Michael Patton said he’s noticed that “being green” has become quite popular, even patriotic.

“It’s the new red, white and blue,” he said.

Patton, director of the Metropolitan Environmental Trust, was the moderator of the 24th annual Resource Management Conference at the Tulsa Garden Center on Wednesday. The focus of the conference was on going green with low-impact development.

The seminar focused on buildings and construction because those industries use lots of electricity, water and wood and create carbon monoxide and construction debris.

“Just like the saying ‘You are what you eat,’ we are what we build,” said Miles Tolbert, Oklahoma’s secretary of the environment. “What I would call you to do is to build it right.”
Building right is not just dictated by how you construct buildings but also where you build them, said Jeff Speck, a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design city planner and urban designer.

Speck said it is increasingly common in newer neighborhoods to have “suburban sprawl,” which creates traffic and pedestrian problems between large housing-only and business-only districts. Larger streets

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in suburbs and business districts, as opposed to neighborhoods with both businesses and homes, lead to dangerous intersections and walking areas, he said.

“It’s uniquely American to drive our cars to get to the gym to walk on a treadmill, but it’s not our fault,” he said. “It’s a result of the environment we’re in.”

With better-planned neighborhoods can come more low-impact development, such as green roofs on homes and rain garden landscaping, said Michelle Barnett, a senior engineer for URS Corp.

By  Althea Peterson

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectID=11&articleID=20080306_1_A5_spanc27681

             

Green design is nothing new at the San Francisco Design Center, but at last week’s Winter Market the emphasis was not only on how interior designers can specify earth-friendly products for their clients, but on how green design can actually be profitable.

Indeed, the themes of the various showroom presentations during the three-day annual market seemed to be: selling luxury to high-end clients, selling sustainability to those same clients, and - not to be overlooked - selling luxurious green design to high-end clients.

After Wednesday’s keynote panel, at which marketing experts profiled the luxury customers for designers, Thursday’s opening panel featured Penny Bonda, eco-editor of Interior Design magazine and the Green Zone on InteriorDesign.net, interviewing Stefan Mühle and Sherry Caplan, general manager and designer, respectively, of the new Orchard Garden Hotel, San Francisco’s, and indeed California’s, first LEED-certified hotel. The topic: “How Sustainability Became Profitable.” At an afternoon presentation at Wroolie & Co., “Eco/Nomics: The Greening of Design,” Linda Delair, a LEED-certified consultant with Green Fusion Design Center in San Rafael, coached designers on how to sell clients on sustainable design and green furnishings.

Profitability is different for designers than it is for clients, of course, but more than one speaker pointed out that if designers can prove to their clients that they will profit from opting for sustainable design - in energy savings, in health, in the marketplace - the designer stands to make money as well.

In the case of the Orchard Garden Hotel, Mühle said, such things as European-style key cards that control lights in the rooms are saving 12 to 25 percent in electricity costs, and in a city with 35,000 hotel rooms, being green gives this hotel a competitive advantage. Guests are staying there “not necessarily only because we’re green but also because we’re green,” he said, adding that it usually takes a new hotel “18 to 24 months to reach a point of stabilization,” but that will happen within 11 months at the Orchard Garden Hotel. Caplan noted that in a city notorious for dragging out the building permit process, San Francisco has given priority status to applications for buildings seeking LEED certification - another motivator to clients seeking to build locally.

Mühle, Caplan and Delair all stressed the need to debunk myths that sustainable design will be more costly and that green design and luxury are mutually exclusive. Mühle - whose own “greening” started accidentally several years ago when the original Orchard Hotel, up Bush Street from the Orchard Garden, put in a heat exchanger and energy-efficient lightbulbs to save money - said that upgrading to LEED standards added no more than $100,000 to the $21 million price tag on the new hotel.

Although higher-end green design is a relatively new and still-growing market segment, natural products are no longer relegated to the rustic. More fabrics and finishes with the sheen and luxury usually associated with high-end furnishings are being made from natural, washable, sustainably grown and fair-traded materials - and toxins, such as those used in carpet backing and to make fabrics flame retardant, are being replaced with healthier materials. Furniture and case goods are being made from sustainably grown or recycled woods and finished with water-based varnishes, and, as Delair pointed out, all those wonderful antiques designers are so fond of are green by default.

The designer “stands between the end user and the manufacturer,” Delair told a listener concerned about professional liability in specifying products that may turn out to be unsafe, “and that’s a position of power” to promote ever more green materials and finishes. But individual designers needn’t know it all: The number of experts, Web sites and suppliers who can steer designers and their clients through the new green maze is growing exponentially.

In the end, it may not be designers who persuade clients to opt for environmentally friendly materials. When it comes to issues such as off-gassing of toxins from building materials, Caplan said, “I’m amazed at how knowledgeable our clients are. It’s definitely become a lifestyle decision.”

