Once teeming with bountiful salmon and fertile plains, Seattle’s Duwamish River drew both Native peoples and settlers to its shores over centuries for trading, transport, and sustenance. Unfortunately, the very utility of the river was its undoing, as decades of dumping led to the river being declared a Superfund cleanup site. Much of Washington’s history…
The top 50 architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) firms, and other key professionals responsible for well over one trillion dollars of global annual construction have rallied around establishing building sector emissions targets to meet the Paris Agreement. The embodied carbon emissions of construction products represent a significant portion of emissions and unlike operational carbon emissions these…
We have dual climate and affordable housing emergencies bearing down on us as a community and a world. In order to be truly sustainable, our communities must make note of the equitable access to clean, green, affordable housing. Our communities in Redmond and Kirkland are 100% LEED Platinum certified, and yet close to three quarters…
The C Street Co-op packs a punch: Affordable Housing at 60% AMI? Check. Affordable homeownership? Check. Permanently affordable homeownership? Check. Net Zero Energy? Neighborhood walkability? And all this with about 10% of the subsidy required by typical affordable housing apartment buildings? Check, check, and check. Recently completed in Springfield, Oregon, the C Street Co-op has…
Emissions arising from manufacturing building materials for North American homes add around 65 million metric tonnes of GHGs every year. And the drive to improve energy efficiency in homes may push these emissions even higher. Understanding the impacts of material carbon emissions (MCEs) is critical for all of us in the homebuilding industry. Fortunately, homebuilders…
Well before the current housing crisis, creative developers and grassroots communities were busy advancing a broad movement. Largely inspired to create housing, also moved to establish a profound sense of place, this movement has become so broad and deep that no single person or group can say that know most of what is going on.…
Climate change, wildfires, excessive heat and a life-threatening pandemic - life as we have known it, no longer exists. Many people from all walks of life and who live in existing housing can no longer escape to their 'castle'. What can be done to provide healthy housing with clean, cool and affordable indoor air to…
The benefits of electrifying your home are numerous: improved health from reducing air pollution inside your home, increased comfort from using heat pump heating and cooling, and lowering your impact on climate and the environment by reducing emissions. The process of electrifying your home can start with a deep retrofit including insulation and energy efficiency…
The focus of this session is on best practices for developing a strategic energy plan that is centered on equitable outcomes, while promoting community energy resilience. Learn more about recent tribal energy resilience, microgrid, and strategic planning projects, while gaining technical resources for implementing in your community. Navigate existing frameworks, technologies, grant funding resources, and…
When a Bainbridge Island client approached her about working on the home they were building to reflect their lifelong passion for art and environmental sustainability, Hoda Sheikh, founder and owner of Lotus landscapes & Arboriculture, took up the challenge of creating a landscape and outdoor living space that could live up to the legacy. Where…
Significant amounts of usable wood are going to landfills and being burned in our region. (300,000 tons of clean wood go to waste in King County, alone, each year.) Additionally, there is inconsistent availability of reclaimed and sustainably-harvested (FSC) wood for the construction industry to incorporate into buildings. Meanwhile, due to climate change, lumber prices…
This is a story about a family’s determination to effect a cleaner future by building a certified passive house – a giant collection of the very big and very small choices that many owners, architects, and builders made this year, this week, today. From the owners’ perspective, the arrival of their daughter brought them greater…