Green Building | Sustainable Architecture [Part 1]

How about a I kick this off with a little background on how I even came to be interested in these concepts...

When I was about half way through high school, I was thinking that I might want to go to college to study architecture. There's a lot about it that still really appeals to me today... but long story, short I didn't study architecture. I studied music and then global business... go figure. No regrets, though.

So, fast-forward (or rewind, depending on where you are in this boring story so far) to the end of 2005, and I'm sitting (as a real estate developer) at this fancy-schmancy economic forecast luncheon in Phoenix where there were three main speakers for the morning. The first two were your typical, run-of-the-mill high-octane economists from some big investment banks, which is the type of person that you expect to hear pontificate at these events. But the third guy was different... his name is Wellington Reiter. I felt sort of bad for him because when it came to his turn, droves of round men in business suits were already filing out of the ballroom, indirectly writing-off anything he was about to say as irrelevant to their future. But as soon as he launched into his presentation, I was locked-in (for the first time all morning). Reiter's talk simply offered a vision for what the future of urban planning & design COULD look like (specifically in Phoenix) both in commercial and residential applications. Concept sketches of high-density yet comfortable housing... urban landscapes that leverage design and solar power to energize the city and create natural oasis-like parks... mass transit networks that would actually integrate the sprawling suburbs. An entirely different [read: sustainable] direction, and I loved it. But nobody else seemed to get into it. The whole experience really got me thinking... but unfortunately it didn't get me thinking in a self-reflective way. That came later.

Now fast-forward to the end of 2006, and HEY, Tara's pregnant! Whoa, awesome! Whoa, scary. Just the reality of the pregnancy significantly changed the way I perceived the whole world. My priorities were instantly rearranged (and have been ever since;-) In that time, Tara started reading up on a lot of different aspects to being pregnant, many of which dealt with how healthy living makes for a healthy baby. And she would draw me into the things she was learning about... like harmful chemicals in foods & plastics, the ecological benefits of cloth diapering, indoor air-quality, etc. And it seemed like over the months spanning the birth of our daughter, we both started to get a glimpse of how truly interconnected the world is. We were beginning to see that a healthy life for us and for our children requires mindful actions and a healthy earth. You may also recall that we read Sleeth's Serve God Save the Planet, which despite its rather stark title had a strong impact on our worldview (see more of my thoughts here and here). And this was also about the time that, despite the political polarization of the global warming issue, the general consensus coming from experts around the globe was that the physical planet is, in fact, not in good shape, and that a lot of the research data points to humanity playing a significant role in the problems.

So, here we are halfway through 2008... I'm still involved with the family biz, these sustainable design concepts excite me more than ever, yet my path towards implementing them in the future is a bit uncertain. Towards the end of last year, I led a look at a potential business venture, which involved building a spec home in one of our developments. I set a target to build a LEED certified finished product in a native desert setting, and the process of walking through the details of the LEED requirements, researching different design aspects, and learning more about photovolatic solar energy was a blast! Unfortunately, we've tabled this venture at the moment while the market drains into a black hole;-)

So that's how I became interested in this stuff. And, this post has (as usual) gotten kind of long, so I'll hold it there for tonight...

UP NEXT TIME:

• I'll run down some of the key tenets and techniques of sustainable building that I've learned
• I will take a closer look at how far pre-fab homes have come in recent years
• I'll offer some resources (web, book, and local) for your own exploration if you're interested.

*Photo credit: LivingHomes

Still Alive...

Beh. I know... long time, no post. There's just been "a few things" going on lately (primarily business shtuff). Should be getting a little more space shortly.

Thanks to everybody who voted or left a comment with a vote! That was a fun & intriguing experiment... I would not have guessed that the green building/sustainable architecture topic would have taken the cake, but I'm excited to kick things off with that one.  [Disclaimer: I'm sure I'll have something similar to this on the actual post, but don't get your hopes up too high!... I'm definitely no expert on the topic. Just someone who likes to think about it and learn something here and there.]

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Earlier tonight, I conducted an audio interview with Florida artist/sculptor, Eric Higgs [cool dude].  More on all of that later, but I'll wrap this up with a thought that he brought up during our conversation.  We were talking about his creative process, and we were discussing some of the underlying energy inherent to minimalism.  He said something to this effect [I'm paraphrasing]: 

"I take my creation concept, and I just start eliminating things.  I take things away until I remove something that actually [adversely] affects the piece by its absence.  And through this process, you can hopefully progress something down to its purest, most potent form."

I like that.  It can apply to so much.

The Backyard [A Pictoral Journey]...

Hey folks! Yeah, yeah... weeks have passed since the last post, I know. A lot's been goin' on (took that weekend trip to LA, been working on Shea's "sleeping" habits, work's been hittin'-the-fan, etc.) More on all of that later...

But for now, I'd like to take you on (what I consider) an amusing tour of our backyard through the years...

Seeing that Tara and I bought the house in which I happened to grow up from my parents after we moved to AZ following college, our backyard is the setting for a lot of my childhood memories: over the years my brother and I played hours of catch, smear-the-[guy-with-the-ball:], & homerun derby; my dad put in a tetherball pole on the sideyard for my 10th birthday; and on an early-release school day back in 1991, I got my first kiss back there... coincidentally from a girl named Tara, HA! (Just for the [wife] record, SHE kissed me! I was defenseless, disoriented, befuddled, bewildered!;-) Anyway...