Lynette Evans

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/30/HOVJULK58.DTL

             

Sustainable and Naturally Healthy Designs Available to Residents of the Community

Green Builders, Inc., the leading large-scale community developer of green, sustainable homes in the Austin, Texas area, has opened its first green merchandised model home in Georgetown Village to illustrate how consumers do not have to give up their stylized decor by going green. Working with Count & Castle Designs, an Austin-based residential and commercial interior design firm, Green Builders appointed the interior decor of its new model home with eco-friendly furniture and home accessories from well known marquee retailers including IKEA, Natural LEE Furniture, Loft and Austin Furniture Consignment to showcase how consumers across the country can take advantage of reducing, reusing, reclaiming and recycling when it comes to every one of their furniture needs. This announcement, made on the heels of Green Builders’ ENERGY STAR(R) accreditation on its homes, once again solidifies Green Builders’ place as the top developer in bringing affordable, green and healthier lifestyles to the masses.

The model home also showcases the ways in which Green Builders is sharing the message of green being easy for consumers to understand and incorporate into their own lives. From the home’s cabinets to countertops, paint and furniture, and bath towels and accent accessories, Green Builders makes sure that every piece it offers in its homes comes from sources that support local and world-wide economic and social growth and maintain a level of environmental consciousness.

“We constantly strive to create an all-inclusive healthy and natural lifestyle with our green homes and communities, and offering environmentally sound furnishings is the next progressive step for our residents,” touts Clark Wilson, CEO and President of Green Builders, Inc. “By using both local and national manufacturers we’ve quickly become a resource to find a variety of styled furnishings and accessories to decorate their homes.”

The participating furniture sources are committed to reducing impact on the environment and helping consumers cultivate organically rich lifestyles through the purchase of sustainable and socially responsible products. In addition, Natural LEE donates one tree to American Forests for every piece of furniture sold, Loft offers furniture and case goods made from renewable FSC certified forests, and IKEA uses fewer raw materials generating less waste and discharge in manufacturing as well as wood which is recyclable, biodegradable, and renewable.

“There are so many options to decorate a home, but only a limited number of affordably-priced resources are currently available highlighting sustainable and eco-friendly furnishings and designs,” explains Jennifer Burggraaf, licensed interior designer and principal of Count & Castle Designs. “It’s a real pleasure to partner with Green Builders to help elevate the company and their model home as a resource for consumers to find the look and feel they want in their home while incorporating a safe and sustainable way of life.”

Green Builders’ energy efficient and green, sustainable homes are priced from the $200,000s to $700,000s and available throughout the Austin area.

About Green Builders, Inc.

Green Builders, Inc., a subsidiary of Wilson Holdings, Inc (WIH) combines the equal necessities of progress and preservation by building homes that tread lightly on the earth. Our success is measured by continued robust sales in a growing number of sustainable communities, which we believe to be vital to a sustainable planet. With respect for the world’s resources and for the needs of our clients, we create healthy, beautiful, long-lasting homes that people, and the earth, can afford. To learn more visit, http://www.greenbuildersinc.com

About Wilson Holdings, Inc. and Wilson Family Communities, Inc.

Wilson Holdings, Inc. is the parent company and sole stockholder of Wilson Family Communities, Inc. dba Green Builders, Inc., an Austin, Texas-based homebuilding and development company that acquires, develops, manages and markets residential communities in the Central Texas region. To learn more about Wilson Holdings, Inc., please visit the company’s web site at http://www.wilsonholdings.net

Safe Harbor Statement

Some of the statements in this press release are “forward-looking statements,” as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward-looking statements by the fact that these statements do not relate strictly to historical or current matters. Rather, forward-looking statements relate to anticipated or expected events, activities, trends or results. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause our actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in forward-looking statements. These factors include those described under the caption “Risk Factors” included in the 10K-SB filed December 31, 2007 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements made in this press release are made as of the date hereof, and the risk that actual results will differ materially from expectations expressed in this press release will increase with the passage of time. The Company makes no commitment, and disclaims any duty, to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect future events or changes in our expectations.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/LAM03528012008-1.htm

             

Half buried in the dry, red earth of New Mexico, are a series of buildings, unconventional in appearance and radical in design. They’re Earthships — sustainable, self-sufficient homes — and the 50 or so that are scattered outside the New Mexico town of Taos constitute the Earthship world community.

Earthships are the brainchild of Michael Reynolds, a motorcycle-riding son of the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and 1970’s. Having trained as an architect in Cincinnati he moved to New Mexico to experiment with his designs, ride motorcycles and avoid the Vietnam War.

From building houses using aluminum cans in the 1970’s to the state-of-the-art Earthships currently being built around the world, Reynolds has devoted his life to building self-sufficient homes. It’s been an evolutionary process.

Steel and aluminum cans, tires and other reclaimed materials are all used in Earthships, but they are far from primitive frontier cabins. Rather they are self-sufficient, off-grid homes that provide their own water, power and heating.

Long time residents of Taos, Tony Marvin and his partner Katy Grabel are recent converts to Earthships, which seem to be a way or life as much as a place to live.

“Having been here for more than 18 months now, it really has exceeded all our expectations. It really is quite an art form, and we’re not roughing it by any means. Reports are that it is the best functioning Earthship to date utilizing all the latest technology,” says Marvin.

Self-sufficiency at heart

All Earthships are built around a few core concepts.

Water is collected from rain or snowfall and stored in large underground cisterns. It is then used a number of times, first for bathing or washing. It is then recycled into “gray” water, which is used to flush toilets before being taken out of the internal water system as “black” water. It is then treated and used to water the Earthship’s plants.

