Since loads of us love Christmas trees and all things that bring Christmas cheer, here’s a way to indulge in your tree without killing it (strange tradition we’ve had all these years, eh?) The city of San Francisco has launched a program offering live local trees that you can take into your home. Then after the holiday cheer has run its course the tree lives on where it belongs — in the ground! Better yet, these non-traditional trees have been specifically selected to live in San Francisco’s climate, so your tree is sure to thrive long after it’s christening.

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Recently we took the trip to Oakland, CA to visit a Habitat for Humanity East Bay Project of particular interest for its pairing of energy-efficient homes with families in need of housing. What was once a deemed by the EPA and the Department of Toxic Substances as a blighted property due to its history as a battery salvage yard has become a sunny neighborhood haven for children to play and families to grow together. It was no small feat remediating some 300,000 cubic yards of soil and bringing in clean fill, but with buildable real estate and housing scarce, the effort is sure to improve more than just the site itself as happy families move into homes that they have taken part in building.

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The 2009 Solar Decathlon may have come to a close, but we wanted to shine a little more light on one of our favorite projects, Virginia Tech’s LUMENHAUS. Ranked 4th in this year’s Architecture category, the LUMENHAUS is named for its “power of light” attributes and architectural references to the BauHaus movement, and was particularly inspired by Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House. Like its historic reference, it is comprised of all glass walls, maximizing exposure to natural daylight. The house features an automated “Eclipse System” of highly insulated translucent panels that filters the light using independent sliding layers, creating an ever-changing pattern throughout the day.

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One of the most exciting new products we found at West Coast Green this past weekend is the latest innovation by Lemnis Lighting, the Pharox 60 LED Dimmable Lightbulb, that uses just 6 Watts and has the equivalent luminescence of the traditional 60 Watt incandescent bulb. The Pharox 60 fits a standard sized household light fixture, is made of recyclable material, and is the most energy efficient bulb of comparable light quality on the market today with a light output of 300 lumens and a warm white light of 3000K. A patented heat sink keeps the bulb temperature low (we think it’s the aluminum housing surround) and it is the most environmentally safe option on the market as well, containing NO lead, mercury, or wolfram, unlike it’s compact fluorescent competitors.

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One of our favorite projects from last weekend’s AIA Homes Tours was the Randall House in Glen Park, by LSarc design team. The site, typical of San Francisco contours, slopes nearly four stories from front to back making the rear lower floors a challenge to daylight. The architects did a stunning job of working with this difficult site while reusing existing construction materials, incorporating FSC certified timber, and creating a healthy interior environment through the use of sustainable materials.

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One trend we noticed in this year’s AIA Homes Tours in San Francisco was how the frugal use of floor space and an abundance of natural light can add volume to otherwise downsized floor plans. Boor Bridges Architects managed to do just this in the adaptive re-use of a 1940s tap dancing studio, formerly used by famed dancer Betty Mae, into a kind of urban luxury cottage marked by modern minimalism and subtle hints of years past.

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This week the Architecture + The City Festival took us to Treasure Island for an upclose view of the proposed sustainable development plan and a not so shabby panoramic view of the whole San Francisco Bay Area. We found that the entire place is steeped in future plans and the island is a keystone in what will become a center for green living in the Bay.

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Our inhabitat founder and editor-in-chief, Jill Fehrenbacher, grew up in the small, sleepy Northern California town of Novato – so you can imagine how excited she was when we heard that a solar-powered eco event was coming to Novato! Jill unfortunately couldn’t make the solar-powered Novato Art & Wine Festival (as she’s busy running Inhabitat from NYC these days), but sent a certain green-building buff (yours truly) to attend and report back on the state of suburban greening! With the high-density greening of international cities and our constant focus on what’s new in design and construction, we’re curious about what’s going on in the ‘burbs, and so we took a moment to check out the 25th Annual Novato Art, Music and Wine Festival on June 13th. Pacific Gas & Electric helped sponsor this year’s event with Sustainable Waves, which amp’d up the festivities via a solar powered sound system.

