West Coast Green, a gathering that‘s part expo, part trade show and part thought conference, will be showcasing leading edge green projects when it opens at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco this coming weekend.

One of the largest conferences devoted to the “built environment,” the event attracts speakers with architectural, design and construction expertise from around the nation.

Visitors to the 2009 conference, Oct. 1-3, will be able to see demos of hundreds of products, as well as examples of green design, such as a large hanging garden constructed on a bamboo framework that will be suspended over the bay. The installation aims to show how green can be beautiful and useful, using vegetation to mitigate heat, sequester carbon and improve water and air quality.

The SFH40, an off-grid building for emergency use (Photo: West Coast Green.)

Another demonstration will feature a self-sustaining, off-the-grid building called the SHF40 that could be used during medical or weather emergencies or as temporary housing.

Some 300 exhibitors will be showing green and non-toxic building products; solar, wind and waste reduction technology.

But West Coast Green is also about envisioning what could be, and this year offers several “leadership summits” where participants can learn about retrofitting residential buildings, clean tech and green business opportunities – so they can go forth and pave — or, er, permeable rock path — the way in these arenas. There will also be a “design slam,” a brainstorming session among designers to help green a renovation of a Pier at Fort Mason.

Many notable sustainability experts will be speak, including keynoters:

• Bill Reed, president of the Integrative Design Collaborative based in Massachusetts and New Mexico

• Andrew Winston, founder of Ecostrategies.

• Rebecca Costa, futurist and author, The Watchman’s Rattle

• Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, author of Design Like You Give  Damn

• Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E, a sponsor of the event and among the companies leaving the US Chamber of Commerce over the chamber’s opposition to climate legislation.

• Ray Anderson, chair and founder of Interface Inc.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom also will address the gathering at the opening Thursday morning. Dozens of other speakers will conduct workshops at the conference, which is in its fourth year.

Another green building conference is fast approaching. The annual GreenBuild event hosted by the US Green Building Council (which administers the LEED certification program). GreenBuild xpects to showcase up to 1,800 products at the Phoenix event Nov. 11-13.

The US Green Building Council has pronounced New Orleans home to the biggest green neighborhood in the world, thanks to the efforts of Brad Pitt and the group Make It Right who have built 13 LEED Platinum certified, storm-resistant homes and are planning another 150 more in the Lower 9th Ward .

Home at 1631 Tennessee (Photo: Concordia)

The neighborhood, already impoverished, was among those hardest hit by post-Katrina flooding when New Orleans levees failed after the 2005 hurricane.

Pitt and Make It Right Executive Director Tom Darden accepted an award for their rebuilding accomplishments at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York on Thursday.

“In transforming the Lower 9th Ward, Make It Right is showing us how we can transform those parts of our nation that have fallen behind the most, whether through neglect, poverty or disaster,” said President Clinton.

“Make It Right offers a blueprint for how to build homes that instill pride and combine to form communities of hope and opportunity. By following the Make It Right model, we can generate the green collar jobs our economy needs to move forward and advance building practices that reduce carbon emissions…”

Home at 1744 Tennessee (Photo: Kieran Timberlake)

Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council, said the Make It Right project “proved that green building can be both affordable and high performing.”

“In facing our nation’s unprecedented economic and environmental crises, we must change the way the places in which we live, work, learn and play are built and operated. What we’re seeing with green building goes beyond energy-efficiency to a transformation of entire communities – and the lives of the people who live there,” he said.

Fedrizzi presented the award, a LEED plaque to Pitt, Darden and Make It Right resident and Katrina-survivor Deidre Taylor, noting that Platinum certifications achieved in the neighborhood are the highest possible.

Make It Right is a collaboration between actor Brad Pitt, Steve Bing, Graft Architects, Cherokee Gives Back and William McDonough + Partners. Make it Right plans to have 50 homes up and running by December and 150 by December 2010.

Home at 1843 Tennessee (Photo: Billes Designs, New Orleans)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

How do you turn a 100-year-old Philadelphia row-house into a green house? Better question: How do you make that row-house green enough to potentially forego HVAC half of the year?

