25 November 2007

Standardization, Modeling, and Tract Housing as it relates to a Sense of Place


After spending the weekend in Orlando, FL (land of Mickey Mouse and other destination Theme Parks) next to Lake Eola and Thornton Park in downtown I grew a greater appreciation for neighborhoods near urban cores. While decrying Orlando's sprawl, tourist attractions, and overall lack of identity (well, other than tourist trap), for years I experienced first hand the success of a city that is dedicated to green spaces, and, as I found this weekend, a sense of place.

The area of Thornton Park was found from an older Washington Post article calling it, in the article's title, "anything but mousy." I read on. What I found, on "paper," was a place with some walkable characterstics; it's restaurants, coffee shops, local hang outs, shopping, and other neighborhood hair dressers, laundromats, and B&B's. I wanted to discover more, and with a semi-planned trip to "meet in the middle"(she in Jacksonville and I in Tampa) with my girlfriend it seemed like a perfect place to meet. I must say that it lived up to the article in the Post.

What didn't live up to it's hype is Sembler's The Grove at Winter Garden Village. While the development is a great exercise in the new outdoor mall it really adds little to the community other than more cars, less connectivity, and a lack a sense of "place." Sembler focuses on big-box anchored developments (Lowe's, Best Buy, Target in this case) with "mixed-use" elements to give it a better cover.

My problem with this project has less to do with the actual project itself, and more to do with the tract housing and sprawl that surrounds it. Orlando is a booming city, no doubt, but what surrounds this attempt at creating a "city center" (city being Winter Garden-just outside of Orlando) where all that surrounds is the same thing regurgitated 3 different ways for at least a mile all the way around. Our lives are being made standard, where each family lives in a suburb with a similar sized and looking home, drives the same type of car, wears the same clothes, and watches the same television night in and night out. Why not put these people in the same neutral colored box and force them to deal with this new open air mall that they can only drive to (there was no connectivity from each pocket neighborhood to "The Grove")?

We need to encourage diversity, creativity, and our differences. We need to create places that inspire people to take part in their community, try new things, think outside of the box, and take ownership for their surroundings.

15 November 2007

REAL building Press



St. Petersburg Times Neighborhood Times From 11/14/07:

By Paul Swider
As his environmentally sustainable home nears completion, Darren Brinkley is considering growing business for REAL Building, the consulting company he created to help people go green.

"It'll start to snowball once people start to become aware," he said of requests for environmental products and services. "People will almost start demanding it."

Brinkley came to the concept in just that way. The graphic designer moved to the area five years ago from London and wanted to build his own home. The more he learned about how to build the home he wanted, the more he realized that the home would be healthy, energy efficient and environmentally sound. So he decided instead of merely being a consumer in the green marketplace, he'd be a provider.

Standing in the nearly completed kitchen of a home he built with business partner Taylor Ralph at 216 84th Ave. NE, Brinkley said: "I wanted something different."

Different it is. The nearly 2,000-square-foot home sits over the remnants of a 700-square-foot block home that was on the lot when Brinkley bought it a year ago.

Brinkley didn't want to tear down the old house and add to a landfill when the old building was still viable. Instead, he turned the original home into a garage and supported the new above it from 24 wooden pillars. It gets greener from there.

The new home is built from insulated panels but is a sealed unit with no leaks, Ralph said. It is designed with windows to capture winter sun yet overhangs to fend off summer heat. Large doors open onto front and rear decks to create a breeze when temperatures allow.

"A lot of green building goes back to basics," Brinkley said. "You start thinking efficiency and you start building the way houses used to be."

The home also has a rainwater collection system with a 1,000-gallon cistern attached to an irrigation system. Toilets are dual-flush and low-flow, with a stated goal of using 30 percent less water.

Features do get high-tech. Ceiling fans are of a special design from the Florida Solar Energy Center. And the heating-cooling system comes from the ground up through a geothermal heat pump that uses 1,200 feet of buried piping to regulate indoor temperature and also produce hot water.

"Our initial estimates are that utility costs will be about $100 a month," Ralph said, "which is pretty crazy for a house this size."

The house has three bedrooms and two baths, but there's a large loft above the kitchen that could become a master suite. Brinkley plans to use that as REAL's office while he lives in the model home.

There are nonenergy green features, too, like the obligatory bamboo floors, but also a birch ceiling sliced from logs rotisserie style to prevent wasted wood. All finishes, from paints to stains, are soy-based and give off no volatile compounds.

"The health aspect is more important than the energy efficiency," Brinkley said.

The green flows freely in spending, though. After paying $155,000 for the original home, Brinkley said, the new one has cost about $150 per square foot. Add 25 percent to that to account for the labor he and Ralph put into it.

"Being green doesn't have to cost any more," he said. "There are thousands of things you can do to improve the health and efficiency of your house, and not all of them cost thousands of dollars."

Those suggestions are the real aim of the business, not building homes, he said. While REAL is bidding on a Tampa townhome project and talking to contractors and developers about others, Brinkley really wants to be a consultant to those who want to be green but don't know how. There is a demand also, he said, for guidance away from faux-green products.

The two men say in the eight months they've been building the home, they've fielded questions from passers-by. Most are impressed with the normalcy of the home.

"There's a preconception about green buildings that they have clay walls and grass roofs," said Brinkley, who designed the model. "It doesn't have to be like that. It can look like any other house on the street."

Blog Updates

I have been using this as a tool for other online activity; posting pictures, adding links and video, etc. My plan is to start writing an entry every 2 weeks. If I write more great, but bi-monthly will be the goal!

Where the Forest Was

Where the Forest Was
by Trevor Garrod

Let it be known, I've seen her in the rock face.
Let it be known, I've seen her in the sky.
I wanna show you by the liberated light of the moon,
How love dies.

Let it be known, I'm crooked as a creek bed.
I'm slower than a midwest summer cloud.
The summer's drying out drier than a desert at noon.
I'll be dead by the end of June.

Chorus:
But, my last breath is rushing like a river.
My last thought is working like the mill.
But, my legs have been chopped down like lumber,
and, where the forest was, the desert sand blows in.
Where the forest was the desert sand blows in.

Blessed are the birds that taught us singing.
Blessed are the fishes of the deep,
and all of the love that we will never get the chance to share.
Oh, my love, beware.

repeat chorus x2