sustainability- LEED for homes workshop

November 1st 2006, attended LEED for Homes workshop

Summary: Work toward efficiency. Avoid unnecessary waste. Keep our environment clean. Seek creative solutions.

This workshop focused on the fact that as architects we play a large role in the stewardship of our environment, and we have a responsibility to act as a resource to homeowners, builders, and the community on how to preserve and protect this environment. Topics covered key sustainability issues involved in the siting, design and construction of new homes. (To view a copy of the LEED for Home Checklist, see  LEED )

Currently, a whopping 40% of the worlds energy and resource are linked to the construction and maintanence of buildings! We should be looking for any way possible to reduce this figure.

If you share our concerns about environmental waste, related health concerns, global warming, and the massive problems we are facing as a result of our reliance on foreign oil, here are a few websites to check out:


http://inhabitat.com/blog/category/greenbuilding-101/

http://www.greenhomeguide.com/

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-wordplay6jan06,0,11681.story (understand the terms being used)

Take action:

http://www.globalgreen.org/programs/climate/pledge.cfm ( The Pledge of Allegiance to American Energy Independence)

greenteedesign   wear a fun t-shirt that comments on ways to reduce waste

help save the rainforest   click daily

Sustainable Materials:

http://www.fscus.org/

http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/design/construction.html#purchasing

In the Boston area:

Recycle construction materials-

http://www.bostonbmrc.org/bostonbmrc/donate_3_guidelines.html

Gas Stones- an alternative to fake logs

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While the gas stove popularity has grown significantly over the past ten years, the look of fake logs just doesn’t do it for many homeowners. There are options now, and the alternative of beach stones can be used in interiors that are both natural and modern.

“Gas Stones are clean, crisp and contemporary.  They are like a breath of fresh air in the hearth industry.” says Holly Markham, owner of European Home.  Very popular in Europe and designed by Gavin Scott Design of England, Gas Stones consists of a natural gas or propane burner, ceramic basket in white or black, a set of hand painted ceramic beach stones and a remote control.

Gas Stones are $1200 retail plus $50.00 shipping.  Gas Stones can be purchased through some fireplace retailers or directly through European Home, based in Melrose, MA.

http://www.europeanhome.com/product/gas-stones-vent-free/


 

 

enchanting recollections of travel

Notre Dame, Paris

Camello Sitte, an urban planner in the late 1880s was disturbed by the radical changes modern planning was having on the urban fabric of Europe.

He believed that, through the understanding of how cities developed over time, planners could continue to build beautiful spaces that also reflected the lifestyles of a new Industrial Age.

After our recent return from Europe,  I found his reflections expressed a certain truth that still applies today:

“Enchanting recollections of travel form part of our most pleasant reveries. Magnificent town views, monuments and public squares, beautiful vistas all parade before our musing eye, and we savor again the delights of the sublime and graceful things in whose presence we were once so happy.

To linger! If we could but linger again in those places whose beauties never waned; surely we would then be able to endure many difficult hours with a lighter heart, and carry on, the strengthened, in the eternal struggle of this existence…Anyone who has enjoyed the charms of an ancient city would hardly disagree with this idea of a strong influence of physical setting on human soul.”

simplicity

Our daily activities and emotions are destined, to a large part, by the setting in which the day begins - by the character of the house we live in, both in our personal engagement with it and in it’s physical details.

For example, when the sun streams into the bedroom from a tall French door leading to a garden terrace, we awaken to a warm and promising day. The shower, with one wall fully glazed and open to a small private garden, lush with tropical flowers and vines, cleanses and invigorates us with a kaleidoscope of color and light. And even if the bedroom is tiny, with only a comfortable bed and a small bureau, and the bathroom- consumed by the shower- leaves barely a corner for a sink and toilet- our morning ritual experience is grand!
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merging house and gardens

A glass house may be one way to fully experience the landscape, however there are many other ways to make connections between the inside of your house and the outside. And, there are a number of benefits to making these connections.

First is the opportunity to add extra living space to your house. Outdoor rooms, such as porches, decks, walled gardens, hedge enclosed terraces, screened porches and pergolas expand the indoor living space, even if only visually when it’s too hot or cold to inhabit them.

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house as family portrait

Every house has the opportunity to become a an intricate tale of the family who built it;  like a portrait to the outside world, but also like a glove fitted to the functions and character of the family.

As Frank Lloyd Wright explains his idea of the house as a family portrait, in a letter to prospective clients, he says,”I try to make each home characteristic of it’s owner and an interpretation when possible. I think all of the buildings are entitled to a certain family resemblance…”

“…if the architect is what he ought to be, with his ready technique and consciously works for the client, idealizes the client’s character and his client’s tastes and makes him feel that the building is his as it really is to such an extent that he can truly say that he would rather have his own house than any other he has ever seen.”

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