The next Team Trilogy member we wanted to highlight is Melinda Fleming.  For those of you who have worked with Melinda, you know she is more than just our business manager.  She is instrumental in making sure Trilogy Partners runs smoothly and efficiently.  Read below to learn more about Melinda.

Melinda Fleming

I grew up in Oklahoma and every year my family vacationed in Colorado. I fell in love with Colorado and the mountains on these vacations. My husband and I moved to Colorado in 1998. I spent the first years in Summit County working for Vail Resorts and an internet company before joining Trilogy Partners in 2004.

My husband and I have a hot air balloon and we spend our spare time sharing the sport of hot air ballooning with friends. We enjoy being able to view the Rocky Mountains from our balloon, the best view in town. We also enjoy snowmobiling and snowshoeing in the winter. These are great ways to experience the back country and truly enjoy nature at its finest.

I love my job and I feel privileged to work with the team of people that makes up Trilogy Partners. The thing I enjoy the most about my job is working with our clients through the entire project. It is very fulfilling to be a part of the team that takes the designs and ideas of clients and turns them into a home. It is great to be a part of taking people’s dreams and visions and turning them into reality.

Breckenridge is now the place that I call home. I hope in five years that I am still here enjoying the lifestyle the county has to offer and I still want to be a part of the great team here at Trilogy Partners.

We recently read an article on Residential Design & Build Magazine about the growing need for custom built second homes.  RBD magazine has found that  builders are still “creating high-end vacation retreats designed with a family-friendly emphasis, and with budgets that often rival those of their owner’s primary residences.”   With second homes, buyers are are looking to build a home complete will all the amenities of their primary residence, but with a more casual look and feel.

Residential Design and Build also stated in their article that “Creating these comfortable, laid-back homes can be a deceptively stressful experience.  First, from a planning standpoint, the lots often are challenging… the high demand for access to water and views means building sites can be both expensive and narrow, so architects have to be creative to make the most of the scenery while also protecting privacy.

Also, in many cases designers and builders are working with either clients or design professionals from other states. This forces the team to create — and stick to — communication plans. It also can require educating both clients and remote building team members about local codes and practices that may differ from what they’re used to.”

That is why when building your second or vacation home, it is important to find a firm who will work closely with you on all aspects of the project.  At Trilogy Partners we partner with our clients to guide projects from concept through construction to completion.

We were recently featured in Architectural Digest for our design work on Trey Parker’s (creator of South Park) home.  Architectural Digest is known for their featured stories on the inside of celebrity homes and below are photos from AD’s Celebrities’ Favorites.

AD: “Orange is the happiest color,” Frank Sinatra said of his favorite hue, which showed up in his clothes and his homes. Sinatra bought a modest house at the Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage in the mid-1950s and lived there until May 1995. A caboose, a gift from some of his employees in 1971, became the compound’s main hangout. Inside the caboose—with it’s orange-colored walls and ceiling—was a full-service salon, complete with a barber’s chair, a professional hair dryer, a massage table, a scale and a sauna, at rear.

AD: The living room of Diane Keaton’s Spanish Colonial Revival house in Bel-Air reveals the actress’s enthusiasm and knowledge of California art and design. Canyon de Chelly, a work by Edgar Payne, left, joins a 1937 oil by Pete Martinez, center, and Maynard Dixon’s 1923 The Grim Wall. A hand-painted Monterey sofa and an art-tile table rest on a rug by Stephen Shadley, Keaton’s longtime friend and designer. Of Monterey furniture, Shadley observes, “Diane has the best collection anywhere.”

AD: Throughout her life, Marilyn Monroe occupied a series of residences, owned no jewelry and counted books, records and a picture of legendary actress Eleonora Duse among her most cherished possessions. Even after attention-getting roles in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve (both 1950), she still kept a modest, one-room apartment at the Beverly Carlton Hotel in Beverly Hills. “I’m not interested in money,” she once said. “I just want to be wonderful.”

AD: “I love the warmth of reds and yellows,” Woody Allen told designer Stephen Shadley, who created the interiors for the Manhattan townhouse Allen shares with his wife, Soon-Yi Previn. The second-floor landing (above) is richly decorated with a marble mantelpiece and a pair of plush red velvet armchairs.

Which is your favorite celebrity home?

At Trilogy, we not only believe strongly in sustainable or green building practices, but we lead by example and encourage our clients to embrace these philosophies.  This year we built the first Zero Net Energy home every constructed in Breckenridge, Colorado and are excited to see other architects doing the same across the country.

Project FROG, a green-building company founded in San Francisco in 2006, is leading the way by building energy-efficient modular systems, primarily in schools.  The best part is that Project FROG can build these schools more quickly and with a cost of about 25% less than permanent structured schools.