As Michael Reynolds says: “If water is falling from the sky, and it is on the majority of the plant, it’s crazy not to catch it.”

Power is supplied by solar panels and wind turbines and even in areas where sunlight is more likely to be caught through overcast skies, modern photovoltaic technology means that they can still be effective enough to make any Earthship anywhere in the world self-sufficient.

“It sounds sophisticated and it is, but really it is the profound simplicity of Earthships that means it really doesn’t take much for an average person to figure out how to work it and even build it themselves,” says Marvin.

“I’d known Michael Reynolds for a long time. I’d seen his early examples and was unsure of them at first, but a few years ago when we were in process of retooling our lives and looking for a new place to live, we saw this Earthship and were completely blown away by it.

“There really was nothing as beautiful in Taos at this price. We also really chose to live here to participate in the concept of Earthships — to live off-grid and be self-sufficient.

“It’s like in the olden days of the 1960’s — the drop out, hippie thing of not wanting to be dependent on huge energy companies. That ethos is still there, but now it’s also about conservation. And it’s not just a worthy project. People with lots of money are looking at buying them,” says Marvin.

Experiments and obstacles

If Earthships are now finding favor among people who wouldn’t normally adhere to a conservation or alternative lifestyle ethos, they haven’t had a smooth ride.

Reynolds’ architecture license was revoked in the early days of his experiments building Earthship — radical ideas of running sewage through the front room fell foul of the authorities — and he recently battled for three years to pass a law in New Mexico that allows more research into sustainable building projects.

At it’s most basic, Earthships can be simple shelters with their own water supply. Basic but essential, especially in the aftermath of natural disasters, where Reynolds has built Earthships on the Andaman Islands after the Tsunami in 2004 and New Orleans after the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina.

Kirsten Jacobsen has spent 14 years working with Reynolds and says that a completed system is possible within six weeks. With new Earthships planned across the world, a 16-unit project is scheduled to be built in Brighton, England, the hope is that whole towns are built from Earthships.

“As much as idealism there really is a pragmatism to Earthships. Even people working within the energy industry acknowledge that we have to adapt and need to look at decentralized systems in the future,” said Jacobsen.

“It’s been an evolutionary process. The systems used in Earthships are now more exacting and more reliable than ever before, so more energy can be put into creating beautiful interiors. I’d say were at the apex of what Michael’s been working towards,” says Marvin.

By Dean Irvine

http://edition1.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/08/29/skewed.earthships/index.html#cnnSTCText

             

By Marco R. della Cava

KENTFIELD, Calif. — To revel in the airy home of Zem Joaquin, House & Garden magazine’s eco-editor, is to experience somewhat contradictory epiphanies.

The first is the realization that creating a haven with an ecological ethos takes a keen understanding of how average household goods can be harmful to the planet. Take a gleaming lamp; the art of chroming actually is among the most toxic metallurgical processes around.

And second, having that somewhat gloomy knowledge doesn’t mean your house has to look like something out of a patchouli-scented, hemp-wrapped commune.

In fact, Joaquin’s tirelessness has yielded a sizzlingly chic temple that any fashionista would bow before.

“My mission is to show people that they can be ecological and look fabulous,” says Joaquin, 37, who, before joining House & Garden, wrangled models in Milan and helped launch ecofabulous.com. “In college, I was the annoying person telling people to recycle. Now it’s nice to see so many people want to go green.”

Joaquin will be looking to win over more converts next week in New York, where she will lead eco-shopping tours during House & Garden’s Inaugural Design Week. This friend of Hollywood’s green set — she’s on various boards with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Darryl Hannah — won’t be hard to miss with her Salma Hayek looks and mile-a-minute patter.

“There’s just so much to tell you about,” she says, scurrying about in bare feet — everyone must check their shoes at the massive double doors of her home in this leafy Marin County suburb of San Francisco. “Everything has a story.”

Joaquin is not exaggerating. From a frilly leather rug in the family room (made from the discards of a purse factory) to the kitchen table’s silver-orb placemats (made by children in Nepal from the plastic garbage left by hikers), most everything in this house has earned its way in after much eco-scrutiny.

Joaquin’s rules of thumb:

•Buy refurbished classics from interesting decades — such as the modernist ’50s — a savvy way of recycling.

•If something must be bought new, make sure it’s made with eco-sustainable materials such as natural rubber and “green” lumber.

•When in doubt, don’t throw it out. Two cases in point are her commercial-grade stove and plasma TV. “I don’t cook much or watch television a lot, but adding them to landfills wouldn’t have helped the Earth,” she says.

The end result is a home that explodes with exotic and disparate pieces, most of which have a distinctively retro touch.

Key to the 4,200-square-foot structure’s appeal is a layout that places the sunken living room, dining room, kitchen and family room in a fluid row. Providing most of the light are not electrical fixtures, but clerestory windows, large panes set into the uppermost reaches of the walls. Lending the house a T-shape are two wings off this central corridor — one leading to the master bedroom and her two children’s rooms, the other to an office and guest room.

Joaquin and her husband, Internet entrepreneur James Joaqin, bought the home a few years ago because it would not require moving the 40-year-old house’s walls around, “which really goes against being green,” she says.

