Green Building

""We knew we didn't want air conditioning but we wanted a house that was cool," said Chris Conger, a 37-year-old coastal geologist with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program. "It wasn't that hard. I guess it depends on how you approach it." Even so, it was an ambitious job expanding the 970-square-foot house into a 2,300-square-foot house. At roughly half a million dollars, it was also expensive — but the Congers view it as an investment in a home they will use for decades. Their home went from three bedrooms and one bathroom to four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The couple added a sun room, opened up the kitchen, reorganized the interior and built a garage. They also moved the entire house to another spot on their flag lot." - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

"The mayor announced yesterday that the city awarded the first major contract to design and build 6.5 miles of raised guideways between Kapolei and Pearl Highlands near Leeward Community College. Hannemann said the $483 million contract with low-bidder Kiewit Pacific Co. will create jobs and stimulate the sagging economy. He also noted that by awarding the contract in a down economy, the bid came in $90 million under the original estimate." - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

GRT! example of the direction we should all be moving towards. - Rickbischoff from Bookmarklet

"Continuing an occasional series on our formative design influences, this is Elevated Wetlands, a public art project in Toronto, Canada, by landLAB's principal landscape architect Neil Hadley and artist Noel Harding. Long time readers no doubt have noticed our obsession with constructed wetlands." - joneilortiz from Bookmarklet

“ECO CITY represents a synergistic approach to urban development,” explains tec Principal Sebastian Knorr. “By working in close cooperation with all the stakeholders and taking into consideration the immediate environmental context of the project, we’ve created a different type of sustainable, creative-industrial complex. We hope that iconic ECO CITY project becomes a model for sustainable urban development.” - design(dot)fr from Bookmarklet

"The amazing spectacle is one of the largest in a growing number of "plant walls" or "vertical gardens" that are taking root across the world, as architects search for environmentally friendly ways to create beautiful buildings. Some visionaries even believe that soon we could be harvesting our food from the places where we live and work. Architect Ken Yeang is the world's leading green skyscraper architect and a passionate advocate of what is already being called "vegitecture"." - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

I built a hanging garden in my backyard, it is mostly Concord Grapes. the problem with much of this is not it's beauty and green-ness, but rather this looks like Ivy in the pic. Ivy eats bricks. - Noah David Simon

Have you tried inviting users? - Kol Tregaskes

"Hickam Air Force Base has completed a $1.1 million solar array project that will now power its hydrogen plant and fueling station -- a first of its kind for the Air Force and Hawaii. The 146-kilowatt system made up of 810 solar modules is enough to power about 30 standard homes. The solar photovoltaic system was gradually turned on Friday to fuel the base's hydrogen plant with the renewable energy. It is the first time that a hydrogen plant has been powered with a solar electric system in Hawaii." - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

“In the U.S., 78 percent of the public is completely unaware that traditional light bulbs will be phased out in 2012,” said Charles F. Jerabek, president and chief executive of Osram Sylvania, a unit of Siemens. By law, bulbs must be 30 percent more efficient than current incandescent versions beginning that year. - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

"The real key will be to see if they can make building-integrated products that can stand the weather for 20-plus years," clean-tech venture capitalist Rob Day from @Ventures told Greentech Media in December last year. Konarka also faces growing competition in the building-integrated photovoltaics field. Thin-film solar manufacturers, including Heliovot, also make flexible cells that can be fitted onto glass or building structures such as awnings but are more efficient. Nanosolar's cells made from CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide), for example, are in the 9 percent to 10 percent range. - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

"Clayton Homes plans to price the "i-house" at $100 to $130 a square foot, depending on amenities and add-ons, such as additional bedrooms. A stick-built house with similar features could range from $200 to $300 a square foot to start, said Chris Nicely, Clayton marketing vice president. The key cost difference is from the savings Clayton achieves by building homes in volume in green standardized factories with very little waste. Clayton has four plants in Oregon, Tennessee, California and New Mexico geared up for "i-house" production." - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

With the vast loads of construction waste created in traditional home building; any idea to cut down on it and housing costs sits well with me! - Randy

"Few places throw the internet's rapacious appetite for energy into relief more sharply than a remote 30-acre patch of scrubland in northern Oregon owned by Google. The site, on the fringes of the city of The Dalles on the banks of the Columbia river, is home to one of the world's largest and most powerful data centres. Inside four towering air-conditioned warehouses sit tens of thousands of internet servers, acting as a clearing house for billions of pieces of data that stream from Google's servers to users around the world each day." - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

"One site under particular scrutiny is YouTube — now the world's third-biggest website, but one that requires a heavy subsidy from Google, its owner. Although the site's financial details are kept under wraps, a recent analysis by Credit Suisse suggested that it could lose as much as $470m (£317m) this year, as it succumbs to the high price of delivering power-intensive videos over the internet." - Bill Sodeman from Bookmarklet

"If you're planning to take the exam before it changes over, register before March 31! Why does it matter? A lot of people who currently qualify to become LEED APs by passing the exam will not qualify in the future, because they will need to also demonstrate actual LEED project experience." - Tristan Roberts - Jabari Garland

"Un ingeniero del Instituto Tecnológico de Georgia, en Estados Unidos, ha desarrollado un tipo de hormigón a partir de las cenizas procedentes de la industria, convirtiendo un desecho en una materia prima realmente útil. Esas cenizas son mezcladas con varios productos químicos orgánicos para dar como resultado un material ligero, muy resistente y con unas magníficas propiedades aislantes. Según su creador, para su elaboración no se usan elementos que sí se utilizan en la fabricación del hormigón convencional, tales como el cemento. Este material “verde” podría sustituir al hormigón o a la madera en la construcción o en el sector aeroespacial." - hector juarez from Bookmarklet

Interesting. Cheaper than Net Zero buildings. - Guy Davis from Bookmarklet

this is what i call mimetizing with the context - hector juarez from Bookmarklet