Off the Grid Homes combines beautiful images with technical information for sustainable homes.

The book by architect Lori Ryker is less of a manual for systems to be used in off the grid homes (though it does include good information about the systems and strategies that are used in sustainable off the grid living) and more of a showcase of state of the art homes at the intersection of appealing architecture and high sustainability.

For many, the phrase “off the grid home” brings associations of a rudimentary, hand-built, rustic cabin. It usually suggests a rough hewn character and images of anything other than refinement and elegance. But that image is far from the case in examples presented in this book.

The case studies presented in this book offer examples of architectural works by firms such as Arkin/Tilt Architects, BLIP design, and the author’s own firm: Ryker/Nave Design. The book includes six case studies of reasonable-sized single family homes (from 1440 square feet to 4200 square feet). Each of these private residences is a comfortable example of an architecturaly appealing home that would catch the observer’s eye in any case. The fact that they are off the grid homes as well simply adds to the appeal.

The examples are well spread out, to showcase a variety of approaches and conditions where off the grid homes can be located, though from my midwestern perspective, they are all western homes, located in Montana California, Washington, and one in Tasmania. Two of the examples are situated in urban environments, while the other four are located in rural locations, more along the lines of what first comes to mind when the phrase off the grid is mentioned. In addition to numerous photographs of each house, there is also a section at the end of each case outlining both the passive- and the active-systems used in each project, as well as a listing of many of the materials used in order to make each project sustainable.

There are some surprises in the case study selections. For instance, the Capitol Hill House in Seattle might not immediately match with most expectations of an “off the grid” house. It is located in an urban neighborhood, and, although it is connected to the electrical grid with a net metering set-up, it’s photovoltaic panels provide nearly 100 percent of the energy the house needs on an annual basis. And not only is the Capitol Hill House an off the grid house, but it is also an example of a remodeled homerather than one that was built new; sustainable and off the grid in a home renovation.

Lori Ryker explained her criteria for what qualified as off-the-grid, saying, “it became clear to me that there are many aspects of energy and resource independence that are applicable to this term. For instance, rainwater collection, used to reduce a homeowner’s reliance on municipal water, provides a component of off-the-grid living, yet the house may not be 100 percent off the grid. In the same way, someone may elect to integrate a photovoltaic [PV] system that is large enough to support all of their electrical-energy needs but live within the city limits, which requires them to remain tied to the municipal infrastructure. They may not be living 100 percent off the grid, but they have found a way to produce their own energy while continuing to live within the density of the city.”

There are also clear, well explained sections discussing various technologies, with descriptions of Water Collection and Gray Water Reuse, Photovoltaic Systems, Wind Turbine Systems, Solar Hot-Water Systems, and Geothermal Systems. While a specific system is used in each case, the technical discussion addresses the system in a wider context, explaining various options and different methods that can be used to accomplish these systems.

The off the grid homes presented in this book are not the isolationist enclaves you might first expect, but are showcases of well designed buildings. The ideal of being off the grid is reflected in an approach to how the building works, and how it reduces impacts on the environment.

Lori Ryker has assembled a wonderful book that nicely bridges between an architectural book with fabulous pictures and a technical book on sustainable design. It shows how wonderful a sustainable home can be, both in its design and its operation, bringing together the best of both worlds and making for some truly remarkable homes.  It is an appealing combination, well recommended to anyone who is looking for examples of how other homes have incorporated sustainability.

Off the Grid Homes - Case Studies for Sustainable Living
Lori Ryker with photographs by Audrey Hall
128 pages, color photographs
Gibbs Smith, Publisher

Off the Grid Homes [Amazon]

Building with Awareness

Renewable Energy Handbook

Reviews on Green Building Elements

First 100% Off-Grid Green Building in San Francisco

Asia

Two “Extinct” Species Discovered

First there was Swinshoe’s softshell turtle, and then the Javan Elephant. Is this more commonplace than we might believe?

Frankly, no. Despite the occasional hubbub over an animal science has lost track of– say, the Coelacanth– we’ve witnessed something extraordinary. Swinshoe’s turtle was previously believed to be extinct in the wild, with only three remaining in captivity, and therefore every one of these 300-pound turtles is a critical find.

