SUSTAIN Web site, which makes some common though easy to fix blunders with its implementation of Flash). Here’s what SUSTAIN is claiming you can build from their plans:

All exterior and interior materials have been specified to earn LEED credits, and with proper site selection and following the LEED checklist included with your home plans, you can easily be LEED gold or platinum certified.  We want to show that environmental consciousness can be beautiful.  All of our home plans have been independently reviewed and carry the Designed to Earn the Energy Star seal. This means that when built according to specifications you can count on an annual energy savings of 20-30% over similar homes built to code.

The plans come with very specific lists and instructions for contractors and landscapers, so you get what you expect to get in the finished building.

Willow House, designed by Johnna Barrett