I had the great pleasure of spending some time with Edward Mazria from Architecture 2030® last week at the AIA Ohio Valley Regional Convention. Architecture 2030 was a major sponsor of the AIA Ohio Affordable Green Home Design Competition, and Ed Mazria sat in on the Best of Show jury, along with presenting, “Architecture: On the Brink of Greatness” to the convention attendees. Therefore as I start posting season two of the e2 series, I am going to skip to the last episode on Architecture 2030 and hope you get inspired as I did.
Back in November I announced the AIA Ohio boards acceptance of a proposal to host a statewide design competition (here) that would be run by the AIA Ohio Committee On The Environment (COTE). Well after 6 months of work we are wrapping things up and getting the word out to the AIA Ohio membership. Registration for the competition is set to open on June 19th.
AIA OHIO AFFORDABLE GREEN HOME DESIGN COMPETITION
It has been a difficult but rewarding experience to organize and coordinate an event like this. My only hope at this time is that we receive a good amount of submissions and that we can raise enough money to provide the stipends necessary for our winning design teams to produce final documents of their designs.
So I encourage you to visit the competition website at www.aiaohiogreenhome.com and consider entering if you are eligible.
After 3 long years of volunteer work the N. 21st Street project received a Platinum certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) under the LEED for Homes Pilot program on February 18th, 2009. It is the first Platinum home in Ohio and only the 17th within the country in the affordable category at the time of certification.
This project was pushed forward by some very dedicated volunteers and a very patient owner. The house was constructed by the Home B.A.S.E. Foundation which takes high school seniors out of the class room to build homes for the working poor as part of their English, Government and Technology education programs. Roger Beck, a technology teacher, general contractor and the foundations founding member led the charge to build central Ohio’s first affordable green home. The Columbus Housing Partnership has been an integral part of the process. As the owner, they provided the initial home design from their stock set of plans provided to them by Sullivan Bruck Architects (Architect of Record).
My office has committed to work with a local high school on this competition in an effort to teach students about the profession as well as to consiously put more effort toward social responsibility within the office.
The 2009 Open Architecture Challenge invites the global design and construction community to collaborate with primary and secondary school teachers and students to create safer, healthier and smarter learning environments. Teams can partner with a school of their choice or design a classroom for Orient Global’s school-building partners.
This year’s jurors currently includes Dave Eggers, Michelle Kaufmann, Hilary Cottam, Kigge Hvid and others. More will be added over the course of the registration period. The winning designer/school team will be given up to $50,000 in funding for classroom construction and upgrading, plus a design grant of $5,000 for the designer to help the school complete the project.
For the past three years I have been volunteering with a local not for profit organization, the Home B.A.S.E. foundation and assisting will all aspects as it relates to design and construction of a LEED for Homes Pilot project. We just received our certification, (post to come shortly) however we just received word that through the Real Estate & Construction Review, we have been chosen as one of the best new green projects in the Midwest region. The teams hard work is starting to pay off. So read the press release below the fold and watch for my upcoming post that will announce the projects official LEED rating as well as dig into some of the techniques that were used to make this a successful project.