Landscape Ideas « EYE ON DESIGN BY DAN GREGORY

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West Coast Green and the Solar Decathlon

October 15, 2009 · 1 Comment

New Green Ideas for the Home

Calling home acquires new meaning with an application by Our Home Spaces, which turns an iPhone into an energy monitor and thermostat.

iphone thermostat app

It allows you to turn the furnace and the water heater on and off from wherever you happen to be. The system works with Proliphix thermostats. It was one of many products shown at this year’s West Coast Green environmental showcase, which took place on the two main piers at San Francisco’s picturesque Fort Mason. A novel 200 foot-long bamboo trellis demonstration garden by Design Ecology — resembling a line of teepee frames –

West Coast Green and Las Vegas 015

connected the exhibit halls and served as the emblem of the show.

Design Ecology drawing

The walkway’s native and drought-tolerant plant habitat, shown above in a schematic, illustrated key storm water filtration strategies: landscape buffer, hanging gardens as pre-filtration, and in-situ water treatment. Plans for a floating exhibit did not work out this year but I think a modern demonstration houseboat with a living roof would be a great draw in the future — call it the SS Green Living!

Here are some other new home products that stood out. Nick Lee (Houseplans.com Services, Inc. Chief of Design) also toured the show and contributed several discoveries.

Green Lights. This trumpet vine-shaped LED (light emitting diode) pendant light system

M262 LED pendant from EST

is from Energy Savings Technology, LLC, a small Northern California company. The shape is a classic but using it to surround an LED light is new. The company also offers a sleek tube shaped light

M410_01 led light pendant from est

for installations over a counter or dining table. According to engineer-founder Gerhard Hoog these lights provide either warm or neutral white light and up to 80% power savings compared to halogen spots or flood lights. They are fully dimmable.

Renaissance in Wood. That new hardwood floor you have been considering (actually I have been dreaming of replacing the dark brown tile in my kitchen with wood) might be older than you think. Recycled wood for flooring, furniture, and cabinetry is an expanding category at the show, with several companies represented. Wood Anchor, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, specializes in reclaiming and reusing wood from urban elm trees (victims of Dutch elm disease) and demolished grain elevators to produce flooring

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as shown above, and they’re always looking for more. As their website says: “Will Work For Wood.” I coveted their stools

West Coast Green and Las Vegas 019

reclaimed from old timbers. Earth Forest Products, based in California, reclaims wood from barns, warehouses, and other buildings and also uses wood resulting from re-forestation projects as well as from FSC-certified (Forest Stewardship Council) forests. I liked their “wood sample tree”

West Coast Green and Las Vegas 007

shown here. An innovative new wood flooring product was literally uncorked at the show: it’s made from slices of wine corks.

cork-showercork

These Showercork™ mosaic tiles by Sustainable Floors have a resilient cushiony feel. They come in 12- by 24-inch by 1/4 inch-thick sheets

showercork2 intallation

and are installed over a mastic, then grouted and sealed with a urethane finish like ceramic tile.

Mediterranean Energy. Solar panel technology is evolving toward flexible systems that form the roof itself and are not simply attached to it. The Solé Power Tile™

FireShot capture #241 - 'SRS Energy I Gallery' - www_srsenergy_com_Gallery_aspx

by SRS Energy is designed for Mediterranean style roofs and effectively mimics curved clay tiles.

Fresh Air. With new homes becoming air-tight thanks to more efficient insulation and building systems, poor indoor air quality can be a problem. Enter the electric Lifebreath Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV),

155_max_large lifebreath air exchange

which moves stale, contaminated, warm air from the house to outdoors and draws fresh oxygen-laden air from outside and distributes it throughout the house.

illustration.medium air exchanger

The two air streams pass on either side of an aluminum heat-exchange core that transfers heat from outgoing to incoming air. So on cold days warmth is retained as the air gets refreshed.

Green Days on The Capitol Steps

Take a look at this year’s Solar Decathlon on The Mall in Washington, D. C., ending this week.

2009 Solar Decathlon

Sponsored by the Department of Energy (photo above by Stefano Paltera for DOE), this international competition among college teams to design, build, and operate highly energy-efficient, completely solar-powered houses has resulted in an especially innovative crop of designs. It’s a veritable world’s fair of green architecture. Here are some highlights (photos by Jim Tetro, US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon).

Team Spain — photovoltaic walls and sun-tracking roof:

photo_gallery_spain-sm

Team Germany — louvers of integrated thin-film copper indium selenide cells (CIGS):

photo_gallery_germany-sm

Cornell University – corrugated drum shapes and solar panels:

photo_gallery_cornell-sm

Team California — solar power and maximized indoor-outdoor living:

photo_gallery_california-sm

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — Midwest farmhouse forms and recycled barn wood:

photo_gallery_illinois-sm

The Ohio State University– recycled wood and solar collectors:

photo_gallery_ohio-sm

Rice University — growing walls:

photo_gallery_rice-sm

This year winning teams will be awarded $100,000 over two years to support the Solar Decathlon’s research goal of reducing the cost of solar-powered homes and advancing solar technology. Check out the Solar Decathlon website for in-depth coverage. What a great way to use the nation’s outdoor living room below the Capitol! Members of Congress strolled this “solar subdivision” on their front lawn with evident interest.

