GreenClips.213 04.09.03 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT EMBRACES VAST TERRAIN OF WASTE Julie Bargmann, landscape architect and associate professor at the University of Virginia, seeks out landscapes of immense beauty and design potential: derelict mines, toxic dumps, rank landfills, and most recently, Superfund sites. Bargmann is perhaps best known for Testing the Waters, a former coal mine in Vintondale, Pennsylvania, that she turned into a park by creating a series of basins and spillways that filter acid mine drainage and illustrate the process to visitors. Bargmann's design studio, D.I.R.T., is a collaborative venture founded in 1992 and responsible for the reuse of such industrial sites as Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams; Ravenswood Quarry Winery in Sonoma; and Turtle Creek Water Works in Dallas. Last summer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hired D.I.R.T. and E2, an environmental consulting group, to scout 14 Superfund sites in 11 states for the EPA's pilot Superfund Redevelopment Initiative remediation program. Instead of "the old contain it, fence it, walk away," Bargmann and E2 will work with local communities to plan the sites' next use. Bargmann's projects will be collected in the upcoming book, "Toxic Beauty: A Field Guide to Derelict Terrain" (Princeton Architectural Press). [More: http://www.e2inc.com/bios.html ] Metropolis, May 2003, p 109, by Melissa Milgrom. ECO-CONSCIOUS HOLLYWOOD COUPLE MAKES OVER THEIR WEEKEND HOME A retractable roof is one of dozens of energy-efficient contrivances in the oceanfront home north of Santa Barbara, California, that TV star Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her husband, Brad Hall, finished remodeling in November. In addition to the motorized sunroof, or "thermal chimney," which exhausts hot air naturally, the up-to-the-minute green design includes rooftop solar electric panels that generate electricity; solar thermal panels that heat the house and a chemical-free hot tub; and wall-to-wall windows with "heat mirror" treatments for insulation. The couple commissioned David Hertz, whose Santa Monica architecture firm, Syndesis, is known for green design, to renovate the house. The couple and their two sons use the house, originally a small two-story 1930's bungalow, for weekend retreats from their main home in Los Angeles. "Let's face it," Mr. Hall said. "Having a second home is itself an appalling excess, so we figured if we're going to do it, we better be as environmentally responsible as we can." Tropical hardwoods from sustainable forests were selected for their warmth and durability: mahogany from Guatemala for cabinets, doors and window frames ($3.85 a board foot), Brazilian ipe for decks and a kitchen island ($4.90 a square foot), and Northern California cedar for exterior paneling ($2.40 a square foot). The flooring is bamboo ($10 a square foot). Mr. Hertz estimated that the renovation cost 10 to 15 percent more than it would have without any green features. The New York Times, 10 Apr 2003, by Amanda Griscom. GEORGIA BILL AIMS TO REDUCE CONSTRUCTION-RELATED EROSION Legislation currently working its way through Georgia's General Assembly session could do much for cleaning up the state's rivers and streams. HB 285, known as the erosion and sedimentation bill, sets up a two-tiered fee system to help state and local governments pay for training builders and inspecting construction sites. The goal: Keep as much dirt on the project site as possible. The bill talks about the "widespread failure" of construction crews to properly install and maintain erosion controls such as silt fences, hay bales and retention ponds. The result is polluted streams and rivers. The bill has widespread support from builders, local and state governments, and environmentalists. It passed the House 166-3, and got a favorable review from the Senate Natural Resources and the Environment committee. The bill would require developers to pay $80 per disturbed acre where the state runs erosion-control programs and $40 an acre in cities and counties that operate their own programs. With the new revenues, estimated at about $5.5 million a year, the state would hire inspectors and train builders, developers, general contractors, site planners and reviewers. And mandatory stop-work orders would replace mandatory fines for violators. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7 Apr 2003, by Stacy Shelton. NONPROFIT GROUP FINDS VALUABLE USES FOR SALVAGED URBAN TREES Each day, thousands of trees from the urban forest are removed to make way for development. Most of these trees are chopped into pieces and sent to the landfill as solid waste. To address this, Marcus von Skepsgardh launched PAL's Tree Recycling Yard, a nonprofit urban tree recycling program in the San Francisco Bay Area. Locally, the PAL's program provides a source for recycled and salvaged wood products to the public, while nationally it offers a prototype of a workable urban tree recycling operation that can be used as a model for other cities and counties. The products that come from the salvaged urban trees include decorative lumber, flooring, decking, and three-inch thick slab countertops, bar tops and tabletops. PAL mills lumber onsite at its tree yard located in the former Oakland Army Base. In addition to milling lumber from salvaged urban wood, the tree recycling program custom-builds indoor and outdoor furniture such as benches and tables. And it offers a tree pick-up service to removed felled, limbed trees locally. More: http://www.recycletrees.org BioCycle, Mar 2003, p 59, by J.K. Fairchild. ARUP ZIMBABWE WINS AWARD FOR LOW-ENERGY VENTILATION DESIGN Arup Zimbabwe has won the innovation category of the Worldaware business awards for their Vawtex -- vertical axis wind turbine extractor, which uses wind energy rather than electricity to power building ventilation and add to convection effects. Conventional horizontal wind turbines like a traditional windmill are usually sited in open countryside and cannot cope with changing wind conditions caused by buildings in cities. The Vawtex takes advantage of the wind's lifting effect (which takes aircraft off the ground), allowing the device to rotate three times faster than it would if pushed by wind speed alone. It will operate in wind speeds of less than three miles an hour, but is designed to operate less and less efficiently as wind speeds become dangerously high. The first installation was at the Harare International School by architects Pearce Partnership. Eight Vawtexes are being installed at the Centre for Sustainable Construction in Belgium. While the Vawtex is intended for city use, vertical axis turbines can also pump water or mill grain in rural areas. One called a Savonius can be built out of oil drums. The Arup team is working on a rural turbine more efficient than the oil-drum design but cheaper and simpler than the Vawtex. Architectural Review, Mar 2003, p 24, and Worldaware website. [More: http://www.worldaware.org.uk/awards/awards2002/ovearup.html, or email mike.rainbow@arup.com] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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