So chic, so free

E2: Design Series

Don’t miss this! 

We watch E2: Design  every week.  Narrated by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, this popular PBS series examines sustainable design and architecture stories from around the world.

Some favorite episodes:  ”‘Harvesting the Wind’ (wind power co-ops owned by Minnesota farmers) and “Gray to Green” from the first season (featuring a home built from materials reclaimed from Boston’s Big Dig construction project).  

The 2008 season has been a standout, from discussion of the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco (designed by Renzo Piano), to the intriguing Garden in Cairo.  We’ll be watching the E2: Transport series, about bicycles in Paris (so chic, so free). 

The webmaster has told me that 2008 episodes will be available for free webcast view through January.  Afterwards, the series can be purchased from iTunes.  Episodes are 30 minutes long, just right for a break with fair trade coffee. 

To view, click here, then click on “Webcast”. 

Village Architect Episode

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dissecting the Frog

The only frog I saw in school was in a 9th grade biology classroom filled with a clammy smell of formaldehyde.  The FROG Zero classroom may change that, by bringing a healthier, energy-efficient “frog” into the classroom.  At Greenbuild 2008, the Project Frog company constructed a modular school classroom to exhibit under the awning of the Boston Convention Center in 6 days.

Project Frog classroom

Configured for LEED Silver rating, the 1280-sf space uses 75% energy reduction.    A good photo tour of the Greenbuild structure can be seen at Jetson Green.  This structure is filled with natural light, technology, and thoughtful design.  Who wouldn’t want to learn here? 

The central spine of the classroom is taller than the side wings, making the front of the classroom the visual focus, and creating a sense of space and expansion.  Head room. These photos were taken after sunset, without benefit of daylight brought in through clerestory windows. 

The side wings have whiteboards, bulletin boards, and power strips for banks of computers.  The wings created a sense of shelter within the larger room, for hunkering down on a project.  The effect, on micro scale, is not unlike a cathedral, where attention is drawn to higher things, and great thoughts seek the light.  

classroom interior, Jetson Green

This year it’s my 3rd-grader’s turn to attend classes in modular classrooms, affectionately called “les chalets.”   Some teachers prefer the modulars, because awindows can be opened, and classrooms have greater connection with the outdoors. 

However, traditional modular buildings have a trailer feel–low ceilings, tight quarters, inadequate bathrooms for 2 classes’ worth of kids.   I have to resist the urge to stoop in the chalet, when volunteering to help children with worksheets on symmetry.  I wonder about air quality in the classroom when windows are closed in winter, and if the chalets were constructed with as much formaldehyde and VOCs as are used in trailers and modular homes.  

Modular classroom buildings are the pragmatic reality of crowded schools and lean school budgets.  They’re popular as the less-expensive alternative to building additional classrooms.   I suspect that savings in construction cost for standard modulars is offset with expensive operations cost—it can’t be cheap to heat a trailer with inadequate insulation, or light a room with few windows.   

As I sat in the FROG zero classroom in Boston, I thought about how design can become part of the curriculum.  Can a bright, well-designed space inspire a child in her learning, and her perceptions of the  importance of learning? 

Can a classroom built for a healthy environment, stretching the concept of energy efficiency and green building, ignite a child’s vision of the natural world, and how he relates to it?  Maybe it’s time to make that leap, and say yes.

Greenbuild 2008

Stand Up for the Earth

In Boston last week, the US Green Building Council sponsored GREENBUILD 2008.  Attended by an estimated 30,000 people, Greenbuild is no longer the annual meeting of LEED converts and fringe environmentalists.  It’s a force for bringing green building technology and innovation into mainstream design.   

Videos of keynote speakers, like Van Jones and Desmond Tutu, can be viewed free HERE.

On the plane to Boston, I sat by a man whose company’s clay tile roofing products had just won Cradle-to-Cradle certification a few days earlier.  At the Expo, with a half million-sf exhibit hall, I saw glass windows (used in commercial glass curtainwall buildings) with thin-film solar sheets integrated between the panes of glass, and energy-efficiency products that squeeze more juice out of expensive electrons.

Green is beautiful.  Architects and designers browsed the massive hall to see samples of cork and bamboo flooring, fabrics and carpet tiles that can be composted after use, surface treatments made from recycled materials.  There were colorful samples of engineered counter material impregnated with recycled glass, and paneling made from wheatboard or bamboo or recycled milk jugs.    

And urinals.  Waterless urinals are popular options for new buildings seeking LEED certification. Displays of toilets and urinals proved this trend is coming to a head (sorry).  I saw a well-dressed woman at the Kohler booth walk up to a toilet (thoughtfully mounted on a raised platform), fling open the lid, and peer deep into the wonder of water-miser technology. 

Several companies suspended large items over their booths, including a huge red-finned ceiling fan from Big Ass Fans.  They say, If you don’t have a Big Ass, get one.  You can even buy a t-shirt. 

Which would make me a LEED-accredited, early-adopter big ass solar fan who has seen more urinals than necessary, thank you very much.