Categories: Architectural Innovation · Building Materials · Green Design · Home Products · Idea Houses · Landscape Ideas · Lighting · Modern Houses · Uncategorized

Water in the Landscape

September 2, 2009 · 2 Comments

Wall Fountains and Water Tables

Water is always a compelling visual and aural feature in a landscape. When a small garden needs a focal point, consider the wall fountain. It can mask street noise or draw the eye and is especially useful as a way to lend character to narrow side yards. Prefabricated examples abound, like this X3 trough unit from Garden Fountains

cm-FT-125-375 X3 fountain

or the slim Echo fountain shown below, also from Garden Fountains.

cm-FT-119-375 echo fountain from gardenfountain

This contemporary example from W Studio, below, bends a wall-like water feature into a piece of sculpture.

copper1 water studio

If there is more space or an existing pool, a built-in wall fountain can add a dramatic effect. Dallas landscape architect David Rolston specializes in the design of gardens with water features as focal points. Several of his projects show how inventive the simple wall fountain can be.

Closeup_of_fountain_wall_portfolio_spillway by Davild Ralston

The small spillway in the low wall turns an entire swimming pool into a fountain.

Rolston_water_wall_SMALL_portfolio_detail fishpond by david ralston

Or here’s a more rustic feature spilling into a small fishpond from a masonry wall.

Spa_chute_portfolio_detail david rolston

This playful chute makes me want to float toy boats down it.

If a more contemplative feel is what you want, a reflecting pool might work — for moonrises and cloudscapes. Here’s a London roof deck that uses the simplest palette of materials — a raised sheet of water, decking, horizontal wood fence, grasses, and a brick chimney — to create a serene outdoor room.

London roof terrace by Jinny Blom

The pool is literally a water — er coffee — table as reflecting pool. The design and the photograph are by Jinny Blom. In a way it’s a descendant of the original water table idea from the Renaissance,

Villa Lante cardinal's water table by leogiordani

like the one at the Villa Lante near Viterbo in Italy, built for a cardinal, as part of a grand terraced water garden (photographed by leogiordani). It’s more table than pool; the cardinal liked to cool his wine bottles in the trough at the center (still a good idea!) and the small stream ran through the table and down to the next terrace.

Something a little jazzier, perhaps, with overtones of ancient rituals via Las Vegas, not Rome,

matt basalt fire reflecting pool by archt Korn randolph, water studio

is the fire and water reflecting pool made of basalt by architect Korn Randolph from Water Studio for a Hollywood residence.

Nature and Nurture

Since we’re speaking of water in the landscape, I have to mention a particularly wonderful public example that I just revisited in Portland, Oregon while attending a family wedding. It’s the largest wall fountain around, on par with the Trevi in Rome.

Portland fountain and wedding 009

The Ira Keller Forecourt Fountain was designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin in 1970. Halprin’s work includes the Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D. C., Freeway Park in Seattle, and the master plan for Sea Ranch.

Portland fountain and wedding 007

The fountain impressed me anew with its power as an interactive art piece. The park covers a small sloping city block. At the top, water streams out of the earth in widening channels that stair-step down to deep polygonal pools before roaring over chiseled 30-foot-high concrete cliffs and into the swirl below. In the roiling pool at the base of the escarpment overlapping concrete platforms appear to float above the water. It’s like a flooding stone quarry — abstract and “super” natural at the same time.

Portland fountain and wedding 012

Larry’s wife is the dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin and you can see her influence: the fountain is an irresistible stage play: call it “Total Immersion In Nature.” When I was there several children and at least one adult waded into and around every part of it, galvanized by such a thundering castle of confluence. It made me think about how the water and the structure work on each each other to create something different, new, and compelling. This is the power of landscape on a public scale. And while most private landscapes can’t include such grand gestures, the best residential gardens help us find refreshment in the natural world in much the same way.

Categories: Design Ideas and Inspiration · Home Products · Landscape Ideas · Uncategorized
Tagged: pools, Portland public fountains, reflecting pool, Villa Lante, wall fountains, water features, water tables

ROLLING WITH STONES

August 13, 2009 · Leave a Comment

At Home With Nature

We have a lot of granite in our house but it’s not in the kitchen counter: instead there are egg-shaped stones strewn across the mantelpiece and piled elsewhere in baskets and bowls — like hors d’oeuvres from the Pleistocene Era.

Stones 002

My wife is very supportive (er, long-suffering) and my brother-in-law shares some of this granitic obsession: he once sent me a large and very heavy box. When the mail carrier delivered it he asked me “What have you got in here, rocks?” And of course I had to reply: “Why, yes.”

But in the waning days of summer my thoughts often turn to the seasides and lakeshores where these stones were found, and a little of the vacation feeling returns. I even use one of the rocks as a paperweight on my desk. (I guess it could also be a sort of “writer’s block,” which seems to snowball now and then.) It’s an easy way to incorporate nature — and perhaps even a refreshing Zen moment — into your home. I am inspired by a painter like Alan Magee, who turns such a simple subject into high art, for example, in his “Convergence” shown below,

convergLg alan magee convergence

which seems to merge painting and sculpture with geology and memory. But I can’t paint so I collect.

Stone and pebble accents in living environments have a long history — just think of the pebble mosaics in some ancient Greek and Roman houses and especially in their communal baths.

3399525700_f2cc7bd662 ancient mosaic shot by miriam.mollerus at flickr

This example is from Pella in ancient Greece (Macedonia) courtesy miriam.mollerus at Flickr Creative commons. And by the way, the best book on home life in Roman times that I have read is Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found (Belknap Press, Harvard, 2008) written with immense verve and a good deal of saucy wit by English classicist Mary Beard. The descriptions of cooking and bathing rituals are especially vivid.

Here’s a somewhat more recent application of the pebble idea: an outdoor shower defined by a wall of pebble stone

outdoorshowers-pebblewall-ss-l