KSDG volunteers at the san francisco food bank!

Hello again!

Happy KSDG employees sorting fruit at the San Francisco Food Bank!

Did you know that not only is KSDG an awesome leader in sustainable architecture, investments, and living but also incredibly passionate about helping the community? The most recent example of the company lending a helping hand is a recent trip taken on February 24th to the San Francisco Food Bank. The group spent the day sorting for fruit for different churches, food kitchens, and other groups around the Bay Area.

Volunteering at the Food Bank is a simple way to make an impact on the community. Dedicating just one day to helping sort food is an invaluable contribution. One of SF Food Bank’s mottos is that “hunger shouldn’t be an option.” Every day, the city of San Francisco sees people who skip meals and eat less well because they must save food for other costs. Choices like these hinder the health of the individuals within our community. To solve this problem, the Food Bank collects thousands of pounds of foods, which are shipped to different Food Bank locations where the products and sorted, shelved, and packaged by volunteers. The food is then delivered to over 450 nonprofit locations, serving over 225,000 people a year.

Fruit at the San Francisco Food Bank waiting to be sorted by our KSDG volunteers.

Being a volunteer for the San Francisco Food Bank is an inspiring experience. Helping to sort, shelve, and package healthy food for those in need truly makes an impact. Over 22,000 volunteers contribute thousands of hours to helping the Food Bank each year, which translates to a distribution of 43,5 million pounds of food – equivalent to 93,000 meals a day. If you or your organization are interested in working at the food bank as a group like KSDG, you can visit this website to learn more about the available volunteer schedule.

Happy sustainable living!
- Emily  

KSDG employees sorting away

the new urban garden: hanging IV bags filled with algae?

A man breathes carbon dioxide into the IV bag of a hanging algae plant at the H.O.R.T.U.S. exhibit

Imagine this: You’re strolling around the city, and stumble across an installation of IV bags containing algae hanging from the ceiling. Each bag has a tube, and you see a man go up and breathe into one of these tubes. You’re completely puzzled, right?

Well, this scene may not be so absurd after all – ecoLogicStudio has created what it calls “H.O.R.T.U.S.”  or “Hydro Organisms Responsive to Urban Stimuli.” The algae plants create an urban garden that thrives on human interaction in order to survive. By breathing into the tubes, humans provide the plants with the carbon dioxide they need to grow.

The project also has a “cyber” component, where visitors are encouraged to use their smartphones to scan the algae bags to learn more about the plants. Tweeting about the experiment is also highly encouraged. This integration of social media, technology on the humanand plant side, and urban agriculture makes for an interesting and innovative way to think about gardening!

Happy sustainable living!
- Emily 

futuristic sustainable living with the hover home!

Hello blogosphere!

Hover House 3 is an innovative model for sustainable living.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the FLOAT House – an innovative design that allows homes to “float” in cases of flooding and sea level rise. While making your house able to float on water is cool, how about a hovering house? Glen Irani Architects has worked to design the aesthetically flawless and energy efficient “Hover House 3.”

Located in Los Angeles, the goal of the house is to hover the building structure over outdoor living space in order to maximize the amount of outdoor square footage a property has in an tightly fit urban location.

These hovering structures also reduce indoor floor area significantly, which help lower building costs and consumption of dwindling building resources. The home also boasts large windows, photovoltaic panels on its roof, and many other sustainability-improved technologies.

Happy Sustainable Living!
- Emily

is SEED taking the place of LEED as the best way to measure sustainable environmental design?

The 5 guiding principles of SEED serve as the basis for measuring sustainable practices for housing, real estate development, and other building projects.

Most people in the architecture and sustainability world know about Leadership in Environmental and Environmental Design – better known as LEED. Achieving LEED certification is a great way of proving sustainable practices in housing and other building development. The LEED system is based on a 100 point baseline, and projects are evaluated based on various criteria.

SEED, however, is the newest way to measure sustainability. As economic fluctuations and social justice issues have proven to be an important part of sustainability, SEED – which stands for Social Economic Environmental Design – tries to incorporate these other factors in addition to environmental and energy concerns. Instead of basing the system off of a point system like LEED, SEED qualitative and quantitative measures are context-dependent, but are developed around their five core principles and mission statement. Their philosophy is that a bottom-up, context-dependent measure is a more effective way of evaluating projects rather than “a numerical measurement based on a top-down pre-determined set of rules.”

The question is: Will companies start to turn to SEED now rather than LEED? The subjectivity of the context-dependent evaluation may make it difficult to create an even playing field for all projects. Also, keeping up with all of SEED’s 5 principles may be harder than it looks. However, I feel optimistic about SEED certifications, as their website seednetwork.org links to many promising case studies, one of which is in the Bay Area! Seeing the SEED principles in action makes me feel positive about these new standards for sustainability.

Happy sustainable living!
- Emily

Cut your daily water usage by 1,213 gallons!

So if you’ve been keeping up with my posts about water use and how you can cut down, you may be thinking “This is great
and all, but are there any small things I can change in my daily life to help cut down on my water usage?” The answer is YES!

