Lisa Walker's blog

To see a really beautiful example of repurposing and the power of design, check out the all new Portola Valley Town Center in Portola, California. The project was listed among the AIA/COTE’s Top Ten Green Projects of 2009 http://ow.ly/qx2M. AIA-San Francisco is presenting a guided tour on Saturday, September 26, 2009. The tour is sponsored by Green Design Furniture www.greendesigns.com and is a featured highlight of the sixth annual “Architecture and the City” Festival, showcasing the Bay Area’s unique built environment and design community. Tickets are required but you can get AIA member continuing education credits for participating. The 11 acre site includes a library, town hall, community hall, a baseball field, a soccer field, tennis courts and a 300 foot-long stretch of restored creek – all designed to blend in with the surrounding meadows and walnut grove. Two firms collaborated on the redesign, Siegel & Strain Architects and Goring & Straja Architects, both of Emeryville, CA. Green Design Furniture was commissioned by the Town of Portola Valley to provide some of its gorgeous fastener-free hand-crafted pieces, including exquisite seating, tables and site specific design elements – all made from sustainable woods and low emissions stains. It is a must see. FMI, go to http://ow.ly/qw2A.

Okay, more proud talk about Maine. We have a green affordable housing project going on here too, and it’s BIG. Build it Green (BIG) is a Habitat for Humanity of Greater Portland initiative to create the first LEED-H certified affordable residential model home in New England. The area’s most gifted architects, interior designers, builders and volunteers got together in an inspired charrette to design a place with a small footprint, a smart look, and the ability to stand up to harsh maritime winters. They are going for certification in the areas of energy and water efficiencies, responsible site design, recycled materials and durable construction. Pretty impressive for low cost housing (see rendering below). With a little luck and a lot of hard work, H4H of Greater Portland hopes to set a new standard for eco-responsible home construction in the Northeast. Fundraising for the project is also innovative. The idea is to sell the first completed model to the highest bidder in order to raise awareness and enough money to pay for three more homes just like it to house some of the area’s neediest families. Groundbreaking on the four-house lot is set for October 11. Business and personal sponsorship opportunities still exist for those who want to support this fabulous plan. Plenty of folks have donated their time, services and building materials. The group now needs cash. Anyone with a handy checkbook can call or write to Dan Wallace at Habitat.

They are all about promoting sustainability through carbon neutral concerts and venues. Their services include securing biodiesel for tour vehicles and generators, as well as providing waste reduction, recycling and green catering solutions for national acts. They can even locate eco-friendly merchandise and green sponsors. The coolest thing they do, however, is erect Eco-Villages at every show, featuring local and national non-profits, eco-friendly consumer sampling and voter registration. To date, Reverb has greened 42 national tours, 649 events, reduced 25,063 tons of CO2, teamed with 1,442 environmental groups and reached 4.4 million fans. You can connect with them right here in our forum. Click and make them a buddy and be just six degrees of separation from the Beastie Boys.

Anybody know a natural way to get rid of ants? Nothing major like fire ants (thank God), just the pesky little red picnic-spoiling kind. Friends of mine with a beautiful cottage in the Hamptons are plagued with them despite constant counter cleaning, all food in zippy bags and old fashioned ant cups. I tried a prescribed solution of sugar, water and boric acid - which attracted them like mad but didn't ultimately make them go away. Pets are an issue. Anyone? A solution to mealie moths would also be most welcome.

If green builders wanted to meet at the exact nexus between passion and practicality, the the rendezvous point might be Boston, a place known for revolutionary thought and evolutionary action. Could be why NeXus, a green building resource center in the heart of Boston’s financial district, was the site of a recent well-attended screening of Building Green. The show was followed by a lively exchange and Q&A session featuring our own Kevin Contreras. NeXus is the brainchild of Barbra Batshalom, Executive Director and Founder of the Green Roundtable, whose mission is to take green mainstream through education, exhibits, training, technical and design assistance. The center is a 6000 square foot space that boasts a showroom, a resource lounge, an e-lounge (featuring an online e-Directory of products & services), an event venue and access to design and building professionals. It is a living laboratory for what is possible in sustainable design and construction. Barbra and her staff call the center the nation’s first full immersion green building experience -- a one-stop shop for year round guidance on green building issues in a place that is the physical and virtual manifestation of eco-positive choices. If you look closely, you can see the low voltage lighting by LUXO, the cement remix carpet tile by Milliken, the bamboo flooring by Bamboo Advantage and the arboreal ceiling panels by Ceilings Plus. That is just a fraction of the green building materials you can see. The studs, insulation and wiring are also green. As a reward for its innovation and leadership, the NeXus and Green Roundtable staff have been tasked with organizing one of the largest green building trade shows in the Northern Hemisphere next year – the USGBC’s Greenbuild expo – slated for Boston in 2008. More information on the center, its staff, exhibitors and events can be found at www.nexusboston.com.

