July 9, 2009
· Filed under General Green 2.0, Live Green 2.0, Transportation
I must say that I’ve never liked a city as much as I liked Portland. It really felt like a place that i could live, granted I wasn’t there for 6 cloudy/rainy months either. The ethos of the city though is very much in line w/ mine. The bike cultural, the voluntary adoption of mass transit, the sustainable building practices, the artisan like community, the hybrid cars out the ying/yang, the dual flush toilets in many of the commercial buildings, the urban growth boundary, locally sourced foods, etc. etc.
A few specific examples of what I saw:
LEED certification – There were so many buildings that were LEED certified that it made no sense to take pics of them all. I read in this NYC report that Portland had 63 LEED certified buildings. The Ikea we went to was LEED certified, so was the REI, our hotel and even a winery we visited.
Ikea of Portland
Sokol Blosser winery’s solar panels. They were also the first LEED certified winery in the nation.
Locally sourced food was available/promoted at all of the restaurants (it was a foodie town). Even Burgerville, which I initially laughed at, uses sustainable locally produced food. I mean, have you ever seen a burger chain’s website with wind power, bicyclers and kayaker’s on it??
Though Burgerville was a chain, it was a local enterprise. This theme was very prevalent in Portland and they appeared to be very supportive of their independent businesses. Another example of this is the downtown Portland food campers. These are groups of 10 campers on a single parking lot selling really good food for a decent price. (see pic below)
lastly and not least is that Portland favorite non-microbrew beer appears to be PBR. A city after my own heart. I never drank one though, because with over 50 microbrews in town, why drink something I can get from my local store for less than $.50/can.
We’ll miss you Portland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
July 3, 2009
· Filed under General Green 2.0, Transportation
While in Portland for the first time recently, I learned how infused biking is into their culture. It’s a phenomenon that any city would be envious of, especially when combined w/ their public transit system.
For our Portland bicycle education we went with Todd owner of Pedal Bike Tours just northwest of downtown. He offers a range of tours from brewery and coffee cycle tours to old neighborhood and green tours. We opted for the ‘historic hoods’ tour because we were interested in portland’s old neighborhoods. We rode around for 3 hours and Todd explained each neighborhood and pointed out all of the unique bicycle friendly features. Throughout the whole tour i was completely amazed by how friendly, tolerant, whatever you want to call it, that the drivers were.
If you follow biking or bicycle advocacy seriously, none of this is new to you. Portland actually obtained Platinum status last year from the League of American Cyclists last year for being the largest bike friendly metro in the U.S.
Needless to say, they have alot of things going for them here that we can’t pull off in St Louis. Nice weather, hippy culture, better mass transit to tie in w/ biking and nice weather. Even with all of that, there are still things we can do in St Louis it make biking for common. Just need to figure out what that is.
Thanks for the ideas Portland.
May 4, 2009
· Filed under Design, Green Rehab, Reuse · Tagged barn door, cement board, james hardie, Reuse, siding
Our bedroom has a huge opening which looks out through sliding glass doors at our upstairs patio and onto the backyard. This also means that the neighbors behind us can see into our bedroom
The opening also lets a ton of light in in the morning and this is annoying to us who need it dark to sleep. None of this was a surprise and a barn door was always in the plans.
What the barn door would be made of was always a question. We talked about colored MDF or Maple FSC plywood. Both nice options, but we were budget conscious and a little concerned about introducing another wood species which might clash with our white oak floors.
The idea came to me as i walked around the house trying to organize the piles of excess building materials. One pile consisted of left-over siding from our rain-screen. Another was a pile of rigid insulation. And obviously, i have a lot of 2×4’s left-over.
So with all of this, i made a frame w/ the 2×4’s, stuck the rigid insulation inside and sandwiched it with the left-over James Hardie cement board lap siding. (see below and don’t mind messy bed)
The door is pretty heavy because of the cement board, but rolls really easily with the barn door hardware from Hardware and Tools.com.
We totally love the door and the ability to open the bedroom to bright sunlight or close it off for a nice, dark cave.
March 18, 2009
· Filed under Design, Landscaping, St Louis, The hood
Back in 2002-03 (can’t remember), I was a big fan of the old architecture in St Louis and still am. My neighborhood, which is the same one I’m back in today, was full of brick shotgun homes, 2 families and a street of bungalows. I was really proud of living in an area with such original architecture that when this house was built several blocks away, I was appalled.
Like any new home on a lot in an old neighborhood, it looked out of place. Just by the fact it was a new structure on an empty lot, it looked odd. Add to the fact that it was a crazy looking, modern home and folks in the hood (including myself) thought it was a real mistake. Not sure how much grief the guy took or if he even cared, but I heard about it frequently and saw ppl on the neighborhood chat board mentioning it.
So 5-6yrs later what do i think of the house?
Firstly, I’ve realized that it takes some time for a new house to fit in. The trees must grow back, the landscaping takes place, the weathering of materials, etc.
Secondly, the owner did a decent job w/ the landscaping that really helped to fill around the large white mass. The thin and see thru wooden fence also does well to tie the modern structure to more natural surroundings.
Lastly, I’ve come to appreciate a mixture of design styles within a modern urban setting. I personally chose to be a bit more discrete and not disrupt the curb appeal of my street, but I don’t think that option was here for this house. So if you’re going to go new, then challenge the current preconceptions of new homes and that’s what this guy did.
Only thing I know (or I’ve been told) about the owner is that he’s an architecture teacher at Washington University, here in St Louis.
March 12, 2009
· Filed under Landscaping, Live Green 2.0 · Tagged books, Landscaping
The back yard is a post construction disaster and now it’s time to do something. Not only does it look horrible, but my dog is treating it like a mud wrestling pit and I’m sick of bathing her after every outing. The short-term solution has been to throw down a bunch of straw until i can come up with the master plan. Like with the front yard, we’ll focus on drought resistant and native plants, plus try to reuse any rock, brick or wood that we can. The idea would be to use my rain barrel to collect water from the gutter and have that be the only source of watering the backyard. Still on a serious budget though, so it’ll have to be a balance.
Resources:
I looked online briefly, but then immediately turned to my local library. Picked up 2 books:
Modern Garden Design, by Thames and Hudson – partway through the book. Takes a nice historical perspective and ties in alot of the thinking of the well known modern architects. Enjoying this book thus far, though the pictures are a bit lacking for generating ideas.
Making the Modern Garden , by Christopher Bradley-Hole – This one had nice pictures, but lacked in historical substance i was kind of looking for. Much of the focus of the book is on the author’s own landscape architecture work.
Let me know if you have any good online resources that aren’t for the uber-wealthy.
March 4, 2009
· Filed under Live Green 2.0 · Tagged smartcar
Was driving to the library on Saturday (cause it was way to cold to walk and hadn’t started the car in 3 weeks) when I saw with amazement a brand new smart car parked on the side. I did a double take and went back around the block (one way street) to take a pic.
It was in fact a smartcar, as confirmed by checking their website, which shows all three of their completely identical models. Presumably purchased from the St Louis dealership, though I didn’t know there was a St Louis dealership til now. And upon searching I found this comment on NY Times blog where this guy has apparently been a SmartCar wholesaler in St Louis for the past 2 years. (you can be a SmartCar wholesaler? wonder how that’s working in this economy)
Now maybe its because I don’t get out on the road much, but you’d think with going to Earth Day, green home conventions, green open houses and living in a fairly progressive part of town I would have seen this sooner. Just happy to see that even in St Louis where gas is about as cheap as it gets, folks are willing to think outside the box.
