Green Building Elements

A southeast Portland, Oregon retail store is undergoing renovations intended to help it achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification.  If it reaches its goal, it will be the first retail store in Oregon and the first of Cincinnati-based Kroger Co.’s stores to do so.

“In the Northwest, we are immersed in the culture of sustainability, and we’ve been working on establishing sustainable practices for a long time when it comes to issues like energy efficiency, recycling and storm water management,” said Randall Douthit, group vice president for facility engineering for Fred Meyer. “Working toward LEED certification is really a national evolutionary step in our progress.”

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In the future, there will be no green building as green building will be the norm. It will be like asking an architect to design a “structurally sound” building. To us and many others that equates to a future no brainer. Until then, with many people unaware of the benefits or even the basics of Green building, then books like Green Building 101: A Basic Guide to Building and Remodeling Sustainably makes a good introduction. Even more enticing in this tight economy would be that this book costs nothing.

Green Building 101 makes for an easy intro for anyone not familiar with the green building process. Author Dawn Killough breaks the book down into categories such as energy efficiency, building materials, and construction procedures. Anyone familiar with the LEED system or Green Point Rated certification programs will be knowledable with these topics.

Those in the Pacific Northwest or specifically in Oregon might relate better to this book as the Beaver State based writer uses many specifc examples such as that Oregon is a net-metering state or Energy Star requirements for Oregon.

We think that this e-book makes for an easy and useful although rudimentary green read. Overall, it reads like a tasty appetizer to a main course. Those who want a more in-depth green building experience might check out Green Building for Dummies by Eric Corey Freed. Dummies offers more specifics and easy fixes, not to mention humor, for those who want to get their green building fix on.

In this world of news bites and short attention spans, Green Building 101 delivers what it sets out to do. It creates a snapshot for those unknowing or slightly curious about the green building world. After reading it hopefully readers will be even more motivated to actually DO something with the information.

When mention of an “earthen floor” is made, one might imagine a dusty, drab dirt floor. Earthen floors are far from this, however; instead they are very elegant, durable, inexpensive, and ecologically sustainable solutions to a typical floor installation. They are varied in construction, but the idea and ingredients are essentially the same across the board. Earthen (or adobe) floors are poured or compacted combinations of sand, clay, straw, and sometimes crushed rock, with pleasantly smooth surfaces resistant to wear and tear, and capable of storing heat from the sun.

There is no one way to construct an earthen floor. They are a natural option for straw bale or cob buildings, but they can even be installed on concrete slabs or preexisting wood floors, as along as the framework is strong enough to support the heavy weight of many buckets full of earthen material.

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The phrase “Chicago Politics” has been thrown around as an insult over the presidential campaign season.  Now that Chicago has become for the next two months the unofficial second US Capital, Chicago politics have dramatically increased in influence. Agree or disagree with the negative connotations of the phrase, the reality is that if certain aspects of Chicago politics do make their way into the Obama administration, we might be looking at a bright future for green building.

Of course President Obama will inherit enormous problems, both at home and abroad, and no one expects him to place green building anywhere near the top of his priorities.  But a look at the green culture of Chicago and the philosophies of those on the short list to cabinet posts will reveal a potential national shift toward environmental building practices. Read the rest of this entry »

Architecture Involution LLC (Ai3), a leading architect firm that specializes in educational design and Triumph Modular, the premier provider of temporary and permanent modular buildings have teamed up to launch the CASE 21 (Creative Academic Sustainable Environments for the 21st Century) classroom solution. CASE 21 is  a high-performance learning environment employing state-of-the-art green design, organizational layout and technology integration.

CASE 21 was conceived by Ai3 in response to the poorly designed classrooms with poor lighting, ventilation, acoustics and air quality.