Continue reading: Environmental Graffiti. Hot in media: Stumble Upon.

Building Ban for Beijing Olympics

All building sites in Beijing will be shut three weeks before the start of the Olympic Games, as the city tries to clear its skies of pollution.

Digging, pouring of concrete and outdoor spray-painting will also be banned under plans announced by the Environmental Protection Bureau.

The move follows mounting concern that athletes may suffer from Beijing’s noxious atmosphere.

Continue reading: BBC. Hot in media: Care2 News Network.

China ‘Now Top Carbon Polluter’

China has already overtaken the US as the world’s “biggest polluter”, a report to be published next month says.

The research suggests the country’s greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007.

The University of California team will report their work in the Journal of Environment Economics and Management.

Continue reading: BBC. Hot in media: Digg.

South America

Amazon Tribe Enlists Google in Battle with Illegal Loggers

You may know it as Google, but in bamboo-and-thatch roundhouses deep in the Amazon rainforest the iconic brand goes by another name. The Surui people, one of the most remote on Earth, call it ragogmakan – “messenger” – and they’re banking on the search engine to save them and their ancestral lands from extinction.

The tribe – whose first contact with the modern world was less than 40 years ago – are replacing their bows and arrows with hi-tech gadgets in their battle for survival. They have already begun using satnav on their traditional trails through the trees. And Google Earth has just agreed to provide high-resolution satellite images of their forest home.

Continue Reading: The Independent. Hot in media: Digg.

GOING, GOING, GONE? New Satellite Images Reveal a Shrinking Amazon Rainforest

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon may be on the rise, according to high-resolution images released by an agency of the Brazilian government. The images suggest an end to a widely hailed three-year decline in the rate of deforestation and have spurred a public controversy among high-level Brazilian officials, writes Tim Hirsch, author of “The Incredible Shrinking Amazon Rainforest” in the May/June 2008 issue of World Watch magazine.

Deforestation accounts for approximately one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions and is responsible for significant species loss worldwide. Recent anti-deforestation measures under the administration of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have led to a marked drop in the rate of forest loss over the past three years.

Continue reading: ENN. Take action: Petition to save the Amazon.

Africa

Dockers Refuse to Unload China Arms Shipment for Zimbabwe

South African dockers are refusing to unload a Chinese cargo ship carrying 77 tonnes of small arms destined for Zimbabwe.

The arms, including three million rounds of ammunition suitable for AK47s and 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades, were ordered by the Zimbabwean military at the time of the March 29 election – which Britain and other Western powers have accused Robert Mugabe of trying to rig.

Continue reading: Times Online. Hot in media: Digg.

Middle East

Bahrain World Trade Center Activates Wind Turbines

You may remember that about a year ago we brought you news of the Bahrain World Trade Center, which was designed to have three giant turbines provide power to the building. Well, this past Tuesday, the project was finally completed, with the final testing and installation of the enormous wind turbines which power the building. This week, Bahrain WTC has, for the first time, activated all three 29m-diameter turbines at the same time!

Continue Reading: Inhabitat. Hot in media: Digg.

North America

Canada Leads Way with Ban on Baby Bottles Containing Bisphenol A

The government announced Friday that Canada will be the first country to ban plastic baby bottles with bisphenol A after concluding the chemical is toxic.

Health Minister Tony Clement unveiled the “precautionary and prudent” move while trying to calm fears with a limited ban of the widely used chemical, also found in hard plastic sports bottles and tin cans of food and infant formula. Most Canadians “need not be concerned” about the health effects of bisphenol A, but Clement said “this is not the case for newborns and infants.”

Continue reading: The Gazette.

Europe

Biofuel Rule Will Do More Harm Than Good, Oxfam Says

U.K. fuels for cars and trucks must contain biofuels starting today, a move that may do more harm than good to the environment and drive food prices higher, charities including Oxfam and Greenpeace said.

Under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, suppliers must ensure that 2.5 percent of fuel sold at U.K. pumps consists of biofuels, which are made from crops and grasses. The requirement will rise to 5 percent by 2010. The Department for Transport says the plan will cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 2.5 million metric tons a year.

