One of the most important things to keep in context within the framework of this class is, how does this standard relate to the other systems, standards, and methodologies we’ve seen?  Observe:

• ENERGY STAR:  This government-sponsored system is used widely by building professionals and manufacturers.  But, it is somewhat unwieldy with lots of checklists and tools and has been rejected in multiple jurisdictions for being too complicated.
• State programs and codes: There are too many of these to mention, and they range from prescriptive to performance, regulations to codes.  Standards vary from place to place and can be quite helpful in certain areas – if you know how to take advantage of them.
• Architecture 2030:  This organization sets ambitious goals but provides very little framework for how to get there.
• LEED:  This large and dense standard has achieved what we might call “market transformation” due to its position as THE green building benchmark.  But, to achieve certification you must wade through mounds of paperwork and fork out lots of money.
• Passive House:  This simple and straightforward standard places a premium on high performance, but is perhaps not as comprehensive as some of the other systems.

In contrast, the Living Building Challenge asks the question, “what if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place?”.  With the LBC, the ideal outcome IS the goal, and there are no choices about whether or not you follow the “imperatives”.  If you are trying to reach Living status, you either “go big or go home”.

This brings me to our field trip last week, the last one of the quarter… we are so fortunate in Portland to live in a community that places such value on sustainable living.  We have not just one but THREE Living Buildings in the works in the city of Portland!   The Oregon Sustainability Center, when it is built, will likely be the greenest high-rise ever built and reassert Portland’s status as a global leader in the green design community.  The Key Delta Living Building in North Portland will be a phenomenal resource to its community once it is fully transformed from the gas station it used to be.  But, as great as those buildings will be, they are not built yet.

The Living Building that IS built, or I should say nearly finished, is the commons, a two-family home in SE Portland that is a labor of love for the brothers building it.  Sticking to the integrity of the Living Building Challenge has been a – dare I say – challenge for the owners, but they have come a long way and will have one of the greenest houses in the land when they are done.  We had a good time on this field trip, and even took a class picture!

This discussion of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions seemed like an appropriate time to talk about how they are calculated.  Many of the tools and programs we are looking at in this class focus on energy consumption, but very few give outputs for GHG emissions.  If someone wants to calculate these emissions, an understanding of how variable GHG emissions are is necessary.  Following is a chart that gives rough averages for pounds of CO2 for each unit of energy measurement.

We talked a lot about tools and online resources that can calculate the estimated PV load for a building, once the energy consumption has been calculated.  Students will likely find a lot of help in these tools for their Term Project requirements.

Finally we talked about the Field Trip, which is a tour on Thursday morning of the PECI offices at Portland’s very new First & Main building. Assignment #3 is to use the spreadsheet analysis tool to try to come up with “Level 1″ outputs. Some inputs students will be able to find on their own throughout the space, but some will not be obvious and will be given at the time of the field trip.  This should also serve as a reminder that students wishing to receive input on their mid-terms from REAL energy modeling professionals will have a chance to do so during the field trip!

On the other hand, when you decide you need to go “real” shopping, you might never really consider Goodwill to be your first choice.  Right?

Well, let me introduce you to the concept of second-hand shopping “for real”, which is to say, going to the second-hand clothing store to buy items that you might wear every day, or at least NOT to a pimp & hooker party.  I realize this isn’t a new concept; vintage stores have been around for a while now and happy hipsters are no stranger to the ironic high school t-shirts from the 70′s.  But shopping at vintage stores has always been an unsatisfying experience for me – unless it’s a really REALLY special piece, I don’t hold the belief that clothing, like houses, appreciate in price over time.  So, NO, I don’t want to pay $80 for that dress that probably cost $15 in 1982.  Nice try though.

All of that changed when I discovered Buffalo Exchange.  Merely coming to the realization that places like Buffalo Exchange exist was a revelation for me.

Image courtesy of Time.com; visit the article here

A quick search around the internet tells me that I might be late to the second-hand clothing party, but then again if it took me so long to figure it out, then I know that there are others who haven’t yet.   Anyway, as per my usual disclaimer, this blogger is not paid to endorse or hawk any particular product or store, but if I find a product or a place that I think fits into a  “greener lifestyle” mantra, then I’m happy to talk about it.   Here’s a few reasons why I enjoy shopping at Buffalo Exchange so much:

