Useful Stuff

A Bit of Advice for the Green Industry

The Green Industry has a serious identity issue that it needs to address quickly. I spoke Thursday at GreenTrends 2010 in St. Petersburg. Afterwards, I visited the booths in the trade show, visiting with several of the exhibitors. I asked a similar question to several of them ("what's the most important thing in your exhibit?") and got some surprising replies. A few pointed out a particular product or service, but many said something to the effect that "we do it all." Consulting. Construction. Design. Wholesale. Retail. you name it, they do it. What's wrong with covering more bases? Here's what:

The exhibitor that offered the most services even mentioned that they included architectural services, too. But wait... I'm an architect! So... why would I hire someone that does what I do? The same thing applies to any of the other people attending the conference... they all specialize at something, and would likely come to a similar conclusion. These exhibitors who cover all the bases might find their pitch well-suited for some in the general public who are about to build or renovate. But that's not who's at conferences like GreenTrends. Rather, the people that attend conferences like this tend to me more motivated and more knowledgeable about the subject matter than the general public. In most cases, they're somewhere in the industry themselves. So if you offer every service you can think of, then you're making yourself a competitor to almost everyone attending the conference.

At the conference there was also talk about the diferent herbal remedies that were recently found. They offeren an example for how to treat and even cure impetigo disease only using plants.http://www.impetigopictures.org/

So I have some advice for the emerging Green Industry... or maybe I should call it the Green Industries, since it's such a broad set of products and services. Here's my recommendation: Find something that you're exceptionally good at and that is noteworthy and memorable, and do that! Don't try to be all things to all people, or you'll be nothing to them except a competitor instead. Find a need that isn't being met and fill it... there are certainly enough of them still around!

Original Green Book Tour

And so it begins, just a guy in a Smart with an overnight bag, a box of books, and a big idea, rolling out into the South Florida night to a light sprinkle of rain. I've been waiting for this day for almost 30 years!

All gassed up for the desolate stretches of Alligator Alley across the Everglades, I'm hoping to make Naples by midnight. Then it's on to St. Petersburg in the morning where I'll be speaking at GreenTrends 2010 at 1 with a book signing at 3. Along the way (and back) I'll be stopping at several bookstores... Know any good indies?

SmartDwelling I export settings

I'll never remember this if I don't post it. The SmartDwelling I images created in the wake of the Wall Street Journal's Green House of the Future story last year featuring my house design with three other architects' designs (including William McDonough of Cradle to Cradle fame) were created after many hours of experimentation with line weights, etc. Here's how it happened:

Export as jpg from SketchUp, using 6000 pixels as the image width, at 600 dpi. I'm not sure that it matters, but the morning I exported them (while frantically getting ready to do the Gulf Coast Green keynote address) I didn't have my big screen at the office (Apple Cinema Display, 2560x1600) but only my laptop (MacBook Pro 17", 1920x1200). I don't think the monitor makes a difference, but just recording that just in case.

The bottom line is that exporting this way will create consistent images; using other settings in effect changes the lineweights to create heavier, clunkier-looking images, because SketchUp apparently applies the lineweight based on the size of the image. So a 1-point line is 1 pixel on the image, not one pixel on the screen... or something like that. In any case, use the same settings every time to get the same results every time.

What Can I Do With What's Left?

Here's our baker's rack in our kitchen, although we use it to make coffee, smoothies, and toast instead of baking, but that's not the point. See the vitamin rack on the wall to the left, and the paper towel holder? Look just below that. See the rod with the metal clips hanging from it?

We installed the baker's rack first, not completely knowing what we would do with it, but assuming we could use the workspace. And sure enough, it became a good place for appliances, and cookbooks filled in around the seldom-used microwave on the shelves above.

The wall to the left was blank, and I needed a place to put our vitamins, so narrow shelves made sense there. But the baker's rack was just an inch and a half shorter than the space it was sitting in... we had a little space left. What to do with what's left?

And that's when it occurred to me to hang the rod there, just under the paper towel holder. That's where we hang our kitchen towels where they can dry in the open air beside the baker's rack, largely out of sight under the counter but not in a damp, confined space. It's also good because if we reach for a paper towel, we're reminded to use the cloth towel instead, saving paper.

This is what I call "farmer design," which is the opposite of high design. It's basically how a farmer would lay something out, starting with the biggest or most important things, and using what's left at each step to do the next most important thing.

Farmer Design doesn't create the sleek, clean, sterile places... it creates places and things that look lived-in and lived-with... but that's ok with is... matter of fact, it's better than ok.

Now, it has just occurred to me that "making do with what's left" is an idea that's useful far beyond the boundaries of physical design, in at least two ways:

Making do with what's left assumes that you've done the most important stuff first. And in an era when so many priorities get so screwed up by so many things, the idea of doing the most important things first and working lesser things in around them sounds bracingly refreshing... or maybe even better than that.