With lots of love, forethought and green savoir faire, says David Krupp, a Philadelphia based LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) Realtor and developer. Krupp is selling what he and his architectural designer-owner clients hope will be the first LEED Platinum residence in Philly’s Center City neighborhood, a converted row home at 1500 Montrose Street.

“As it stands, there are no LEED-Platinum certified homes in the Center City area,” Krupp says. “Right now, we’re ‘racing’ with another one.”

When husband and wife duo Christopher and Emily Stromberg - founders of Southern Liberties sustainable design studio in Philly - bought the 900-square-foot classic more than three years ago, it was their first personal green-build project. They’d done other such jobs for clients. The couple’s goal was to green it to the max, then sell it. Specifically, the Strombergs wanted to create a luxe living space, doubling its original size, dovetailing modern with quasi-historic (100 years isn’t exactly “historic” in the three-centuries-old City of Brotherly Love) and adding a third level with an efficient, open stairwell. The desired outcome: A townhome in a charming old neighborhood ranked at LEED PLatinum, the highest level of the four-tiered U.S. Green Building Council’s certification labels.

Krupp says his research shows that only four LEED-certified houses have sold in Philly over the past year or so, and none have attained Platinum. But the Strombergs hope to receive their Platinum certification – which only 419 residences in the US have achieved – very soon.

The totally renovated home on Montrose Street drew more than 300 people during a four-hour open house in July. Since then, Krupp says, the couple have pretty much wrapped up the project, which has drawn lots of traffic, as well as attention from design and environmental professionals. Now, it’s on the market for $565,000.

“At first, people hear that and think it’s overpriced,” Krupp says. “Then they go there and look around and think it’s under-priced.”

According to the Energy Coordinating Agency, a third-party nonprofit that does energy audits and projections, the renovations will cut energy use by half or more, including the need for seasonal AC and heating. If true, that would help validate the house’s asking price.

So, how, exactly, is it possible to cut HVAC usage that dramatically? Especially in a city like Philly, which has muggy summers and frigid winters?

Krupp explains that within the building’s “envelope” (its containing structure), the Strombergs installed two inches of spray-foam insulation, which serves as an air and moisture barrier (typically, builders use fiberglass, which air and moisture can permeate). Also, the couple placed eight inches of rigid-board insulation between the ceiling and roof. The roof itself is fully vegetated, creating a green barricade that absorbs the sun’s heat and keeps rainwater from draining into the city’s gullies and, ultimately, into its sewage system. The whole-house fan, at the top of the stairwell, sucks heat up and out from the lower levels.

To offset the green roof’s solar absorption in winter, when the house itself needs warming rays, the Strombergs put an oversized window – “almost like a door” – at the top of the stairway, between the green roof and the whole-house fan, so that the heat and light from the sun act as a passive solar unit in winter, traveling down the stairwell, all the way to the basement.

One of the simplest, or least “dynamic” elements in this energy-efficient home, is the solar shade system, which the Strombergs had installed on the roof, facing south.

“They’re these big wood (stationary) awnings that jut out and are built based on computer models that indicate, as the seasons change, how the sun is going to hit the windows during different times of year. That determines how far out the awning should be built,” Krupp says. “So that’s a big element for keeping heat out when you don’t want it and the cold in when you do  - and vice versa. You’re essentially keeping the envelope of the building from changing temperature as much as possible.”

Other energy-efficient designs: “Christopher and Emily have done a lot of things to enhance circulation of the air, without using a central cooling system. They have fans in every room … and they have louvered transoms above every door, so that if the doors are closed, the air can continue to circulate.”

As Krupp and the Strombergs continue showing the property and hosting open houses, they hope to find a buyer who will allow them to actually test their energy-efficiency claims.

“We’re going to track it even after it’s sold,” the Sothebys realtor says. “That’s the goal. We’re hoping the buyer is willing to share that information… ”

If so, the town-home could be a blueprint for the greenification of similar East Coast-style residences. If a classic row-house (typically not the epitome of efficiency) can go uber-green in Philly, then why not others of comparable vintage in the region?

• For more info about the conversion of 1500 Montrose see the owners blow-by-blow blog Building Green on Montrose.

