Green Platinum
Webinar
1 hour
3807 Riley St.
Houston, Texas77005
Tel. 713 464-0055
Cell 713 269-6909
Email:
Website:
and click on InteriorDesign-ED
Beverly Vosko’s
InteriorDesign-ED
Green Platinum 1 hour Webinar Handouts!
-In the 20th Century we discovered that we are not taking good care of the earth…
We are creating Global Warming by depleting the ozone layer, rapidly depleting some of our most valuable resources – such as water and lumber, and creating huge waste areas from dumping our trash and chemicals that either just lie fallow or worse pollute the air and the environment!
If we don’t stop this process – we may not have an earth as we know it, to pass on to our future generations!
-There needs to be a symbiotic - meaning a close, cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship between the Economy, Society and the Environment to sustain life as we know it on this planet –
That is what the Green Approach is all about!
-The U.S. Green Building Council is a non-profit community of leaders working to make Green buildings available to everyone
The US Green Building Council’s definition of Green means BALANCE
The USGCB addresses 5 categories: Energy, Water Efficiency, Sustainable Sites, Materials Resources and Indoor Air Quality which we need to work in order to create a healthy habitat and an environmentally responsible world!
-The U.S. Green Energy Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design is called L.E.E.D.
LEED is a third-party certification program andthe nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings.
The LEED green building certification program encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through a rating system that recognize projects that implement strategies for better environmental and health performance.
The LEED Rating System:
In LEED 2009 there are 100 possible base points plus an additional 6 points for Innovation in Design and 4 points for Regional Priority.
Buildings can qualify for four levels of certification:
Certified - 40 - 49 points
Silver - 50 - 59 points
Gold - 60 - 79 points
Platinum - 80 points and above
-Lets look at the various attributes of a L.E.E.D. Platinum Home and see how it was done:
-Size: This L.E.E.D.Platinum Home is not a huge home – about 3500 sq ft.
•A homes’ environmental footprint is directly proportional to its size…the larger it is… the more waste it produces
•Since this home is not large, it is less expensive and less complicated to Build Green
-Building Materials: This L.E.E.D.Platinum Home is made of steel
- the outside is completely made of steel and it is supported on the inside by steel girders which will never rot or get termites… and
- its deck is made of plastic which also will never rot or get termites
-Harvested Rainwater: This L.E.E.D.Platinum Home uses only Harvested Rainwater from a 7000 gallon cistern under the deckwhich collects all the rainwater from the gutters and then pipes it into the house to totally fulfill all the house’s water requirements
-Daylighting- including home orientation, window placementskylights: This L.E.E.D.Platinum Home relies on Daylighting and its “slice of the sun“ for much of its lighting needs…Daylighting is practice of using indirect natural light to illuminate building spaces rather than relying solely on electric lighting during the day - saving energy
- This is House was built on a specific Orientated for Daylighting
This LEED Platinum home is placed on a long narrow lot and is oriented to have its wider sides facing North and South – it has huge windows on the North side (and in the stairwell on East and West sides) to allow in lots of natural light but limited heat, and in addition to regular windows used for viewing out, it has small windows around the rest of building placed approx 12’ high to let in light but not the hot suns rays… Trees on homes Southern exposure are deciduous so in the winter the leaves fall off letting the light come but in the summer when it is hot, the trees leaves shield the home from hot southern sun
- Incorporating Outdoor Space as part of homes living space: This LEED Platinum home includes a long outdoor porch on the north side of the home as part of its living spaceincreasing the amount of actual living space in the home, yet decreasing the amount of energy expended to utilize that living space because the outdoor space doesn’t need the same amount of lighting, heating and air conditioning that the indoor space does
-Using Sustainable Products: This LEED Platinum home uses bamboo for all its flooring and cabinets. Bamboo is a sustainable, rapidly renewable product that can be grown and harvested within a 10 year lifecycle – meaning thatit can be easily replenished and replaced without using up our world’s natural resources
Sustainable products are capable of being replaced either by natural ecological cycles or by sound management practices such as re-planting that product at a rate comparable or faster than its rate of consumption.