1. Their clothes are not so “vintage”. Most of the clothing that seems to show up at the Exchange is from within the past 10 years or so… Sure, there’s some vintage items in there, but it’s actually contemporary stuff.  It’s a bit like having the chance to raid your roommate’s closet except that you are raiding ALL roommate’s closets all at once.
2. The prices are well within reason. Shopping at this second-hand clothing store – which sells both used AND new stuff – will not break your bank.  Most of the clothing I’ve bought has been between $12 – $20, and every once in a while, if you’re lucky, you’ll come across a pair of jeans or a designer piece that was once sold for upward of $200.  It might still cost you $50 at the Exchange, but it beats paying the original marked-up price.  (Back to my housing analogy, I think clothes are much more like cars, in that there is always an initial sticker price that is jacked up for name-brand appeal, and then as soon as you put it on it is worth about half as much.  But I will save my lecture about buying used cars for another post…)
3. Having less choice is sometimes really awesome. So this may not make too much sense, but let me explain.  Sometimes when I walk into a store, and they have an entire section devoted to cute dresses, each in about four or five different colors, I become really overwhelmed.  I am a very careful decision maker and if I like even two or three of those dresses, I could spend an entire evening trying to decide which two I want, and in which colors.  Buffalo Exchange takes that stress away from me.  There’s something almost liberating about going straight to your size section and knowing that what’s there is there, and that unless it’s a new piece sold only at the store, you’re not worrying about which colors to get, because that’s your only choice.  AND, per #2 above, you’re probably going to spend less on it, as well.
4. You can sell your own used clothes there too. It’s very satisfying to know that an outfit you might not be interested in wearing anymore might be very appealing to someone else.  My advice is to purge your closet before going, sell your clothes back to them for store credit, and then reward yourself for recycling by shopping!  They rarely buy all of your clothing but if it’s a unique and well-maintained piece, you’ll probably get something for it.  They also take shoes and bags!

In conclusion, next time you need a new outfit, or next time you start to take that bag of old clothes to Goodwill, try Buffalo Exchange, or another local second-hand store*.  Your wallet will appreciate it, as will the planet, since you’ll be diverting those materials from the waste stream.

*Note:  it’s been my experience that consignment stores are much more complicated than the second-hand stores that I am speaking about… If I remember correctly there are usually membership fees involved, but you should investigate for yourself if a consignment store might be as good – or a better – option.

• Buffalo Exchange   (www.buffaloexchange.com)
• Recently featured in Women’s Day and Lucky magazines
• 14 states nation-wide  (Including two here in Portland!)

Image courtesy of Treehugger

Who among us doesn’t now feel a little tinge of guilt when we are confronted with the prospect of drinking from a disposable water bottle?  At the conference I attended a few weeks ago, I went through three in three days, which made me feel awful and basically doubled my total consumption of plastic water bottles for the year thus far.  But, there was no water otherwise available, and I was already dehydrated.  Another thing that’s annoying is that water bottles don’t go well on planes in carry-on bags anymore, although I am usually able to make it on the plane with a reusable plastic one in the depths of my carry-on.  And what about if you do have your own bottle, but the only refill options available are a number of unfamiliar taps?  Frankly, I don’t care if your city has “the best water in America” – I’ve heard that from at least three places I’ve lived, and I still prefer filtered, thank you very much.

Enter the Water Bobble. The Bobble is 100% recycled and recyclable (check), BPA and phthalate-free (check), made in the US (check), good-looking (check), and at just under $10, affordable (check… wait, this thing is less than $10?  Awesome!).  The Bobble has internal filtering device that attaches to the external mouthpiece that provides you with clean filtered water in every drink.  And yes, they are available right now!

Treehugger has a nice write-up about this product and also provides a head-to-head comparison of several self-filtering water bottles.  I’m not sure which one I’ll go with, but the Water Bobble is looking pretty good to me, both for every day use and a probable addition to my recent earthquake kit project. Here’s to being water-bottle-guilt-free for the rest of the year…

“But why?”, you say.  (Or maybe you don’t, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, ha.)  Well consider this:  although you can’t see it, using a good amount of insulation and installing it properly is one of the greatest differences between having an energy efficient house and having a drafty, cold, money-pit of a house.  Observe:

From the GDC's Green Your Home tool

Now, knowing that you need a lot of insulation is one thing; know what KIND of insulation to get is entirely another.  In my diagram above, the pink part of the wall section is pink because I assumed that a lot of people associate that color with Owens Corning’s Pink Panther, aka “The Historical American Emissary of Insulation.”  And it’s true that Owens Corning has a lot of insulation products that are useful for homes, including a new product called Foamular, which is a rigid and moisture-resistant exterior insulation.  I’ve seen how this stuff is made – at the Owens Corning LEED Gold Manufacturing Plant just outside of Portland, no less – and it’s a heck of a lot easier to use than the old pink fiberglass stuff.  No offense to the Pink Panther, of course.

