Our lecture was presented on Tuesday, Dec. 8 from 12:15-1:00pm at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Download the presentation (PDF format, 2.2 MB)
Contact us for more on the Red Line Green Roofs Initiative or green roofs along any other public transportation corridor!
It’s much more than just an attractive near-alliterative term, but you heard it here first.
Learn more about the concept of ‘entrepreneurial infrastructure‘ from The Genetically Modified Strip. We collaborated with giffin’termeer on this award-winning solution to the 2008 Flip a Strip competiton in Phoenix, AZ.
No, we haven’t designed a man-made lake, but listening to this song by Calexico struck a chord with me following discussions Richard and I have been having about some missed opportunities in designing our built environment.
On left, conventional parking lot, on right, the same lot with permeable paving. See the difference?
Could it be that in twenty years time we will find ourselves driving our solar charged electric cars to eat at the California Pizza Kitchen, with a green roof that grows it’s own vegetables and cooks them in a solar oven, and sits in a parking lot paved with permeable concrete, in front of a day lighted & geothermally heated Target. Lord help us if that is the case.
On November 4th, Urban Habitat Chicago will be hosting The Burnham Plan of Chicago: Smackdown! at Schubas Tavern, 3159 N. Southport. To quote from the UHC website:
“This lively, fast-paced discussion, moderated by Chicago’s one-and-only Lynn Becker, will feature a panel of local practitioners who will each take on one aspect of the 1909 Plan of Chicago by Burnham and Bennett, make it relevant and accessible by bringing it up-to-date, then offer real-world solutions on how it might be implemented.”
The panel includes Samuel Assefa, Zoka Zola, Nick Petty, Mike Newman, Rashmi Ramaswamy, Lesley Roth, and (I suppose for comic relief) Richard Avery. The whole thing will be moderated by Lynn Becker.
Put it on your calendar, come with questions, and be ready to mix it up.
Dave’s guest blog entry for eco-intel.com makes the case for integrated-design and -project delivery using the Coleman garage as an easy-to-grasp example.
“As I have traveled the this nation this year, I have discovered that despite the sense of hopelessness and helpless frustration that too often dominates the energy debate in Washington, there is a revolution of Yankee ingenuity changing the energy future of local communities.”
- Senator Edward M. Kennedy
September 1980
From the Introduction to “Passive Solar Energy: The Homeowners Guide to Natural Heating and Cooling” (1981) by Bruce Anderson and Malcolm Wells, Publisher: Brick House (click the link for a free download).
The Senator then goes on to cite examples of some of that ingenuity: increased gasohol production, solar water heaters installed in the Tennessee Valley, citizens turning to wood stoves to heat their homes, an MIT house that would employ meltable salts to store and release heat with only small changes in temperature.
Read about our work on bringing 50,000 square feet of underused Chicago real estate with unbeatable sky-views along commuter rail lines to life with rooftop gardens.
I realize I am coming very late to this, but I was finally able to figure out what has been bugging me about the Friends of the Park plan “The Last Four Miles”. If you are not familiar, it is worth taking a look at the plan, here, before reading further.
To say that the disconnected parcels of park and beach at the north and south ends of the city should be tied together with more parkland is like saying oxygen is a good thing for humans. It is absolutely true and it should have been a part of the park systems capital plans and budget long ago. But, to butcher a phrase, if you want to stir people’s blood, you have to do something other than finish someone else’s old ideas.
You’ll probably be seeing this symbol
on our website shortly.
In a nutshell, Passive House is great energy-efficiency standard for buildings (not just homes) of all types and sizes, including schools and community centers, even retrofits in some cases.
Community Center built to Passive House standards in Vorarlberg, Austria. Image courtesy PassivHaus Institut.
Not to be confused with designs that focus only on passive solar or passive heating or cooling-based strategies,
“A Passive House is a very well-insulated, virtually air-tight building that is primarily heated by passive solar gain and by internal gains from people, electrical equipment, etc. Energy losses are minimized. Any remaining heat demand is provided by an extremely small source. Avoidance of heat gain through shading and window orientation also helps to limit any cooling load, which is similarly minimized. An energy recovery ventilator provides a constant, balanced fresh air supply. The result is an impressive system that not only saves up to 90% of space heating costs, but also provides a uniquely terrific indoor air quality.” (from the PHIUS website)
The Passive House standard stems from visits to the U.S. Midwest made by German scientists in the early 1980’s who toured off-the-grid super-insulated homes. They went back impressed, kept developing the ideas, and made them boxy.
Hey, boxy is good, right? Think Volvo.
Now Passive Houses are back, much more sophisticated (in terms of design) and very livable, and Hampton Avery Architects are looking for a few good clients.
If you have not done so, move post haste to look at the photographs by Charles Cushman archived at Indiana University. You may have seen them written about here and here. Cushman lived in Chicago in the middle of the last century and photographed voraciously. The photographs in the archive cover the globe, but it is the mid century Chicago photos I found most fascinating.
Viewing them, a thought coalesced about the city and cultural memory. Cushman’s pictures are images of a lost city. It occupies the same geographic space of present day Chicago, but there is very little that feels familiar. The city that seeps out of the pictures is unknown and unknowable. The people who knew the city left it for greener pastures and we moved into the shell. The city has a permanent case of amnesia.
Now that we have a new administration with much talk of the economic stimulus package going toward infrastructure projects, I thought it might be a good time to revist a blog entry from 2006.
Green Infrastructure
Heard this term? I heard it today for the first time. Those two words together - “green infrastructure”- conjure up a little bit of what might have been wrong with Industrial Revolutionary thinking.
Garfield Park (top left) and Douglas Park (lower right) are joined to Independence Square by Independence Blvd. and Douglas Blvd., respectively.
In Chicago, the remains of several boulevards (see photo above) are apparent in a neglected southwest-side neighborhood. It’s easy to tell they are not what they once were (or intended to be), but biking along them illustrates the immense possibilities of these strips of vegetation. Or, more importantly, the possibilities of green spaces in cities.
Click below for information on Passive House
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Coming around the bend...
Please have patience with our site. We are currently working feverishly on a new, real, shiny one. Jess Giffin over at giffin’termeer is whipping us into shape. No timeline yet, but if you keep checking back you’ll know as soon as we do! (0)