The other useful side of making do with what's left has to do with this era in which so much has been lost. The interesting thing about the things that were big before the Meltdown is that most of them were about standard of living, not quality of life. Bigger, not better. I suspect we may find that what's left after the big things have vanished might actually be the important things that were there all along, but which had been crowded out by the big things of that day.

Light Imprint tool of the week: T-3 Flowing Park

This image of a small T-3 Flowing park is from Seabrook, Washington sent to us by Laurence Qamar.  Laurence elaborates “ ...one of the more contentious issues has been determining the frequency of street crossings of linear wetlands and streams. New Metro standards have required minimum 1/4 mile stream crossings.  Along with the equally large DOT access spacing on arterials and state highways, we have often found it very difficult to connect neighborhoods and fragments of neighborhoods.  This can result in a disjointed human habitat that approaches suburbanization as a result of overly stringent wetland protection requirement in urban contexts.  Granted the whole wetland and riparian system must have much higher standards of protection than have been exercised in the past.  Yet with proper crossing techniques, ... the frequency of watercourse crossings should be increased in more urban conditions.”

VII. Flowing Park

T-Zones: T3, T4, T5 Slope: Steep, Moderate, Flat
Cost : $$
Soils: Poor, Medium, Good
Maintenance: Medium
Climate: Cold, Temperate, Hot Dry, Moderately Wet, Wet

A. Description
A flowing park is a linear tract of land that serves as a collection point for stormwater. For the water to flow freely, structures must not impede the flowing park. For example, rather than a street cutting through the flowing park, the flowing park cuts through the street. This action creates an opportunity to display a creative stormwater design.

B. Use
Flowing parks serve as urban or neighborhood parks. They are best suited for urban zones of the transect because of their park-like status. Flowing parks work well with sloping topography. By following the slope, water flows into natural drainage ways. Grading is minimized by using the natural contours.

C. Cost
Costs vary depending on the size of the park. Many times, costs are offset since this tool is serving two purposes: receiving stormwater and providing a public park.

D. Maintenance
Maintenance of flowing parks is similar to that of any other public park. For the storm water collection area, debris will need to removed on a regular schedule.

E. Resources
Herbert Dreiseitl and Dieter Grau. New Waterscapes: Planning, Building and Designing with Water. Boston: Birkhauser, 2001.
90-91.

Opening Up the Original Green

It's time to open up the Original Green so it's more useful to everyone. Here are some ideas we came up with at CNU 18, but we need to hear your ideas, too: http://bit.ly/aWt3vN. Please join the discussion!

Exceptionally Cool Finder Mash-Up

I've just discovered a really cool thing you can do with the Mac Finder and A Better Finder Rename. As I blogged earlier, I've been refining my photo workflow. Today, I confused myself. I haven't worked on images in over a week (because of CNU 18) and when I started working on last week's images, I found that my master folder had these two "instruction folders" (named with instructions telling me what to do next):

-3 Set Classes
-4 Set Color, Rate, Tag, & Process (empty)

Problem is, when you set the classes in Photo Mechanic, it indicates the class by tagging each image file with a color. So why did I have "Set Color" as the first item of Instruction Folder 4? It took me awhile to remember, but here's the answer: Photo Mechanic can't change the Finder's Label color, nor can it even see it. And the Finder can't see or change Photo Mechanic's Class (color.) So the only way to get the Finder's Label color to match Photo Mechanic's Class color is to move the images into folders for their PhotoMechanic Class color, then change their Finder Label color to match. Sounds complicated, but it just takes a second. Thereafter, whether you're looking at the image in the Finder or PhotoMechanic, you're seeing the same color. What I needed to do was to modify the -4 folder name from:

-4 Set Color, Rate, Tag, & Process (empty)
to
-4 Set Finder Color, Rate, Tag, & Process (empty)

But now, I've got a problem. I spent a lot of time copying the folders within my master folder to a bunch of different image folder... would I have to change them one at a time? A Better Finder Rename does a great job of changing file names if the files are all in one place. I did a search in the Finder for folders named -4 Set Color, Rate, Tag, & Process (empty). It came up with over 160 different folders, all in different locations. On a whim, I selected them all and drug them into the A Better Finder Rename window, set the old name and new name, and hit the Perform Renames button... and it worked! It changed the names of all of them at once, even though they were in different locations on my disk! Here's hoping this is useful to someone else.

Original Green book is now available on Amazon

the Original Green [Unlocking the Mystery of True Sustainability]

is now available on Amazon.

Author: Stephen A. Mouzon Foreword: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Publisher: The Guild Foundation Press, 2010.   Particulars:  288 pages, 6" x 9", softcover. There are 245 images in the book, and I'm about to put them all up later this week on my Zenfolio site so that if you see an image that looks like it might be useful for a presentation, report, book (or whatever) you're working on you can simply download it and use it. More Original Green: The Website The Blog Twitter Timeline Facebook Cause LinkedIn Group Workshops Useful Stuff Blog

What's It About?

