Sustainability
Community Strategies for Sustainable Development
As a participant on the BSA’s Committee for the Advancement of Sustainability, I wanted to share some information about a free forum on June 19th. The committee promotes a sustainable agenda beyond the immediate focus of architectural practice, and engages other organizations in a dialogue that promotes sustainable principles. This year our task has been to organize a forum which will focus on empowering municipalities across Massachusetts to develop sustainable strategies for buildings, infrastructure, and planning…
Governor Forum on Energy, the Environment and the Innovation Economy
On March 23rd, I attended the Governor Forum on Energy, the Environment and the Innovation Economy at Faneuil Hall. The forum set the stage for Massachusetts Gubernatorial candidates to provide their position on sustainability topics affecting the Commonwealth as well as discusses opportunities to elevate sustainability goals…
Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE)
This week, I attended a symposium about Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing. PACE is a way for property owners to fund energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. The Massachusetts program is also looking at funding for resiliency measures. Secretary Richard Sullivan’s opening remarks reiterated the Governor’s commitment to a sustainable energy future in Massachusetts…
Greenbuild 2013
Last November I headed to Philadelphia to attend Greenbuild 2013, an annual conference dedicated to the green building movement. Attendees share ideas, learn from industry experts, and develop new ideas to advance this movement. The 10th annual conference was attended by almost 25,000 practitioners, manufacturers, contractors, government officials, citizens, students, and more.
Edward Mazria gave a presentation I particularly enjoyed. Mazria is the founder of Architecture 2030, an organization focusing on buildings, the largest consumers of energy in the world, to address and reverse climate change. The 2030 Challenge sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions…
101 Main Achieves LEED Silver Certification
I’m happy to announce that the new regional offices we designed for BioMed Realty at 101 Main Street received LEED Silver Certification. The office is open, collaborative, and crisply detailed; multiple breakout and “huddle” spaces encourage impromptu discussions and collaboration. We’re proud of the project, and doubly proud of the green design choices (green power, enhanced commissioning, and low-emitting materials, to…
Mount Equinox
I took a vacation last year to a site with no easy way in or out: Mount Equinox‘s Skyline Drive holds the record for the longest paved private road at 5.2 miles. While it’s not open year round, the drive is a pretty amazing vantage for views of most of New England and the Adirondacks. It’s a pretty crazy drive, full…
Shades of Green
What do you do when your grocery business generates 55,000 tons of food waste every year – the leftovers from the store aisles that aren’t either sold or donated? If you’re Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the U.S., you build an anaerobic digester to convert all that food to usable energy.
Rails and Trails
For the past seven years, I’ve lived with my family in a small house that abuts a long abandoned spur of railroad tracks in Somerville, MA. The tracks have had a colorful history, as they used to serve a factory that manufactured paper products, construction supplies, and root beer at various points in its history. We’ve also heard stories from former residents that circus trains used to park on the tracks overnight before their trips into Boston. So lions, tigers, and elephants may have been transient residents of our backyard…
Windmills
I recently came back from upstate NY and got a chance to revisit my extended family’s windmills. My sister-in-law’s family scaled back their farming over ten years ago and now rent out part of their land for seven windmills. Most of the land around the windmills is still in rotation, so it’s a relatively fluid and symbiotic relationship…
LEED Goes Shopping
Our LEED Certification portfolio is full of retail projects, but one retail building type has been elusive: the mall in-line store. That is, until this year. With a project on the boards now (sorry, confidential), we have worked out a path to the LEED plaque. Getting LEED certification for a retail store in a mall setting can be difficult. If…