Continue reading: Bloomberg. Hot in media: Digg.

Global

Millions Of Pounds Of Trash Found On Ocean Beaches

Ocean Conservancy released its annual report on trash in the ocean with new data from the 2007 International Coastal Cleanup the most comprehensive snapshot of the harmful impacts of marine debris. The mission of Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup is to engage people to remove trash from the world’s beaches and waterways, to identify the sources of debris and to change the behaviors that cause pollution.

This year, more than 378,000 volunteers participated in cleanups around every major body of water around the globe. Volunteers record the trash found on land and underwater allowing Ocean Conservancy a global snapshot of the problem.

Continue reading: Science Daily. Hot in media: Care2 News Network.

On March 18th, I posted the article, “Metropolitan Home Goes Green,“ discussing the magazine’s feature story on a Seattle penthouse.  Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Linda O’Keeffe, the Director of Design and Architecture at Metropolitan Home. Since Ms. O’Keeffe sees design trends as they happen, I asked her a few questions regarding what kind of changes she sees the green movement bringing to our homes.

Green Building Elements: Do you see a significant number of people opting for smaller homes?

Linda O’Keeffe: I do. Even people who can afford more are choosing to live in smaller spaces, sometimes because they are young or because they are empty nesters, but in general, just because it makes more sense now.

GBE: As people scale down, which rooms are they prioritizing, and which ones are they eliminating?

LO: I’m seeing fewer home offices and dining rooms. We were fooled into thinking we’d need a home office. But our offices are paperless now, so there is less to store. And there has been a change in technology, too; people are doing a lot of their work on a BlackBerry while they wait at the airport. Sometimes people with kids want a home office so that they can have a separate space, but even then, often everyone is in the kitchen. The kids can work on a laptop in there, and [parents] can see what they are doing.

Overall, people feel now that rooms should be adaptable: cozy enough for one person to read in, but able to accommodate 30 guests. Also, formal rooms are becoming less popular. They seem almost Victorian. Now we want every square inch of our homes to be usable.

GBE: With the surge of interest in recycled materials, are new types of finish materials becoming popular? (New kinds of countertops and cabinets, for example, or flooring?)

LO: Bamboo flooring is ubiquitous. And I am seeing a lot of recycled countertops; even Lowe’s has launched one of these products. I wouldn’t say that there is one particular material that is becoming popular, although I’m seeing a lot of concrete used for interiors. But it’s not industrial looking concrete; it has a patina and it’s touchable — it’s a sexier kind of concrete.

GBE: In general, what patterns do you see emerging as green design principles are applied to more and more homes?

LO: We’re at an interesting point in time. Everyone is talking about green. However, ’sound bites’ have a shock value, while the truth is very complicated. The New Yorker had an article recently that focused on some of these complexities: they were saying that buying locally may not always be best, because so many factors need to be considered when calculating an item’s carbon footprint. [The New York Times online has a good analysis of this issue, as well, in an article by Andrew Martin.]

As for Metropolitan Home, with every project we cover, now one of the first questions we ask is, “What about it is green?” We’ll continue to talk green; we won’t let it go away. It’s not a fad.

In one of our recent issues, we covered a renovation in which the owners re-used materials, and kept the original footprint of the house. These are green things. There is a lot of self-righteousness out there about being green; at Metropolitan Home, our attitude is, “Whatever you can do, do it.” It’s just a fundamental, sensible way of looking at the world.

Thanks very much to Linda O’Keeffe for taking the time to share her insights with Green Building Elements. Look for future issues of Metropolitan Home to offer more great advice on going green; in the May issue, check out “*word”, which provides data on how long it will take to recoup your investment on some popular green products.
 

Photo Credit: Mikkel Vang

Related Posts:

http://ecopreneurist.com/2008/03/24/met-home-gives-a-big-boost-to-green-companies/

http://jeffmcintirestrasburg.greenoptions.com/2007/03/22/the-green-options-interview-ed-begley-jr/

The 20 teams selected for the 2009 Solar Decathlon have been announced by the US Department of Energy. Each team will receive a $100,000 grant from the DOE to be used for creating a completely solar-powered home for the competition.