Can I just say how much I love this magazine? It’s fairly new. The July/August issue is only their fifth.  It’s brilliant!  As a marketer and brand developer, I am totally jealous of their name. GOOD is published bi-monthly on recycled paper -- of course -- made from EcoLogo certified post-consumer fiber.  Plus the energy used to publish it is 100% carbon offset. It’s what is on those consciously-crafted pages, however, that is the real grabber. Each issue is a savvy, visually smart, totally hip and provocative little bundle of great thoughts, ideas and commentary. You’ll want to keep it around for the clever charts and stimulating graphics alone.  I learned more from one chart on the differences between Shiites and Sunnis than from all the books and articles I’ve ever read.  This month, the pictorial essay is all about water use – and what hogs we Americans are. (Wait, let me put on my surprise face.)  Their value proposition?  “GOOD is for people who give a damn.  It’s an entertaining magazine about things that matter.”  An annual subscription is $20 and every dollar goes to the non-profit of your choice.  It doesn’t hurt that Al Gore is an Associate Publisher. But it’s not fair to single out that one name on the masthead. There are plenty of kudos for talent, content and design to go around. Check it out online at www.goodmagazine.com.  Better still, grab a copy at your local newsstand.  You just can’t see all the charts and cool graphics online.  You will want to have a hard copy around for handy reference and all the meaty, nifty things you missed the first ten times you read it.  If you ask me, GOOD is great.

I recently found a deck of Karma Coaching Cards at the bottom of my goodie bag at a trade show in Chicago. I got the Environment Deck, 50 clever cards meant to inspire action, awareness and positive impact for the planet. Card #37, for example, urges use of the 10 second rule when idling our cars. “More than 10 seconds of idling can use more fuel than turning off the engine and restarting it.” (I had no idea!) “Well done is better than well said,” is their basic motto. They are “preach-free, fat free, sugar-free and carb-free.” The cards are the invention of Jane Clayton of Vancouver. They make a great gift or fundraising tool. To earn their own karmic rewards, the company has a “Karma Bank,” a pay-it-forward foundation that provides funding to a variety of initiatives with no request for financial payback. Check out their website where you can learn more about the company and its range of decks. They are looking out for the moral well-being and consciousness of everyone -- kids, office workers, dog and cat lovers and my favorite at-risk group – the rich and utterly immoral.

Africa and the developing world are in many ways far ahead of the West when it comes to recycling, this reflection after visiting with a delegation from South Africa to the NEOCon trade show in Chicago. “Recycling is not a matter of policy for many in Africa but a matter of survival – which it is fast becoming for the rest of the world,” said Peter Simon, Managing Director of Albert Carpets in Cape Town. “Repurposing, as you call it, is a practical and essential way of life in cultures where nothing goes to waste, nothing technically is waste.” Albert Carpets is a top installation company for InterfaceFLOR, a world leader in sustainability, which has for many years provided chic, eco-friendly and socially responsible modular flooring to customers throughout Africa such as the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and Standard Bank. “Our customers have recognized the environmental impact and value of our sustainable products for years,” said Lesley Fidrmuc, InterfaceFLOR’s General Manager for Africa. “For them, making the decision to go green is nothing new.”

On Tuesday I attended a panel discussion at the NEOCON World Trade's Fair on a new book by Kira Gould and Lance Hosey, Women in Green, that asks an intriguing question: Is there a greener gender? According to Gould and Hosey’s research, women are more likely than men to support environmental causes through voting, activism and consumer choices. The authors spent hundreds of hours in conversation with leading voices in the field such as architects, designers, consultants, policy makers, educators and students to determine the unique impact of women on the sustainable design industry (both women and non-women as Dianne Dillon-Ridgley wryly observed during the panel discussion). The end result is a convincing argument that women may be changing how we all see our world and our work. Just a few of the facts from the book:

• Women are up to 15% more likely to rate the environment as a high priority;
• Women represent 2/3 of voters who cast ballots on environmental issues;
• Women are more likely than men to volunteer for and contribute to environmental causes, particularly those related to the health and safety of their community.

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