So a makeover was in the cards. She joined forces with her design guru, Aaron Mutscheller, to attack the project.

The living room, with its dramatic 20-foot-plus ceilings, begged for a built-in bench near the floor-to-ceiling windows. Built of certified (ecologically harvested) mahogany with a linen cushion filled with natural tapped rubber, it remains Joaquin’s favorite spot.

“And look at these,” she says, holding one of many yellow- and black-tinged pillows. “They’re made of hemp, but they’re not my mother’s hemp” — a reference to Joaquin’s upbringing on a commune in nearby Palo Alto.

Those frugal early days explain her passion for eBay and other auction sites, source of most the home’s furniture, including the living room’s wooden coffee table and two purple high-backed chairs that flank a wooden backgammon table. (Her passion for vintage ware extends to jewelry, because “mining is pretty gross.”)

The nearby dining room’s focal point is a chandelier composed of hundreds of Lucite flowers, behind which hide a few “admittedly ugly” curly compact light bulbs that save on electricity. It hovers above a vintage dining set from the 1960s, and casts its light on a favored painting that juxtaposes images of nature with society, in this case a bird and snaking telephone wires.

The main living area’s lone wall separates the dining room from the kitchen and adjoining family room. Dominated by a cement countertop that runs the width of the room, the kitchen’s eco-friendly touches include a foot pedal by the sink providing quick bursts of water, as well as steel bar stools covered in vegetable-tanned brown leather.

The honey-colored wood floors are original, whereas in the nearby rooms of her children — Dylan, 6, and Zoe, 4 — the surface is covered in cork made to look like planks of wood. “It’s manufactured from the waste product of the wine industry,” Joaquin says with a smile.

All the bedrooms feature radiant heat, much of it generated from solar panels. All the mattresses, including the large one in the couple’s as-yet unfinished bedroom, are made from natural materials.

Whenever any walls required painting (most changed to white from an array of loud colors), Joaquin specified a Low-VOC (volatile organic compound) variety. Once expensive and tough to find, such paints are now produced by familiar brands such as Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore.

Finally at rest from the whirlwind tour of her house, Joaquin takes a swig from her water bottle. No plastic for her: She refills an elegantly decorated aluminum canister that stays with her all day.

“There’s just so much people can do to make their lives more in harmony with the environment, but not in a boring way,” she says.

Suddenly a gnat buzzes her face.

Thwack!

“Oops,” Joaquin says, flashing the smile of a guilty 5-year-old. “That wasn’t very eco-friendly.”

             

If your idea of being green is just about solar panels and Priuses, think again. The next time you decide to boost your eco-friendly quotient, consider updating your home with the next level of green living: interior design. Choices are now not only more diverse-flooring made of reclaimed or sustainably harvested wood, nontoxic paints and furniture upholstered with recycled fabric-but abundant, making alternative materials more affordable than ever. “The truth is green products have been around for a decade or two - but the public wasn’t terribly interested,” says Linda Newton, an interior design instructor at West Valley College (WVC) in Saratoga. “We’re at a happy medium where there are more choices.”

Newton teaches a green design course so popular that it has had a waiting list since it was first offered at West Valley three years ago. In the class, Newton raises awareness of how to define and recognize an eco-friendly product. Given the recent popularity of such products, there are numerous companies that are quick to label something green without solid proof.

The class also emphasizes that green doesn’t always mean an unconventional material. Part of the equation is the overall energy used to create and distribute a product: how it was manufactured and transported, whether it came from a sustainable resource and how durable it is.

“Sometimes plastic is better because it is local and made of recycled plastic,” says Celine Pinet, dean of instruction at WVC, who served as co-chair of the design program until last year. “It’s not just the finished product; it’s a global picture. It’s the whole system of a house.”

SHOPPING GREEN

Finding green products for your home doesn’t mean you have to head to alternative havens such as Santa Cruz or Berkeley to shop. Merchants in Los Gatos and across Silicon Valley are carrying eco-friendly lines that fit most consumer tastes from contemporary to traditional.

Stacia Topping of Interior Services of Los Gatos is three classes away from being a certified green designer and already recycles her fabric and carpet samples for elementary schools. Her company offers everything from recycled carpet and recovered glass countertops to cork and bamboo flooring options.

“I want to fully support the green movement,” she says. “I think it’s where we are going, and at some point we won’t realize we weren’t there before. We get people who are actually concerned about what they’re putting in their houses. They understand that carpet off-gases. They’re more aware of where a product comes from.”

A number of Topping’s clients do not come in asking about green products but seem to gravitate toward them naturally.

“What they’re attracted to is the look. It’s something new-they haven’t seen it before,” she says. “Some of it is cutting-edge industrial - not necessarily a crunchy granola look.”

Laura Ziffer of Lulu Pom, an interior design and retail shop in Los Gatos, has taken another route to offering clients green products. In addition to eco-friendly collections from manufacturers South Cone and Cisco Brothers, she carries refurbished furniture, giving new life to old pieces that otherwise might have ended up in landfills.

“I think people forget about reinvented furniture,” she says. “They assume that everything has to be brand-new. To me, that’s not being green at all.”