The full list can be found in an article at Custom Home Online. The 2009 competition has some international flavor, including last year’s winner, the Technische Universität Darmstadt, as well as the Universidad Polytécnica de Madrid and two groupings of Canadian universities.

One former faculty adviser to a university Decathlon team lamented the reduction of the Solar Decathlon to a more narrow range of design concepts. The first few Decathlons were wide-open events, with very different designs. But with certain criteria in place, the strategies have been narrowed down to address the specific problems posed by the Decathlon challenge. These are still good designs that are being produced, but they are now tuned to a set of particular requirements and criteria.

Homes designed for the Decathlon should perhaps be viewed in the same spirit as one views Formula One race cars compared to ordinary cars. In the cases of both the auto race and the Solar Decathlon, the competitors are tuned for specific ways of maximizing the allowable methods for winning a contest. While some developments in the competition may trickle down to more prosaic, domestic uses, it’s not a representative testbed.

We’ll certainly be looking at the entries when the Decathlon is held; however, I don’t expect to see great numbers of them making an appearance in a neighborhood anytime soon. Like race cars, they are great to look at, and fun to think about using, but for most of us, they aren’t a practical alternative to what we have now.
Image (Kansas State/Univ. Kansas 2007 entry in front of Washington Monument) via Curious Cat

Built in Darmstadt, Germany, this structure is called Waldspirale or “Forest Spiral.” It was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a celebrated Austrian architect and painter. Planted along the 12 floors of the rising roof are beech, maple, and lime trees. The structure even incorporates a running stream. The building comprises 105 apartments. In the tower on the Southeast corner, a restaurant and cocktail bar rises over the entire structure. Source: Wissenschaftsstadt Darmstadt.

Nestled in Pembrokeshire, in Southwest Wales, this structure is truly an eco-dream home. It was built about three years ago by a single family and their friends over the course of four months. The family estimates that it took about 1,000 to 1,500 hours of work and cost only about £ 3,000. It was constructed mostly out of logs, straw and mud, which acts as an effective insulator. According to the house’s inhabitants, the home “feels gentle. Feels to me more like being part of the (natural) world, less like a commodity in a box.” Source: Simondale.

While the Songjiang Hotel, near Shanghai, China, will not be completed until about May of 2009, it will certainly be a sight to see. The hotel is being built in a 100 meter (330 foot) deep abandoned quarry, preventing further disturbance of the area’s ecology by building on an already-disturbed site. The architecture will incorporate a living roof at ground level, on top of the 400-bed hotel. There is also some chance that the structure will be able to make use of geothermal energy to power its facilities. All in all, this promises to be a ridiculously cool eco-wonder of the world. Sources: Greenroofs, Ecogeek.

With about 35,000 plants of 76 different species, this structure in Fukuoka, Japan houses offices, retail shops, a theater and a museum. The building was designed by Emilio Ambasz & Associates, which focuses on green building techniques. It was constructed on one of the city’s last open spaces, so the idea of the building is to retain the feature of the open space while providing the city with the facilities needed in this space. Like other green roofs, this one enables the building to use less energy than the surrounding structures. Source: Deputy Dog.

The Altamont Pass Wind Farm in California, United States of America, has been called the largest piece of artwork in this country. Composed of 4,500 wind turbines, it is still the largest wind farm in the world, although a larger one is under construction in the UK. Built in the 1970’s, this was one of the earliest wind energy projects in the United States. The windmills are therefore currently being upgraded to more efficient and bird-safe windmills. The windmills are visible from nearby roadways, but it’s worth getting out of your car to take in the awesome view they create. Sources: Flickr, Wikimedia.

This green roof houses baths in Vals, Switzerland. The grass roof was designed to make the building look as though it had been built long ago, though the building was built in the early 1990’s. Peter Zumthor is the spa’s architect. The structure is made of slabs of concrete, a good insulator, which are fitted together in almost a jigsaw pattern. In the spaces between the concrete, glass has been fitted. From the inside, this gives the double impression of a heavy roof that appears almost to float. Sources: Inhabitat, Wikimedia.