Check out this short video by GOOD.is that gives you a few tips of what you could do throughout the day. In the end you could be left with 1,213 gallons of water saved. As the conclusion of the video says, image how much we could save in a year!

Pardee & KSDG: Teaming up for Sustainability Part 3

Here’s the third and final part of Scott Pardee’s discussion of how KSDG and Pardee Construction are reaching economically feasible and sustainably conscious solutions to housing! Read about the other six factors in Parts I and II.

7. Roof Gardens - These innovative gardens are becoming very popular among sustainability-minded households. We have blogged about rooftop gardens on the KSDG blog in the past, and have raved about their environmental benefits. Not only can these gardens be done inexpensively, but they are also drought tolerant and weather resistant when sedum is used as the main garden component. Additionally the plant requires very few resources, so it is an economically viable rooftop garden option.

8. Pervious Paving - Pervious concrete and drivable surfaces offer sustainable options for transportation and parking. Pervious concrete prevents water pollution by allowing water to seep directly through the surface and into the earth below. Drivable surfaces, such as grass parking spaces, also create sustainable spaces with function use for our modern technologies.

9. Breathable Walls  - Using natural materials to create breathable walls allows for effective heating and cooling systems in sustainably conscious housing. Breathable systems also decrease mold accumulation, allowing for healthier living situations.

Pardee & KSDG: Teaming up for Sustainability Part 2

Here’s the second installment of Scott Pardee’s presentation on how Pardee Construction and KSDG and working towards their 3 main goals of sustainabilty. Read about the first three factors and what the goals are in Part I.

4. Adobe Walls - These walls are made from natural building materials, including sand, clay, water, and a supplementary organic material. The durability and thermal conductivity of the material makes adobe walls a natural construction alternative. Similar to rammed earth construction, adobe walls can be used to create effective passive solar structures. These building materials are also attractive because they are local and natural.

5. Joint Tape  –  This adhesion material allows dry wall to be reused, and also offers a tax deduction in Tulsa.

6. Closed Cell Foam - An insulation material that is the most efficient product on the market! Is also can come as a soy-based product, making it a green and natural building material that is also economically productive.

Pardee & KSDG: Teaming up for Sustainability Part 1

Pardee Construction and KSDG are teaming up to work together and achieve 3 goals in sustainability:

1. Highest possible energy efficiency for housing
2. Demonstrate to the local community that sustainable choices can be made based solely on economics
3. Net Zero — for emissions and energy

How? Scott Pardee of Pardee Construction recently presented to Tulsa, Oklahoma’s city planning department just that. In his presentation, Scott highlights some of the choices Pardee Construction and KSDG have been making in order to achieve these goals. Here are the the first 3 of 9 factors Scott highlighted in his presentation:

1. Radiant Barrier - These barriers, made of highly reflective material and installed in attics, re-emit radiant heat rather than absorbing it. As a result, cooling costs are lowered in the summer. An efficient radiant barrier is marked by low emissivity and high reflectivity.

2. Rammed Earth - A building model borrowed from ancient times, rammed earth is a wall construction method that uses the Earth’s raw materials. This method is attractive for sustainability reasons because of the locality of the materials. Since the necessary building elements are often proximal, it takes less energy and resources to get them to the necessary building location. The density, thickness, and thermal conductivity of rammed earth walls also has sustainable benefits and make them a suitable material for passive solar heating.

3. Inter Company Development - This includes community activities like on-site organic gardening and encouraging people to bike or walk to work. A lifestyle of sustainability is a necessary couple to sustainable design!

The Passive House: Part 3

This New York Times graphic does an excellent job of showing the intricate components of Passive House design. Just by looking at this image, one can see the many details that go into passive structure planning. But the benefits of this meticulous design are immense – these designs go beyond just being “zero energy” and completely eliminate the need for energy producing systems completely. The shift towards these passive, efficient, and simplified green systems are what make passive house design an attractive new model for creating sustainable homes.

The Passive House: Part 2

Making the “passive” standard work.

The way that Passive House structures come to be is through meticulous planning during the design process. Instead of being able to retrofit and improve older structure, Passive House buildings require a multitude of considerations. One quality of these “passive” structures is that they are airtight and super-insulated. This is necessary in order to reach low-leak goals. Thick walls and an abundance of insulation help achieve this standard. While typical American homes usually have walls that are 6 inches thick, passive structures can be as many as three times as thick.

Another design consideration that is very important for passive house structures is consideration of where the sun is located in relation to the building. Accounting for maximal window and facade exposure to the southern sun is optimal in order to retain as much heat as possible. According to the Passive House Institute’s “Passive House Checklist,” accounting for a “southernly orientation” of +/- 30° and large south-facing window areas is an important part of determining a prime location for passive house construction.

While the passive house standards decrease energy demand for heating significantly, some space heating systems may be required. Minimizing the impact of these augmentative systems is ideal. For example, one passive house structure in Vermont used a wood burning stove and electric radiant floors to ensure a comfortable home and prevention of plumbing problems.

More Information:
Passive House Checklist
“Can We Build in a Brighter Shade of Green?”