When redesigning a room for a client, Ziffer salvages as many of the fixtures and architectural elements as possible.

BENEFITS OF GREEN

One advantage to going green has to do not with the way the furniture looks but how it smells-or rather, how it doesn’t. Many green products abstain from using formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals common in non-green design so individuals with allergies and sensitivities can breathe a little easier.

“There’s definitely been a change in the market trend,” says Adam Rockwood, an associate at Rockwood Design Associates in Saratoga. “I think every single client that we’re seeing is at least inquiring what their green options may be, though not 100 percent of the clients are implementing green.”

As an increasing number of clients are considering green products when building and remodeling their homes, one term Rockwood hears frequently is “formaldehyde-free.”

“Everybody knows that formaldehyde is used to preserve something that’s dead. and no one wants that in their house,” Rockwood says. “Slowly but surely people are realizing it’s not the best thing for health reasons.”

Numerous studies have shown the health benefits of going green, ranging from a reduction in cancer-causing chemicals in the air to increased productivity in green commercial buildings.

Although the up-front cost of building green can be slightly more expensive, experts emphasize that homeowners save money in the long term with energy-efficient appliances and highly durable goods.

“Why spend money on something you’re going to have to replace in two years?” asks Joan Tesauro, manager of Interior Services of Los Gatos in Campbell. “Many green furniture pieces are of equal of better quality and actually last longer.”

EVERY BIT HELPS

Perhaps you’re warming to the idea of going green, but you’re not ready to completely overhaul your lifestyle or your home. Don’t worry, says David Edwards, owner of Earth Bound Homes, a green design and consulting firm in Santa Clara.

“There is a lot that you can do to save energy and decrease your impact on the environment,” he says.

Making small changes to your daily routine such as recycling paper, glass, aluminum and plastic is easy and free-plus, these materials may eventually resurface in items like your floor or countertops. And as new technology surfaces and manufacturers pump up the production of eco-friendly merchandise, the price of green items is certain to become even more affordable.

“My green philosophy is not about making sacrifice,” Edwards says. “It’s about tempering your demands on the environment. Green can’t be about making people live in clay houses.”

By Kristen Munson

http://www.mercurynews.com/losgatos/ci_7034112?nclick_check=1

             

Menlo Park neighborhood grew up around the base of “A” Mountain, known by the Tohono O’odham as Chuk:son — the birthplace of Tucson. This birthplace is now undergoing a renaissance of redevelopment: the new-urbanist, mixed-use Mercado District; the UA Science Center/Arizona State Museum; the infrastructure of new streets connected to a new Santa Cruz River bridge; and the western terminus of a modern street car.

The next development in line in our historic neighborhood is 15 acres of vacant land west of the Santa Cruz River and south of Congress Street. After a year of meeting at kitchen tables, front porches and large meeting rooms, the Menlo Park Neighborhood Association has generated a consensus guiding vision for these 15 acres.

Menlo Park envisions the creation of an urban environment Tucson has yet to embrace. We advocate for smart growth principles — compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. We want to see sustainable growth and green building that improves our neighborhoods and lessens its impact on the earth.

With the 21st century likely to bring us climate change, drought and high energy costs, it’s time for Tucson to mainstream sustainable design and plan for a future where the average commute consists of a nice morning walk or public transit instead of 45 minutes in traffic.

Whether existing or new, Tucson needs safe, convenient neighborhoods with homes people can afford. We cannot let the unintended consequences of redevelopment’s good intentions force people from their homes or prevent them from buying homes. Working families need as many options as possible to choose to stay in their neighborhoods whether through property-tax assistance, housing rehabilitation or the construction of affordable housing.

Our 15-acre site needs to have a considerable amount of permanently affordable housing. In a recent survey of 477 Tucsonans, nearly one-third indicated they would consider Downtown as a residential destination if they had options for housing at prices they could afford. We understand the need to recoup development costs with high-end units, but let’s bring balance to a housing market that has left many Tucsonans without a shot at the American dream.

Downtown Tucson needs a public market where green grocers, butchers and bakers offer locally owned, locally produced foods and goods — a place where local vendors, artisans, restaurateurs and other micro-businesses offer goods and services to visitors of the nearby cultural plaza/museums in addition to current and future residents. Places designed for people draw people, and we suggest a permanent public market for the site.

A diversified market is a component of Rio Nuevo’s master plan and is found in many other vibrant downtowns. Public markets do require upfront costs to develop and stabilize for the first few years. Libraries and parks also require investment — they are a public resource, just as this market would be.

Small businesses account for 80 percent of all jobs, and a public market could support local economic growth while providing needed goods and services.

Let’s rethink our urban design and create a lasting legacy of livable, affordable and vibrant niches within our neighborhoods and throughout our city.

As Tucson continues to sprawl, our quality of life diminishes. Menlo Park wants to see the birthplace of Tucson give birth to the next generation of affordable, sustainable and enjoyable living.

By Mac Hudson and Matt Skroch

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/202085

             

http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070917/LIFE01/70917007/-1/NEWS

By Debbie Kane

Green — it’s a color and it’s a lifestyle. Driven partly by rising fuel
prices and concerns about climate change, the environment is frontpage news. Pick up a home-design magazine or tune in to your favorite home-improvement show, and you’ll likely find a discussion about green design or how to decorate your home in ways that minimize our impact on the earth.

