Oxygenics was kind enough to send us their new STORM showerhead, which was designed to provide 20%-70% water and energy savings. The unit has 54 spray nozzles that shower you with 30% more water pressure compared to other brands. They do this with their Pressure Boosting Technology (see below), which squeezes the stream of water while adding air to it.
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:
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.
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
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.
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? Well, not so fast. Students came back from Christmas break and flipped. They absolutely flipped. Letter and email writing campaigns. Editorial columns. Meetings with University officials. Etc.
*WIR = Week in Review; a Saturday showcase of excellent links.
Existing buildings have tons of embodied energy and we can't always go bulldozing them for brand-spanking new ones. Lots of projects need to be rehabbed and renovated, but where do we go for best practices? I like to follow other projects for ideas, such as this one that we recently featured: World's First LEED Platinum Home Remodel. The guys behind this project, after going through a major renovation of a traditional home, posted a list of the Ten Most Critical Things to Do in a Green Remodel. They make some excellent points based on true experience, so here it is:
Green buildings, with their natural light and excellent indoor air quality, have the potential to make a big difference in the healthcare industry. At some point, there's going to be the world's first LEED Platinum healthcare facility in the world and Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas just might be the location to do it. The 32-acre, $200 M project is on schedule to take LEED Platinum, if everything goes as planned. The pictures are magnificent and we here at Jetson Green think it would be great if no one ever had to go inside! TBG Partners was kind enough to provide photos of the work they're doing on the project, which includes site planning, sustainable design, and landscape architectural services.
Green certifications are important, but can you imagine a world where buildings are better than the best Platinum level certification? Can you imagine a building that lives? A living building is self-sustaining and off-the-grid in terms of energy and water usage. A living building goes beyond the paper requirements for certification and seeks true sustainability. Earlier this month at Greenbuild, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council and the USGBC announced winners of the 2007 Living Building Competition. Here are the winners:
There's a lot of innovative information on each building, and you can click the links above to read directly about that specific project.
