Green Building Blog - Jetson Green

IBM Predicts Solar Growth in 5 Years

IBM is becoming gradually more involved in the world of clean tech, so it's not surprising that their third annual "IBM Next Five in Five" includes a mention of solar power.  The list includes five innovations that will change the way people work, live, and play over the next five years.  Accordingly, IBM thinks energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint, and windows.  Basically, with the advent of thin-film solar cells and advances in technology, everything everywhere will have solar cells and harvest energy.  And the technology to do so will be affordable, too. 

Sustainability Within a Generation

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. 

Kevin Rose, Al Gore Get Current [Video]

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. 

Dwell Home: Silicon Valley, the Bold Look of Sally Kuchar [Video]

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 ...

Eco Modern Chestnut Residence [Video]

It's been a long time, it seems, since our last video, so why not get back in the habit?  I noticed this high quality video of the Chestnut Residence, which was designed by Dan Heinfeld of LPA Architects, and thought all the eco modern enthusiasts would enjoy it.  All versions of the video that I've seen get cut off at about the three minute point, so I'll update it if I find a better version.  The house was created with an open passive layout to take advantage of the California climate and benefit from abundant natural light and ventilation.  The design is further married with the best of green technology, such as sustainable materials, smart systems, and a solar PV system (50% of power), to create one posh green residence.  I've included some screen shots from the video below.

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.

Father of LEED Takes Future Serious

Check out this video with Rob Watson, a green building leader often referred to as the Father of LEED.  Watson discusses general green building and current market trends.  Towards the end of the video, he kind of eases into a discussion of Serious Materials, but that's okay because Serious Materials is a legit company in terms of sustainable building materials.  Most recently, Serious Materials took the category award at 2008 GoingGreen 100 for green building materials.  I've transcribed some of the interesting quotes from this video below:

[Video] Margarido House and The View

Remember earlier this week when we talked about the Margarido House, you know that posh, modern home that's about to be the first LEED-H Platinum home in Northern California?  Well, the always entertaining Sally Kuchar of SallyTV has just posted these videos and we thought it'd be fun to share.  You might know Sally from her recent work designing the Silicon Valley Dwell Nexthouse, but she's also a regular contributor to Apartment Therapy SF and MoCo Loco.  I can't help but watch these videos and think about the endless possibilities presented by thoughtful design and modern green materials. 

Greensumption, the Ecological Pickle

For background on the video, make sure to check out this Dot Earth interview.  The point being made is quite poignant, probably making you feel as though there's an environmental pickle with nary a solution.  But we've got to do better than that -- we have to find solutions and turn this ship around.  So what's the next step? 

Review: Sony Reader PRS-505 Takes the Stage!

So Sony noticed that we do a lot of book giveaways here, and they offered to let us test run a sleek, shiny, silver Sony Reader PRS-505.  What's the green angle to a Sony Reader?  We can save a lot of resources if electronic readers capture the market: paper, resources to make paper, ink, transportation, space, etc.  Make sure to read Smart Planet for a thorough eco analysis of the reader, though.  Anyway, being avid readers, we decided to give it a shot, because, to be entirely honest, we can't stop reading!  So I opened up the box about a month ago (yep, I've been using it that long to be sure about what I say below), and I was blown away.  Seriously.  The screen is so much like paper -- I couldn't believe it.  As a result, I decided, then and there, to try to make a video so you can see what I see.