Peter Yost gave a presentation at the NAHB National Green Building Conference in New Orleans last week. Nation's Building News ("The Official Online Weekly Newspaper of NAHB") has a nice piece on it. Excerpted:
In 1999, people didn't talk about carbon-neutral or zero-energy homes, and the American public was largely unconcerned about global warming. There were only 7,000 Energy Star-certified homes. Now, Yost said, there are more than 800,000.
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Read the current bulletinI love people that make, rather than assemble. The old-world built environment had a character of imperfection, a dose of wabi sabi, odd and lumpy bits that represent a connection that's both human and natural.
I have a huge amount of appreciation and respect for (and some jealousy of) people plying artisan trades, and had a couple good conversations with AIA'08 exhibitors offering that sort of thing. John Canning & Company goes beyond artisan; check out the featured projects on their website. In my capacity as poster boy for the A Little Knowledge Club, we chatted a bit about lime plaster and mortar while I stood in awe of their portfolio.
Michael Wentz being interviewed after the presentation
"I kinda liked the expo this year. There seemed to be a lot of stuff." —a guy to another guy
A piece of it. Just a piece.
An unexpected tower in the hallway...
A foundation of the Society for Design Administration (SDA), Canstruction is a design/build competition currently held in cities throughout North America. Teams of architects, engineers, and students mentored by these professionals, compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food.
Sunlight gives us light at no charge, which we can harness in our buildings to reduce our reliance on electrical lighting, while providing a more enjoyable indoor environment. Leave it to an engineer to tell us how much that sunlight actually costs us. Lumens per watt (lpw) is the measure of lighting efficacy, telling us how much light (lumens) we get out for how much power (watts) we put in. The chart below shows typical efficacies of different lighting technologies, including incandescent (14), LED (30–50), T-5 fluorescent tube (95), and more.
"Using case studies of recent high performance architecture, this session will identify key strategies required to increase sustainable methods to achieve zero carbon goals by the year 2030.
Nadav Malin and Scot Horst offered up a great, head-twisting presentation about product certifications called "It's Certified Green But What Does That Mean?" to about 500 people.
I'm no fan of vinyl, but someone (actually a lot of someones) keep buying lots of it, year after year. Why? A recent article, "Vinyl makers push for New Urbanism market," in New Urban News looks at the benefits. Since vinyl is pretty much Evil (I picture it as the smoldering stuff in the toaster oven in "Time Bandits") in the environmental world, I thought this article was pretty fun.
Now, having made that snarky comment about white guys in a previous post (for the record, I'm a white guy), I should say that the conference itself has a very nicely diverse attendance. Walking the trade show floor, you're surrounded by a range of ages, what seems like an almost even mix of sexes, and a good variety of ancestries. And not everybody is dressed in fashionable black with high-tone glasses.
This morning began (for me) with a 7:00 (early!) session called "Legally Green: Legal and Practice Issues of LEED," presented by Betsy del Monte and William Quatman. The room had a capacity approaching 400, and got close to filling up. Betsy's presentation was, for the most part, understandably basic. The big majority of the audience, by show of hands, had not worked on a LEED certified project, or a LEED certifiable project, and were not LEED APs. They were there for continuing education. More on that shortly.
I came to Boston yesterday, giving myself plenty of time to check in at the sprawling Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) for this year's AIA National Convention before heading out — pretty much cluelessly — to get a closer look at this historic city.
The AIA 2008 National Convention and Design Exposition — "We the People" — starts next week Thursday, on the East Coast for the first time in almost a decade. As usual, BuildingGreen will be there. If you are, too, come see us at booth 14079.