• For more information on this and another green-built, LEED-seeking residences see the Green City Journal.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The U.S. Green Building Council, started 16 years ago, has 20,200 members and more than 50,000 LEED registered and certified projects around the world (80 percent are in the US).

And the group plans to get even bigger as it turns its attention to college campuses and enlists the help of students.

The USGBC is helping universities across the country to establish sustainability courses and USGBC student organizations, and of course, to build green. The Washington-based NGO estimates that there will be 4,300 LEED projects registered (underway) and certified (completed) on college campuses at the end of 2009.

The USGBC defines a green campus as “a higher education community that is improving energy efficiency, conserving resources, and enhancing environmental quality by educating for sustainability and creating healthy living and learning environments.”

The colleges and universities that do all that will serve as examples, not only for students, but for the larger community, pushing the green envelope and raising a generation for whom green is the norm.

“We are going to develop a generation of people that just are absolutely hardwired for … sustainable living,” said S. Richard Fedrizzi, CEO and Founding Chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council, in a recent speech in Chicago to national university leaders.

Universities and students will incubate new, more conserving and sustainable ways of engineering structures and living spaces, Fedrizzi said, which will lead to more accountability and transparency in building.

“If you can take a 99 cent box of crackers that tells you how much fat, how much protein, how much carbohydrates, how much sodium is in that box, and you as a consumer have the ability to chose it based on your health, based on your values, based on a number of things or not, this is a striking contrast when you realize we’ll spend 30 or 50 million dollars on a building and prior to LEED we never had that nutrition label,” said Fedrizzi.

LEED, he explained, will be a road map. Through LEED certification, people will have precise measures of a structure’s air quality, energy use, and the quality and origins of its materials.

Helping the environment is not the only advantage, there are economic, health, and community benefits as well, Fedrizzi said. According to the USGBC, green buildings can significantly reduce energy use, carbon emissions, water use, and solid waste, with an average savings of 35-70%  in each of these areas per year.

Colleges, typically the nexus of any societal changes, will help perfect, promote and energize the green building movement.

“We (colleges and universities) may comprise only 3% of the carbon footprint, but we represent 100% of the student footprint,” said Michael M. Crow, President of Arizona State University.

• You can start a USGBC student group at your school.  With tools and resources from the USGBC you can pave the way on your campus.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

While people scurry to devise new green components for homes, Don Blalock is in the enviable position of launching one that he’s been nursing along for the last six years.

His Aeonian brick will build houses that are significantly more energy efficient than conventional homes; help them qualify for LEED platinum certification and withstand hurricane force winds up to 240 mph. They’ll also resist heat, mold, mildew and termites, says Blalock, whose goal is to build “the most structurally sound house that’s livable (and) that will last for a very long time.”

Blalock, a onetime music teacher and 35-year veteran of the construction business, knows he sounds like someone peddling a secret sauce on an infomerical – “But wait! There’s more! We’ll throw in termite and fire protection with your durable new home!”

But he explains that he simply set out to build a better brick, one that would repel the water damage he repeatedly saw while overseeing reconstruction of houses for State Farm Insurance. Seven out of 10 homeowner claims involved water damage, from an array of sources including leaky pipes. Water damage led to mold “explosions” inside walls on receptive drywall and wood supports, compounding the damage and the indoor air quality.

Experimenting with brick, he says he developed a chemical process that tinkered with the molecular properties of clay to make it intrinsically more water resistant — creating a product able to leap over concrete block as a useful building base (and compete with sealed brick as a viable exterior).

The idea attracted enough private investment that the company broke ground on its first model home outside Charleston, S.C., on Monday. It’s expected to be done by November and will serve as a demonstration building and offices for Aeonian Brick Homes, which will sell whole-house plans that can be built with the brick.

A Charleston builder, Jessco Homes, also plans to build a house from Aeonian brick as a prototype of a net zero energy home.

“We ran across the technology a couple months back and decided we’ll build a home out of this material and couple it with some other features to try to build a zero energy home,” said Jessco CEO Jeff Stahl. The Jessco model, a one-story, will use high-efficiency heating and cooling systems and new lighting installations to cut energy use. The Aeonian brick will play a major role in reducing energy needs, acting as a heat barrier.