BUT, there are other, perhaps more sustainable options for insulation, ones that use less manufacturing energy or recycled materials, for instance.  Lloyd Alter over at Treehugger recently posted his thoughts on the debate between spray polyurethane foam insulation and recycled denim insulation.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and since Lloyd covered them already, I won’t repeat him.  But, depending on what the application is, you might find the fact that the spray foam is easy to install and covers up any gaps appealing; or, you may want to avoid VOCs and use the recycled denim, which helps eliminate material from the waste stream.

Obviously, I am not paid to endorse any product here at the GDC, nor do I personally have a preference as to what people use – perhaps one day when I buy a house, I will decide!  In the meantime, I DO encourage people who have homes and the money to renovate to check out the insulation in their homes and maybe consider upgrading … in almost every climate zone in the country, it will help you save energy, which will help you save money.  Hooray for saving money! 

But I digress.  I firmly believe that the Earth is one mega-giant geophysical system and so I’m predisposed to think that movement in the Earth’s crust in one area is likely to affect movement in the crust in another area.  Maybe this is the case, maybe not.  But, like it or not, there are fault lines all over this planet, and a very good number of us live in an area that would be affected by seismic activity.  Including myself, living in the Pacific Northwest, with the Cascadia subduction zone, where “the seismic clock is ticking.”

Which is why I’ve finally decided to take the creation of my earthquake kit very seriously.  Observe:

The beginnings of my earthquake kit - old clothes and lots of coffee

Having never put together an earthquake kit before (despite living in Los Angeles for two years), I looked up how to make a proper preparedness kit on the internets.  I found one, appropriately, on the site for the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate. It includes a lot of head-scratching items, like a small fire extinguisher and sunglasses, but for the most part it is all super valuable stuff that would be useful in the event of a catastrophic earthquake.

*I*, on the other hand, am preparing a bag that would in theory allow me to survive for a day or so trapped underground OR allow me to get out, get on my bike, and go find other people.  It will include important stuff like a super-cool solar-powered/hand-crank radio and LED flashlight, as well as a first aid kit, rain gear, a warm jacket, matches and extra food.  I have, however, taken some liberties from the SFGate site – for instance, they say to include bleach, which I get, but I’m trying to come up with something portable, thus the little bleach pen (good in a pinch, literally).  Also note the copious amounts of coffee; hey, I have a portable French Press, might as well put it to good use!

All in all, my earthquake kit is stocked with things I have but don’t use on a regular basis, but still don’t want to get rid of.  I’m finding that this is not only a great way to get prepared for an earthquake but also an in-house recycling exercise.  Being aware of how you use and perhaps waste products in your home is as integral to living more lightly on the earth as realizing that you live on a giant rock that is subjected to forces of geophysics beyond our control.

Do you have any suggestions for putting together an earthquake preparedness kit?  Post them here!

This young man’s story is so inspiring, and it is proof positive of what you can do when you roll up your sleeves and put your mind to something.  It is also an amazing example of how precious energy is; it’s hard to fathom how people in some parts of the world can still have debates about whether or not wind energy is worth having in their community, while in Africa, they have to fight for scraps in order to even gather the resources to provide energy for themselves.  I think it’s a bit shameful, really.

William’s book, The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, came out on September 29.  Don’t forget to watch the interview though… his story about discovering Google for the first time is kind of adorable.

Plastic bag-woven wine bottle carrier!

I’d like to think that the t-shirt quilt that I’m trying to make is upcycling, but as with many sewing projects for me, it’s turning out to be hairier than I initially thought.  You see, I already had this fleece blanket from IKEA, so I thought I would size the patches that I cut out from the t-shirts to fit the blanket, and everything would be great.  Except that the tag for the blanket said that it was  51″ x 67″ – which I trusted – and as it turns out, it’s closer to 51″ by about 56″.  And this is a problem because I sized the patches to fill the blanket along 60″ of length!  So I’m going to have to sew the patches about an inch short each.  Three cheers for improvisation!

T-shirts pre-cutting

T-shirts after I've cut out the good bits

Patches after they've been ironed onto stabilizer backing and laying them out onto the blanket

If you know me, you’ve probably seen one of these t-shirts before… or perhaps you’ve even given one of them to me!  The point of this exercise is, they’ve outgrown their usefulness in my wardrobe but they all mean something to me, and I wanted to hang on to them without having a large pile of unused t-shirts in my closet.  So I am putting them all in one place, and the scraps are being donated to either the rag or recycling piles.

Anyway, here’s to DIY projects and keeping something else out of the wastestream!  (And if anyone has any t-shirt quilt suggestions for me, by all means post them below, I could probably use the help…)

I am originally from Cincinnati and they had one as well, called Building Value.  Does your community have a building supply recycling center?  If so, post in the comments!