I’ve been fortunate enough to tour two LEED-certified facilities (one Gold Certified, the other Platinum) in the past two weeks. Being in these spaces has helped solidify in my mind that green building–done well–creates living and working environments with advantages that are obvious and attractive to even the biggest green skeptics.
First I visited Warren Wilson College. This small liberal arts school in the rural mountain outskirts of Asheville, NC merits its own post (or several) on the sustainability efforts on campus. The tight-knit community at the college is committed to sustainable practices for all the right reasons and everyone really lives out that commitment, whether by working on the campus farm, recycling and reusing to admirable extremes, or helping to build (as a group of students did) a Gold LEED-Certified campus building.
When I was shown around the Orr Cottage (video tour above), what stuck out most was the simple elegance of many of the green building techniques embodied in the construction. These are, for the most part, not incredibly new ideas, particularly technological, or even all that complicated. But together they create a work and study environment that’s impossible not to envy. Some highlights:
Green materials: carpeting that, as Stan (a professor at WWC) says in the video, is “100% recyclable and 100% recycled.” Material for desks–”wheat board”–that’s made from grain waste. Re-purposed wood and salvaged doors.
Refreshing air: incredible air quality, due to sincere diligence avoiding volatile organic compounds whenever possible in glues, paints, sealants, etc as well as the fact that fresh air is continuously cycled through the building
Passive solar: the building is oriented to maximize sun exposure (genius…and yet, why so rare?) to help heat the building with winter sun.
Bright sunlight: but what about summer? Shades over windows at just the right angle block out the high summer sun while allowing bright light to enter above employees’ heads and computer screens. Say goodbye to headache-inducing fluorescent lighting, except on particularly dreary days.
Natural landscaping: outside the cottage, beautiful native grasses and wildflowers in place of the typical collegiate lawn. The native grasses and flowers require once a year maintenance (a controlled burn), and no extra water (they act as a storm water run-off filter for the building
Character: recycled antique doors for each office inside, giving each bright, plant-filled (another benefit of great sunshine) office its own unique style
As luck would have it, the week after my trip to Warren Wilson, I was in Maryland to see the headquarters of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, just outside of Annapolis. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is a nonprofit group working to restore and protect the massive Chesapeake Bay watershed. Some highlights from the Merrill Center–at the time of its construction, the first Platinum LEED-certified building in the country–after the jump… Continue reading ‘More Than Greenwashing: The Advantages of LEED’
Those of you familiar with Internet lingo will no doubt know the meaning of RTFM. Well, forget that — now you can W[rite]TFM.
Let’s say you’re handy at designing things but unable to invest either time or capital into turning your talents into a profitable business. Well, allow me to introduce you to Ponoko. This California-based (aren’t they all?) start-up was profiled today by TechCrunch. I have to say, it’s real genius. In Ponoko’s own words:
Armed with nothing more than an idea, professional and hobbiest designers, crafters, hackers and artists can turn their ideas into real products - and new revenue streams - using our web commerce and digital make-on-demand services. No upfront costs. No minimum orders. No inventory. Simply click to design, make, sell and deliver your creativity to the world, at your own speed.
It’s simple: you create a design for a product made out of combinations of materials such as acrylic, wood, and whiteboard. It can be anything — a lamp, a table, a jigsaw puzzle, jewelry (see examples of products in the Ponoko Showroom). You upload the design to Ponoko. Ponoko constructs your product on-demand when it is ordered by you or a customer. Ponoko only takes 5% whenever a sale is made. No charge for supplies. Small delivery charge for your customer. Zero cost to you. Boom. Instant supply chain. Instant profit.
Another week closer to Spring…or so we hope. This week’s links are very heavy on environmental stories. I apologize for the one-dimensionality, but Jarred has some Web 2.0 stuff planned for this week to even things out a bit. Links:
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. offers three major environmental policies for the next president: a carbon cap-and-trade system (wisely endorsed by Senators Obama, Clinton, and McCain); smart grids and modernizing energy delivery infrastructure; and drastic improvements in energy efficiency for buildings and machines. Sounds like a start [Hat Tip: Grist].
Treehugger features stories on space debris (click through to see the image…pretty unbelievable) and the “Pacific trash vortex“–an area twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that’s entirely covered in garbage (more here). Further proof of the attitude that out of sight is out of mind…until our children grow up, anyway.
