Sweet Orange

Yesterday, I wrote about the prefab green home in Newport Beach that developer LivingHomes put up in about four hours. The first home of this type that LivingHomes installed is in Santa Monica and is the home of  Steve Glenn, the CEO of LivingHomes, (To see additional prefab green homes that LivingHomes has built, see the LivingHomes website.)

In addition to being the first home of this type that Living Homes built, the Santa Monica prefab is the first residential building in the U.S. to receive the LEED Platinum rating.* The Newport Beach home mentioned previously as well as homes in Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa are competing for this title in Orange County.

You can view the Santa Monica home in two ways: You can take a tour of the Santa Monica house every Friday from 1-2 pm and the 4th Saturday of each month. Tickets are free and can be reserved through eventbrite.com. Or you can take a virtual tour.

This energy efficient and ecologically built residence will demonstrate how homeowners can conserve energy and dollars by adopting and
utilizing green building products and services. It will feature an unparalleled display of energy-saving systems and environmentally friendly materials in a fully operational residence.–Living Green Homes Construction and Development, Inc. on its newly built Huntington Beach home

Saving money and energy. Sounds like a good combination for our economically-strapped times, or any time for that matter. Developer Living Green Homes is attempting to prove a way to do this with its newly built Huntington Beach home that they are seeking a GreenPoint Rated designation from Built It Green as well as the LEED Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The 3213 square-foot, three-story, single-family home has three bedrooms, three full bathrooms and two half bathrooms. It is located in downtown Huntington Beach at 319 21st Street.

If you want to tour this new green home, you can attend today’s grand opening from 1:30 to 4:30. The grand opening will include speakers as well as food and drink from local restaurants. These include 118 Degrees Restaurant, which is located in Costa Mesa, as well as  Andrei’s Conscious Cuisine and Portola Handcrafted Coffee Roasters, which are both located in Irvine.

If you can’t make the grand opening, tours will available in the coming months. During the tours, the sponsors will provide product demonstrations for environmentally friendly building products, appliances, hardware, and services. Eventually, this home will go on the market.

Note: A YouTube video that provides more background on this project is available. Also, thanks to Evan Little of Surtterre Properties for the tweet that informed me of this event.

Related post: “Going for the Green–and Platinum–in Orange County: The Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach”

The green building market is estimated to be worth $30-$40 billion annually by the year 2010. By 2010, approximately 10% of commercial construction starts are projected to be green. According to a 2006 McGraw-Hill Smart Market report, every business day, $464 million worth of construction registers with LEED.–Wikipedia

“The new 8,500-square-foot facility was designed to achieve the highest level of ‘green’ building certification by the U.S. Green Building Council - LEED Platinum Certification. …Guests learn how to implement sustainable features in their own homes and businesses.”–The Environmental Nature Center (ENC), Newport, CA

As the opening quote shows, green building has economic benefits as well as environmental benefits. Here is another statement showing the economic benefits:

LPA estimates that the facility’s sustainable elements will save ENC [The Environmental Nature Center] ~$20,000 per year.–Jetson Green

The predominant system that is used for rating the “greenness” of a development is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Like all systems, it has its drawbacks and is evolving to address those drawbacks. Here is an overview:

LEED is a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to ensure that the design, construction, and maintenance requirements result in buildings with some level of sustainability. The current LEED system has four possible levels that a project can attain. These levels, from lowest to highest, are Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. To determine which level a project will receive, points are given for each sustainable feature that fits into one of five categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality

For example, some of the characteristics that contributed to the Nature Center receiving the highest LEED rating, Platinum, are as follows: The building was designed and constructed in a way that that allows for daily operations that uses less resources than is the current standard. These include the ability to use natural ventilation, less water, and a reduced amount of energy by including solar and wind energy components. In addition, during construction renewable and recycled materials were used, and the building was constructed in a way that reduces light pollution.

For a list of Orange County projects with various LEED ratings, go to the USGBC-Orange County site.

You might have heard of sustainable design or green building development, but what exactly that means might be vague to you. A general answer is the following: Sustainable design uses certain construction practices, construction and design products, and design principles to solve development problems. And it uses these practices, products and principles in a way that uses features of the natural environment as an advantage. In contrast, most builders currently use practices, products and design principles that attempt to overcome the natural environment. In addition, sustainable design uses existing material when possible and does not use toxic materials.

Here are some more details on these green building fundamentals:

Use the features of a building site to achieve a desired result. For example, when conventional building practices are used, the location of the sun is ignored when deciding on which direction to orient a building. Sustainable design practices use a different approach. When sustainable design practices are used, the building is situated in a way that takes advantage of the heating or cooling that the location of the sun can provide. Conventional building practices force the home or building owners to rely heavily on costly, high-energy-consumption, mechanical systems to heat or cool a building.

Another example of using the features of a building site to achieve a desired result is using materials from the site as much as possible. The Nueva Hillside Learning Complex, which built sun screens, benches, and decks from the Cypress trees that were cut down to clear the building site, illustrates this point.

View the building site as a system and link that system to other systems. Another way of saying this is close the loop. The output or waste from one system is used as the input to another system. Or the output from one part of a system is used as an input to another part of the same system. For example, waste water can be captured and then reused in other ways, such as watering landscapes.

Recycle as much as possible. This might include finding new uses for construction waste but, in some cases, could include finding new uses for existing buildings instead of tearing down these buildings.

When possible, share the same building or site among multiple organizations. Of course, this is geared toward commercial and school buildings rather than residential buildings.

That is it for the Reader’s Digest definition of sustainable design. Of course, much more detail is possible. But this will do for an introduction.