Inhabitat reports that Steve Jobs has recently unveiled some rather unique plans for a new Apple campus. Jobs presented the plans at the Cupertino, California city council meeting, revealing designs for a “new clean energy spaceship-shaped campus.”

The design should allow Apple to fit more employees on their current plot of land, while also creating 350% more green space. The facility will have its own low-emissions power plant, and will only use grid power in case of a brownout. Parking will be located under the structure, and the company has hired an arborist to help select indigenous plants to add to the greenspace.

This is a really unique project, so it will be interesting to see more as the facility is constructed, assuming of course that the Cupertino city council approves the plans! Take a look at some images of the facility, below.

If you are interested in sustainable design and are looking for a world-class architecture firm to help you create a home that combines green convictions with personal style, contact our Colorado firm, Trilogy Partners, specializing in custom home design and construction.

images via Inhabitat

Cities are now home to a majority of the world’s population and are on the front line in the battle against climate change.  While action at the federal level in the U.S. has been painfully slow, cities in the U.S. are starting to lead by example at a local level. Cities must take an active role in helping their constituents (starting with themselves of course) to mitigate their impact on climate change as well as begin investing in appropriate climate change adaptation solutions.

I felt that it was time to do some analysis on U.S. Cities which are positioning themselves to be leaders in climate capitalism. I have used proxies and a methodology for ranking the largest cities in the U.S. based on a range of factors including political commitment (as measured by number of commitments the city has made with the U.S. Mayors, Carbon War Room Cities Challenge, Clinton 40, and ICLEI membership), green buildings (LEED buildings per capita), university leadership (AASHE membership/capita), transit access and use (range of metrics on heavy and light rail usage per capita), clean tech investment (venture funds based in city with clean tech investments in 2010) and energy and GHG emissions (from a range of sources)*.

The Top 10 Metropolitan Climate-Ready Cities in the U.S. are:

10.) Chicago

My recent rankings of low-carbon politicians was in part a tribute to the recently retired former mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley.  Under his leadership Chicago made major strides in becoming probably the greenest metropolitan city in the Midwest.  Chicago now boasts more than 300 miles of bikeways, 7 million square feet of green roofs and currently has more green hotels than any city in the U.S. (13).

9.) San Jose
This may be among the most surprising cities to make the Top 10 as San Jose is not known (yet) for its leadership in climate protection.  However, in 2007, the San Jose city council approved a Green Vision which seeks to “transform San Jose into the world center of Clean Technology innovation” and to demonstrate that the goals of economic growth, environmental stewardship and fiscal responsibility are inextricably linked.”  It didn’t hurt San Jose in my rankings that I counted the number of clean tech funds in each city that invested in 2010. Of course being near the epicenter of Silicon Valley San Jose ranked #1 in our list in this category.  Also you gotta love cities that take the bold step of setting big hairy audacious goals and transparently track their performance against them.

7.) Philadelphia (tie with New York)
Like San Jose, Philadelphia has taken the appropriate step to develop, track and transparently report its sustainability performance against forward looking targets.  Greenworks Philadelphia established 15 sustainability targets including energy, buildings, GHG reductions, waste, transit and agriculture among others.  Along with Seattle and New York, Philadelphia was listed by Fast Company, as a leading city in the U.S. for its aggressive GHG reduction targets.

7.) New York (tie with Philadelphia)
Conservative Mayor Bloomberg is a strong advocate for climate leadership and, once again, advocating setting targets and tracking performance. In a recent Clinton 40 Climate meeting, Mayor Bloomberg noted: “If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.”  New York of course is the envy of most cities in the U.S. when it comes to accessibility and use of rail transit (ranking #1 on transit/capita in this study). It is also the most dense city in North America.

6.) San Diego
Another West Coast city less commonly ranked amongst the top 10 on these lists, San Diego has been making great strides in transitioning to a low-carbon economy.  San Diego intends to take advantage of its great climate and abundant sun by adding 50 megawatts of renewable energy by 2013 (much of it being new solar capacity) while achieving a 50 megawatt reduction in energy use through efficiency and demand side management measures.  San Diego also has a 3-line, 82 kilometers light rail trolley system which has 90,000 daily trips.

