Saying that green building is both smart and affordable, interior design architect Lynne Bryan Phipps is on a mission to bring “spirit and soul” to her building projects, both commercial and residential, so that they not only serve their purpose, but also enhance the experiences of the people who occupy them.

While the energy crisis of the 1970s played a key role in turning modern-day architects to sustainability and energy-efficient designs, the roots of green building go back more than a century, according to Donald Watson, a professor, author and founder of EarthRise design. Watson spoke about “100 Years of Engagement of Architecture and Nature” during a noontime seminar at CCSE held Nov. 10.

New lighting standards boost energy efficiency

Although still expensive compared to incandescent lighting, light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, have come a long way since their widespread introduction as digital clock lights and energy-saving Christmas lighting. Today, LEDs are rapidly approaching price parity with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) to become the lighting of choice for energy efficiency in many commercial and residential settings, according to Anne Thorson, owner of EnvironmentalLights.com, a web-based LED retailer.

Architect designs modular housing with sustainable, eco-design

When architect Michelle Kaufmann and her husband Kevin Cullen, a general contractor, looked into purchasing their first home in the San Francisco area, they weren’t happy with what they found. Many of the features they wanted – natural lighting, cross ventilation, open spaces, natural materials, energy efficiency – just weren’t available at a price they could afford. So they decided to build their own home, not setting out to be green, but ending up creating a modular structure that has since become a model for sustainable prefabricated homes.

Passive design concepts achieve energy efficiency

When designing new commercial construction or remodeling an existing building, you can achieve tremendous energy savings by employing relatively simple technologies integrated into the building envelope. Speaking at a recent workshop at CCSE, architect Greg Sharp of Covina, Calif., explained how a building’s exterior can passively promote sustainability by controlling energy losses and gains.

Join us for a free workshop in architecture and ecological design with Mitchell Joachim, Ph.D.

Mitchell Joachim is a leader in ecological design and urbanism and co-founder at Planetary ONE and Terreform ONE. He is an Associate Professor at NYU and has also won the Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity, History Channel and Time Magazine Best Invention of 2007 with MIT Smart Cities Car. Mitchell earned a Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MAUD Harvard University, M.Arch. Columbia University, and BPS SUNY at Buffalo with Honors.

Learning from and emulating ecosystem engineering

By creating homes, businesses, communities and nations, we humans have encroached on the landscape with all manner of buildings and other developments that have changed nature. What if instead we incorporated nature into the things we build? That’s the basic idea behind biomimicry – to design and build more sustainable structures that borrow from nature by emulating how it has already solved many of the problems we face.

California first in adopting new energy savings

A new federal law will start saving consumers money by improving the energy efficiency standard for incandescent light bulbs sold in California this month.