Green Design
Eco-Development and Sustainable Renovation
I’ve noticed an interesting trend lately. The renovation of old buildings. Gorgeous old buildings gutted and rebuilt from the inside-out, as green and sustainable new structures.
An exciting (and well-publicized) example of this is the Sanctuary development on Capital Hill in Seattle.
The original church was built in the early 1900s and has been a distinctive landmark of the neighborhood for years. Through the renovation of this historical icon, ecological- minded urban residences are being created.
The preservation of the beautiful building was a cornerstone of the project planning. Architectural details, bricks, wooden pews, flooring and windows were repurposed and used within the new residential development as stairs, detailing, in-fill and patching. New sustainable aspects of the housing itself include dual flush toilets and tankless water heaters. › Continue reading
An Alternative to Lead-based Solder
Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of electronics, especially the person that habitually tinkers with and “fixes” the various appliances at home will know how regularly solder is used and needed, even more so for those in the industry.
Up till just recently though, solder wasn’t exactly a milestone of technological achievement. Rather, the basic premise behind solder has remained unchanged; it is still simply a little bit of lead (or other metal substance with a low melting point) which, after being melted, acts as an adhesive, holding together important parts of circuit. These parts being essentially an integral and regularly used component of those everyday tools like cell-phones and computers that we take for granted. Naturally, something so universal, and so small as to be oft-overlooked, is bound to have far-reaching consequences over time.
These consequences were not taken lightly by Ainissa Ramirez‘ and her team at Yale, who like many other scientists around the world had sought out a greener alternative for quite some time. Recently, the culmination of this teams research is to be published. An essential summary of the idea is that new tin-silver solder with iron particles will present a viable alternative to replace the afore-mentioned lead-based solder. But there’s more, asserts Ramirez, as “in addition to helping make the fabrication of microelectronics more environmentally responsible, these new solders have the potential to solve technological challenges.”
USGBC’s Green Home Guide Beta
Margarido Home, LEED Platinum Certified.
Many of us are familiar with the LEED rating system from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), which is a third party green building rating system for commercial and residential buildings. The LEED rating system has been adopted by the U.S. government and is used with all new construction and major renovation of federal buildings. LEED certifies buildings on a point based system in the areas of Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy & Atmosphere, Materials & Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, Locations & Linkages, Awareness & Education, Innovation in Design, and Regional Priority. Points are then added up to achieve Silver, Gold, or preferably Platinum certification. While mainly regarded as a tool for commercial building, there is also a LEED for Homes section that allows you to certify your home or neighborhood.
Recently, USGBC has launched a Green Home Guide. The site is an awesome resource for those of you looking to remodel or build a home in the near future. The site contains a myriad of resources for the casual and the serious green homemaker alike. The “Know How” section guides you through green building advice and educational articles to help you make better-informed decisions. They cover a diverse range of topics, and the content is growing everyday. With the rapid growth in the green building world, it’s a great resource if you need to get an idea of what’s out there.
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Worlds Largest Solar Powered Yacht – PlanetSolar
Just unveiled in Germany, this Swiss built catamaran dubbed PlanetSolar is the largest of its kind with over 5,000 sqft of solar paneling covering most of the surfaces. With a top speed of 15 knots (17 miles per hour), this 66-ton boat carries 50 people with its crew of two. It’s 38,000 newer generation photovoltaic cells have an efficiency of at least 22% to help with converting the suns rays to turning the propeller. It’s no Code-X speed boat, but it is probably more efficient and practical.
Sticking to routes near the equator, the crew hopes to maximize the suns exposure to keep their average speed at 8 knots. They will be embarking on a 140 day voyage to cities like San Francisco, New York, Darwin (Australia), Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Marseille. Maybe they could stop by the Pacific trash gyre on the way over.
› Continue reading
Energy Efficient Windows
Winter: tis the season to be jolly. Christmas and Valentine’s day have already come to pass, but the season hasn’t lost all of it’s festivities for those of us enjoying the Winter Olympics. Some time during the beginning of each month though, in spite of how joyful the season may be, you’re bound to get an envelope in the mail that’ll bring you down from all that cheer. Inside the envelope, you’ll find a letter with a lot of fine print and a very clear number representing how much money will be going to go towards paying off the additional heating expenses that every Winter brings along with, the Winter hangover.
Environmentally sound technology has advanced though to the point where you can stay warm in-doors without paying as much of the annual extra costs of heating utilities and without causing unnecessary harm to the environment. It’s a win-win situation in the form of a window material that won’t even clash with your drapes.
The technology is called Low-emittance coating and is applied to the glass during the manufacturing process but the science behind it is pretty simple. When your home is warmed up, eventually things will cool down (it’s why you have to keep the heater on over extended periods of time) as the heat radiates. The heat leaves in the form of infrared radiation, and these microscopic layers work to prevent that by only allowing specific frequencies through. Best of all though, it can work both ways. So in the Summer the same coating that kept heat in during the winter, can keep heat out (diminishing the need to keep rooms regularly air-conditioned).
