You are here: Home / 2007 / Archives for August 2007

Global Green’s Holy Cross Development in New Orleans

August 29, 2007 By 4 Comments

Two years ago Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and brought enormous devestation to the city and the region. Since then, numerous agencies and programs have been working on projects to rebuild and revitalize this region. An architect and online friend of mine wrote an excellent article about the recently publicized pictures for Global Green’s proposed Holy Cross development for the redevelopment of New Orleans.

This guest post is by Sarah Nagy. Sarah is in a position to be a much better critic of proposed New Orleans construction because she, too, lives in a hurricane-prone region (the Florida panhandle), and is directly acquainted with appropriate design for a Gulf Coast environment. I think her analysis offers an excellent review of this project, balancing the applause for what she calls ‘Sleek Contemporary Prefab Housing Solutions’ with some pointed criticisms of some of the apparent problems in the design.

The complete essay can be found on Sarah’s blog, Front Step Design.

[Disclaimer: As critical as this post will be, I want to applaud the folks involved with this project for their initial feelings of goodwill, their obvious effort, and all the good green decisions that lie under the aesthetics.]

To look at the images of these houses, Holy Cross is clearly located on the rural prairies of Southern Louisiana. Each of these houses will survey 20 acres. But enough sarcasm. The situation, to anyone who has been there, looks more like the pictures below (from The Urban Conservancy).

Green Building Elements: Better Partition Walls

August 27, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Architect Magazine

Construction, as many of you know by now, is one of the biggest single sources for waste and may be responsible for as much as 30% of the volume used in some landfills. And, because commercial space is turned over more frequently, the interior build-out of office space is one of the biggest sources of construction debris and waste. As companies change their staff, the space they occupy fluctuates, and often old spaces are torn out and new spaces built with different configurations.

Since the spaces in an office are not part of the structure (in most cases), the walls that divide offices and meeting rooms can be relatively quickly disassembled and rebuilt in a new configuration without affecting the building structure. This flexibility appeals to building owners and tenants alike, because space can be easily customized to meet the particular needs of any tenant. But it leads to an awful lot of waste, as well.

A new system of wall construction devised by Sean Dorsy, a graduate architecture student at The Catholic University of America, uses standard 4 x 8 sheets of plywood cut with slots so that the panel can be unfolded like an accordion to make a wall structure to replace standard stud construction.

Wind Turbine Buyer’s Guide

August 22, 2007 By 11 Comments


Home Power magazine has collected information about a wide range of different wind turbines that are available for home or small business use. The 2007 Wind Turbine Buyer’s Guide is a small but information-packed article with a wealth of information about available turbines for small wind systems.

The review has information on 19 different small wind turbines ranging from 7 feet to 56 feet in diameter, including systems for battery charging, as well as batteryless grid-tie systems. The list concentrates on some of the more widely available turbines, though many other manufacturers are selling turbines these days. Models from Abundant Renewable Energy, Bergey Windpower, Eoltec Wind Turbines, Kestrel Wind Turbines, Proven Energy, Southwest Windpower, Vestas, and Wind Turbine Industries are included on the list.

"Small wind," in our definition, starts with turbines with rotors (turbine blades and hub) that are about 8 feet in diameter (50 square feet of swept area). These turbines may peak at about 1,000 watts (1 kilowatt; KW), and generate about 75 kilowatt-hours (KWH) per month with a 10 mph average wind speed. Turbines smaller than this may be appropriate for sailboats, cabins, or other applications that require only a small amount of electricity. But if you want a significant amount of energy, you need a rotor with significant swept area—it is, after all, the wind turbine’s "collector."

In addition to the comparisons, there is good information about what the various components of a wind turbine system are, explanations about how the rating information was gathered, and a short section on wind turbine basics, that briefly covers the internal workings of a wind turbine (like what a ‘yaw bearing’ does).

When Green Building Isn't Helpful

August 20, 2007 By 7 Comments

<img src="/files/111/audubonhouse.jpg" alt="Audubon House" width="288" height="400" align="right" />In this past weekend's local newspaper's Real Estate Section I saw an article with a number of &quot;award winning&quot; homes, including a 5 bedroom, 6,400 square foot house that was touted as the winner of a green building award. The principal basis for its green claim appeared to be that it was an Energy Star home.<br />
<br />
A generation ago, that much square footage would have built a comfortable four-plex in which four families would have lived. Today, it is likely that this house will be occupied by a family of four.<br />
<br />
To be truly green, the house cannot be thought of as a mere building whose impacts on the world stop three feet out from the face of the outside walls, but must take into consideration the impacts of the resources that will be consumed by dwelling in the house, as well. Life cycle, manner of use, and supporting infrastructure required are also matters that need to be examined.<br />
<br />
The Audubon Society built one of the first explicitly green buildings in the country when they built a new headquarters building for themselves in the early 1990s. Rather than building a new structure on a greenfield site surrounded by trees and a lush lawn, they instead chose to renovate an existing 19th century building in downtown New York City. This choice allowed the use of existing infrastructure for building services and transportation, as well as the recycling of an existing structure and the savings of thousands of tons of material.<br />
<br />
A new house built out in the exurbs quickly outweighs any green benefits it may have with the miles of roads that are built to reach the house and connect it to the existing grid of roads. The miles of travel required to travel between this house and the stores, workplaces and other places its inhabitants must go to quickly offset any potential benefits of greener construction for the house itself.

Weekend Review: The World at Home: A Household Guide to Building

August 18, 2007 By 2 Comments

<img src="/files/111/CECcover.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="360" align="right" /><br />
<em>The World at Home: A Household Guide to Building</em> was produced by the <a href="http://www.cectoxic.org/">Citizens Environmental Coalition</a>, a non-profit environmental advocacy group based in Albany, NY. This is something between a book review and a website review, because this <a href="http://www.cectoxic.org/cec-greendg.pdf">book is actually a 100 page PDF</a> that is free for download. It is filled with good information about greening your house, particularly for remodeling or new construction. While it is full of good information, it is not overwhelmingly detailed or complicated. It is a well-balanced guide that covers its material with sufficient detail, but at the same time without becoming overly technical. <br />
<br />
The guide is timely and up to date. (This is actually a recently revised second edition of the guide. The first edition was produced in 2004.) In discussing various materials or approaches to construction, the guide is very comprehensive in trying to include as many things as possible. Both the positives and the negatives behind each choice are addressed, and while the information is not exhaustive, it is an excellent starting point.<br />
<blockquote>
&quot;This guide is meant to enable you to compare building materials and make your own educated choices to affordably seek out safer, more sustainable products. It is also meant to help you evaluate the larger life cycle implications of all the products that you buy and use.&quot;<br />
</blockquote>
A section on &quot;<a href="http://www.cectoxic.org/buildgreen/talk.html">Talking with your Designer and Contractor about Building Green</a>&quot; is one of a number of sections that is excerpted on the website as well. This section approaches the beginning of a project in much the same way that I would: by asking questions. This helps to direct in figuring out your particular green goals and determining what is most important for you in terms of Energy and Water, materials and Toxins, and Space Use, Appearance and Purpose. It also addresses the (unfortunately all-too-frequent) view of green building as an add-on or a commodity, rather than as a fundamental and integral part of any building project.

« Older Posts