Green Building Blog - Jetson Green

Vatican Gets Serious with Solar

Maybe Samsø started a trend in becoming a net exporter of renewable energy because it appears that the Vatican is thinking about doing something similar.  The curvacious roof of Paul VI Audience Hall, a building that's located right by the famous St. Peter's Basilica, has been topped with 2,400 photovoltaic panels to source energy for lighting, heat, and air conditioning.  The 5,000 m2 (54,000 sf) roof will produce ~300 megawatt hours of energy and cost approximately $1.6 million (donated by SolarWorld and SMA Solar Technology).  With the addition of this massive solar roof, the sovereign city-state will cut CO2 emissions by about 225 tons.  But that's not all:

Rødovre Tower to be Plush Sky Village

Rødovre, an independent municipality of Denmark, was looking for a new residential tower and MVRDV, with co-architect ADEPT, rose to the challenge.  On Monday, it was announced that their "Sky Village" concept won a design challenge to create the next Rødovre skyscraper.  The 116 meter (~381 foot) tower will feature apartments, retail, offices, an hotel, as well as a public park and plaza.  The architects' contemporary design is based on a flexible grid of boxes, or "pixels," which are ~646 square feet each and arranged around the building's central core. 

SF Performing Arts Center LEED Design

Earlier this month, the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design announced a total of 66 buildings as winners of the prestigious and coveted American Architecture Awards program.  One of those buildings was Tom Eliot Fisch's and LMN Architects' design for the City College of San Francisco's (CCSF) new performing arts center.  As you can tell from the rendering, it's going to be a beautiful, contemporary structure with tons of green features and natural lighting.  Scheduled to be complete in Spring 2010, the performing arts center will target LEED Gold certification with some of the following features:

Olive 8 Seeks LEED Certification and Huge Green Roof

When you decide to outfit a building with a green roof, the plants have to come from somewhere.  In this particular case, 8,355 square feet of plants are growing at T & L Nursery in Woodinville, Washington for installation at the new Olive 8.  Currently under construction, Olive 8 will be Seattle's first LEED hotel/condo (pursuing LEED Silver certification).  In addition, it will have one of the city's largest green roofs with 20 different varieties of drought-tolerant sedums growing in 700 planters totaling nearly 24,000 plants.  That's a lot of green to have on the fourth floor for everyone to enjoy. 

I'm a PC and I Design Green Buildings

Folks the media storm that started with the venerable Bill Gates and tired Jerry Seinfeld has just taken a new direction with the "I'm a PC" ads for Microsoft.  Check them out below, we have all three new videos embedded in this article.  As you watch, though, don't get distracted by the likes of Eva Longoria, Tony Parker, Deepak Chopra, Bernard Harris, Geoff Green, or even Pharrell, as tough as it is, because there's a green architect in the mix:  Edouard Francois.

Beautiful Green Roof at Chicago's Residences 900

In Chicago, Illinois, The Residences at 900 have something unique to offer their residents, a lush green rooftop garden.  This environmentally friendly rooftop, designed by renowned landscape architect Douglas Hoerr, offers nearly fourteen thousand square feet of garden paradise. 

Broadstar On Track to Sell 70 Turbines

When Maria Surma Manka brought us news of Broadstar Wind Systems last June from Windpower 2008, our interest was stoked, especially considering the fact that Broadstar was claiming that their AeroCam turbine could achieve $1 per watt installed.  Well, the company is still beta testing the AeroCam turbine, but demand is crazy and they're "on track" to install more than 70 turbines.  J.C. Penny Co. plans to install AeroCam turbines on their distribution facility in Reno, Nevada by November this year.  Plus, 15 companies have contracted to test the turbines and 12 more are in talks. 

Parans Fiber Optic Skylights Bring Natural Light to Dark Spaces

The interesting thing about fiber optic lighting is that it creates the ability to put natural light in places where there is none.  Generally, here's how it works.  Using a building-mounted panel with computer-controlled, sun-tracking lenses, natural light is channeled through optical fibers to luminaires that diffuse the light (see diagram below).  Since early 2008, HUVCO Daylighting Solutions has been offering a fiber optic lighting system like this, or the Parans System, which was developed in Sweden.  Although light only travels about 60 feet through optical cables, the ability to direct light in this manner is quite interesting. 

EnergyPeak Standing Seam Roof BIPV Provides Quick Payback

We keep hearing about thin film solar innovation and building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), but it may be hard to image how this technology will play a part in the future of our buildings.  But I think CENTRIA Services Group has a product that could certainly change that: EnergyPeak.  They've combined the flexibility of laminate photovoltaics (LPV) with strong, durable standing seam roof panels to create a rooftop solar option with a fast payback.  I mean, just look at the diagram and check out its immediately recognizable benefits:

2800 Lincoln Modern Green Residences

This 5 story, 9 unit condo building is 2800 Lincoln and is planned for the corner of Diversey Parkway and Lincoln Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.  Designed by Product Architects, this contemporary green building is aiming for LEED Silver, and might even catch LEED Gold.  2800 Lincoln has a green roof, large terraces, solar panels, solar thermal hot water heating, and will be powered, in part, by geothermal energy (see diagram below).  Yo Chicago reports that the developer, Helios Realty and Development, plans to break ground in the next month or two and has a lease for the ground-floor retail space in the works.