According to Inhabitots.com, “A two million dollar budget got Watkinson School 3,500 square feet of classroom space built from 50 percent recycled material. The building is outfitted with 60 solar panels that reduce the electricity costs to zero (in fact it produces more energy than the building uses). And because of the modular design, the project took only six months to complete.”

Project FROG was recently featured on Anderson Cooper’s 360.  Click here take a look at this short clip and see why Zero Net Energy is leading the way.

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) is going on now in NYC, and we have the latest products to hit the scene!  One of our favorite sites Inhabitat.com calls this event “the epicenter of New York Design Week” and we couldn’t agree more.  It looks like energy-efficient lighting and turning recycled materials into furnishings is still big for 2010.  Check out some of the trends coming out of the show so far from Inhabitat.com.

BRC Design has turned 350 retired Las Vegas playing cards into one unique lounge chair.  Available in Blue and Red playing cards.

We just love these chandeliers!!  We can’t believe they are made from draped ball chain.

How about Manuel Kloker’s “Private Cloud” rocking bed?  Talk about rocking one to sleep.

Trilogy uses a team approach on each project. We rely on long standing relationships with our design and build partners to bring about the best results for our clients. And we rely on a very talented and hardworking Trilogy crew to supervise design, construction, and interior design with outstanding results.  That being said we thought we would have each member of our team answer a few questions so you can get to know them a little bit better.

Michael Rath

1. Year Joined Trilogy: 1998
2. Position: Managing Partner
3. Education: Williams College
4. Other work Experience: Financial Markets, Independent Film Making in New York
5. Favorite Things: Happy Clients, unique projects and creativity, Colorado when it’s warm and Hawaii when it isn’t
6. Best Trilogy Moment: Finishing our first house and selling it the next day. WE WERE IN BUSINESS.
7. The worst thing about working here is: Working outside when the weather is cold, and paperwork
8. The best thing I’ve learned is: Think outside the box. Always. Create, don’t repeat.
9. Where do you want to be in 5 years: Here, there, and everywhere designing great homes, working with amazing clients, finding just the right piece of furniture in a market in Bali.
10. Most notable memory while at Trilogy:There have been so many. Not long ago I was driving across the Mojave desert from California pulling a Uhaul full of very expensive Japanese furniture for one of our clients. We could not find a shipper who could deliver in time to move the clients into their new home by Christmas, so not only had I purchased the furniture, I was delivering it.The phone rang and it was Melinda, our operations manager. She had called to tell me that Trilogy had won Summit County Builder of the Year. I thanked her for calling and went back to driving. It would have been nice to have been at the awards ceremony, but it was also great to be getting the furniture back to Colorado.

    Suddenly there was a car behind me honking its horn. Lights flashed and the car pulled up along side me. I was going about 80 miles an hour as the passenger rolled down his window and shouted something at me. I couldn’t hear, and he shouted again. He pointed back and suddenly it dawned on me. I quickly pulled over and ran to the back of the trailer. Yes, the door somehow had come wide open. But somehow, not one stick of furniture was lost.

    That was a good day.

We also wanted to mention that Michael is co-founder of  Haiti Orphan Rescue Project and was recently in Haiti where he is helping to build sustainable children’s communities.  Click  here to learn more on how you can help the Haiti Orphan Rescue Project.

The Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver is the first and only LEED certified capital building in the country, and the first ever to receive a LEED Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance certification.  Read the below excerpt from Inhabitat.com and see their behind the scenes look into our State Capitol.

“The HVAC systems are a mixture of new boilers and chillers, old radiators and ducts, and retrocommissioning. One example of energy savings is how, by taking advantage of the thermal mass, engineers can flush excess heat that the building gained throughout the day out at night.”
Inhabitat next showed us the “the attic of the Capitol where an elegant series of skylights flood the two main halls. From below an etched glass ceiling hides a second glass roof protecting the first.”
“From the top level of the gold-leafed dome, you can just make out the 10Kw solar panel array on the roof below. These SMA Solar Power Inverters convert that energy to the building’s electrical grid. This is a relatively small array but is as symbolic as it is practical.”

“Electrical lighting upgrades took a great deal of research to find just the right CFL lightbulbs to replace the incandescent bulbs while still maintaining the historic ambiance. Nothing is taken for granted when preserving the building’s character.”

“Ornate brass elements lace the interior, and are cleaned with a non solvent based green cleaning product required for LEED certification. In the end the cleaner cost no more than what they’d been using before.”

“The Colorado State Capitol is the first and only LEED certified capitol in the country, and the first building ever to get the LEED EB O&M certification. It earned 41 points out of the 44 that were submitted.”

