Green Building Blog - Jetson Green

What About the Solar Corridor, Mr. Pickens?

It's clear our country is reaching what future generations will see as a watershed moment as it relates to our current energy situation and how we handle it.  In the U.S. alone, buildings account for roughly 70% of electricity use and 39% of energy use, so any discussion of our energy future naturally implicates the built environment.  The current state of discussions on our energy future has brought together some incredible minds and one of those is the great T. Boone Pickens, an expert in recognizing scarce resources and future energy trends.  Just today, he announced his efforts relating to the PickensPlan -- a plan he explains himself in the above video.

Now, I think Mr. Pickens is definitely probing one of the better ways to alleviate our dependence on foreign oil, but I also think he's skipping over an important aspect of this discussion on our country's energy mix. 

DeFreitas Home Raises Bar for Modern Green Design

Sometimes the images just don't tell the whole story and that's where some quality video will do the trick.  I stumbled upon this video while doing research for a prior story and was blown away by the modern, green home.  It's ridiculous -- probably a dream residence for many of you out there.  The passive design, combined with good insulation, high performance glass, solar thermal panels, radiant flooring heating, and an efficient system, keeps this home operating very efficiently. 

[Video] Venice Green Prefab Built Module At A Time

[3:03] Pardon the pre-roll on the video below, but the LA Times has some excellent interior / exterior footage of a Marmol Radziner Prefab being constructed in Venice, California.  As you can see, it was put together module-by-module with much of the interior already in place.  Regularly featured on the MR Blog, this house appears to be for Leo Marmol himself and has been referred to as the "Palms House."  The Palms House is 2800 square feet, made with 13 modules, and includes 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a living room/dining room, kitchen, office, and a spacious deck/outdoor area.

It's fun watching the video, because you can see Ron Radziner's enthusiasm bubble inside as he explains one of his company's newest creations.  These guys are having fun, you can just tell. 

[Video] Green "Rotating Tower" Planned for NYC?

I've not blogged about this interesting and innovative Rotating Tower, which was designed by David Fisher of Dynamic Architecture, because critics have downplayed the concept saying it's not capable of being built.  But now comes news that the Rotating Tower is not only on the cusp of construction in Dubai, but it's in advanced design phase for Moscow and intended for New York.  Let me say that again: Fisher intends to design a Dynamic Tower for the Big Apple!  If you haven't heard about it yet, make sure to watch the above video.  Here's the general idea:

Alberici Converts Old Plant into Modern Green HQ

[2:16]  As a global construction-services company in St. Louis, Missouri, Alberici sought to lead the transformation of the design and construction industry by renovating a 485-foot-long manufacturing plant into its new Class-A corporate headquarters.  The desire to convey resource efficiency, integrated design, and corporate responsibility prompted Alberici to achieve substantial resource and cost savings by combining various strategies, including:

[Video] Smart Features of MKD's Green Prefab @ MSI

The mkSolaire is currently the featured attraction at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) as part of the Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibition.  As you can tell from the above video, it's a prefab that includes cutting-edge green materials, energy efficient systems, a living roof, and a smart technology system.  I love those rectangular, green tiles in the bathroom -- check it out. 

++Smart Home: Green + Wired Debuts at MSI [JG]

Effective Ad for Energy Efficient Lighting?

They definitely have a different style over there in the UK ... I probably should have just linked to this in the twitter stream, but who knows, maybe someone will get a kick out of the video.  I sure as heck did.  Depending on where you work, this is potentially NSFW.

Via Green Design Girl.

[Video] Drivers of Green Building in Today's Market

Make sure to check out this short little interview with Kavita Gupta, Director of Business Development for Perkins + Will, an architectural firm with a solid reputation for designing cutting edge green projects. Ms. Gupta talks about some of the drivers of green buildings, many of which are listed below. Green buildings:

Proximity Hotel Assumes Role as One of the Greenest Hotels in Country

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.

Deconstruction Grows in Popularity, Spawns New Businesses

In her Teardown Diary, Wall Street Journal columnist Nancy Keates forgoes the common practice of demolition and instead opts for "unbuilding."  Usually referred to as deconstruction, unbuilding is when you disassemble an old structure piece by piece and salvage the usable parts.  Ms. Keates found that the deconstruction of her home will cost about $4,000 more than straight demolition, but costs can vary project to project.