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Let’s be clear – paving a surface does not reduce storm water run-off, but if you must create a street, parking lot, driveway, or any other form of this detriment, an apples-to-apples comparison between pervious concrete and asphalt paving will show many exciting benefits from this innovative form of paving. First of all, those little air pockets mean less material overall, and with the cost of oil as unstable as the resource itself, petroleum-based asphalt is no longer the cheapest form of paving. For the first time in history, the cost of concrete and asphalt have reached comparable dollar values. Add in the cost of additional storm water management devices – grids of piping directed towards drains and retention ponds, and suddenly permeable concrete starts making a lot more sense. Then there is the environmental cost of leaching toxic chemicals, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) used as a sealcoat on asphalt, into what should be nature’s flow of water back to the ground table.

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It’s often hard to appreciate the novelties of paper with the ever-present impacts of global deforestation looming overhead, but one reputable company, New Leaf Paper, helps simmer our conscious frets with their consistent creations of new paper products from eco-friendly sources. New Leaf’s latest paper product, the Farm Fiber Collection is made of 100% recycled fiber of banana or palm tree harvest byproduct with a minimum of 35% post-consumer product, all chlorine free, all premium grades. Why let thousands of tons of agricultural fiber go to waste when each ton of agricultural fiber used saves an estimated 17 trees?

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One of the debut brands at last week’s Greener by Design Conference in San Francisco was a company called Ditto Hangers, co-founded by industrial designer Gary Barker, also co-founder of Greenheart Global, Inc. It may seem trite to focus a brand on something as rudimentary as the everyday hanger, but that’s precisely why this kind of ‘re-thinking design’ is so pertinent. An estimated 8 billion polystyrene and polycarbonate hangers clog our landfills every year, and as Gary Barker points out, that’s enough to fill the Empire State Building 4.6 times!

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photo credit: Mark Adams, AIGA
Last week, the 2009 Compostmodern Conference was presented by the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and AIGA Center for Sustainable Design (CFSD). The groundbreaking event brought together design luminaries from around the world to address issues of ecology, business, and social responsibility. Here are a few highlights from the eight uber-talented guest speakers, including design tips from the movers and shakers in design today.

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This week Inhabitat managing editor Mike Chino and writer Piper Kujac attended the Fourth Annual Gorgeous & Green Party to celebrate the extraordinary efforts of the Global Green Organization. Truth be told, we were also in search of the perfect green cocktail and believe we successfully carried out that task as well (it’s the Acai-infused VeeV ‘honey lips’ mixer!). The usual place- fanciful, LEED Certified Bently Reserve in San Francisco, graced a star-studded crowd including actress Kate Bosworth, actor Jason Lewis, architect William McDonough, and so many more.

This Holiday Season you can save a tree (and a box) with a fun, enviro-friendly Cardboard Christmas Tree! With Christmas quickly approaching, many of us would like to engage in the holiday cheer without the use-once-and-toss-in-the-street traditional Christmas tree, and this simple centerpiece may be just the alternative you were looking for.

Some of the AIA San Francisco Home Tours took us to parts of this city by the bay that are changing so rapidly, they are barely recognizable. The much-anticipated residential development, Arterra High-Rise, is one such spanking new project. The building is in what is part of a larger, 300-acre development known as Mission Bay. This part of San Francisco, along the south waterfront is built almost entirely on fill and represents the residual economic effects of the late 1990s ‘dot-com boom’, much like the mid 1880s gold rush led to the rapid development of what is now the Financial District in San Francisco.

photo courtesy of David Baker + Partners Architects

During the past weekend’s AIA Home Tours, one of our favorite residences was a rehabilitated Edwardian home on Shotwell Street designed by Jane Martin of Shift Design Studio and architect, David Baker. If you know the Mission District in San Francisco, you know that Shotwell is a vibrant, ‘gritty’, and sometimes harsh street that has seen everything from street gangs to the up and coming ODC Dance Studios recently built next door. This residence takes in all of this ambiance, exhibiting both the evolution of a place and the passion of its inhabitant.

photo by Melanie McGraw for the American Institute of Architects

A flurry of architectural enthusiasm took over San Francisco last weekend as the AIA Home Tours shifted into full gear, exhibiting an incredible set of sustainable homes. Even the tour headquarters, located within the new office of Matarozzi Pelsinger Builders Inc., was a stunning adaptive reuse project that showcased a variety of sustainable building strategies. Designed by Aidlin Darling Design, the adaptive reuse project revitalizes a previously derelict turn-of-the-century industrial building while salvaging 75% of the structure’s original materials.