From flooring to fabrics, paints to wallpaper, more companies are
manufacturing and marketing a dizzying array of green products. Where does a homeowner with good intentions start?

“There are different shades of green,” says Debby de Moulpied,
owner of Real Green Goods, a “green” department store in Concord,
N.H., and its partner Web site, www.realgreengoods.com

“Are you using products that are sustainable, meaning they can replace themselves in the environment? Are you purchasing
a product that is from more than 500 miles away so that extra gas or
fuel was needed to get it to you? It’s a lot to think about.”

There’s a lot out there, agrees Sue Bartlett, an interior designer and
owner of Bartlett Design Associates in Concord, N.H. She says many
furnishing and design vendors offer a range of products, whether they’re sustainable or renewable or recycled.

“We’re all concerned about having chemicals or noxious gases in our
home,” Bartlett says.

“Vendors have progressed in all they offer to homeowners. Now, they have products with different air quality levels in carpets, wall-coverings, and paints.”

There are many ways to enter the “green scene,” Bartlett says. How far away is the product made? Does it use gasoline or other
resources to bring it to market?

She experienced the first wave of environmentally-friendly design
with her commercial clients because of increased costsavings
and pressure to use environmentally-friendly design principles. Now, a growing number of her residential customers want
healthier indoor environments and are requesting recycled products and furnishings, in addition to products that are chemical-free.

Do’s:

1. Choose renewable materials like cork or bamboo instead of carpeting or hardwoods when considering flooring or wall coverings. Hemp is often used in textiles and in a wide variety of products. All of these materials meet green criteria because the original plants replenish rapidly in nature.
“Natural” fibers — cotton, linen, wool and silk — are healthy but may be treated with finishes that emit toxic gases and are harmful to users with allergies. Manufactured products such as plywood, which may have been used with formaldehyde glues, have, in some cases, been replaced by environmentally-safe adhesives.

2. Use reclaimed materials, including wood from old buildings or salvage parts from old buildings. Vermont Salvage in
Manchester, N.H., and White River Junction, Vt., sells old building parts that can be creatively designed into a new project. Donate or sell old materials, too. There is a market for old glass, metal and wood that can be made into new products. For example, Real Green Goods sells glassware made of recycled glass.

3. Use locally-based products to avoid additional energy use
and pollution. Transportation of materials plays a role in green design. The U.S. Green Building Council has developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green
Building Rating System™ to promote a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in sustainable building
site development, water savings, energy effi ciency,
indoor environmental quality, water savings and
materials selection. Products created within a 500-mile radius of the job site receive higher LEEDs ratings.

4. Recycle products when possible and work with companies that recycle as well. For example, some carpet companies are turning recycled plastic beverage bottles into new carpet fibers. Masland Carpets uses recycled hard carpet waste to manufacture new carpet pads. Many fabrics are made with recycled content and even if they are not natural fi bers, they are considered eco-friendly. In Bartlett’s design business, she tries to recycle
or re-use clients’ existing furnishings.

“We have re-covered many a furniture frame for both commercial
and residential clients,” she says. De Moulpied calls flea market or antique auction purchases the “ultimate in recycling.”

5. Work with companies that practice green concepts. For
example, Harden Furniture of High Point, N.C., creates its
furniture using wood from its own forests, which are then replenished. The company is certified by the Sustainable Forest Initiative, which means the manufacturers regenerate their wood and manage their timberlands responsibly through selectively cutting and replanting trees. Barlett recommends looking for other green “seals of approvals” on building products, such as: “EnergyStar,” a label offered by the Environmental Protection Agency to indicate how much
electricity an appliance uses.

“Low VOC-Emitting,” (volatile organic compounds) for paints,
carpets, and finishes “Greenguard” The Carpet and Rug Institute’s
“Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Green Label Testing Program,” which
certifies low-VOC-emitting carpets

6. Consider replacing wall-to-wall carpeting, which collects allergens and could contain VOCs, with sustainable hard floors
made of responsibly harvested wood, reclaimed wood, renewable bamboo, and some area woods. According to Bartlett, Carlisle Lumber in Stoddard, N.H. sells a variety of old wood for flooring, all salvaged and varying in age.

“Everyone’s definition of green is different,” says Bartlett.

Don’ts

1. Don’t use oil-based paint products. Outlawed in many states, they affect air quality, and clean-up is toxic. According to Co-Op America, a website about everything green
(www.coopamerica.org), traditional paints may be heavy in VOCs, a class of chemicals that is toxic to humans. Look for nontoxic, natural paints, which are often made from milk protein (called “casein”)
or clay, and come in a wide array of colors.

2. Don’t rule out plastic products. Many plastics that are post-industrial waste are converted into second generation products.
The adhesives used on vinyl wall coverings can be the toxic part of the installation, not the wall covering itself.

3. Don’t use composite boards (plywood and particle board) that are made with formaldehyde-based glues.

4.Don’t leave windows undressed. Use shades that lessen the effects of the sun’s heat and require more cooling on the inside, thus using more energy.

