First LEED Platnium home in Ohio

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).

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2009 Open Architecture Challenge

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.

Hot off the presses

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.

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Affordable home design competition

Well I have some good news to report.  I have been spearheading an effort to start a design competition for an affordable green/energy efficient home for the local Habitat for Humanity chapter to build.

Well to my dismay, the local American Institute or Architects (AIA) chapter was not that thrilled with the idea.  So I decided to take the path of least resistance and had the idea presented to the AIA Ohio board.  So to say the least, the idea was well received and I will now be spearheading the planning for a state wide competition that has the potential to benefit ALL of the Ohio Habitat for Humanity chapters.  And on top of that, we will be partnering with Green Energy Ohio in this effort to bring more energy efficient homes to Ohio’s working poor.

So check back regularly as I will periodically post updates on the progress of the competition planning.

-Josh

Volunteering projects finally coming to life

Well September is off to a great start so far. Last week I was informed that the LEED home that I have been volunteering so much of time for will be featured on this years central Ohio solar tour and Green Energy Ohio (GEO) will be hosting a Gala at the Governors mansion. Which I have been invited to attend because of my involvement on this project. You can see a picture of the home on this issue of GEO’s quarterly magazine. http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageID=1967

Other good news that I recieved is that tomorrow after 2 long years of waiting, 3 more LEED homes will begin construction up in Cleveland. A ground breaking ceremony will held tomorrow (09/09/08).

http://www.cclandtrust.org/News.asp?id=80

These homes were created as a result of the Emerging Green Designers Symposium hosted by the Cleveland Green Building Coalition (http://www.symhome.net/php/clevelandgreencoalition.php). So with these 3 homes under construction, that will make a total of 4 green/high performance homes that have been built as a result of this Symposium. I am hoping to receive pictures from James Ptacek, who is the one that designed one of the homes that will be constructed as well as worked with the organizations involved to create the construction documents.

-Josh