The Hearst Building is considered the first green building in New York City, United States of America. It is also the first building in New York City to receive a gold LEED certificate. The most physically apparent environmentally sustainable feature of this building is its shape and glass windows. These triangular windows work in sync with light sensors to maximize natural daylight and minimize electrical light used. The roof itself collects rainwater, which feeds the plants inside and outside the building. For much of the year, cooling is accomplished with a HV AC system, which simply uses fresh air from outside to cool and ventilate the building. The structure itself was also accomplished with 20% less steel than other buildings of its stature and over 90% of the steel used was recycled material. All in all, an office in this building emits about 22% less CO2 than other New York offices. Sources: Ecotourism Blog, Hearst Corporation.

See Also:

7 Unusual Public Transit Wonders You Should Try In Your Lifetime | EcoWorldy

References and Resources:

Projects | Greenroofs

Green Roofs | Inhabitat

8 Great Green Roofs | Weburbanist

Building with eco friendly temperament | Ecotourismblog

Read more about green buildings at GO Green Building Elements.

This is the third year for the competition. The concrete industry is looking for opportunities to boost the perception of concrete as a green material, since the mining, processing and transportation of concrete is responsible for 8% of all carbon dioxide produced by human activity.
Like plastics, concrete is a versatile and widely used material, but there are a number of undesirable consequences of the production of the material that have architects, engineers, and other designers looking for alternatives and for better ways of producing the material.

There are two categories in which entries can be submitted: I- Design an environmentally responsible Recycling Center focused on reusing today’s materials to preserve tomorrow’s resources, or II- Design a single element of a building that provides a sustainable solution to real-world environmental challenges. Registration deadline is Feb. 8, 2008 and the deadline for submissions is May 14, 2008. Prizes include US$10,000 to be divided among the top winners in each category and a copy of PCA’s suite of concrete design software with an array of structural engineering resources, awarded to each winning school.

Link: 2007 PCA Design Competition Winners

Image source: Portland Cement Association

The push toward green building has been gaining momentum in the Windy City during the past few years. Chicago served as proud host to the 2007 GreenBuild Expo in November. The city already has the most LEED-certified buildings in the world. In the private sector, a number of large commercial projects underway will showcase some innovative design. One of the most dramatic of these is Santiago Calatrava’s Chicago Spire, a 2,000 foot twisting tower that will become the nation’s tallest building after completion in 2010. The commercial and residential tower will seek LEED Gold status based on many features including special glass to protect migrating birds.

Part of the reason green building is gaining momentum is a big push from City Hall. The administration of Mayor Richard Daley has mandated the use of green roofs and other sustainable design in all city-financed projects. While commercial developers gradually find their way to building more sustainable design as the real estate market develops demand, the city has been able to spread green building throughout the city by requiring all new public buildings to achieve LEED Silver status. In addition to the creation of green schools, green police stations, and green libraries, two buildings that opened their doors this year to some of Chicago’s poorest residents show that green design isn’t just for the well-heeled.

The Near North Apartments, located near the infamous Cabrini-Green housing project, is a single-room occupancy building with 96 units designed by internationally known modernist architect Helmut Jahn. The building’s green features include rooftop solar energy panels, cisterns to collect rainwater for on-site irrigation, and a gray water system that recirculates filtered water from showers and lavatories back into the toilet system. The Near North Apartments generates a portion of its own power through rooftop wind turbines that take advantage of the Windy City’s dependable breezes. The building sets new standards for sustainability and energy efficiency in the field of affordable housing.

The other green building with a social service mission completed this year is the new facility for the Pacific Garden Mission, Chicago’s oldest and largest homeless shelter. Another high-profile designer, renowned Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman, brought his talents to bear in an innovative, yet cost-effective building which opened its doors in October. The 989-bed facility sports a green roof as well as rooftop solar panels. An interior courtyard is planted with birch trees and contains greenhouses where residents will grow food served at the mission, gaining job skills in the process. The project is pursuing LEED Silver certification, mostly with typical off-the-shelf technologies and strategies. An example of this is the use of dual-flush valves on toilets to contribute toward water savings.