5.) Denver
One of the U.S. cities I have had the pleasure to live in, Denver Colorado is famous for its mountain views and big skies.  Denver has made great strides over the past 10 years towards becoming a recognized U.S. leader in the transition to a low carbon economy.  In 2009, former Denver Mayor Hickenlooper was awarded the US Mayor’s Climate Protection Award for Denver’s Fast Track light rail program.  According to a city press release, Denver’s Fast Track “is the most ambitious transit initiative in U.S. history… building 119 miles of new light rail” within just a few years.  Along with strong sustainability objectives, Denver is projecting a 37% increase in job growth by 2030, showing that the low carbon economy is alive and well.

4.) Washington, DC
While our federal law makers and senior political leadership based in Washington have seriously underachieved with respect to progress towards the low-carbon economy, the City, or District I should say, has earned this top 5 position.  Staying on the topic of public transit, DC residents are the 2^nd most active users of rail transit in the U.S. and the 3^rd highest per capita (behind New York and San Francisco).  The D.C. government has committed to reduce its emissions 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 (over 2006 levels), has passed a strong green building code, is 2^nd in the country in green roofs (behind Chicago) and is 3^rd in the nation in purchase of renewable power.

3.) Portland (OR)
The perennial favorite in all sustainable city rankings, Portland has many admirable features that demonstrate a commitment to the low-carbon economy.  I have been to Portland dozens of times and I can’t get enough of it.  For a relatively small city, it has an impressive public transit system, several (4) universities actively committed to sustainability and an amazing number of LEED certified buildings (127).  With so much going on for them, it is no wonder Portland aims to be “the most sustainable city in the world by investing in high performance buildings and green streets, ecosystem restoration, businesses that create sustainable economic opportunities for all, green and healthy affordable housing, and social equity policies and practices.”

2.) Seattle
Seattle, another Pacific Northwest city used to being on sustainability city rankings, usually behind Portland, occupies second place in this ranking.  Former Mayor Greg Nickels actually launched the U.S. Mayors for Climate Protection (which earned Seattle an extra point in my system).  The Seattle area has 6 universities committed to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and is home to the Bainbridge Graduate Institute one of the first and best MBA programs in the world dedicated exclusively to sustainability education.  Seattle has among the most LEED certified buildings in the U.S. (132), has an active clean tech investing sector, and is home to the country’s first major utility to become carbon neutral.

1.) San Francisco
Where do I start?  I believe it all starts with political leadership and commitment. San Francisco is one of only three cities which made the final screening who are members of the U.S. Mayors for Climate Protection, Clinton 40, the Carbon War Room and ICLEI.  Like Seattle, it has a very proactive university community with 11 members of AASHE and is also home to Presidio Graduate School, another one of the first and best dedicated sustainable MBA programs in the world.  San Francisco also has the largest number of LEED certified buildings per capita in the U.S. and has an active clean tech investment community. It is home to probably the largest impact investment conference in the world, SOCAP.   San Francisco ranked in the top 3 in every category I evaluated and deserves to be crowned the “coolest” Climate-Ready City in the U.S. for 2011.

Here are the breakdowns of the ratings on each category for the top 10 cities.

In a previous post I highlighted some of the politically elected leaders, conservative and liberal, who have been taking bold measures to transition their countries and communities towards a low-carbon future.  Some of my top 10 included previous and current U.S. Mayors who are active in theU.S. Mayors for Climate Protection initiative.  This is a group of mayors which now number more than 1,000 who have committed their cities to be leaders in the “war” on climate change as my friends at the Carbon War Room would say.

What is most important about this quest is that if we refocus our efforts on the right solutions soon enough, we can mitigate the worst of climate change while actually improving our city economies and growing corporate profits.  Hunter Lovins and I recently published a book entitled Climate Capitalism to share stories of cities and companies around the world who are profiting from that transition to the low carbon economy.

Just last week, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) announced the launch of its CDP for Cities Program.  At the launch, London’s Mayor Johnson commented: “Cities are firmly at the vanguard of the global charge to deliver large scale carbon reductions and energy efficiencies. In seeking to set the pace and work together, cities have immense clout to stimulate low carbon world markets to unleash economic opportunities for their citizens.”