5. Don’t dispose of construction debris irresponsibly.
Concrete, glass, woods and metals can all be used in remanufacturing products. Contact your town or city’s recycling center for information on disposal.

             

Gordon Brown wants to build five new “eco-towns” with 100,000 environmentally friendly homes.

Households are responsible for about 27% of the UK’s carbon emissions and almost a third of the nation’s total energy consumption.

So what exactly is an eco-home? And what can you do to make your home more green?

LOCATION

Mr Brown wants to build 100,000 eco-homes on former industrial - or brownfield - sites to avoid swallowing up countryside or green belt land.

An ex-MoD base at Oakington in Cambridgeshire - an asylum seeker holding center - is already earmarked with councils invited to bid to host the other settlements.

Once a site is chosen, orientation is also important.

Building south-facing homes maximizes so-called “passive solar gain”, using the sun to heat rooms wherever possible.

Spaces prone to over-heating, like offices, can be built with a north-facing aspect to reduce the need for air conditioning.

Diagram of an eco-house (below)

Eco-homes are not a new idea and there are many already across the UK.

Avoid plasma screen televisions, which just eat electricity Samantha Heath London Sustainability Exchange

One example is BedZED - the Beddington Zero Energy Development - completed in 2002.

There, homes and offices were built on reclaimed land owned by the Sutton Council in south London and sold to the developers, the Peabody Trust, at below market value to support the planned environmental initiatives.

MATERIALS

Wherever possible, eco-homes are built using natural, recycled or reclaimed materials.

Any wood should be from a sustainable source and approved by the Forest Stewardship Council or similar organisation.

Sue Riddlestone, executive director of sustainability solutions company BioRegional, which consulted on BedZED, says materials should have a low “embodied energy”, meaning the amount of energy required to manufacture them.

“Materials should be sourced as locally as possible to cut the energy used to transport them to the site,” she adds.

BedZED’s buildings are constructed from “thermally massive materials” which store heat during warm conditions and release it at cooler times.

ENERGY

Energy for eco-homes should come from renewable sources, and wherever possible be generated on the buildings themselves or the site.

BedZED is powered by a small-scale combined heat and power plant (CHP), fed by off-cuts of wood from tree surgery which would otherwise go to landfill.

Traditionally, heat produced as a by-product of electricity generation is lost, but CHP harnesses it and puts it to use.

At BedZED, it provides hot water, distributed around the site via super-insulated pipes. In individual homes, there is also a hot water tank which doubles as a radiator.

This is a community-scale solution, but individual houses can also make a difference.

Like Conservative leader David Cameron, you could have a wind turbine installed. It costs from £1,500, but grants may be available.

Solar panels, costing from £2,000, can also be fitted on the roof of an eco-home and can provide 100% of heating and hot water needs in summer.

Photovoltaic cells, at £4,000 or more per home, also use the sun’s energy to generate electricity.

Eco-friendly energy could even come from the earth itself, using a ground source heat pump to warm water and contribute to central heating. This costs from about £6,400.

But if all this sounds expensive and difficult, even simple fixes make a difference - double glazing, for example, halves heat lost through windows.

Loft and cavity wall insulation too, can cut heat loss from walls and roofs by a third, according to the Energy Saving Trust (EST).

Even just turning the thermostat down by one degree can cut heating bills by 10%.

LIGHTING AND APPLIANCES

Low energy lighting and energy efficient appliances are key to cutting back on household carbon emissions.

Environmental groups say that although these do cost more initially, that expense is more than repaid longer term by the amount of energy saved.

Samantha Heath, director of the London Sustainability Exchange, says: “A fridge is one of the greediest appliances, so make sure it’s as efficient as possible. And avoid plasma screen televisions, which just eat electricity.

“We should also be thinking about using appliances like dishwashers and washing machines one at a time to avoid an energy overload.”

She adds: “One of the most helpful new gizmos is a device which turns everything off but the one appliance currently in use.”

It’s no good saving energy in the home if you then get in the car every time you need to go shopping Sue Riddlestone BioRegional

The Energy Saving Trust says the average household has up to 12 gadgets left on stand-by or charging at any one time, and more than £740m of electricity is being wasted this way.

So turn off your TV, unplug your mobile charger and switch off lights when you leave a room.

Also, try washing clothes at 30C instead of 40C - it uses 40% less energy.

WATER AND WASTE

“Water is a big issue, especially in the south of England,” Ms Riddlestone says.

“At BedZED we have cut water use by half by using more efficient appliances like washing machines and using rain water to flush toilets.”

Again, if you cannot stretch to those fixes, you could buy a water butt to collect rainwater to use on your garden.

Ensuring no water is wasted goes hand in hand with recycling of all kinds.

“An eco-community can recycle up to 65% of its waste,” Ms Riddlestone says. “And what’s left shouldn’t go to landfill - you can find other ways to recover energy from that as well.”

TRANSPORT

“It’s not just about building houses. The approach we take is to look at the whole community and how people live in it,” Ms Riddlestone says.

“It’s no good saving energy in the home if you then get in the car every time you need to go shopping.”

So, an eco-home has to fit into an eco-community.

Mr Brown said eco-towns would have bus routes and cycle lanes designed in a way to make them carbon neutral communities overall.

