Green Building Elements

Spring weather entices us outdoors, and our thoughts turn to delectable fruits that will soon be ripe. Many of the spring fruits that we see in grocery stores are shipped from Central or South America, definitely not a green option! Those same spring fruits grow well in many home gardens. Homegrown fruits are healthier, tastier, and they have a fraction of the carbon footprint.

Bing cherries were once grown throughout the Santa Clara Valley. However, the valley has warmed, and only lower chill cherry varieties now produce fruit in the same locations. Lapins and Stella cherries require less chill, and they rival Bing in flavor. Royal Rainier is a lower chill yellow cherry that is as scrumptious as Royal Ann.

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Edible landscaping is the best way to eat locally. We save the fossil fuels used to transport produce thousands of miles from farmers’ fields to the grocer. When grown organically, produce requires far less energy than conventional agriculture. We also save the chemical inputs needed to maintain a lawn.

Imagine harvesting fresh fruit and vegetables just steps from your door. Harvested at the peak of ripeness, homegrown produce is more flavorful and nutritious. Many of the best fruits are too delicate for transport and storage.  They are only available to home gardeners.

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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 »

A new study in the December 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine suggests that an increase of green space in a neighborhood may decrease the chance for childhood obesity among neighborhood children.

In the study, researchers from the University of Washington, Indiana University-Purdue University and Indiana University School of Medicine followed more than 3800 children aged 3 to 16 over a two year period. Using satellite imagery, the researchers found that of the predominantly African-American and poor children studied, those who lived near greater concentrations of green space had a greater chance of lower body mass index (BMI.) Children whose activities were limited to streets and sidewalks faced greater risk of childhood obesity than those who had access to open spaces such as yards, parks, or vacant lots.

This study finds that what is good for adults may not be good for children. A previous study done by the same researchers found that higher urban concentrations led to less driving and more walking by adults, and a corresponding drop in BMI. Read the rest of this entry »

It is hard to believe, but the City of New York has implemented plans to renovate a former landfill into a city park.  This is quite an endeavor, and certainly a model for site restoration.

The Fresh Kills Landfill was established in 1948, and was the principal dumping site for the City of New York.  It even had the dubious distinction of being the largest landfill in the world!  The site was closed in March of 2001, until 9/11, when it was reopened for ten months to receive debris from the World Trade Centers.

The current master plan incorporates several programming elements, including athletic fields, horseback riding, mountain biking, nature trails, and large-scale art exhibits.  It will also host a variety of wildlife and native plants, and provide amenities for nature viewing.  The park campus will be broken up into five smaller sections, each providing many opportunities for the public to use its various resources.  The entire project is expected to take 30 years, and will be split into three 10-year phases.

This is a monumental project, which will hopefully spur other communities to look at how they can take what may be considered “contaminated” sites and turn them back to nature.

For more information, visit the Fresh Kills Park website.  You can even sign up for a newsletter to track the progress of the development.

It sounds like a war effort or some great new candy bar, but it has been ten years in the making. Yes, the Academy of Sciences museum finally opens in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. We’re totally jazzed to have this Green building icon finally opening up, with some of the old exhibits, the completely updated planetarium and the sustainably based dining options by Charles Phan and Loretta Keller. While most of the advance crowd marveled at the Africa Hall, the various fish aquariums, even the albino crocodile, we turned our attention to the building itself. Yes, a LEED Platinum structure that supposedly marks the largest LEED Platinum building in the U.S. With a building so large, we decided to get cute (or maybe efficient) and do an outside and inside post. And because humans spend 90 percent of their lives indoors, we’ll start outside for a change. Well, actually upside.

Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane no it’s a living roof. Not just a Green roof with scattered plants but one covered with 1.7 million native plants. Architect Renzo Piano designed the roof as an homage to the hills of SF. Even more creative is how the plants keep from slip sliding off the hills. Rana Creek worked with Piano to use 50,000 porous, biodegradable trays (called a BioTray®), that they made from tree sap and coconut husks as containers for the vegetation to keep the little green guys in place.

In addition to the natural habitat created by the roof, the roof reduces the Urban Heat Island effect and reduces the building’s temperature by an average of 10 degrees versus a nasty old standard roof. Additionally, the roof’s cistern system will captures 90-98 percent rainwater, with 3.5 million gallons of rainwater per year expected to be absorbed by the roof.

With all the time we spent outside the museum it’s a wonder we didn’t get sunburned. But of course we used sustainably concocted sunscreen. Next museum post, we’ll take a green look at the interior.

Green roofs are great – they’re very energy efficient, they capture and filter stormwater, they reduce the urban heat island effect, and they soften the harsh grays and blacks of our cities (at least from above!). We’ve written at length in the past about these benefits. If it works so well on roofs, why stop there?

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A family in Australia has created their own tiny wetland as a part of a household grey water system.  It is a fairly large DIY project, but, as the article demonstrates, not an overwhelming project.  The writer even enlisted his young children to help in the construction.

Black water is toilet waste and other water that requires more substantial treatment.  Grey water is non-sewer waste water from washing clothes and showers and the like.  Although in most homes, both black water and grey water go into the sewer system and are handled in water treatment plants with the same processing, grey water really requires much less treatment. It is possible to find other uses for grey water, including using the water for toilet flushing or for irrigation. Read the rest of this entry »

With new owners set to move into the the LEED light Arterra we throughout that we’d pay a visit to San Fran’s newest LEED certified condo. Arriving on bikes, we discovered that no bike racks exist for those wishing to inspect the demo models. Thus we had to pull out bikes into into the sales office. Walking though the corridors to the demo unit, we couldn’t help but smell the VOCs rising though the air. Kind of disappointing for a LEED-NC building.

Once we arrived at the demo unit, we felt sad to see granite countertops in both the 1 and 2 bedroom units. We asked the salesperson about the “Green” aspects of the condo and he didn’t know much about the Green aspects but he thought that most of the Green attributes (aka LEED points) weren’t located in the condos but we more part of the overall building. Give that man an organic cigar as most of the LEED points came about in the low hanging fruit (landscape, location and other interior elements) as the green aspects hardly appear in the living spaces. We noticed the dual flush toilets and triple pained windows but aside from that we didn’t note many green offerings.

With buyers scheduled to move in today or tomorrow, hopefully they don’t believe that they are moving into the greenest of the green condos. We’ve heard that the Arterra folks don’t really care about the whole LEED system other than using it as a marketing ploy. Too bad, as the sales figures for the Arterra sit at around 54% sold. Maybe people see it the Arterra for what it is, a very light Green housing option with a favorable price tag.

Stormwater management is an urban logistical requirement. Rainwater and the water from melting snow have to be dealt with. When plants and soil, which absorb water from rain and snow are replaced with buildings, roads, and other impervious materials, the water from a storm no longer goes into the ground where it can recharge the water table, but stays on the surface and has to be managed in some fashion to keep the streets and buildings from flooding. Low water tables lead to water shortages and increased costs for water supply. However, much of the stormwater that falls on towns and cities is treated as a waste material to be gotten rid of, rather than as a resource for the community and the region.  Water conservation is certainly one part of protecting our water supply.  But  stormwater is another part of the hydrological cycle , and better management of  that water can contribute significantly to improving water quality and decreasing resource consumption. Read the rest of this entry »