*No ranking is perfect and I hope to improve on this in coming years and also to do separate rankings for small and medium sized cities.  Of course it would be ideal to find or to generate standardized baseline GHG emissions for each city which hopefully the CDP for Cities will eventually generate.  Also ICLEI and the C40 just announced plans to create a city-based global standard for reporting GHG emissions which should make comparisons in the future much easier.

Please provide us comments on our rankings including suggestions for cities not ranked or new variables we should include for the next iteration.

Source: Triplepundit.com

Boyd Cohen is the CEO of CO2 IMPACT, a carbon origination company based in Vancouver, Canada and Bogota, Colombia. Boyd is also the co-author of Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change.

If you’ve ever watched “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” on television you know that most of the homes they renovate or rebuild are for families with children. And most of the children end up with “theme rooms” based on questions from the crew of designers. For instance, if a child loves outer space, then he ends up with a bed that looks like a space capsule. A little over the top for sure, but it points out the importance of choosing “one thing” around which to build a room. You probably won’t be choosing “space” for your space, but certainly you can decide on something upon which to build.

Find something, anything, that reflects the chore characteristics of the “room to be.” Obviously, if you’re decorating a library, you might start with a desk. But you might also start with your library of books… line them up and study the colors as they blend together book after book. Maybe you have a favorite pillow, or an old coffee table. Once you find that one thing. Study it. Really study it for all it’s subtleties. Let it tell you how to decorate the rest of the room.

I recently helped a friend decorate a media room. He was at a loss. Should he go dark… light, bold, bright? He didn’t just want the room for watching movies he also wanted it to be a great place to hang out. He’d been spending months just looking at sofas unable to choose a color. My friend is also a collector of movie posters. He’s planning on hanging some of those posters in the media room. I asked him to choose his favorite poster, and he chose a vintage “Gone With The Wind” poster that was a cherished gift from his father-in-law. I asked him what he liked about the poster. He liked the movie he said. But he also liked the colors… the way they blended together.  “It’s got energy,” he said. Of course, he’s right. The entire background of reds and oranges is Atlanta in flames. But if you look at how Gable and Leigh stand out… the reds and whites in her dress and the greenish whites in his shirt, you end up with a pretty neat combination of colors. I suggested he concentrate on the colors worn by the two actors first. Suddenly a light went on in my friend’s eyes. Now he’s out shopping for couches and chairs and he’s decided on a wall color. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.

Solar panels have been big in the sustainable design and building industry for quite a while now, and this previously inaccessible technology has been getting more effective and affordable with every passing year.

According to Inhabitat, a Tokyo company called Smart Solar International has just developed an impressive new solar panel that “chases” the sun! These solar panels are made of aluminum mirror bars which rotate throughout the day to face the sun and absorb the optimal amount of energy. These new solar panels use much less silicon than previous models of photovoltaic cell panels, keeping costs down.

The article quotes Takashi Tomita, the head of the company, who says, “You can get both electricity and heat from the same device,” because the panel has an overheating safeguard that channels extra warmth and uses it to heat water. This is definitely exciting news for the sustainable building industry.

If you are looking for a custom home builder in the Colorado mountain region and want to embrace sustainable design practices, contact Trilogy Partners today!

photo via Inhabitat

I got to thinking the other day about whether we’ll be building very many bookshelves in the future. Seems most of the people I know are snatching up Kindles or iPads instead of real books. What would a home be like without books, bookshelves, and a comfy chair by the fire to settle into on a rainy day? I’ve got an electronic reader myself, but you know. There’s nothing like the feel, the smell, and the just plain look of a book. I love my e-reader. But I love my bookshelves as well and I don’t think a house is quite a home without real books on display.

According to a recent article on Inhabitat, the Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman, is suing the federal government for failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn, states that the Delaware River Basin Commission, with full approval by federal agencies, proposed regulations on fracking without conducting a full review on the possible effects on the environment.

Fracking, the common term for high-volume hydraulic fracturing, uses enormous quantities of water mixed with chemicals and sand to break through the layer of shale and access natural gas deposits, and as other incidents in the past have shown, can endanger the local drinking water supply. (There are a couple of great documentaries on this subject, like 2009’s Split Estate and 2010’s Gasland.) The drinking water supply at stake in this lawsuit could affect up to 15 million people in the New York and Philadelphia areas.