“In a normal stick home, you don’t get the thermal energy mass you do with this,” said Stahl, whose company is launching a green building incubator program called Eco Sustainable Systems.com. Aeonian Brick, he says, has “huge potential” to protect homeowners from escalating electrical bills — as well as hurricanes and termites.

Can Brick Be Green?

Brick has been known to last for the ages. In desert climates, ancient ruins made of bricks have largely survived. But in wet areas, fired clay bricks erode and can absorb water that can nurture mold and mildew issues in a home.

Aeonian brick homes will keep mold out, Blalock says, and be revolutionary in other ways, too, starting with how they’re built. The smooth, 8×8x4-inch bricks are made from compressed clay that’s been precision-molded and fit seamlessly together, like Legos. The bricks form the house’s exterior surface and serve as frame, insulation and drywall. Electrical wiring and plumbing are embedded during construction. The result is a nearly airtight, water-resistant structure that Blalock hopes to see embraced by builders in hot, humid and hurricane-prone areas.

The key is the material and their tight fit. “This material is so precise I can make a brick today and I can make a brick next year, both will be within 1/100 of an inch,” Blalock says.

Even though the bricks use regular clay, which takes resources from the earth, the process is greener than traditional brick production. Regular bricks must be fired at high temperatures over an extended period of time (many days) whereas Aeonian brick is molded and steam cured, replicating ancient processes and using far less electricity.

It also claims green points for removing the need for stick framing, saving trees. More green savings accrue by subtracting the drywall. The price for all this? About the same as for conventional building, Blalock estimates, because the savings in multiple materials make up for the costs of the unique new brick.

The bricks are formed like compressed earth products, but perform better because the clay is altered with a chemical that makes the clay water resistant. The catalyst is derived from oil slag, but Blalock swears it’s non-toxic (and claims competitive privilege in concealing the formula). The petroleum byproduct involved has been tested in other uses and proven to be safe, he says, noting that the Aeonian process makes use of waste material.

“This is the essence of recycling. This is recycling something you want to get rid of that the companies
are having a hard time getting rid of.”

The houses can be scored, molded and painted to blend in completely with an existing neighborhood. The paint bonds to the material, inside and out, and will not require repainting, he promises. These houses won’t look weird, Blalock says, and can be made to look “exactly” like other homes in the area. (Which may or may not be a good thing.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

It’s not always easy being green. Lourdes Rodriguez learned that the hard way. Earlier this year, the Round Rock, Texas, resident decided to replace a rickety cedar fence with a stylish new bamboo one.

Attracted by its eco-friendly qualities (only three to four years between harvests vs. cedar trees, which take up to 30 years to grow back), its durability and its ability to withstand the high winds and intense heat typical in her town, Rodriguez researched the project and eventually purchased the bamboo from Backyard X-scapes, a San Diego outfit. She paid approximately $3,000 for the bamboo, posts, stain and other materials needed for her 150-foot-long structure. She and her significant other, Doyce Jones, were excited by the prospect of an elegant-looking fence that was good for the environment, would last at least five times longer than a traditional wood fence and was significantly less expensive than cedar (those bids came in around $7,000).

The only thing was, Rodriguez bought the materials before consulting the Sonoma Homeowners’ Association, which oversees her planned community. The 47-year-old had no idea the HOA would object to the material, though – or that some HOA board members initially would think she wanted to plant bamboo, rather than use the slender, pre-cut pickets.

“They obviously hadn’t fully read my first request. … I don’t think one of them even knew that people use bamboo pickets for fencing,” says Rodriguez, a Pennsylvania native who moved to the Austin suburb five years ago.

But despite two written requests, reams of documentation extolling the virtues of bamboo fencing, a Sonoma HOA hearing where a neighbor spoke on her behalf and a petition of her immediate neighbors (98 of the 100 who signed had no problem with her plan), the board denied the requests, citing a non-conformity clause from its covenant and bylaws.

“I couldn’t believe that a board with four people on it could control what 1,000 residents can and can’t do on their own property,” Rodriguez says. Now she knows – $3,500 too late.

