Starting this Wednesday, the USGBC’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo will convene and I’m geeked to take some time to fly out and participate.  The USGBC and LEED, I believe, should take a lot of credit for creating new opportunities in this exciting green building movement in which we all participate.  At the same time, though, I try not to forget that many of our neighbors, friends, or family may not have an idea as to what’s growing into a watershed moment in building, design, and construction.  To get an idea of how far this movement has evolved, the USGBC just released eight, short videos in a series called 15 Years, 15 Stories.  The video highlights various leaders and their collective perspective over fifteen years of working with the USGBC. 

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Kevin Rose sat down with Al Gore in a collaboration between Digg Dialogg and Current to talk about various crowd-sourced issues and topics.  Other than some of the questions about marijuana, ManBearPig, and Futurama, I found the interview pretty interesting.  Gore was impressively adroit, astute even, in his responses, showing a deep understanding of environmental issues and how they’re all interconnected.  I’ve listed the questions below, in case you’re looking to hear Mr. Gore talk about a certain topic of interest.  It’s a short, twenty-six minute video, so make sure to give it a view and enjoy. 

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Back in March, we mentioned the Silicon Valley NextHouse prefab, which was designed on the inside by Sally Kuchar.  If you weren’t able to tour the home, no worries because Kohler sponsored several videos with Sally and the homeowners.  The 2,400 sf Dwell Home: Silicon Valley was designed to accommodate natural light, solar orientation, seasonal shading from vegetation, and prevailing wind movement, and also to contribute to passive heating and cooling.  It’s an incredible prefab home.  In the above video, Sally explains some of the green materials they used, such as cork tiles, reclaimed limestone, FSC certified brazilian cherry, low-VOC paints, and earth plaster walls.  Below, she talks about the kitchen and master bath design — how about those penny tiles in the kitchen?  Nice.  Enjoy the videos …

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