› Continue reading
Solar Powered Electric Lawnmower
Designed by Studio Volpi in collaboration with GGP Group, this solar powered electric lawnmower is not only pretty for the eye, it’s also clean for the lung. Using the suns rays to charge while mowing, a removable polymer-ion battery system ensures your lawn care will be completed.
While this is a great concept, there is actually one in existence- and this one is automated! Similar to those robot vacuums, this is an automated solar lawnmower.
Recycle Your Greywater Into Your Landscaping
Harvesting rainwater is a great way to reuse the free water from the sky, however, unless you have a lot of rain barrels and a lot of rain, the dry season will cut your supply short- or will it? Grey water is another great source to recycle from since it is just being wasted by going down the drain.
Greywater is non-sewage waste water from your sinks, bathtub and laundry drains that is safe for your yard. The benefit to recycling or reusing this water is that it recharges aquifers and waters your plants while nature cleans the water. It is even better if the only thing going down the drain are natural cleaners, detergents and soaps. An individual may produce 15,600 gallons of greywater a year, all of which is wasted by going down the drain when it can be safely used on landscaping. Buckets have been used to collect this water from bathtubs, but can be cumbersome and labor intensive and there are easier ways.
Flotender has a great automated system that acts as a collection, storage and irrigation system all in one. Available for your rain collection devices as well, this system gathers your rainwater or greywater and pumps it out to your landscaping through a drip irrigation system. They have other systems available so you can customize the irrigation system to your needs, but they all use the same principle- collect the recycled water and distribute it to your plants. Hook it up to your rain barrels, tap it into your greywater drains and never have to water your yard again!
Chris Jordan – Environmental Awareness Photographer
I have always been fascinated with photography, its ability to tell a story in a single frame. Sustainable and environmental photography hardly ever gets its place in the spotlight, mainly because the images can be so graphic or disturbing that nobody wants to put them on their wall at home. Chris Jordan may be one of the only exceptions in this case as he is known for impactful, but artful photographic montages.
Chris Jordan has been on my radar for some time now, even before his photographs of millions of plastic bottles. Being a photographer myself (West|LaCount Photography) and given we both live in Seattle, WA – word gets around. His popularity has grown since converting what were once only statistics and numbers into visual representations so our minds can better quantify our impacts.
His latest photographic adventure, Midway – Message from the Gyre, is one of my favorites. Traveling to Midway Atoll, one of the remotest islands on earth, he set to show us how far reaching our impacts can be. Located in the North Pacific, halfway between the U.S. and Asia, he tells a story- a story of plastic. Home to over 1.5 million birds including colonies of Albatross, Frigate birds, Boobies, and Terns; it is also near the apex of the Pacific Garbage Patch.
“The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.”
Greening of Seattles Paramount Theater
Seattle is a pretty green city, both in vegetation and environmental awareness (although the lack of public transportation situation is mind boggling), so it is only fitting that one of the most recognizable entertainment icons is getting a green revamp. The Paramount Theater near the heart of downtown Seattle is in the process of a green upgrade, starting with the signature marque sign.
The newly replicated sign will be approximately 90% more energy efficient. Currently The Paramount vertical sign has 1,932 incandescent bulbs using 11 watts per bulb, driven by several large mechanical chasers. The replacement consists of .75 watt LED bulbs with electrical chasers gaining the largest energy efficiency increase. Magnetic transformers will be replaced with Ventex High Power Factor (HPF) electronic transformers to power the neon portions of the sign. These units will save up to 66% of the energy currently being consumed by the neon lights.
North America’s Largest Living Green Wall
PNC now holds the title for the largest living green wall in North America currently hanging on the exterior of their Pittsburgh headquarters building located at One PNC Plaza. With approximately 14,448 plants covering 602 modular panels, the 2,380 square-feet living mural really livens up the 30-story building.
The eight varieties of plants, installed by locally sourced (within a 500 mile radius of downtown Pittsburgh) materials and labor, only need 15 minutes of irrigation per week. Not only does it look pretty, its also doing some work- reducing the ambient temperatures of the south-facing wall by 25%.
Not only that, PNC has constructed more green United States Green Building Council LEED certified buildings than any other company in the world with a count of 64 Green Branch locations and two office buildings.
Prix Pictet – Sustainability Photography
Sustainability and Photography- one of the most powerful mediums of change is the photograph. Images have the power to enrage, to calm, to motivate and educate. Prix Pictet brings together some of the most influential images by photographers immersed in a changing world to promote sustainability. This year’s theme is Earth.
I love it when I can combine two of my biggest passions as I am not only a huge proponent of sustainable, eco-friendly living, but also of photography. As an ecologist, I spent many hours in the field capturing butterfly images and nature and wildlife photographs, but my images pale in comparison to the feelings inspired by the images chosen for this years shortlist.
Food riots. Loss of forest cover. Desertification. The ecosystems we depend on appear to face resource demands already beyond their capacity. As governments try urgently to stimulate growth, a central question remains. Can the earth’s complex living systems sustain the future consumption patterns of another three billion people in the world’s population by 2050?
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