Given the modest size of the house, the backyard is on the larger side of things. And as time wore on since we first moved-in in 1986, the yard had lost much of its pizazz by the time Tara and I took over.

A shot from the patio looking out shortly after we moved-in (2004).

So, after we took the first year to get settled inside the house as newly-weds (read: paint EVERY interior wall surface, replace light-fixtures, fans, hardware, etc.), I set my sights on the backyard. I was born into a family that always seems to minimize the amount of work involved in the projects that lay before us... the logic goes something like this, "eh, that shouldn't be too bad... I'll just do it myself." :) Thus begins the backyard saga...

As I set out to start the work, I happened to also be starting grad school at the time. I like to spend a decent amount of time creating and designing, so this project was hardly a chore... but, to put it plainly, it. took. for. ever. for me to finish. I used my time in the yard as a release of sorts from the mind-numbing study sessions and stressful days at work... so I'd get an hour here, an evening there... and fortunately I have a very patient wife (when she wants to be;-)

I basically wanted to start from scratch with a clean canvas back there, so I went crazy on whatever was left of that wiry old lawn and KILLED IT ALL, BWAH HAHAHAHA!!-- sorry, got carried away there...

The yard with grass annihilated and the patio extension excavated and formed.

After working out the details of the new design, I decided that a larger patio would make a big difference, so I hired a concrete guy to do the new patio that Tara helped design. While that work was being done, I embarked on another self-imposed side-project of larger than anticipated proportions: a house for Charlie... our bizarre pet.

This dog is 100% weird.

I had this grand idea that I would convert the side yard into a dreamy dog-run for Chuck. A fenced space just for him with his own stretch of grass and a custom-built doghouse. So I installed a wrought-iron fence & gate, and I launched into my doghouse design that I (of course) spent way too much time on...

Ya' darn right I framed-out the doghouse and installed carpet!

So, after killing the old lawn, removing the old tetherball pole that my dad set in FOUR FEET OF CEMENT, digging-up & relocating countless sprinkler heads/zones (kill me), having the new patio built, having the curbing run, relocating the existing walkway pavers, planting four trees, building the doghouse, installing the fence & gate, planting shrubs and flowers galore, spreading 15 tons of decorative rock, spreading new topsoil, and laying 1,800 sq ft of Mid-Iron sod... voila... no big deal, right?... pshhhh.

Everybody loves Before-&-After pictures....

Before


After


Before


After

So, Charlie got his luxurious dogrun, and what does he do??? REJECT IT!

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him actually lay down in that blasted doghouse. When we first shut him in the dogrun, he learned that he could use his mad-hops to jump the six-foot gate to the front yard and go cruisin' the neighborhood. Puh... ungrateful mutt.

Which brings me to today. I find myself over there in the dogrun this afternoon with a shovel. And I'm digging up the pristine lawn that I've maintained for Charlie that he never uses (my first tinge of rejection as a father ::sniffle::). Why would I do that, you ask? Because rather than simply growing flowers, grass, and shrubs, we're gonna try our hand at raising food, my friends!

In recent months, we've been helping build a community garden with a bunch of friends, and a number of our friends also have some sweet gardening going on at their homes. And as Tara and I have learned more about the environmental, community, & health benefits to eating locally grown, organic foods, we've got the bug, too.
So, instead of watering & mowing Charlie's stupid patch of grass which he snuffs at with disdain (which makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE), I dug it up today. I'll be relocating his house to the main yard (maybe he'll like it out there, HA!), and building a raised-bed vegetable garden in the side yard.

Thus begins the garden saga... we're a little late to the dance in terms of the planting season this spring, but Tara's got some seedlings growing in a tray right now, so we're goin' for it! Updates and pictures to come as things progress...

Aesthetic Adjustments...

One of my biggest attractions to the Mac OS X experience is the overall aesthetic feel. It all just flows and renders so nicely. I've always liked all sorts of design, but haven't had much time to dig into it myself since I was a boy. But, I've got this blog, and I figured I should at least have some design-fun with it. So, I've been dinkin' around with different Blogger hacks that I learned at this site, and I decided to pop in an image-based header. It's kinda fun.

After taking a picture of my semi-hollow body guitar, I created the image within Seashore (a great open source image editor for Mac OS X), which has a very alluring pricetag ($free) for those of us who aren't talented enough to justify the cost of professional tools like Adobe's Creative Suite ($CHA-CHING$). I was also tipped off about Pixelmator (more like a $ch-:) by Matt, which I've been impressed with but haven't pulled the trigger on picking it up just yet.

Also, to round things out, I've added some albums that I'm currently listening to on the sidebar as well as a cool javascript element from LibraryThing below the albums. Plus, I threw in a random iSight picture of the fam, just because. Enjoy!

**Update**
I've also just added a "Recent Videos" sidebar element which dynamically pulls from our Vimeo account. After interacting with Vimeo for the past few months, I can't recommend it enough. The interface is clean and simple, and the whole site is just plain intuitive, in my opinion. Now that our video camcorder speaks to iMovie '08 natively, my export-resolutions and file sizes are much improved, so watch for more video output from the Bams in coming months;-).