The South Waterfront area of Portland is a new and interesting neighborhood.  All the buildings in South Waterfront will be LEED certified and thoughtfully planned.  The 35-acre, 17-block district abutting the Willamette River is also the first urban neighborhood to achieve Salmon-Safe certification.  The mission of Salmon-Safe is to restore the health of watersheds so salmon can spawn and thrive.  Here’s what the certification tells us about South Waterfront:

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There’s kind of an edgy, underground movement of conscious homeowners and environmentalists that are finding creative ways to capture water and reuse it for their needs.  BusinessWeek’s Malia Wollan just wrote an article called "Rainwater collectors work to ease shortages," and she talks about the popularity of the movement.  In the article, Wollan mentions a website called HarvestH20, which has seen an increasing number of visitors seeking information and advice on rainwater collection and reclamation. 

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I know it’s just a toilet, but this miniLOO is quite the attractive alternative when it comes to taking care of your primary and secondary business.  MiniLOO utilizes a water-efficient, dual flush, in-wall tank with either a .8 or 1.6 gallon flush.  The compact off-floor mounting allows easy cleaning and accessibility in either the residential or commercial setting.  It’s perfect for a smaller space and available in a variety of finishes, including recycled stainless steel and white powdercoat. 

++miniLOO

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Proximity Hotel seems to have found a way to deliver a comfortable, luxury-type experience and still be one of the greenest hotels in the country.  It was built to use roughly 36% less energy and 30% less water than a comparable hotel.  Proximity Hotel also heats over half the building’s water with roughly 4,000 sf of solar thermal panels on the roof.  In the video embedded below, Dennis Quaintance, Chief Design Officer of Proximity Hotel, mentions that the savings from the solar thermal investment is about $20k per year. He also talks about the hotel’s innovative elevator, which is the first Regenerative Drive Otis Gen2 elevator in North America — it captures energy while going down and uses it while going up.

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Stanford is progressive in its commitment to the environment, so it’s not surprising that they swapped out 1,827 showerheads in the dorms over Christmas for low-flow, eco-friendly ones.  The retrofit reduces water flow from 2.5 gallons per minute to 1.3 gallons per minute per showerhead, saving Stanford an estimated total of 12 million gallons of water per year.  And California isn’t exactly gushing with surplus water supplies, so it makes sense, right?  Seems like a smart move.

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