Room for Improvement: Green Certification

Interesting and highly informative article from the Wall Street Journal regarding Green Buildings. It appears that the certification process that allows certain buildings to be dubbed "green" gives equal weight to features with wildly divergent prices and ecological outcomes. (Scroll to the bottom of the article for a quote from GR's own Progressive Architecture)

Under the current system, buildings get points for "green" features on the list, such as water management or use of natural sunlight. Builders get one point for installing a $350 bike rack or an electric-vehicle recharging station that few might use. They score the same one point, however, for promising to obtain 5% of the building's energy from renewable sources such as wind or solar power. To win a green seal from the council, a building needs to earn 26 from a total of 69 possible points.

Talking Trash Cans are encouraging Berliners not to litter. Oh, and they're solar powered.

Maybe Barb was onto something?

My aunt Barb recently visited Salt Lake City. I had never considered the place a haven of cutting edge innovation in the realm of urban development and planning - but perhaps I was wrong.

The Michigan Land Use Institute tells us how Mr. Grow (appropriately named) is getting things done in the name of regional, "quality growth" for the area. It sounds basically like Transit-Oriented-Design (TOD) but with sales-tax teeth.

"The region has built 19 miles of light rail transit lines, is constructing 44 miles of commuter rail, and has purchased enough rail right-of-way for a 300-mile regional transit system. Dozens of communities have rewritten their master land use plans, and several have new zoning requirements that prompt builders to construct new homes and businesses within walking distance of planned transit stops."

Ring Species make me think

Every field has situations where definite "lines" get blurry - where constants are questioned and not always upheld. One I hadn't considered much was the definition of species. While this might not surprise some biologically-oriented people it was very interesting to me. It's difficult for me to describe so please read the Wikipedia article and BBC article about it.

To some degree this cuts under stark boundaries between different animals. It shows how all life is a complex tapestry of diverse and co-existing organisms.

Four Great Links from Things

Radical Cartography is a treasure trove of fascinating maps. Click on Projects and Yummy to get to the goodies. 'A Different Atlas,' 'Art & Language,' and the 'Boy Scout Camp' are a few of my favorites (don't forget to read the descriptions on the left.

Check out both galleries on Lori Nix's page. Her scenes of imminent destruction seem almost warm and comforting because they are easily dismissed as "models."

In Place of Berlin - scroll down for some good photography and observations about Berlin.

Reused Big Boxes. Yeah, there are a bunch of mega-churches, but there's also the Spam Museum.

Also (not from Things) Building Green's 10 point plan for New Orleans. Ambitious but informative proposal.

Floating Home - Nonmobile variety

The Dutch have a way with water - everybody knows that. But I bet you didn't know they've built homes that will literally float in a flood. Yeah, they did.