These two construction projects have drawn attention because the idea of innovative, eco-smart design seems at odds with most people’s conception of what a homeless shelter or public housing should look like. But when you think about it, non-profit agencies with limited budgets are just the type of organizations where the awareness of resource scarcity and the need for efficiency is understood on a basic level. What more receptive clients could you ask for when designing high-efficiency building that those who who don’t have resources to waste?

The city of Chicago deserve credit for working to hire some of the best architects around to push the envelope toward affordability in sustainable design. It’s great to see concrete examples that push green building out of the realms of the exotic and into the daily lives of those at the bottom of the economic scale. Thousands of Chicago’s most vulnerable citizens will benefit from these two projects because the financial burden of operating their high-efficiency temporary housing will be eased, freeing up more resources for things like job training and health care as they build better lives. Now that’s what I call sustainable.

Photo credit: Near North Apartments by Helmut Jahn (GreenSource)

Addressing the issue of preparation for these extreme conditions as part of a sustainable building strategy only makes sense. Water use and xeriscaping (drought tolerant landscaping) are issues that are included in the LEED rating system, and are well regarded as part of the overall sustainability of buildings. But addressing a building and it's site in terms of wildfires should be equally considered for regions where fire susceptibility is high. Keeping the building from burning down is also an issue of conservation of resources and should be part of a green building approach.

For example, rather than using lumber sawn from old growth forests, engineered lumber and I-joists make more efficient use of lumber resources and can take advantage of smaller trees. Instead of needing to find trees old enough and large enough to produce a piece of 2 x 12 lumber, an engineered I-joist can be made that uses chipped wood and glue manufactured wood board (like oriented strand board) and narrow, laminated strips of wood (again, made of smaller pieces of wood and glue). These engineered joists are lighter, straighter, and less prone to warping, cupping and twisting than even kiln dried sawn lumber is.

Engineered joists would seem to be an ideal solution. They are made from small, rapidly renewable trees, which can be farmed, rather than requiring the logging of large trees. Builders and carpenters like them because they are more regular, and they make for flatter floors, straighter walls, and truer roofs, with less variability when they are installed and less likelihood to move and twist over time.

But there are downsides to these more efficient materials.

"Was it a conscious decision or a momentary lapse of reason? How did progress take priority over humankind? Could harnessing the world's energy that allowed our ascent now be the ledge pan of our down fall?" These are the questions addressed in the PBS ongoing series e2. The most recent episodes, narrated by Morgan Freeman, focus on energy. They look at transportation infrastructure, the auto industry, fuels and renewable fuels, alternative energy solutions and infrastructure, etc. As a result of examining such critical topics, the network was able to land a high-profile guest list for this 6-episode series including Samuel Bodman, the US secretary of energy; Brian Boldemberg, Brazil's former secretary for the environment; Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute; and Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner. These began airing October 12, 2007

The next set of episodes, narrated by Brad Pitt, will focus on design and innovation. This high profile guest list features designers, architects, and other enthusiasts dedicated to changing the world though socially and environmentally conscious design. Some of the architects include Thom Mayne, architect of the new San Francisco Federal Building, and Adriaan Gueze, the lead architect of the Borneo Sporenburg development in Amsterdam. Other architects and sustainability enthusiasts include Ed Mazria, architect and founder of the Architecture 2030 organization, and William McDonough of Cradle-to-Cradle design.

We need some smarter building controls.

Some building controls are already available. The oldest and best known is the simple thermostat. A thermometer control that turns on heating or cooling, depending on the temperature. It doesn't do much, but it does help to regulate furnaces and air conditioners to keep the temperature within a range of few degrees. But, temperature is not the only factor in comfort. Reducing the humidity can sometimes be all that is needed in warm weather. If the temperature is not too hot, the cooling effect of a breeze may be better than running an air conditioner. But a thermostat can't do that for you.

Kudos to Edutopia; this issue ain't no puff piece. Every teacher looking to go green, or those already greening their classroom, can find something of use to them in this jam-packed issue. The editor's note in the issue is penned by guest editor Bill McKibben of Step It Up fame, who skillfully explains why all teachers should and can incorporate sustainability into their curriculum.

