Following on the post about NORCs and diversity of age within communities I find this piece in the New York Times on a $47M project in Portland, Oregon to shelter the homeless.  The project is right within the city center and in most communities would be considered a prime target for redevelopment with market rate housing.  Portland is making a different bet- that a city’s diversity contributes to it’s quality.

Daniel Mihalyo and Annie Han of Lead Pencil Studio in Seattle show how much sustainability can be packed into a small project at virtually no cost. It’s a simple formula- lots of insulation and carefully placed openings. Mix this with extraordinary design talent (note: this cannot be purchased at Home Depot) and you get a truly remarkable house. Slideshow here.

Full disclosure: I attended Architecture School with Annie and Dan. And yes, they are as remarkable as they seem in the article.

If all goes as planned, Seattle will soon be home to the Cascadia Center for Sustainable Design and Construction.  The Center, funded by the Bullitt Foundation and designed by Miller|Hull Architects, is hoping to achieve Living Building Challenge certification despite the, uhh, challenges of doing so.  The building would be home to the Bullit Foundation offices, the Cascadia chapter of the USGBC and the Living Building Institute.  One of the exciting things about this proposal is it’s relatively urban location.  Too often, we see these sort of environmental think tank projects proposed for woodland sites hours from any community (see the Rocky Mountain Institute headquarters or The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Philip Merrill Environmental Center for examples.)  We’ll keep you posted about progress on this exciting project as we learn of it.

Update: The Seattle Times has posted a slightly more fleshed out article on the proposed Cascadia Center.

Giant green screen proposed for Portland federal building. I am a huge fan of living walls but I fear that this giant trellis concept will never look as crisp as the designers intend- especially when you realize that they intend the plants to be deciduous.  Makes great sense in terms of climate responsiveness but I wonder how the tenants will feel abut being encased in dormant, dead looking ivy for 4 months.  That said- very much looking forward to the concept being implemented on such a large scale.  It’s potentially fabulous.