At BedZED, a car pool has been set up for residents and a ‘pedestrian first’ policy in the design means there is good lighting, drop kerbs for prams and wheelchairs and a road layout that keeps vehicles to walking speed.

There are also local shops and a nursery, and good public transport links to enhance quality of life and cut car use.

By Victoria Bone

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6653687.stm#map

             

by Chris Arnot

http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,,2161645,00.html

How can 500 years of Engish craftsmanship help reconstruct the devastated city of New Orleans?

Two young Americans, both members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, are talking animatedly in an abundantly stocked garden, overlooked by the side elevation of Lincoln Cathedral. No, this is not a scene from the Da Vinci Code and the brotherhood is not some obscure religious sect. It’s a trade union whose members have nominated Troy Repka and Jerry Mixon, both 29-year-old apprentices from New Orleans, to join a course on fine carpentry, bricklaying, stone masonry and roofing organized by the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment.

After two weeks in Lincoln, they’ll move on to Windsor Castle, Hampton Court and Fountain’s Abbey, Yorkshire, before joining some of the UK’s top developers to learn about the latest new-built techniques. Seven months in all, then, away from the devastation of their home city and Repka has more than one reason to be grateful. “My apartment was completely devastated [by Hurricane Katrina],” he says, “and I’ve been bouncing around from one friend’s house to another ever since they let us back into the city. It’s just a blast to be here, a real honor.”

“We’re really interested in the new green building technology that we’re learning about,” says Mixon. “The idea is that we take back these ideas to our training center and pass them on.”

But is there a demand for, say, stone masonry in New Orleans?

“All skills are transferable,” insists Sterling Brignac, a carpentry instructor at the city’s Delgado College. “We’ll take back what we learn here and spice it up a bit. You heard of gumbo?” he adds with a grin.

Skills urgently needed

Along with his colleague Victor Mirza, Delgado’s professor of architecture, Brignac is here solely for the two-week summer school in Lincoln. No Windsor Castle or Hampton Court for them. Their skills are urgently required back home. “I’ve got doctors, lawyers and other professional people who’ve never held a hammer before queuing up for classes,” Brignac goes on. “What I’m learning here in England are techniques that can speed up our way of doing things. At the same time, we don’t want to rush the rebuilding process to the extent that we lose the historic qualities of the city.”

Mirza nods in agreement. “Everyone’s doing their own thing at the moment,” he says, “and we need some overall structure. We also need green, sustainable architecture capable of withstanding 120mph winds.”

Ben Bolgar, director of design theory at the Prince’s Foundation, reckons he has just the thing. “The Americans are geared up for timber-frame building and one of the solid wall systems that we’re working on has a light, wooden exterior with a hemp infill. Like the new, insulated bio-brick that we’re also using, it’s capable of being made hurricane resistant.”

Two pavilions, one in timber and the other bio-bricks, have been built by students on the summer school and put on display in the cathedral cloisters. Prince Charles himself called in to view them. From the point of view of his foundation, the two-week school and subsequent seven-month course are designed to meet two long-term aims. One is to begin to address the chronic shortage of skilled craftsmen in the UK. (Ten of the 14 students are from construction colleges around the country and have reached at least NVQ level 3.) The other is to contribute to the rebuilding of New Orleans, which the Prince visited in 2005, six weeks after the hurricane. “He asked me to make some contacts,” says Hank Dittmar, an American who lives in London and is chief executive of the foundation.

“We’re quite small scale,” he goes on. “But we believe you can make an impact by setting an example. Colleges in the States don’t teach fine carpentry or ornamental bricklaying. By inviting a couple of tutors from Delgado over here, we’re trying to embed some new practices and hope that they spread. In other words, that Delgado will set up its own summer schools in Louisiana.”

The long-term aim, Dittmar suggests, is to see the historic nature of New Orleans maintained by the latest, carbon-neutral materials. “They’re facing a 20- to 30-year challenge,” he says before going on to point out that the tutors and carpenters visiting Lincoln have been able to tap into “an unbroken chain of masters and apprentices that stretches back 500 years”.

Building for the long term

The Americans are not the only ones to be impressed by that. “I love the idea that I could one day make something that might last as long as this cathedral,” says Nicola Kerridge, 22, who’s training to be a stone mason at the Building Crafts College in east London. The daughter of a teacher and a BBC engineer, she says she didn’t want to do what was expected of her by going to university. So she worked in a bar and a shop selling greetings cards to finance her apprenticeship. “This course with the foundation is an amazing bonus for me,” she says. “Imagine what my portfolio is going to look like. This is me at Lincoln Cathedral; this is me at Windsor Castle …”

Already she has made an impression on Henry Rumbold MBE (for services to stonemasonry training), a Yorkshireman who gives the impression of not being easily impressed. “Strength isn’t so important as what’s between your ears,” he maintains. “Lifting techniques can be learned. The important thing is that Nicola is very focused and will go a long way. There are no shortcuts. You have to know the basics. It’s like knitting a sweater. If you don’t get it right, everything unravels.”

The challenge at Lincoln Cathedral, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court and elsewhere over the coming months will be to ensure that patterns are learned, in stonemasonry and other disciplines, that will remain impervious to high winds or rising waters on either side of the Atlantic.