The Original Green is the sustainability our ancestors knew by heart. Originally (before the Thermostat Age) they had no choice but to build green, otherwise people would not survive very long. The Original Green aggregates and distributes the wisdom of sustainability through the operating system of living traditions, producing sustainable places in which it is meaningful to build sustainable buildings. Original Green sustainability is common-sense and plain-spoken, meaning "keeping things going in a healthy way long into an uncertain future." Sustainable places should be nourishable because if you cannot eat there, you cannot live there. They should be accessible because we need many ways to get around, especially walking and biking because those methods do not require fuel. They should be serviceable because we need to be able to get the basic services of life within walking distance. We also should be able to make a living where we are living if we choose to. They should be securable against rough spots in the uncertain future because if there is too much fear, the people will leave. Sustainable buildings should be lovable because if they cannot be loved, they will not last. They should be durable because if they cannot endure, they are not sustainable. The should be flexible because if they endure, they will need to be used for many uses over the centuries. They should be frugal because energy and resource hogs cannot be sustained in a healthy way long into an uncertain future.

What's In It?

Introduction Part One: What’s the Problem? The Top 10 Problems with Our Current Green Efforts 10 ~ the Absence of Plain-Spoken Sustainability 9 ~ the Danger of Wishes 8 ~ the Dilemma of Global Warming 7 ~ the Fate of “Ought-To” 6 ~ the Problem of Growth 5 ~ the Trouble with Consumption 4 ~ the Achilles Heel of Architecture 3 ~ the Fuzzy Carbon Focus 2 ~ the Supply-Side Focus 1 ~ the Two and a Half Billion People Part Two: What Can We Do? The Top 10 Better Ways of Being Green 10 ~ the Things that Work 9 ~ the Six Realms of Green 8 ~ the Green Country to the Green City 7 ~ the Simpler Way 6 ~ the Many Uses 5 ~ the Source of Stuff 4 ~ the Expanded Comfort Range 3 ~ the Localized Operations 2 ~ the Sharing of Wisdom 1 ~ the Involvement of Everyone

Part Three: What’s the Plan? The 8 Foundations of Sustainable Places & Buildings the Sustainable Places the Nourishable Places the Accessible Places the Serviceable Places the Securable Places the Sustainable Buildings the Lovable Buildings the Durable Buildings the Flexible Buildings the Frugal Buildings Part Four: What Can I Do? The Top 10 Things You Can Do to Be Green 10 ~ Do All of the Stuff You Already Know 9 ~ Give a Gift to the Street 8 ~ Choose It for Longer than You’ll Use It 7 ~ Choose Smaller Stuff with Double Duty 6 ~ Live Where Friends Visit Unannounced 5 ~ Operate Naturally 4 ~ Raise a Victory Garden 3 ~ Build Garden Rooms in Your Yard 2 ~ Live Where You Can Walk to the Grocery 1 ~ Make a Living Where You’re Living Final Words Resources

My New Wallet

Carrying all my cards around has swollen my normal wallet to a messy wad of plastic encased in a stretched skin of leather. And wearing the thing in one of my pockets makes it look like I have some sort of horrible tumor on my leg. I'd been carrying a "messenger bag" in recent years ... it's a shoulder bag worn over your shoulder with the bag to one side or behind you that is a favorite of European men. But the messenger bag isn't perfect, either.

When I travel, I carry a suitcase and a gear bag. The messenger bag makes three, meaning I've gotta check one or sneak one through security because of the two-bag limit.

I was at Seaside recently for a friend's wedding, and they gave me this tiny thing, ostensibly to store the recreation access card, etc., that they give you at check-in. What I discovered is that one side holds my driver's license and the three credit cards I use the most, while the other side holds a few business cards and Idea Cards. 98% of the time, this is all I need. It's less than 1/4" thick when closed, and barely bigger than a business card or Idea Card. I haven't even touched my big wallet in two weeks. Smaller & Smarter. Wish I could say it was my idea, but it's more of a happy accident.

Comfort in the Miami Heat

Wanda and I are having lunch right now at the Carlyle on Ocean Drive on South Beach. It's 90 degrees, and many of the tourists walking by look uncomfortable. But we walk or bike everywhere, so we're acclimated to the local climate. As you can see, we're sitting in the shade, and the sea breeze is blowing, and it feels great! In fairness, the Carlyle (which has a great $9.50 lunch special) has their mist fans going, so we'd probably be comfortable 10 degrees warmer. So acclimate yourself to the local climate, then do things like the mist fans to very inexpensively condition the micro-environment, and... who needs air conditioning?