Jetson Green

Dubai's Xeritown Has Eco-City Aspirations, Too

The task of building an entire city from scratch isn't novel in Dubai -- it seems there's a new city announcement every half year or so.  Xeritown is one of the latest that I've learned about and it's planned for Dubailand.  The idea behind the 60-acre city is that it will be designed to accommodate the elements of the desert rather than overcome them.  The form of the city follows a north-south axis to take advantage of the cool breeze coming in from the sea.  The buildings, rather than artificial and water intense landscaping, provide shading and structure. 

CBOne Focuses on Luxury Green Home Market

Recently I was able to speak with Matthew Linden of ConsciousBuild, a San Luis Obispo-based company that's trying to make an eco-friendly contribution to the luxury home and lifestyle market.  ConsciousBuild is ramping up a website to be launched in July that aims to provide podcasts, videos, and access to information on green building practices, techniques, and materials.  Their first project, ConsciousBuildOne, or CBOne, was designed in the vernacular of Contemporary American Farmhouse and flies in the face of the notion that a green building needs to take any one particular form or shape.  Serving as both a residence and office, Linden hopes CBOne will be used as an educational model for the latest in eco products, techniques, and technologies.  Here's what's planned for the building:

Non-Green Buildings Soon to Cost Owners $$!

"At this point it is my experience green buildings are receiving the same financing they would get for any high quality building with a good tenant ... what I think will change is that lenders will start assessing a premium on financing for any building that is not designed to green standards."

Comparing green buildings to the advent of air conditioning, the quote continues:  "At first buildings that came equipped with air conditioning were seen as luxury developments.  But within a short period of time any building that didn't have it was considered functionally obsolete."

             -- Jim Amorin, president-elect of the Appraisal Institute [via]

Checking Out the 99k House Competition

Back in September 2007, Rice Design Alliance and the Houston Chapter of the AIA announced the 99k House Competition.  The general goal of the competition was to create an innovative design for a small house that is affordable, sustainable, and energy efficient.  More specifically, the competition called for a single family house with up to 1,400 sf of space, including 3 bedrooms, 1.5-2 bathrooms, on a 50' x 100' site in a historic neighborhood of Houston.  The construction budget for each home had to be under $99,000, too.

And recently, Hybrid / ORA out of Seattle was declared the winner of the competition (pictured above).  In addition, four other finalists each took $5k in prize money and had their home designs published for all to see.  Make sure to check out their ideas and download their designs below. 

Top 5 Green Building Products As Voted by Builders

As reported by LA Times blog Pardon Our Dust, the Pacific Coast Builders Conference holds an annual competition for the coolest building products and the green building product selections are in.  This year, over 600 home-building professionals voted on roughly 125 product submissions, and some of the best have risen to the top.  The following list represents the cool-product winners in the green building category for 2008:

New Report Shows Economic Value of Green Building Certification

In a newly released working paper by John Quigley, Piet Eichholtz, and Nils Kok titled Doing Well by Doing Good? Green Office Buildings, the authors discuss the economic value of green building certification in the commercial sector.  They matched publicly available information on 694 certified green buildings (Energy Star and LEED) with 7489 other office buildings located within a quarter mile of the certified green buildings.  The research revealed systematic evidence that rents for green buildings are about 2% higher than rents for comparable buildings located nearby.  Effective rents, or those adjusted for the occupancy levels in the building, are about 6% higher in green buildings than in comparable office buildings nearby.  The authors deduce therefrom that at a generalized cap rate of 6%, conversion of a non-green building to an equivalent green building would add more than $5 million in market value.  Wow!

Taliesin Green Prefab Prototype Now Taking Shape

Since mid-January, Taliesin students have been blogging on PrairieMod about their project to build a small modern home on the grounds of Taliesin West.  The students, with Dean Victor Sidy and Jennifer Siegal of OMD, designed a simple but elegant home with sustainability in mind.  At first, they were going to prefabricate the structure, but later decided to go instead with on-site, panelized construction using SIPs for the walls, roof, and floor.  Now, the exterior is certainly taking shape and the interior will be finished throughout the summer.  When done, the structure will demonstrate passive and active environmental control systems, water catchment, top-tier insulation, a gray water system, native landscaping, and a solar power system.

Seattle to Become Testbed for Green Prefab Apartments?

Last October we blogged about the Inhabit prefab prototype built in Washington and designed by Mithun and Hybrid.  Since then, there hasn't been much news about the prototype, except that the initial two units are for sale right now.  Now comes news, however, based on an article in The Seattle Times, that Unico Properties is planning to bring Inhabit to market in a legit, 62-unit apartment complex that includes a few live/work spaces.  The development is planned for a site on Dexter Avenue North above Lake Union.  Unico has been quiet about the project because the land is still under contract and the permitting process has just begun.  But long and short, Seattle is on the cusp of becoming a major demonstration city for green, prefab apartments in the U.S. -- fantastic news for proponents of healthy, affordable, and stylish living spaces. 

Green Container Condos in Early Planning for Detroit

A Detroit-based group has a container project in mind for a blighted chunk of land near Wayne State University.  News of the project hit the press this morning and local citizens didn't quite know what to expect (see comments).  The project is currently being called "Exceptional Green Living on Rosa Parks" and would feature containers stacked four high with windows and doors cut out into various places.  In total, the 17-unit condo project would have units ranging in size from 960 - 1,920 and price from $100k - $190k.  Pretty good price for a modern, green pad.

Combating Climate Change by Tackling Sprawl

There's a lot of talk here on Jetson Green about the (adverse) impact that architecture and materials choice can have on the environment.  So it's nice to know that housing can actually be an essential factor in combating climate change according to a new study from Smart Growth America.

While attending the recent EcoCity World Summit in San Francisco, I heard panelist Reid Ewing, research professor at the National Center for Smart Growth, discuss urban development and its (negative and positive) effect on climate change.  The study, published by the Urban Land Institute, documents how key changes in land development patterns could help reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.