Cow dung for electricity, green homes win $1.5 million

Grameen Shakti — the word comes from a Sanskrit root meaning energy, force or empowerment — has enabled as many as 2 million people in Bangladesh to light their homes using solar power. It has helped thousands more use chicken or cow dung either to make electricity or as a fuel in cook stoves that are efficient, safe and clean. The Bangladeshi non-profit’s managing director Dipal Barua just made his company a lot greener with a $1.5 million prize. Read more.

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Filed under: development, energy, green, housing, sustainability

Some of it sounds right: Now let’s implement it

Embedded video from CNN Video

“We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.”
“We will harness the sun and winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.”

“All this we can do. All this we will do.
“There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination has joined a common purpose.”
“The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”
“…Know that your people will judge you based on what you can build; not on what you can destroy.”

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Filed under: community, green, housing, Obama, sustainability, technology, transportation

Forget Widening them, Let’s Narrow the Roads: an architect’s success story

When the shelter industry is in a tizzy over Obama’s forthcoming infrastructure plans, which will naturally entail shovel-ready projects such as road widening and lengthening, one builder/developer asks a municipality to narrow its roads. “We asked to reduce impervious surface area and avoid overheating of the microclimate,” says Pacific Northwest-based architect Ross Chapin in an Architect magazine online article. The project of subject is Wyer’s End, in White Salmon, Washington.

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Filed under: architecture, sustainability, transportation, urbanization

Million-dollar fines lead developers to Water-sensitive urban design

Pulte Homes handed over more than $1 million to the U.S. EPA for stormwater management infractions. These occurred at sites across the country, including discharge of untreated stormwater and improperly installed and maintained silt fences, sediment ponds, and washout basins, according to Developer magazine online. This came underway as the EPA stepped up its enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
Other builders have been heavily fined as well: Centex, $1.4 million; KB Home, $1.1 million; Richmond, $795,000; and Colorado Structures, $300,000.

Other builders/developers are creating “living” plans, according to Margot Carmichael Lester’s article. “The Clean Water Act and associated local, state, and/or federal regulations require construction operators on sites of 1 acre or larger to obtain coverage under a national Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Under the NPDES program, the EPA or other authorized agencies issue one or several umbrella permits for stormwater discharge in association with construction activities for up to five years. To receive the required coverage, developers must create a stormwater pollution prevention plan that identifies potential sources of stormwater pollution; describes the practices that will be used to prevent it; details the construction operator’s procedures; and addresses long-term stormwater maintenance,” she writes.

Doesn’t that sound like a lot of extra work for developers, though? Read why they’re striving for more water-sensitive urban design (WSUD).

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Filed under: 16001476, sustainability

Million-dollar fines lead developers to Water-sensitive urban design

Pulte Homes handed over more than $1 million to the U.S. EPA for stormwater management infractions. These occurred at sites across the country, including discharge of untreated stormwater and improperly installed and maintained silt fences, sediment ponds, and washout basins, according to Developer magazine online. This came underway as the EPA stepped up its enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
Other builders have been heavily fined as well: Centex, $1.4 million; KB Home, $1.1 million; Richmond, $795,000; and Colorado Structures, $300,000.

Other builders/developers are creating “living” plans, according to Margot Carmichael Lester’s article. “The Clean Water Act and associated local, state, and/or federal regulations require construction operators on sites of 1 acre or larger to obtain coverage under a national Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Under the NPDES program, the EPA or other authorized agencies issue one or several umbrella permits for stormwater discharge in association with construction activities for up to five years. To receive the required coverage, developers must create a stormwater pollution prevention plan that identifies potential sources of stormwater pollution; describes the practices that will be used to prevent it; details the construction operator’s procedures; and addresses long-term stormwater maintenance,” she writes.

Doesn’t that sound like a lot of extra work for developers, though? Read why they’re striving for more water-sensitive urban design (WSUD).

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Filed under: development, sustainability

Sustainable for Calamities

Sustainability isn’t just about being eco-friendly: it’s also about withstanding calamities such as the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings. The architecture community has looked at these events and even Europe’s concern with vehicle bombs to create another element in building design, taking into consideration glazing, laminated glass, progressive collapse, building envelope, and structural design.
The challenge is, however, to prevent buildings from looking like fortresses.
according to Barbara Nadel, pricnipal of Barbara Nadel Architect
(Source: AIA Podnet podcast, Panel for Civic Architecture)
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Filed under: AIA, sustainability