Photo by Alexis Mansinne of Dwell Magazine

This year the American Institute of Architects in San Francisco kicked off the AIA Home Tours with an excellent architect’s forum held at the new, cutting edge Autodesk Design Center at One Market. The Autodesk Gallery provided a highly interactive venue, featuring some of our favorite international, award winning projects designed with Autodesk software. In fact, walking the room feels a bit like Inhabitat’s virtual reality come true, as many of the innovative designs we feature here are on display in the Gallery.

There are numerous approaches to making greener buildings- from the inside out, from the ground up, density through urban infill, integrating into the landscape, to name a few… but when an existing 133,000 sq. ft. building aims to expand to 500,000 sq. ft., covering a frightening 6 acres- you have to think BIG. That is the vision of the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Center (VCEC), as it triples in size in time to accommodate the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies is the perfect holiday gift for those of us who are interested in green building, but need a little expert help. Admittedly, the For Dummies® books are a smart start for anyone wanting to pick up a new trade or just learn the overall basics on any particular subject. With more than 150 million books in print and over 1000 topics, this new release by Eric Corey Freed of Organic Architect may be the best evidence out there that green is mainstream.

According to the Container Recycling Institute, only about 14% of all disposable water bottles are recycled. Those that make it to the recycling center become ‘down-cycled’ into a lower form of plastic and seldom become remade into other plastic bottles. As for the other 86%… Americans add 30 million PET water bottles to landfills everyday! Not only are plastic bottles wasteful, but recent studies have shown that Lexan plastic bottles (polycarbonate #7) leach harmful chemicals into the drinking fluids we ingest from them!

SIGG aluminum bottles, on the other hand, are 100% recyclable, and 100% inert, and make ideal bottles for both children and adults.

We’re suckers for the cute and cuddly, and it doesn’t get much better than these Senger and Dwelling stuffed animals and finger puppets from Branch. Hard to resist even for adults, these adorable products are personally monitored by their importer for the welfare of the artisans, ensuring fair and open trade practices and safe working conditions. The hand-knit wool ‘puppet pals’ are made by a women’s collective of knitters in rural Kenya, and the wool yarn is colored from natural vegetable-based dyes. Purchasing these handcrafted products not only brings joy to your loved ones, but helps promote a better life for the artisans and their families.

The next time you venture out for a picnic in the park, consider a greener food ware product- Eatware products come in a variety of shapes and sizes, can safely hold oils and water, be stored in the fridge, are microwave-safe, AND are 100% compostable. Eatware is made of 100% natural fibers from bamboo, sugar cane pulp, starch and water- and no chemical additives! While there are several biodegradable food container companies on the market, some potato starch based; some corn starch based, Eatware is among the most durable and safe- decomposable in the compost and dispersed in water in just two weeks.

The designer behind the One Laptop Per Child Project, Yves Behar is truly a world-class designer, balancing aesthetics, function, and socially-based initiatives. Founder and principal designer of FuseProject, he also happens to be the Chair of the Industrial Design Department at San Francisco’s California College of the Arts. Recently, he facilitated a design studio in which Industrial Design students partnered with South Korean cell phone manufacturer Pantech to design new cell-phone models, taking on the future of mobile communications and addressing the idea of emotional networking. I had a chance to speak to Yves about the studio, sustainability, and more…

While grandmother’s doilies may be an anachronism in modern homes today, the UNBLOSSOM salt crystal crocheted bowls represent a very current trend- that is the re-inventing of products from past crafts for modern-day uses. The-Home-Project crystallized doily bowls breathe new life into a lost craft and are anything but nostalgic. Not that we don’t love the handiwork of thousands of needle loops, but the more visually engaging three-dimensional version is easier to appreciate when sustainably recycled into a piece that fits with the new decor.

Q: I’m a regular reader and make my living as a furniture designer/builder. I confess I’m in love with bamboo – I use it as often as I can and would love to spout to every client about it’s sustainability, renewability and ecologically friendly properties but there is one thing that bothers me about this product. It seems perfect in every way except for the fact that it was brought to me via a massive trans oceanic co2 belching container ship. Do I just suck it up and say “it’s a step in the right direction” or is there some other way to get around the co2 issue?