“I grew up in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American democracy, where the Constitution is kept. We grew up with that being a huge part of our lives; it’s something you live around. We were proud of it. The Fourth of July was a big deal every year. So I can’t understand why I can’t build a certain type fence on my own property. I pay my taxes, I pay my mortgage on time, I take care of my house and yard. And the fence wouldn’t be an eyesore (although it does diverge from the established look of all the other fences). A lot of my neighbors actually liked the pictures I showed them of what I planned to do. … Plus, bamboo is a better product,” she says, adding, “Here you have the President of the United States trying to go green, and my home owners association could care less.”

Unfortunately, the good-intentioned greenie has been told by attorneys, bamboo advocates and government representatives that she has no real recourse. She signed the HOA agreement, they tell her, and even though the fencing clause is vague about materials (it only specifies that pickets must be of wood), the by-laws concerning “conformity” would likely prevent her from ever winning a lawsuit.

What I do:

I’ve been building houses for 20 years and began Thinking Green Systems a little over a year ago. The company is a dealer and installer of “BioBased 501″, a spray-in soybean oil-based polyurethane foam insulation, which does not contain formaldehyde and does not emit CFCs or HFCs.

How it helps:

This insulation is made without petroleum products which are fossil fuels. BioBased 501 is made from soybeans, an annually renewable resource.

How I got here:

I was not happy with the insulation choices for the homes I was building. Because fiberglass and cellulose-based insulation accumulates outside pollen and dirt, over time it reduces the R-value after 7 to 10 years. Our product, which provides 30-50% more efficiency never loses its energy efficiency.

How I’m doing:

We are seeing a 50% increase in our sales even in this year, with the bad economy. It kept the rest of my business afloat.

Advice

The market for green building products keeps growing so I think it’s a good way to go. However, I would caution that people still need to be more educated on the benefits – particularly the cost-saving benefits – which takes time.

See more profiles at MY GREEN JOB

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The National Audubon Society headquarters in New York City has distinguished itself as a builder not just of avian habitats, but of green, sustainable office spaces too, earning a LEED Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

In fact, the society’s 27,500-square-foot headquarters at 225 Varick Street received the highest point total of any commercial interior in the world that has been evaluated by the USGBC, according to an Audubon news release today.

The conservation group reports that the redesign of the space, which included a long list of energy-saving changes, cost only about 10 percent more than the upfront price for comparable conventional improvements. And most modifications are expected to pay for themselves within 10-15 years.

“Our new home office demonstrates Audubon’s commitment to providing employees with a cost-effective, productive and comfortable workplace that fits our environmental values and also allows us to concentrate financial resources on our conservation mission,” said Audubon President John Flicker, in a statement. “Most importantly, what we’ve done here is a model of cost-effective sustainability that can be replicated by others.”

The building conserves energy through a variety of innovations, including a floor air distribution system that helps lower the cost of blowing warm or cooled air around with fans; Energy Star appliances; daylight lighting that minimizes the need for “polluting lights” (the building already had tall windows, which was a key reason the space was chosen) and a system of sensors and controls to monitor and mitigate electricity use.

Other features that helped the workspace win LEED points include an array of salvaged and recycled materials such as steel, drywall and carpet with recycled content, and locally sources materials, like tables made from fallen walnut trees in the Hudson River Valley. Recycled barn siding became a décor feature of the reception area. (See photo, above, by Kim Phillips.)

Architects FXFowle also used cork and bamboo, which are quickly renewable materials, for flooring and cabinets.

The building also won points for being near subway and bus stations, which allows employees to use greener mass transit.

The USGBC’s certifies buildings under a four-tier ranking system called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Buildings that meet basic standards are “LEED certified.” Rankings continue upward from Silver, Gold or Platinum, as the building meets increasingly stringent guidelines for building materials, energy installations, waste management and other sustainable features.

See video of before and after images at the Audubon website.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Unless you avoided the conventional gift-buying routine entirely this holiday season, odds are good that you spent much of December in some retail environments whose construction and operation involved a lamentable level of waste.

Outdoor-gear merchant R.E.I. is a few years into an effort to chip away at waste in its stores. This September the chain opened a store in Round Rock, Texas (just north of Austin) that is phase two in its development of a long-term eco-friendly model. Most of its innovations have been tested for over a year in a Boulder, Colorado location, but that store, which opened in October 2007, was a renovation of an existing space. This one, situated in a cluster of stores whose heavy traffic is generated by the area’s only IKEA, was built from scratch to accommodate its green agenda.

