Green Building : Jetson Green

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Plans Green Solar Episode

What's Sunday evening without a little Ty Pennington and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?  I don't catch it every week, particularly if the Dallas Cowboys are on, but the program is a juggernaut for helping people in real need.  So we caught news that ABC was planning a green show for April 6 and were put in touch with the team doing a 5 kW solar photovoltaics installation.  They're using the Akeena Andalay system, which we mentioned previously was a Top 5 Green Building Product (as voted by the builders).  The Akeena Andalay system is pretty sharp, and Linda Panitz, a solar evangelist herself, was on the set with Akeena to install the system.  Here's our Q&A:

Rancho Verde Takes Platinum for Innovative Brownfield Redevelopment

One of Chicago's biggest names in landscaping now lays claim to one of the greenest locations in the city.  Christy Webber Landscapes, along with the City of Chicago and GreenWorks, came together to develop an area in a struggling neighborhood.  After decades of abuse as an auto impound, landfill, and iron-works, the polluted site had been declared a brownfield.  Subsequently, in 2003 the City of Chicago proposed an initiative to reclaim the site, and a short three years later, the 12.5 acre piece of land was clean and fully operational.  Called "Rancho Verde," in honor of the mostly Hispanic workforce that makes up the landscaping industry, the former brownfield is now the headquarters for Christy Webber Landscapes.  Rancho Verde features a one-story office building, warehouse, and a shop-yard big enough to hold dozens of trucks that keep Chicago looking healthy all year round. 

Eco-Laboratory Concept Living Building

This could just be one of the most innovative sustainable designs you'll see all year.  Here's the background: a team from Weber Thompson designed this building for the Cascadia Natural Talent Design Competition put on by the Emerging Green Builders of the USGBC.  They won the Cascadia competition and moved on to compete against about 15 other regional winners from around the country.   They won there, too, and "Eco-Laboratory" was announced as the winner of the 2008 Natural Talent Design Competition at Greenbuild.  Eco-Laboratory is a theoretical design set in Seattle with affordable and market-rate residential housing, a job training center, homeless shelter, hygiene station, and public farmer's market. 

World's Most Sustainable Airport Hangar

This is Hangar 25, a LEED Platinum certified airport hangar located at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California.  It's the world's first aviation hangar to achieve such a high level of certification from the USGBC.  The 60,000 square foot structure was built by Shangri-La Construction without a significant cost increase over building a non-green airport hangar -- a fact that furthers the financial case for green building development.  Check out this green list of accomplishments:

IBM Predicts Solar Growth in 5 Years

IBM is becoming gradually more involved in the world of clean tech, so it's not surprising that their third annual "IBM Next Five in Five" includes a mention of solar power.  The list includes five innovations that will change the way people work, live, and play over the next five years.  Accordingly, IBM thinks energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint, and windows.  Basically, with the advent of thin-film solar cells and advances in technology, everything everywhere will have solar cells and harvest energy.  And the technology to do so will be affordable, too. 

Vatican Gets Serious with Solar

Maybe Samsø started a trend in becoming a net exporter of renewable energy because it appears that the Vatican is thinking about doing something similar.  The curvacious roof of Paul VI Audience Hall, a building that's located right by the famous St. Peter's Basilica, has been topped with 2,400 photovoltaic panels to source energy for lighting, heat, and air conditioning.  The 5,000 m2 (54,000 sf) roof will produce ~300 megawatt hours of energy and cost approximately $1.6 million (donated by SolarWorld and SMA Solar Technology).  With the addition of this massive solar roof, the sovereign city-state will cut CO2 emissions by about 225 tons.  But that's not all:

LEED Platinum Home Breaks Records

We've seen a ton of LEED Platinum homes on this site, but today's home achieves something new.  USGBC founder David Gottfried and his family recently finished the green renovation of their 1440 square foot Craftsman bungalow, a home that was originally built in 1915, and took it through the LEED for Homes certification process.  In doing so, they received a total of 106.5 points (out of a total 136) and the noteworthy accomplishment of being the highest-scoring green home renovation since LEED-H launched earlier this year.  The Platinum home is designed to be net-zero energy and utilizes technology such as solar photovoltaics and a solar- and hydronic-powered water heating system. 

Verdier Upgrades Solar Eco-Camper

Over a year ago, we mentioned Verdier Van & Camper's Eco-Camper, the posh recreational throwback to VW's Westfalia, and it looks like the Solar Power Eco-Camper has a new look.  Verdier now offers five different personalities of the award-winning vehicle: Woody, Geeky, Ebony, Blueberry, and Purity.  The eco-camper configuration is an add-on package available in any personality and entails solar panels, hybrid engine, Sun Tracker system, two gazebos, a second floor area, sliding door with integrated ladder, folding furniture, cargo storage, etc.  The price?  $129,000. 

The Union Modern Solar-Powered Lofts

This is The Union by architect and developer Jonathan Segal Architect.  The project gets its name from its prior life as the union hall for San Diego’s textile manufacturing business.  When the textile union moved away, the building fell into disrepair, and rather than demolish it, Jonathan Segal decided to adaptively reuse the structure to create sustainable live/work units and his own architectural office.  The Union now includes additional buildings that, in total, comprise 13 residential loft units, of which some are market-rate and some are affordable.  Also, the rooftop solar panels provide ~50% of the units’ energy needs.

Green Trailer Maxes Out Sustainability

This is the McCownGordon Construction Green Trailer.  Pretty nice, right?!  It was designed to use a fraction of the energy typically used by jobsite trailers and still provides a modern user experience on the inside.  The interesting thing about this trailer is that it was designed using Autodesk Revit to get everything just right: the panels were placed at the best angle to capture energy and clear overpasses, the composting toilet was modeled to show exterior vents, and the interior was modeled to perfect the wood patterns and overall design.  Plus, according to Brad Hardin, BIM Director for the company, this jobsite trailer is positive energy!