The latest version of Google Earth includes a feature that shows users when a satellite image was taken; this is enormously important for conservation efforts aimed at tracking land and water conditions over time. Also helpful for spies.
If I managed to freak you out with my post on the need to specialize in your career, Monica (of Twenty Set) follows her original post with helpful tips to take inventory of your current job in terms of skill focus. One sign that your current job is too unfocused:
You could train a recent college graduate to do your job well in a few days or less - This demonstrates you do not need any experience or knowledge learned over time to complete your tasks, which implies busy work or menial duties.
The New Yorker featured a really fascinating article on something I rarely give a second thought: elevators. The story includes an account of the horrific experience of a guy trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. The time-lapse video of his ordeal makes me think I’ll be taking the stairs for a few weeks.
I keep procrastinating on a green architecture post; in the meantime, this is one of the coolest green building concepts I’ve seen recently: urban skyscraper farming, courtesy of the Dwell Magazine blog. Check out this design, and follow the link for details:
I’m giving Jarred this raw meat themed iPod case for his birthday, just to send Ashish (and Steve Jobs, for that matter) over the edge. Fortunately for you, Ashish, it’s way too expensive for a gag gift.
Sorry for the delay in posting these links, folks. I’ve been traveling, and I’m just now getting back to bloggin’. Unlike some people, I’m determined to make it through the 826 unread items in my Google Reader. How about a few links?
Although common tracking systems, known as cookies, have counted a consumer’s visits to a network of sites, the new monitoring, known as “deep-packet inspection,” enables a far wider view — every Web page visited, every e-mail sent and every search entered. Every bit of data is divided into packets — like electronic envelopes — that the system can access and analyze for content
This Nick Kristof column on racial and gender bias provides links to a number of interesting online psychological tests.
PhilanTopic highlights a Gates Foundation initiative aimed at involving scientists who might not normally focus on global health issues, particularly those in the developing world or in complimentary disciplines. From the Gates site:
The initiative is modeled after the grand challenges formulated more than 100 years ago by mathematician David Hilbert. His list of important unsolved problems has encouraged innovation in mathematics research ever since. Similarly, the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative aims to engage creative minds from across scientific disciplines — including those who have not traditionally taken part in global health research — to work on 14 major challenges.
EcoGeek shares the details of Dell’s Austin headquarters which is now 100% powered by renewable energy. It’s an imperfect system, as these things always are, but it’s a laudable step.
Smitten Kitchen is my new favorite food/cooking blog. This lemon blueberry yogurt cake looks amazing (due in no small part to their expert photography…and baking).
If you’re looking to spice up an office memo, or maybe a senior thesis, try the beard font.
That should be enough for now. Sorry to fill the links with so much random stuff, but expect more *ahem* serious blogging to follow this week.
I’ve had another red bundle of Netflix joy buried in my mail pile for well over a week. So last night as I did some ironing, I popped Helvetica into my MacBook and away I went into the world of typography; a world that I had previously never given two seconds of thought to, but now have come to appreciate as one of the great underrated artistic mediums.
I can’t remember exactly how I first learned about Helvetica. I remember reading brief reviews about the film right when it came out, but I guess I saw it mentioned recently on some blog… or maybe Netflix recommended it to me.
I have to admit that I did get a little bored at times, but that could just as well be due to me sometimes concentrating more on the wrinkles in my shirts than on the images and words in the movie. Even though I was giving it less than 100% of my attention, I can definitely say the film was particularly well made.
The history of Helvetica was fairly intriguing, as was the way in which the filmmakers transitioned from interview to interview with examples of the typeface in everyday life.
It really is amazing how ubiquitous this one font is. Seriously. It’s everywhere. Even our Tropophilia logo above is composed in a variation called “Helvetica Neue UltraLight.”
But what was even more fascinating to me was the way in which the various typographers described their personal attitudes both towards Helvetica and their chosen profession. Some were in love with the font. They praised its perfection, or its simplicity, or its boldness. Others associated it with globalization, with over-standardization, even with the Vietnam War. Others said it was overused and has become dull, while others say that it’s undergoing a revival. Some say it’s timeless, others say its time has come and gone. Who knew all this controversy existed over a font?
Those of you familiar with Internet lingo will no doubt know the meaning of 
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