Ai3 partner and co-founder Jim Jordan, who is credited with having designed the widely acclaimed Massachusetts School Building Authority Model School (Whitman-Hanson Regional High School ), has led the design charge regarding green design, sustainability, and LEED certification for the CASE 21 project. Read the rest of this entry »

Here at Green Options, our coverage of tree houses on Clean Technica and Feel Good Style lead me to a discussion on treehouse hotels. This started me thinking about the the perfect way to experience ecotourism…

…in a way that might further ecological education and preservation. For example, show above are aerial views of Hinchinbrook tree house hotel in Australia, which is tucked inside a 96-acre national park with lush rainforests, sandy beaches, plus mountain hiking.

Realizing not all of us may have the ability to dash away to a resort, a simpler treetop experience is Free Spirit Spheres (shown below), that is something Inhabitat updates us on as you can not only visit their unique place, you may buy own orb from them.

The Ecosphere is in a grove of trees, and can be your little personal treehouse spacecraft among the branches. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave it to the State Compensation Insurance Fund, the quasi-public workers’ compensation insurer based in San Francisco, to bring more green building to the Bay Area. Okay, we’re stretching it a little to call Vacaville the Bay Area but what’s a few miles for a true green building.

The fact that the $77 million green campus that consists of three 85,000-square-foot buildings diverted more than 20 percent of the building materials from the nasty old landfills. Much of those materials included concrete and cork and rubber flooring. Not only did the architect HOK and Milpitas-based Devon Construction reduce waste by using recycled building materials, but State Fund diverted a whopping 75 percent of construction waste away from landfills to recycling vendors.

This campus which expects to receive LEED Silver certification early next year, hit a big on the energy savings front with solar panel system, energy-efficient light fixtures, lamps, heating and cooling systems and other electrical equipment; and in the high-tech world they added “server virtualization” technology that reduces the number of servers needed to support the facility. The Green IT people must love that.

We (and probably most of the 750 workers) applaud the use of various low-emitting materials such as adhesives, paints and carpets. They also significantly reduced the building’s water footprint by incorporating low-flow toilets, waterless urinals, and an irrigation system using non-potable water.

We say that that is $77 million dollars well spent.

Photo credit: Steve Proehl

i-plas , a UK based company has invented a building material known as i-plas, from recycled plastic that would otherwise be destined for landfill, to produce products which outperform the traditional alternatives of wood, steel and concrete.

According to the company, recycled composite plastic helps reduce carbon emissions, conserves oil and is extremely cost effective. The recycled composite profile has a wood like appearance, its surface is contoured giving it better slip resistance as well as visual appeal. Read the rest of this entry »

Mostly when we talk about LEED certified buildings we think about office buildings or government centers but here we scope out another first. The Advanced Data Center building in Sac-town already became the first data center to be pre-certified LEED Platinum. Surprised? You bet. Most people think that these data centers with all of the computers are huge energy hogs, and they’re right. That’s why the firm had to work extra hard to create efficient cooling systems. They designed a cooling system called an “air-side economizer” that reduces energy use through careful airflow, and water-flow design and to utilize outside air because the temperature and humidity reamin in the correct range for 75% of the year.

Besides being so cool with the air side efficiency, we like their H2O technology savings effort. They utilize recycled (grey) water from a local municipal water system and captured roof rainwater for landscaping, restrooms and cooling tower backup. They even went so far as to install low- and even better no-water fixtures in restrooms.

Someone was either thinking about LEED points, just doing the right thing or perhaps tax breaks but the fact that the ADC built the location on a brownfield in the former McClellan Air Force Base shows some real foresight and green thinking. It didn’t even scare them that the site contains polluted groundwater 350 feet below the building.

Perhaps the military should take a clue from companies such as ADC when considering how to use (or abuse) the land that they seem to be protecting.

The contemporary looking building pictured here is not a high-end green building full of high tech features. Rather, it is a prizewinning affordable housing design for South Africa that costs significantly less than a new car. This is a house designed to provide affordable housing for very little cost: 50,000 South African rand (which is about US$ 6,000). And there are a lot of things to like about this design.
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