Edutopia listens to McKibben's advice by provided several ideas for sustainability lesson plans and projects for all ages. Not only are there many useful ideas in the magazine, but there are more on the magazine's website. There are also tips for teachers, by teachers, about how to green up their own classroom practices: some helpful, some fairly obvious.

Waterless urinals present one striking example of how regulations and green technology are not yet working together. In some municipalities, waterless urinals have not been allowed by building inspectors because they do not meet code requirements. Or, in some cases, building inspectors have allowed waterless urinals to be installed, but have required the builder to provide plumbing supply lines to bring water to the waterless urinal locations (though capped off and hidden behind the finished wall). The rationale for this is that if the waterless urinals are later removed and replaced with conventional urinals, extensive renovation will not be necessary to bring water to the location.

This upsets many of the green benefits of using waterless urinals in the first place. While waterless urinals provide water savings, that is not the only green benefit to incorporating them into a green building. Waterless urinals, when installed without a water supply line, provide savings in materials by avoiding the installation of likely dozens of feet of water supply pipe. Given the material cost, the high embodied energy content, and the extensive mineral use in mining, refining, and creating even ten feet of copper pipe, much of the savings from installing a waterless urinal is wiped out. Because of this, it will take much longer to realize the savings that using a waterless urinal should provide.

Voting has been open to the public online since mid September. As it is too late to cast your vote, it isn’t too late to congratulate the winner and find out what people consider excellence in design. The most exciting part of this year’s ballot is that many of the nominees were for projects geared towards sustainable progress. Social sustainability is one of the most important attributes for the public to consider, our responsibility towards sustainability and global issues shows promise.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to creating this vision of a shining city on a green hill is that government can't do it alone. While the city has shown willingness to lead by example, it will take the coordinated efforts of the corporate community and private citizens to turn a metropolis with an aging and underfunded mass transit infrastructure, and less-than-stellar record of water management and waste stream recycling, into a model for American cities looking to get serious about getting green.

One of the more intriguing ideas for eco-friendly urban design that Daley's administration has tried to spread to the private sector is the green roof. Through its Green Roof Grants Program, the city has subsidized more than 60 residential and small commercial projects to the tune of $5,000 each in the last two years. Because the program includes fast-track building permits along with financial incentives, the use of green roofs has spread dramatically. In fact, Chicago now has more square footage of green roofs than any other American city.

When the US Green Building Council's LEED® rating system became the standard for green building in the US a few years ago, it provided a way for builders and homeowners alike to have an immediate and measurable impact on the environment. Though certified buildings are increasingly common in commercial design, few platinum-certified homes exist in the US. Now, one of the most environmentally-friendly homes in California will be open to the public.

The brainchild of builder/developer Tom Schey, the Venice home at 710 Milwood Avenue – dubbed project7ten – was built to educate and raise awareness of better, healthier choices that we can all make, every single day. It has been certified Platinum by LEED®, the highest level that can be achieved.

Inspired by An Inconvenient Truth and the installation of solar panels on the roof of actor Ian McKellen’s home (in notoriously grey-skied London, no less), Schey realized that he had to do something to help educate people. As Schey was active in the real estate business, that seemed like a logical place to start. By partnering with environmentalist and philanthropist Kelly Meyer, and architect Melinda Gray of GrayMatter Architecture, project7ten was born.

The building owner, Integrated Design Associates, Inc. (IDeAs), is a San Jose CA based electrical engineering and lighting design firm, that is committed to walking the walk as well as talking the talk when it comes to sustainable building systems. This project is green not only from the numerous features that were included in the building, but starting at the outset by re-using an existing bank building instead of building new. The company makes no mention of attempting for LEED certification for the building, though it is clear that this building has many features that would earn a number of points in the LEED rating system.

Powered entirely by the sun, these high-tech homes that exhibit superior efficiency are "likely to help shape America's clean energy future," states a press release from the Department of Energy. The first Solar Decathlon was in 2002. I am partially inspired by this event as my old alma mater, the University of Michigan, competed in the 2005 competition. Although Michigan is not competing this year, many of the students from participating schools and prospective schools took notes on the flaws present in 2005, and went home to improve, reinvent, and discover new technologies for this year's event.