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{Re}habitat
Learn how adaptive reuse and upcycling can add hip design to your home, apartment, or yard with the Go Green channel's {Re}habitat series. Follow host Rachael Ranney as she shows you how to repurpose salvaged and found materials, adding fun and function to your space without breaking your budget.
Ana Escalante’s Greenbaum Residence
Snuggled into a delightful desert spot in Rancho Mirage, California, Architect Ana Escalante, founder of Escalante Architects, introduces an unpretentious home whose brilliant, sustainable design mimics how nature reconciles cozy shelters. In fact, one may wonder where the desert’s landscape stops and the house begins. Escalante draws from ecological ideas such as passive solar ventilation and cooling that offer her client an organic home that breathes resources back into nature.
The Project: A Carbon-Neutral Footprint
The client, Robert Greenbaum, is a film producer with very strong green initiatives for his home and lifestyle as well. He commissioned Escalante as his architect with two parameters: a carbon-neutral footprint and a lap swimming pool. Incorporating a lap swimming pool within a three-bedroom house on a tight site was Escalante’s first hurdle. “Before I went to the drawing boards, I met again with Greenbaum in a plea for him to reconsider the size of the swimming pool,” says Escalante. "Quite adamant, he insisted that his life faithfully centers on swimming daily for hours, often up to five miles per day."
The best alternative to plain painted surfaces used to be wallpaper. But wallpaper is difficult to remove, and installing it requires a lot of prep work, not to mention the time spent on precision measuring, cutting, and hanging. Faux painting can have an effect that is just as dramatic, but it isn’t as much of a commitment. And painting is one of the least expensive ways to customize a space.
5 Hot Projects with Colored Glass Block Windows, Walls & Showers
Written by Mike Foti Tue Jan 19 2010“What do you have that can add some interest, some pop, some style to this glass block project?” a customer recently asked. With the introduction of colored glass your windows, showers, or wall projects can really stand out without sacrificing the functional benefits of the block. Below you’ll learn about 5 unique projects that combined colors and block patterns to create one of a kind results.
In the news Monday were reports of a 6.0 magnitude earthquake near Guatemala City, Guatemala. This follows last Monday’s news of a 7.0 magnitude quake in Haiti, which I wrote about in my last blog. Our first concern for Guatemala might be fear of a tragedy similar to Haiti. After all, 6.0 is almost 7.0, or it’s at least 6/7 or 85% of the strength, right? Fortunately (for the people of Guatemala City), that’s totally wrong in the context of the Richter scale.
Technology Inspiration: The Tesla Model S
My favourite architect, Le Corbusier, was inspired by modes of transportation in the 20's as he created the genius project Villa Savoy, a home located north of Paris. Le Corbusier used his knowledge of industrial technology, which he learned from the French engineer August Penret, to create what he believed was a type of Utopian architecture. The gist: technology was his inspiration.
Last year, a studio at Harvard University worked on developing Utopian architectural styles based on an innovative BMW car called GINA. Frank Barkow of Barkow Liebinger led the studio in such a way that the students studied first its technologies. The most remarkable aspect of the GINA is the fact that its exterior skin moves and changes to adapt to its environment.
Is The Construction Submittal Process Really That Important?
Written by David Ingold Mon Jan 18 2010In early 1979, the fabricator and installer for the atrium steel of the new Kansas City Hyatt hotel proposed changes to the connection details for the support of the skywalk system. The original design was thought to be expensive to manufacture and problematic to install. The engineer responded by providing preliminary sketches of the fabricator's proposal without performing basic calculations. These sketches were returned to the fabricator, who assumed these to be the final and approved shop drawings. The revised and ill-fated connection detail was put into production and installed. In 1981, the Kansas City Hyatt skywalk collapsed, causing the deaths of 114 people and injuring more than 200. The ensuing investigations concluded that the fault lay in the engineer's failure to properly review shop drawings and provide adequate communications between the structural engineer and the fabricator of the structural steel for the atrium and skywalk.
As events unfold in Haiti, our Buildipedia.com audience has been watching the news, and in many cases contributing to or assisting directly in the recovery. As the Buildipedia.com facilities and infrastructure person, the story has certainly caught my attention, not only because of the humanitarian aspects, but also because of the role that poor engineering played in creating it.
If you have an opportunity to attend the 2010 NAHB International Builders' Show in Las Vegas this year, please make sure to stop by the Portland Cement Association's (PCA) booth. Rightly so, they are promoting the 40 different ways concrete can be used to build sustainable homes.
PCA's press release states, "Recent research by McGraw-Hill indicates that 70 percent of buyers would be inclined to purchase a green home versus a conventional home in a down market. With new techniques and products introduced at what seems like a daily basis, builders can rely on concrete for straightforward solutions for today’s green building demands."
If in Vegas, stop by booth #N2431 for more information. Registration for new attendees is only $100 for full registration. Don't forget to tell us about your experience.