-Chris, Victoria, BC

A: The perfect scenario for any designer is to walk to work and have all the materials you need healthily and restoratively growing right next to your shop. But for the rest of us- we have to develop a value system for selecting the most appropriate materials and resources with which to work. You are off to a great start by asking the right questions, such as- is a material recycle-able, renewable, non-toxic, and/or enjoyable to use??

This morning we featured Korban/Flaubert’s stunning LED-powered Weblight, and figured such innovation and eye-catching aesthetics warrant a bit more information. Lucky for us, the art/lighting duo will be showing an array of their work at the Art+Industry Gallery in Palm Springs, where we also discovered Johanna Grawunder’s Innovative Lighting during the Dwell on Design conference last December. The exhibition, titled “Growth Patterns,” opens next week, February 15th, and with an intriguing mix of geometric and organic forms, the work does not disappoint. This will be Korban/Flaubert’s first solo show in the US.

It is rare to find materials that rapidly restore themselves and provide extensive aesthetic range in their simplest, purest state. The Woven Company picked up on this idea nearly 25 years ago, when they first began using reeds, bamboos, grasses, woods, and palms to create window treatments with such a variety of patterns and textures that choosing one for a space is like choosing a work of art.

One of the highlights of this weekend’s Dwell On Design conference was Johanna Grawunder’s Saturday lecture and DesertGlow exhibition at the Art + Industry Gallery in downtown Palm Springs. While at first glance, many of her architectural and lighting projects look distinctly modern and not overtly green, her rhetoric poses new ways of creating design solutions with regards to efficiency, modernism and sustainability. Grawunder’s fabulously modern light fixtures are simple enough to mass produce at low cost, and energy efficient enough (most are fluorescent tubing) to question their rather high-end price point. Her work poses the question: Why shouldn’t high-end design be energy efficient?… and why shouldn’t energy efficient design be incredible, sophisticated, and art-worthy?

I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
— Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

You may remember Dr. Seuss’ legendary tree-protector and earth-lover, the Lorax. Five years ago, Mike Kerwin, Pat Loughran, and Joel Micucci founded Lorax Development with a Seussian mission “to build environmentally responsible homes with renewable materials, energy efficient systems, and smart technologies.” Today, they are doing just that.

When societies undergo jarring events, fresh cultural expression emerges. For example, in a post-9/11 climate, our heightened awareness of security – both personal and national – has redefined the way we draw boundaries and deal with fear.

For the MOMA’s recent exhibition, SAFE: Design Takes on Risk, French born designer Philippe Million created this galvanized steel utility barrier to be a little more inviting than the standard variety; it may prevent passage, but it also offers a place to rest.
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When we think of greenhouse gas emissions, most of us envision a tailpipe spewing exhaust out of the back of a car. But 40% of the carbon dioxide that contributes to our warming planet comes from buildings. While some of that is a secondary effect of operational needs such as electricity, A/C, and heating, many GHG’s arise from resource extraction, manufacturing and production of the building materials themselves.

Of all the criteria covered by LEED-H and our own GreenBuilding 101 series, MATERIALS and RESOURCES has perhaps the broadest application and relevance. They are the ingredients, and choosing them wisely makes all the difference in terms of the overall impact of the building throughout its life. This is where ‘environmental footprint’ or ‘life cycle assessment’ come into play; as we learn in Cradle to Cradle design basics, the materials are in the picture from the first round of planning to the final stages of demolition or renovation.

Today’s series walks you through choosing ingredients wisely, being sure that the materials you select, and the resources it took to produce them, are a part of the whole picture of a sustainable home.
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Last week, San Francisco’s Knoll Furniture Gallery opened its doors to reveal the first ever LEED Certified Showroom. Why go through the trouble of LEED certification if your product is furniture, you might ask? It’s all part of the ‘doing good by being good’ incentive that so many corporations, including many non-profits, are adopting in recent years. The Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and the NRDC, to name a few, all have LEED Certified Headquarters. Knoll, not exactly a non-profit, shows they care about more than just about the tactile materiality of their designer pieces, but of the overall environment in which they inhabit… now if only those Frank Gehry woven maple chairs came in cost competitive FSC-certified wood…