Click here to read the full article on Inhabitat.com.  Trilogy Partners not only believes strongly in sustainable or green building and building practices, we lead by example and we encourage our clients to embrace these philosophies. Trilogy designs and builds some of the most energy efficient homes in the country. Our sustainable construction technologies are at the forefront of the industry, and we are constantly breaking new ground in combining excellence in architecture with energy efficiency.

Architectural Record is searching for an architect whose big ideas have begun with a drawing on a plain cocktail napkin.  Most of us have been there, maybe not on a cocktail napkin, but perhaps with a sketch sheet of paper laying around.  See below for the rules on how to enter Architectural Record’s Cocktail Napkin Sketch contest.

If you are a practicing architect in the United States (or trained as one), you can enter this remarkable contest. All you need is a white cocktail napkin and a pen to demonstrate that the art of the sketch is still alive. The winning submission will be published in the August 2010 issue of architectural record and online.  In addition, the winner will receive a box of cocktail napkins with the winning sketch printed on them!) Contest runners-up will be included in the online Cocktail Napkin Sketch Gallery. Judges for this contest are architectural record editors. All materials must be postmark no later than Monday, June 21, 2010

Create a sketch on a 5-inch-by-5-inch white paper cocktail napkin.

• Please use ink or ballpoint pen.

• Include the registration form below.

• Send all submissions in one envelope to:

Cocktail Napkin

Sketch Contest

Architectural Record

Two Penn Plaza,

9th Floor

New York, NY

10121-2298

• Sketches are to be drawn specifically for this competition.

• You may submit up to 6 cocktail napkin sketches, but each one should be numbered on the back.

• No digital entries and no digital files are accepted!

• No entries will be returned.

• The architect maintains the copyright for the drawing.

May the best napkin win!

Marc Kristal’s new book Re:Crafted: Interpretations of Craft in Contemporary Architecture and Interiors features 25 architectural projects that challenge the traditional view of craft.  Kristal is the contributing editor of Dwell and has written for Metropolis, the New York Times, Architectural Digest, Elle Décor as well as numerous of other publications.  When describing his latest book, Random House states that “this volume looks at what constitutes the craft influence in contemporary architecture and design. By turns luxurious and simple; time-honored and leading-edge; small-scale and monumental; unabashedly beautiful, surprisingly witty, socially adroit, and sublimely poetic, these projects are sure to give us a new appreciation of the pleasures of making—and enlarge and enrich our understanding of the presence, and importance, of craft in all our lives.”

Fastcompany.com lets us take a look at some of these projects featured in Kristal’s book.

Orchard East- Chicago, IL
Wheeler Kearns Architects

Fastcompany.com states that, “Architect Dan Wheeler’s firm created a structure whose second floor is nearly windowless, but instead look inward into transparent light courts that are open to the sky and the elements. The first floor is just the opposite–it’s enclosed in glass, which can be opened almost entirely to the garden outside.”

Ini Ani Coffee Shop- New York, New York
Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis

We love how this coffee shop in Manhattan’s Lower East Side designed their space using 479 plaster casts of coffee cup lids and two-inch-wide strips of cardboard.

Central Park West Apartment- New York, New York
Architecture Research Office

Last but not least, these fiberboard panels easily breaks up the room allowing its occupants to make the most of the space.

Volcanoes have been nothing but a hassle for the last several weeks.  The Eyjafjallajokull volcano caused mayor problems for Europe with the canceling of more than 100,000 flights costing the airlines over $2 billions.  This past weekend Iceland’s main international airport was closed for three days due to the erupting volcano.

Indonesia is looking to turn the negative effect volcanoes have into a positive one.  According to Inhabitant.com, the Indonesian government recently announced plans to generate 4,000 megawatts of geothermal energy from volcanoes by the year 2014.  This could potentially offer power to 35% of Indonesia’s population who are currently without electricity.

Inhabitant.com states that, “Indonesia is really the perfect place to develop large-scale geothermal projects: the archipelago’s 17,000 islands hold hundreds of volcanoes, and all that heat could be converted to renewable electricity. But while the country holds about 40 percent of the world’s geothermal energy potential, it currently lags behind countries like the US and the Philippines in developing the technology.

Geothermal’s main limiting factor is its high upfront cost. Geothermal plants cost about twice as much as coal-fired power plants, and establishing enough plants to add 4,000 megawatts of energy will cost about $12 billion. Still, if developers can raise the dough, producing electricity from geothermal energy has lower overhead costs and causes far less pollution than coal plants.

Leaders plan to seek the funds to develop more geothermal plants from private investors, the World Bank, the US and Japan.”

Wikipedia.org writes that, “Geothermal wells release greenhouse gases trapped deep within the earth, but these emissions are much lower per energy unit than those of fossil fuels. As a result, geothermal power has the potential to help mitigate global warming if widely deployed in place of fossil fuels.”