Head over to Inhabitat (linked above) to read more about this important case, and visit the Denver Post to read about the impact of fracking here in Colorado.

photo via Split Estate

Yes we can afford this!

I admit it. I’m a designer for Trilogy Partners, well known for highest quality design and build, and I just spent the entire day at a nationwide home improvement discount center sourcing product for a remodel project. No, this is not a plug for Home Depot, or any of the big box home improvement centers. But in these days of belt tightening, the major home suppliers are a great place to start if you want to know the answer to the question “how much can I really get done with the money I have?” Here’s an example. I found a beige 18×18 Travertine tile for $1.99 a square foot. With the client’s rather tight budget, it seemed that we’d be restricted to the cheapest (and often nastiest looking) of the ceramic tiles for our two bathroom upgrades. Now I can tell my client, if you want stone tile, we can do that on the cheap and here are some tile patterns and designs you should consider. What else did I check out? Affordable light fixtures that look just like the ones at the specialty lighting store for hundreds less. Energy Star rated appliances that mimic those super high end stainless models. And solid bamboo wood flooring for a fraction of the cost of other solid wood products. Will I be purchasing design materials from the big box guys? Well, I may be mighty loyal to the specialty suppliers that I’ve been doing business with for years. But ultimately, the answer to that question depends on the client. Because I do know this: if you have a constrained budget and your interior designer isn’t looking at all the value options including the Lowes of the world, then no matter how creative they are, they aren’t acting in your best interest.

With more than 500 people killed by tornadoes this year, officials in Missouri and elsewhere are expecting growing interest in building codes.

Storm shelters that were common in the 1930s and 1940s are no longer part of the landscape, and fewer homes have basements.

“If anything, we’re moving away from having a place to go during a storm,” said Steve Melman of the National Association of Home Builders.

In places like Joplin, many residents are taking a second look at storm security after Sunday’s tornado.

Melody Ward, her husband and five children took cover in a 3-foot-deep crawl space. Their home was leveled, and most of them were hospitalized.

In their next home, she said, “I will do without a gourmet kitchen so I can have a basement.”

Friends and family paid tribute to victims of the Joplin tornado Friday, beginning the grim task of burying the dead as officials said the death toll had risen to 132.

Some officials say changes are in order. In Iowa, where most communities require buildings to withstand at least 90-mph winds, experts want more.

“It’s not sufficient to withstand the kinds of storms we’ve been seeing,” said David Brown, a building official for Ames, Iowa.

Source: Star-telegram.com

Congratulations to our client and dear friend, Trey Parker, on his triumphant Broadway debut as writer, director, and producer of Broadway’s newest musical hit, The Book Of Mormon. Recently nominated for 14 Tony Awards, more than any play this season, Parker joined with long time South Park co-creator Matt Stone and Avenue Q writer Robert Lopez to tell the story of two Morman missionaries who are assigned to spread the Mormon gospel in Uganda. Book of Mormon tickets have become almost impossible to come by as the public can’t seem to get enough of the guys behind the irreverent South Park Cartoon Series. We’re proud to have worked with Trey to co-create and build two of his favorite places on earth, one in Steamboat Springs (and featured in Architectural Digest), and the other on Kauai. We always knew that South Park was just the tip of the iceberg, because not only is Trey an incredible writer and satirist, he’s also a brilliant designer with a truly classic and timeless sense of taste. We look forward to joining forces with Trey again soon.

Home builders that have embraced social media in hopes of growing their business have seen great results in the last year. Social Media for Home Builders 2.0: It’s Easier Than You Think, by Carol Flammer, delves deep into the benefits that home builders have seen using social media as a marketing tool. By increasing your visibility online and expanding your audience through Facebook and Twitter, builders are successfully growing their business organically.

The book explains how to use social media platforms such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to get new clients in this difficult market.  For over a year we have invested time and energy on our blog, Facebook and Twitter account. We want our clients to have an outlet to share their experiences and we also want to be able to stay connected to our clients.