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Wind Turbines Ride the Wave to Renewable Energy Future
Editor’s Foreword: Earlier this year, the first full-scale prototype of a revolutionary floating support structure for offshore wind turbines made its debut off the coast of Aguçadoura, Portugal. It was inaugurated and celebrated by Portuguese government officials, clean-tech investors, and its engineers and builders. Each floating support structure, known as the WindFloat*, is a three-column…
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Greenbuild 2012 Call for Volunteers
Greenbuild has always been one of my favorite conferences dedicated to green building. Greenbuild 2012 will be held in San Francisco, California at the Moscone Center this year from November 14-16. The USGBC will offer free conference attendance to volunteers who complete 8-hours of volunteer time during the conference. Volunteers must be a full-time student…
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Ecobuild, What Happened to Green Innovation?
I only attended the last two days of Ecobuild in London this year. On the first day there, I was fully absorbed in finding the booths that shouted “this is the Landscape Architecture section,” never really bothering to slow down and take a look around. I found very few booths representing the field of landscape…
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Green California Summit 2012
It’s not too late to register online! The Green California Summit and Exposition will take place at the Sacramento Convention Center in California from April 26th to the 27th. The Keynote, the Expo, and the Green Leadership Awards Reception are free to all registrants. Speakers include Kevin Johnson (Go Bears!), the Mayor of the City…
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Fallingwater Goes Digital
It’s pretty neat to see a friend featured in the New York Times. This February, NYT reporter Steven Kurutz interviewed Tim Sakamoto, my long-time friend and fellow alum from the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design (CED). The interview focused on his latest product, the Frank Lloyd Wright–Fallingwater mobile app. The What: Let’s call it…
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Drawing More Power Than You Think
Energy efficient building design has come a long way to improve building system energy performance. But what happens when the users move in? Additional equipment and appliances added after occupancy can dramatically impact actual building performance with surprising and expensive results. Plug loads and process loads have been long considered outside the design team’s scope…
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New Orlean’s First LEED NC-Silver Multi-Family Development
In just over two weeks, it will have been six-years since the the category-5 Hurricane Katrina crossed into the United States and rebuilding efforts continue to this day. New Orleans, Louisiana, was one of the hardest hit areas along the Gulf of Mexico. It received much attention from people across the country and many organizations…
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Exploratorium’s New Home Addresses Historic Preservation Design and Construction Challenges
When I was working as a construction manager, I was involved with a handful of complex historic preservation projects including the conversion of a historically significant church into affordable housing (Buena Vista Terrace) for seniors and the renovation of a small historic landmark (The Fireside) into a community center. Historic preservation often presents additional challenges…
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A Call to Reinvent the Toilet
It has been a long time since we have seen any technological changes in the design of toilets. We have come a long way since the 18th century when the first flush toilet was invented. The most recent major breakthrough in toilet technology is the dual-flush toilet which was created thirty years ago by Australian…
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Find Your Ecopath to Cleanliness
Having been raised in an Asian household, I was trained to remove my shoes upon entering a home so that I wouldn’t track in any dirt and debris. I have maintained this ritual throughout my life and most recently learned that many Canadian and Swiss households do the same thing. Less debris equals less floor…
