Green Options

Inhabitat shares a great set of stories on Alive Structures: a Brooklyn based green roofing collective. Together, with the most creative native gardeners in the city, Alive Structures will be giving tours of their rooftop gardens at NYC wildflower week. All those in the greater New York area make sure to stop by to explore this exciting dimension of the greening of cities.

City roof gardens create a nice natural habitat for pollinators and migrating species, and additionally “they provide open green spaces for property owners and the public to enjoy.” Green roofs are known to improve air and water quality, lessen storm-water runoff, lower building energy consumption, and reduce urban heat island affect.

Green roofs are constructed as a series of layers including:

• a waterproof membrane
• a root barrier
• drainage mat
• an erosion control fabric
• lightweight engineered soil, and vegetation.

The GreenRoofs.org “Green Roofs for Healthy Cities”  Conference is on the horizon in Atlanta this coming June 2009! It is just ideal for:

• those interested in creating Green Roofs.
• studying the future of Vertical Gardens/Green Walls.
• raising awareness for green roofs and living walls (vertical gardens).
• engineers, architects, landscape architects, landscape designers,  property managers, developers, roofing contractors, and students.
• anyone interested who wants a 2-day crash course in green roofs and all the beautiful benefits they bring to cities.
• creative city gardeners of all sorts.

“Green roofs are an important component of green infrastructure. They provide valuable public benefits related to stormwater management, reduction of the urban heat island, improvement of air quality (including removal of particulate matter), and general improvement of the quality of life in communities.”  ~GreenRoofs.org

A project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) at Exit Art, “Vertical Gardens is an exhibition of architectural models, renderings, drawings, photographs and ephemera that depict or imagine a vertical farm, urban garden or green roof.” The exhibit features over 20 projects, both imaginary and real, by artists and architects envisioning solutions for building greener urban environments.

Details for the FREE two-day event (featuring eco architects, artists, professors, and poets) at Exit celebrating Earth Day 2009 are as follows:

If it works for one San Fran hotel then it must work for another. No, we’re not talking about more upscale mini bar items but Greening a hotel. In this case, the Orchard Garden Hotel’s (which garnered LEED-NC certification) sister property the Orchard Hotel just nabbed LEED-EB certification.

The Orchard represents San Francisco’s only hotel to earn this honor, the Orchard Hotel is the second hotel in California and fourth hotel in the world with this certification. The inspiration from these green hotels comes from its 85-year-old owner, Mrs. S.C. Huang, who has pushed her environmental agenda and created more environmentally safe and sustainable hotels after the untimely cancer-related deaths of three family members.

My jaw dropped when I first watched this video tour of a beautiful owner-built green building construction project in Oregon. This particular green building is made entirely out of cob, a mixture of clay, sand, and straw.

Meka Bunch of Wolf Creek, Oregon built this stunning cob house over a four year period. Complete with hand-sculpted furniture, shelves and nooks built directly into the walls, arched windows, and a killer custom staircase, his cob building is a divine artistic achievement.

Check out the video and photos of Meka’s cob cottage for yourself:

This post was originally posted on Eco-Libris blog on March 24.

Green buildings have never been so popular, at least when it comes to public policy. Looking at the stimulus plan you see how a concept that until lately was relatively marginal suddenly becomes a significant policy tool, which is expected to stimulate the economy, lower energy consumption, create jobs and support the environment, all the same time.

But what does a green building or a green home actually means? well, for most of us it would be difficult to get into specifics as so few had the chance to experience it personally, but for Avrim and Vicki Topel know the answers.

They have built a green home (LEED Silver Certified) at Kennett Square, PA and they’re sharing their story in a new book entitled “Green Beginnings: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home“. This book is a valuable book for anyone interested in going green or building a green home. It is also part of a greater effort of the Topel’s experience to share their experience with others, which includes tours in the house and a documentary video. And last but not least, as we reported earlier, Eco-Libris is collaborating with the authors to plant trees for the copies sold of the book.

As we wanted to learn more about the authors’ experience and their book, we asked Avrim Topel to join us for an interview.

Shown below is another rendering of a winning design for Bird Island called the Rafflesia House.

While it is intentionally named, it “unintentionally looks like the Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world and a native to the rainforests of Malaysia. (Rafflesia used to be Malaysian national symbol, but it is now replaced by Petronas Towers.)

The Rafflesia develops from the bud into a flower over a period of nine months. The blossom is pollinated by flies attracted by its scent, which resembles that of the carcass. The flower lasts for only a few days. Rafflesia challenges traditional definitions of what a plant is because it lacks chlorophyll and is therefore incapable of photosynthesis. Rafflesia is a parasite. It did not begin its life as a parasite, but evolved this lifestyle. Biologists do not know what the Rafflesia’s function is in its ecosystem. This mystery incites one of the most elementary questions: What is the function of the humans in the world’s ecosystem?“

The award winning Rafflesia House shown above is a spectacular study of the human habitat evolving and becoming an integrated part of its tropical, urban, and site-specific ecosystem. The architects, designers and builders “searched and re-examined the ideas of the right balance between the connection of the building to the outside and the shelter the building provides from the outside elements: plants, creatures, rain, sun, wind, or heat.”

In full bloom at the National Building Museum this year, is a Green Community exhibition. The interactive show shares detailed information on how the “health of our communities, our planet, and ourselves depend on how we plan, design, and construct the world between our buildings. Green Community explores the origins of our precarious ecological situation and introduces communities large and small where citizens, political leaders, planning and design professionals, developers, and government agencies are working together for a more sustainable future.”

The exhibit poses the question “What makes a community green?” and answers by stating “A green community conserves its land, offers multiple options for transportation, provides open space for recreation and cultivation, and uses its natural and cultural resources wisely.”

South African Anglican Archbishop and renowned anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu will give the keynote address at Greenbuild 2008, to be held in Boston on November 19 through 21.  Tutu’s appearance marks a continuation of the US Green Building Council’s commitment to tie green building to world issues.  Last year in Chicago, former President Bill Clinton gave the keynote address, which can be viewed here.  Archbishop Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, worked for social justice in South Africa as the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, pushing for reconciliation after the end of apartheid, as well as using his clout to fight poverty, human rights abuses, and AIDS.  “Bishop Tutu’s life, work, and message demonstrate the power of transformational change,” commented Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO, and Founding Chairman of the USGBC.  “Bishop Tutu’s role in ending apartheid in South Africa and bringing reconciliation to its people will inspire us toward the transformation of our buildings to a sustainable future, and will give us an extraordinary example of social justice in action.”

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 [...]

Green building tours are becoming popular in many cities, and are an excellent means of introducing green construction options to professionals and laypeople alike.

The Cascadia Region Green Building Council will host a tour of green buildings on September 25th, 26th, and 28th in the Victoria, Vancouver, and Okanagan regions of British Columbia. British Columbia is the Canadian province with the most LEED-certified buildings per capita, and Cascadia’s Green Skyline tour [...]