I took a tour in early December with store manager Todd Callaway and Daniel Grillo, an “outreach specialist” who coordinates the store’s group workshops and is particularly enthusiastic about convincing locals they can use their bikes to commute, even in Texas heat. If there have been any hitches in the location’s start up, you wouldn’t guess it to speak with these two enthusiastic men, who are clearly smitten with little earth-friendly details a casual shopper would never notice; they took pride in the belief that the store’s physical design was every bit as sales-friendly as any other retailer’s but has a far smaller impact on the environment.

“We’ve redesigned about 85% of the fixtures,” Callaway said as he gave me the first of many breakdowns on the novel components and impressive stats behind the shop’s counters, racks and displays. At the moment, he was standing beside a shelf system made of steel and Plyboo, a plywood-like product whose attractive outer layers are made of fast-growing bamboo.

“The point of this fixture is that when we go to dispose of it later on, it’s fully recyclable. Everything on it can be recycled really easily.” (When the store was under construction, representatives say that 75% of the building waste was recycled or reused in some way.)

Callaway and Grillo were well versed in the levels of post-consumer/post-industrial waste that had been recycled into surfaces all around — from the steel shavings that offered visual appeal in a bathroom vanity and the footwear department’s wall made of sunflower seed husks to the counter made of waste sorghum and Grenite that is “85% post-industrial waste ceramic plus soy.”

Beneath our feet was one way in which the Round Rock venture learned lessons from Boulder. While the upstairs level used a lot of waste-reducing, no-glue carpet tiles from the ultra-green company Interface, the downstairs featured a yielding rubber material whose confetti-like look came from its being composed of recycled car tires and tennis-shoe soles.

Everyone knows that shade from the sun keeps you cooler, but a new study has quantified the benefit in a way homeowners might want to note. The right kind of shade, it turns out, can easily shave ten percent off your summertime electric bill.

David Laband, a professor in Auburn University’s School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, studied 160 area houses between May and September — quantifying the amount of shade trees cast on each and comparing their power usage. Those with a sizable amount of what he called “heavy shade” had bills over ten percent lower than those with no shade at all. (11.4%, to be exact, which in this study amounted to between $31 and $33 per month in savings.)

Trees providing lighter shade could help a household achieve similar savings, but many more trees were needed. One of Leband’s hopes is that this information will encourage real estate developers not to bulldoze big old trees because they interfere with house plans. Even if builders re-plant young trees in more convenient spots, the loss of shade will be significant.

Of course, where trees stand in relation to a house makes a difference. “We looked at the amount of shade in the early morning, early afternoon and late afternoon,” a statement from the researcher read. “If you have trees on the west side of your house, you will have a much lower power bill.”

The study cost over a quarter of a million dollars, vastly more than the electric-bill differential in the houses Laband studied. If the data he collected filters out into the development community, though, where “green building” is gaining traction, it might not take long to pay off.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now| Distributed by Noofangle Media

Once again, California is leading the way toward greener cities. Today, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation that addresses sprawl concretely (and one hopes that’s concrete mixed with recycled fly ash).

Many states and cities have talked about the need to shorten commutes and to connect work centers with fuel-saving public transportation. These talks have sometimes yielded more commuter rail lines, bike paths and awards for urban renewal projects. But just as often, they’ve produced more talk.

Dealing holistically with sprawl has seemed beyond the grip of many large cities where the citizenry and leadership have long equated bigger with better. (Need we name these Sunbelt perpetrators?)

California’s move challenges this thinking. The bill, SB 375, signed today puts some green on the table – to push the issue beyond talk. It will link federal transportation funding to climate change goals, offering incentives to builders to keep their projects closer to city hubs and to build more affordable housing projects within major metro areas.

