west coast green

Here's another great event to look forward to. Though it's not for 6 months, mark your calendars for West Coast Green, scheduled for September 25-27 at the San Jose Convention Center. WCG was by far our favorite green building show in 2007, featuring the fabulous Michelle Kaufmann and her unveiling of the mkLotus, an impressive list of speakers including Ed Begley Jr and Van Jones, and how shall we say it... an overall great vibe.

So it is with mixed feelings that we see the show move from San Francisco's Bill Graham Auditorium to San Jose's convention center, a move that adds an additional 110K+ square footage of exhibor space and walking area. We'll miss the intimacy of before, but are happy to sacrifice that for the increased interest in residential green building. The event organizers explain the move as an effort to be closer to the center of technology and Cleantech innovation: "Moving to the heart of innovation enables us to deliver the type of brilliant, out-of-the-box ideas from thought leaders, to the people who seek solutions."

Hopefully the new venue will attract more-better exhibitors, making the show perhaps the largest residential green building show in the country and possibly worth making a special trip for if you are new to green building. One thing staying consistent is a solid line-up of speakers, which is enough to get us excited to give the new set-up a shot.

Greetings Greenies,

If you enjoyed the West Coast Green Residential Building Conference + Expo, then you will enjoy their latest endeaver at the Western Interiors Design + Home Show. Western Interiors is renowned for their classic and contemporary take on high end design and interior decor. However, this year they have taken a big step in the green direction, and with the help of Wet Coast Green have incorporated a "green home pavilion" into their tradeshow.

The 1,500 square foot staged home, complete with living room, dining room and outdoor area, will be arranged and designed by Interior Designers Deborah Coburn of Naturally Inspired and Tamara Blackstone of HomeLife.

There will also be an "ask the experts" booth with representatives from west coast green to answer green building questions, and give green living advice.

Eric Corey Freed will be giving another of his renowned keynote presentations on the inevitable future of green building and design, and well as distributing his own expert advice.

The green home will feature:

• Complimentary consultations with green home professionals

• Large selection of high quality eco-friendly products and furnishings

• On site examples of how to increase your homes energy efficiency while
decreasing its ecological footprint

**Compact Fluorescent light bulb giveaway to the first 2,000 attendees, provided by Sylvania

For more information check out www.westerninteriorshomeshow.com

WESTERN INTERIORS DESIGN + HOME SHOW INFORMATION

LOCATION: Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123-1382

HOURS: Friday, October 26 – 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. VIP preview breakfast reception
Friday, October 26 –10:00 a.m – 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 27 – 10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, October 28 – 12:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Tickets: Tickets are $15 day, $35 for a three-day pass and can be purchased online at www.westerninteriorshomeshow.com. For more information, call 323.549.3449 x229.

The wait is over.

Last Thursday, at West Coast Green, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) presented the Lifecycle Building Challenge Awards. Lifecycle Building is defined as: Design of building materials, components, information systems, and management practices to create buildings that facilitate and anticipate future changes to and eventual adaptation or dismantling for recovery of all systems, components, and materials. In other words: building green and smart.

Unfortunately, it was one of the few events at the conference that we weren't able to catch.

As it turns out, that's not a problem: All the winners and honorable mentions are listed and profiled at the Lifecycle Building Challenge site.

In the Professional Built category, Seattle's Pavilion in the Park took first honors.

In the Professional Unbuilt, plans for The GreenMobile™ won out.

And, in the Student category (as we sort of predicted?), first prize goes to the groHome.

Click through the site to see more fantastic photos/drawings of the winning entries, as well as the honorable mentions and the People's Choice Award.

"The greenest thing you can build is a home someone loves." That was the main theme of designer Marianne Cusato's talk "The Katrina Cottage Story: The Value of Design," this afternoon at West Coast Green.

It follows then that the least green thing you can build is a home no one loves -- a FEMA trailer in post-Katrina New Orleans perhaps?

It was the poorly designed FEMA trailer that inspired Cusato to create an alternative type of dignified, but affordable emergency housing. The result? The Katrina Cottage -- a 300 - 1,800 sq-foot cottage-style home (there are a range of sizes available) designed specifically for victims of hurricane Katrina.

The cottages are now available to the general public through Lowe's, and FEMA will be entering into a pilot program with Cusato that involves building hundreds of them in the Gulf region.

Cusato's design philosophy is founded on three key principles: A home should be functional, affordable and well-designed. It's easy to find two of these criteria in U.S. homes, but often difficult to find all three.

The philosophy is nicely reflected in the cottages which cost approximately $55/sq.-foot, are built so that families can buy small units and easily add-on more space when they need/can afford it, and are bright, charming cottages that most would be happy to call home.

Cusato is a fascinating designer and speaker and you can read more about her here.

If you want to see beautiful pictures of beautiful green homes, there aren't many magazines that will impress you the way Natural Home Magazine can.

Here at West Coast Green, Editor-in-chief Robyn Griggs-Lawrence just finished a lecture and slideshow on "Homes We Love." As she explained, one of the perks of editing a magazine like Natural Home is directing the photo shoots. Griggs-Lawrence has probably seen the inside of more beautiful green homes than most of us can imagine.

We were lucky to be there as she shared her favorites with a packed room.

From cob and straw bale to recycled steel, the building materials used in the homes Griggs-Lawrence shared were ultra-green. But, aside from being green, the homes were also gorgeous -- some were sleek and modern, some were rustic and earthen, some were traditional, some were hobbit-esque, some were passive solar, some were huge and one was about 100 square-feet.

We wish we could reproduce the slideshow here for you; however, we will share one particularly timely quote from the presentation: "Our job is guarding this movement from co-option. The green building movement is huge right now and it could get away from us." Griggs-Lawrence went on to explain her vision for the magazine -- educating consumers so that they know what green building is, and what it isn't.

She also noted that the magazine is focusing more on remodels and solar living these days. Check it out!