Green Building : Jetson Green

Reburbia Your Exurban Suburbia

We usually like to leave the competition news to Bustler, but our friends at Dwell Magazine and Inhabitat have an interesting Reburbia Design Competition in the works.  It's a competition to re-envision the suburbs -- a call to all future-forward architects, urban designers, renegade planners, and imaginative engineers.  You can submit up to five (5) images and a statement about your design proposal.  Entries will be judged on clarity of idea, usefulness of design, and visual/aesthetic appeal of renderings. Here's a little more:

Beyond Platinum City Hall Proposal

According to the Union-Tribune, a $432 million project is making its way to San Diego City Council for consideration as the new San Diego City Hall.  Although still in early stages, developer Gerding Edlen indicates that the design is beyond LEED Platinum, and according to some, it could be one of the greenest buildings on the West Coast if built.  The 23-story building, with a design that kind of resembles a large sail, has some of the following green elements:

The Concept of LEED De-certification

LEED Version 3 has some new aspects, and the green building community is trying to understand the ins and outs.  One aspect has been talked about strenuously in the past week, and I thought we should ground ourselves a little bit.  Let’s take a step back and look at Minimum Program Requirements (“MPRs”), the concept of de-certification, or certification revocation, and whether this all means that projects can lose certification if they do not perform as designed.

Greener Jobs: Build It Green, LEED Linc, and Green Key Real Estate

We just opened up a free, beta service for readers at Greener Jobs this week.  The response has been great, and the site has three new job listings already.  If you're a company and you want to step out in front of smart, green talent, we'll try to help you out with our free listings.  If you're the smart, green talent, don't disappoint us.  Check these positions out:

• Event Project Manager, Build It Green, Berkeley / Bay Area, CA
• LEED AP Sales Exec, LEED Linc, Great Barrington, MA
• Real Estate Agent, Green Key Real Estate, SF / Bay Area, CA

Also, follow @greenerjobs on Twitter for more green job listings.

A Smart Green Living Zero Home

This is the Living Zero Home, which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy and built by All American Homes.  The home was on display in Chicago last weekend and will move to about fifteen other destinations throughout the year, including Louisville, Greensboro, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, and Denver, among other cities.  The modern demonstration home features a Smart Living System -- both an energy management and home monitoring tool -- which helps owners save money and provides an alert for potential problems, such as a water pipe leak.  The home includes a number of other green elements, too:

New Service: Green Building Jobs

You may have noticed in Saturday's Week in Review, but we're now rolling out a free, beta green building jobs service.  We've added a link to the navigation above and already published a couple great looking job opportunities.  The market can be tough on all of us -- whether you're a company in need of remarkable employees or an employee in need of remarkable opportunities -- make sure to use Greener Jobs. 

The Waxman-Markey Building Energy Performance Labeling Program

There's been a lot of talk about various green building provisions in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (HR 2454 or "ACES"), but there's one specific section of ACES that deserves more attention.  Section 204 needs to be included in the green building discussion, because this is where the Building Energy Performance Labeling Program is.  With this program, as we predicted with our Seven Green Trends, the federal government could lay the foundation for true and legitimate building environmental impact labels.  Let's talk about this unprecedented policy, with a little background discussion. 

Reclaimed Prefab Auctioned for $75k

After nine bids on eBay, some lucky duck ended up with a reclaimed prefab for $75,100.  The prefab was built by Reclaimed Space for Dwell on Design and the proceeds went to both Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles and Hollywood for Habitat for Humanity.  Ecofabulous created the interior using a number of stylish, green products.  According to the eBay listing, this 400 square foot home included the following:

Dwell Refab Set for eBay Auction

Update 6/25/09: the eBay listing is live!

A little over six months ago, we took a quick look at the reclaimed prefabs being built by Austin-based Reclaimed Space.  Then, last week we mentioned they'd have a prefab home on display at this weeks' Dwell on Design.  Now, after talking with the guys at Reclaimed Space this weekend, we have some additional news.  Their new home for Dwell on Design is going to be auctioned off through eBay starting Tuesday, June 23, 2009.  When the listing goes live, we'll update this article, but here's some more information behind the auction ...

Small Style at Dwell on Design 2009

Dwell on Design keeps getting bigger and better every year, and the Dwell Outdoor exhibit promises to be just right for these (un)extravagant times.  The modern design event will be held from Friday, June 26, through Sunday, June 28, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  The entire program will be diverse and compelling, but I'm particularly intrigued by the lineup of four small structures planned for the 15,000 square feet of outdoor exhibit space.  Check these out: