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.”

At Trilogy Partners we like to finish what we started and that includes adding the finishing touches to your custom built home.   To help us turn your house into a home we have on staff our own interior designers extraordinaire, Michael Rath and Carolyn Gash. They design interiors that are warm, inviting and practical.  Recently designer Michael Rath was featured in Architectural Digest for his work on creator of South Park, Trey Parker’s home.  Click here to read the article.

Below are some samples of our work.

For more information on Trilogy Partners you can visit our website here or call us at 970-453-2230.

According to Jane F. Kolleeny with Architectural Record, this years Record Houses had to meet the following criteria to be considered: simplicity, modesty, and sustainability.   The below seven beat out more than the 250 houses that were submitted.  Read the below excerpt from Architectural Record’s Record Houses 2010:

Mount Fuji Architects’ Tree House in Tokyo, which transforms the traditional Japanese timber-frame house, takes the form of a tree.

While less emphatically radical, Qingyun Ma’s Well Hall in rural China is an up-to-date interpretation of the courtyard house, designed for extended families, employing local materials, workers, and methods.

Rough stone mined from Lake Champlain clads the ends of the barnlike forms of Rick Joy’s house in Woodstock, Vermont, making the walls appear old, while details like windows that turn into skylights and a roof without eaves reveal a contemporary hand.

In another project employing stone, Dutch firm SeARCH and Swiss architect Christian Müller designed Villa Vals in Switzerland with an existing livestock barn serving as an entrance. The architects used local quartzite on the exterior and submerged the building into a hillside of its Alpine village setting.

Other featured residences pay tribute to nature. René Van Zuuk’s Project X in Almere, the Netherlands, uses prefabricated cement panels on the facade as a canvas for a branch pattern, bridging the man-made with nature.

Atelier Bow-Wow’s Mountain House in California resembles a rustic Japanese pavilion in the woods, where one goes to contemplate the landscape under changing conditions — in the sun, rain, wind, and snow.

There’s always a house that seems to break the mold — where it is difficult for the editors to find commonalities with the collection — but we can never resist the unexpected. Michael Maltzan’s Pittman Dowell Residence in L.A. surprised us, appearing to take cues from John Lautner’s Chemosphere (1960) with its circular shape, while responding to a stone-pine tree and an adjacent Neutra house (1952).

Without exception, these structures allow nature to define their character, from the modest and simple to the bold and inventive. In all cases, the houses respond to site and climate with modern and exemplary design strategies.

Which is your favorite?

We briefly touched on our Calecho home in our post “A Vacation Rental, or Your Next Home”, but we thought this beautiful home deserved a second look.  Built on the second fairway of the Breckenridge Golf Course, this home reflects the golden era of Colorado mining in a bold and glorious fashion. A vaulted, open living area features an antiqued timber frame, with antique wood clad ceilings, rejuvenated old wood floors, hand forged steel accents, granite, cut sandstone and exposed concrete floors and walls that have been stained and aged. Hand hewn beams, old gray and brown board siding, recycled ski lift cable accents, and “miner’s smear” stone work on the exterior create that look and feel of the bygone miner’s era. A mine shaft elevator serves all three floors of the home. All elements combine to form a symphony that embraces mountain history and modern mountain living.

This home uses the most advanced building technologies. Murus SIP panels form the super-insulated skin and part of the structure of the house. A hybrid heating system melds radiant heat, fresh air circulation and humidification. The result is the ultimate in comfort and economy in a dry, cold climate.

For an up close look at this unique home, please click here.

With more than 220,000 killed in the January 12^th earthquake and an estimated 2 million living in temporary shelters, Haiti’s future is being discussed at both the United Nations and in Congress.

The United Nations has estimated the total building cost around $11.5 billion and Haiti was hoping to raise around $3.9 billion to cover the initial phase at the March 31^st International Donors’ Conference towards a New Future for Haiti at the UN Headquarters.  Other nations are stepping in to help as well, President Obama is asking Congress for more than 2.8 billion to help the nation recover and The European Union has pledged some $1.6 billion for Haiti’s reconstruction.

Below are the opening remarks Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke at Haiti donors’ conference on March 31st,

As we move from emergency aid to long-term reconstruction, let us recognize that we cannot accept business as usual. What we envision, today, is wholesale national renewal … a sweeping exercise in nation-building on a scale and scope not seen in generations.

Making a difference in the lives of Haiti’s children is Trilogy Build’s own Michael Rath, who is headed to Haiti this month with HORP (Haiti Orphan Rescue Program).  Their mission is to support orphanages and build sustainable children’s communites in Haiti.  According to HORP’s website, “HORP plans to develop children’s communities to include durable housing, clinics, classrooms, gardens, and recreational space. Skills Centers and micro business development will encourage community involvement and funding. HORP volunteers in Haiti will work with local laborers.  Our skilled trades volunteers will spend as much time teaching as they do building.  Most of our contributions will go toward local purchases of building materials, supplies. Our contributors can take ownership in our program by sponsoring to build a kitchen for $400 or an entire complex for $40,000.”

Current living conditions in Haiti. HORP is hoping to repair mosquito netting before the rain sets in.

John and Dr. Mike

Please visit the HORP website if you’d like to make a difference in the lives of these children.

April is Colorado Architecture Month!

The month-long celebration of Colorado architecture and design, hosted by the American Institute of Architects (AIA Colorado), will have several free events and educational opportunities for the public.

You’ll find a list of events here.

Events and programs range from seminars on how to work with an architect to a merging of art and architecture during Architecture, Art and Appetizers. Some have sustainability in mind like the April 15 event at the University of Denver, with the theme, “Confluence: Social Responsibility > Sustainability.”

Here’s an interesting piece in the LA Times about the award-winning restoration of four Hollywood bungalows.

The homes were nearly demolished before they were restored, with housing for low-income and special-needs tenants in mind. The paper reports that original details include built-ins and pull-down dining tables.

It’s good to see existing properties getting an update and praise for their restoration.