- Fibers/Plants that fall into this category include bamboo, cork, wool, cotton, linoleum (linseed oil), natural rubber, strawboard, wheat board, sunflower seed board also sisal, seagrass, linen, jute, mohair, hemp and alpaca
- One can also purchase Forest Certified Wood, although this house did not choose to do so. Forest Certified Wood is wood grown in a Sustainable manner under the auspices of the Forest Stewardship Council – so whenever a tree is cut down, another one is planted…
so as not to deplete that wood resource but NO WOOD is Rapidly Renewable because it can not be harvested and regrown within a 10 year period.
- Sustainable Products can be Beautiful… Many of these sustainable, renewable fibers and products are very beautiful – as beautiful as non sustainable products and also better for the environment
- Once upon a time, people thought Sustainable homes could only be built to look “weird looking”
- I believe that Sustainable homes can be built to look beautiful and for that matter, to look like any other home… I believe that they can reflect that client’s individual taste and style – but just utilize rapidly renewable and recycled products and building materials, and be more energy efficient! That is an important NEW concept!
-Recycled and Reused Materials: This LEED Platinum home uses recycled glass tiles for all of its tiles in the kitchen and bathrooms and recycled (and sustainable/renewable) paper for its kitchen countertops
Recycling is breaking down/melting down products and reusing them to make totally different new items
•Like inserting recycled crushed glass into concrete countertops
•Or using recycled crush glass as backsplash tile in a bathroom and/or kitchen
•Or using Recycled Paper a former ie post consumer waste product–that is also Sustainable/Renewable- as a Kitchen countertop
•Or melting plastic bottles -another post consumer waste product- and making fabric - which creates a durable, beautiful fabric… unless someone told you, you’d never know what the fabric was made of!
•Reusing is using products again for the same use …such as Reusing tiles or wood flooring a 2nd time
-Energy Efficient low voltage, LED lighting and dimmers: This LEED Platinum home uses energy efficient low voltage and LED lighting that uses much less energy that traditional incandescent lamps, throughout the house and has dimmers on every light switch – which further increase their efficiency
Energy Star Appliances: This LEED Platinum home uses energy efficient appliances such as an energy star fridge, dishwasher, front loading Whirlpool washer and dryer.These energy star appliances are just like any other appliances except they are even better because they do the same work
but just do it 10%-50% more efficiently than un-rated appliances,
and therefore save money on electrical, water, natural gas, heating and air-conditioning
-Onsite renewable energy. This L.E.E.D. Platinum home uses onsite Photovoltaic panels Solar Energy - for all of its energy needs
•Photovoltaics is the field of technology that changes solar cells into energy by converting sunlight into usable electric current!
•Solar cells or Photovoltaic cells convert solar energy into electricity by the photovoltaic effect – which is a similar process to photosynthesis in plants – which absorb the sun’s energy and grow
• Roughly 90% of Photovoltaic panels are grid-tied electrical systems.
which are built into the roof or walls of a building,
which is known as Building Integrated Photovoltaic or BIPV for short.
These BIPV’s are what are known to us laymen as solar panels
Bibliography
- “Green Houses” Rice University Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, Michael Strong, GMB, CAPS, GreenHaus Builders, Inc. Brent Nyquist, Atticus Architecture, Inc.
- “Green Design part three” – Continuing Education Course taught by Michael Strong
- The actual L.E.E.D.Platinum home shown to me by Joe Adams of Adams Architects – the architect of this home who gave me permission to take and use these pictures and teach this course
- Vosko, Beverly. Go Green 4 CEU, that is ASID/IDCEC approved
Biography
Beverly Vosko, RID, ASID (Allied Member) CAPS, L.E.E.D Green Associate, TAID, MBA… is a “Full Service”, Registered Interior Designer in Texas #6333. She is President and founder of both Beverly Vosko Interiors, and InteriorDesign-ED; both DBA’s for C. V Design Inc. For over 25 years, she has been designing homes across the United States and Europe, specializing in creating custom Residential and Commercial environments, be they Traditional, Transitional, Contemporary or Eclectic, that match her Design clients’ every need, through her Design Firm, Beverly Vosko Interiors. For over 15 years she has taught Interior Design, Aging in Place, Green/Sustainable Design, and Antiques at Rice University, the University of Houston, and for the last 10 years nationally, with her Continuing Education company, InteriorDesign-ED. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania, studied Art History at Harvard University,received her MBA in Marketing from NYU Stern Graduate Business School, and her Design and Antiquestraining from Sotheby’s and the world renown Inchbald School of Design. Please check out her websites, and