Denser urban population growth will mean shorter, fewer commutes, translating to lower fuel consumption, preserved agricultural land and cleaner air. Neat how those things all go hand in hand, huh? The re-direct will help the state meet its goal of reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Critics were miffed that during machinations, the building lobby won some exemptions from some other environmental requirements for those pursuing these incentives. But as we’ve seen in Congress, even crisis legislation can crack and falter if compromises aren’t made.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Ryan Morton did not have a vision of a home he aspired to own until he saw the highly stylized, three-story, loft-style sustainable “green” home replete with bamboo floors, radiant heat, bathroom tiles made of recycled glass bottles, skylights and walls of glass.

“Until I saw this, I didn’t have an idea of a home I aspired to own,’’ Morton said of the house, the basis of the Museum of Science and Industry’s exhibit, Smart Home: Green + Wired, which is open in Chicago through Jan. 4, 2009. “This is it. It’s essentially zero maintenance.’’

Morton happens to know the 11-room house, including a master bed and bath, a child’s room, two baths and a powder room, inside and out. He is a tour guide. “It’s really a great job,’’ he said.

The house highlights ways—big and small—that people can make green living an all-important part of their lifestyle. Built to celebrate the museum’s 75th anniversary, the energy efficient house was designed by Michelle Kaufmann Designs, a leader in green design community, and built by All American Homes.

“In celebration of our 75th anniversary, we really wanted something forward-looking and something that went back to our roots,’’ said Jeff Buono, coordinator of temporary exhibits and events. “This is something that does both.’’

Don’t be fooled by its seemingly complicated designs and features, which include prefabricated modules, terra green ceramic floor tiles, bamboo floors, and ash wood, the house took only two months to build. Thanks to prefabrication, that is. But the cost to build the house is nothing to sniff at. Morton estimates it was about $500,000.

The cost was well worth the effort, according to one tourist, who mused: “It makes you want to build one yourself. It’s totally fascinating and beautiful.’’

People don’t always equate beauty with sustainable green living, but the Smart Home is the exception to every rule. The home is embraced by a garden, including a sustaining vegetable garden, rain gardens and other vegetation.

When it comes to the interior of the 2,500-square-foot house, a word that comes to mind is chic, a dramatic departure from the log cabin roots of the green movement.

Throughout the Smart Home, visitors can find the sleekest and most modern technology, including:

• The NuVo Multi-room Audio System with ceiling speakers (part of the Kevlar series)
  
• Thaw-Pak Radiant Floor systems, including system engineering, tubing manifolds and pump control station
• Toxic-free Yolo Color House interior paint
• Energy-efficient windows and motorized skylights; including a rooftop skylight that’s wired to detect a cool breeze and open automatically to reduce air conditioning use
• Interior doors and millwork created from recycled sawdust and responsibly harvested hardwoods
• Heating ventilation and air conditioning, which use narrower ducts than traditional forced air systems, making the air flow from vents faster, providing heat or air in less time
• Exterior wood siding; bamboo flooring; and metal stairs and wood stair treads

The slinky eco-manse also includes a home office, lounge, and mechanical room for laundry. The washer is an Energy Star GE frontload and the dryer is a GE frontload electric. Most of the products were provided through donations.

“The interior architecture, which is inviting, sophisticated and family-friendly, demonstrates the use of natural light, open spaces, energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and energy-efficient building components to maximize a healthy-living environment,” according to a press release.

Designers selected material—from the windows to the fixtures to the counters and floors—tells a powerful story of sustainable architecture and eco-friendly design.

Visitors become privy to how storm water runoff can be used for landscape irrigation; how toilets can be installed to use waste water from the shower and bath; how spray-in foam insulation can create a completely sealed building, which results in better air quality, a quieter home and great energy efficiency; and how recycled glass bottles can create fashionable bathroom tile.

Beyond these fashionable flourishes, the house harbors a practical side vital to its sustainable credentials. Evaluated by some of the toughest standards in the industry, it was found to be nearly twice as energy efficient as a comparably sized Energy Star-rated home, and nearly three times more efficient than a conventionally built Chicago bungalow.

The interior also includes esoteric eco-furnishings, including a sofa covered in fabric made from recycled t-shirts, an ash wood dining table made with wood from a fallen tree, an organic mohair rug with a backing made of recycled coffee bean backs, whimsical chandeliers that recycle old colored light bulbs and mid-century dining chairs found in a resale shop, Morton says.

The following is a brief description and interior of some of the rooms: