Championing the
Changemakers

The Toronto City Council has just approved in principal a proposal to coordinate a massive energy and water conservation program. Viewed as a way to create jobs for the city’s ailing construction sector, the plan calls for investments averaging $14,000 per unit on 75% of the city’s 280,000... Read more

By Dorothy Mackenzie; Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 300 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010. 176 pages, hardcover. $35.

Design for the Environment by Dorothy Mackenzie is a gallery of environmental design solutions, mostly from Europe. The book covers an extremely broad range of topics, including building design,... Read more

with Resource Efficient Construction

The ReCraft 90 demonstration house built last year in Missoula, Montana by Steve Loken has received a great deal of attention for its use of leading-edge building materials. Concerned with dwindling supplies of solid, large-dimension timber, Loken chose to use... Read more

By Jim Broadstreet; Loompanics Unlimited, Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98368. 162 pages, hardcover, $19.95.

Building With Junk is an excellent guide for owner/builders who are trying to build an affordable and interesting home for themselves using recycled or used materials. It provides ideas for sources of scrounged materials, methods... Read more

Sustainably harvested wood resources just took a giant leap forward with the first certified sustainably produced plywood. Springfield Forest Products of Springfield, Oregon, and Trus Joist MacMillan provided materials for the roof of an environmental prototype store in Lawrence, Kansas. The store... Read more

The Naturally Elegant Home (see review, page 14), are proliferating nationwide. One innovative item, introduced last year by Feeny Manufacturing Company, replaces the common corner-cabinet lazy susan with three rotating bins for separating recyclables. The... Read more

In what could become an exciting new trend for environmentally conscious remodelers, Neworld Bank of Massachusetts has announced a reduced-rate loan available to homeowners in the state for “green” home improvements. The improvements covered include:

•energy-efficiency retrofits of insulation,... Read more

for Roof Sheathing

An emergency ordinance amending the South Florida Building Code to deal with the devastation wrought by Hurricane Andrew includes a provision requiring that only

5/

8" or thicker plywood be used for roof sheathing. The provision applies both to repairs and new roofs, and... Read more

By Janet Marinelli with Robert Kourik. Little, Brown & Co., 1992. 230 pages, hardcover, $45.

This book skillfully combines a “how-to” approach to sustainable home-building and remodeling, with an inspiring array of case studies and beautiful photographs showcasing environmental design strategies. Clearly reflecting the author’s first... Read more

The answer is maybe. Most cohousing groups express an interest in addressing environmental concerns in the construction and operation of their community. But translating this interest into practical choices can be tricky, especially when it comes to the effects these choices may have on group members’ budgets and lifestyles. “People are... Read more

Building Products

Environmental Outfitters Corporation is offering a series of workshops to demonstrate environmentally responsible building materials and products. These workshops are being held in the top-floor apartment of a retail building in New York City that is being outfitted with a wide array of new products... Read more

It's not often that you would want to sit down and actually read a product directory. But you just might with this.

The Guide to Resource Efficient Building Elements (GREBE), compiled by the Center for Resourceful Building Technology in Missoula, Montana, is packed with fascinating and very useful information. GREBE originated when... Read more

2) into the atmosphere (growing trees absorb more CO

2 out of the atmosphere than is released into the atmosphere when the... Read more

“Environmentally sound” is a motto that sells building products. Or so the marketing engineers at L-P believe. In the past few years they have chosen product lines based on environmental benefits and marketed those benefits aggressively, with images worthy of a group like Greenpeace.

On a per-... Read more

What makes one product or technology better for the environment than another? How can we be sure it’s really better? The deeper we probe into the environmental impact of different products and technologies, the greater the complexity. An ecology professor of mine in college stated that his field was “the study of the incomprehensible by the... Read more