Sad news & new beginnings

Today I read some very sad news. Michelle Kauffman told the world on her blog yesterday that her (extremely unique) Green Architecture and home building company will no longer be able to keep their doors open. If any of you have followed Michelle Kauffman’s work, you know that she is a visionary and leader in the green, healthy and energy efficient home design and building. Instead of just designing green homes, her firm also built the homes in special factories before shipping them to a home owners site to be assembled. The process of building the homes in a factory helped to reduce building waste and ensure the highest quality homes. Unfortunately because of the current economic climate, the financing market for home buyers and key partners going out of business, they simply weren’t able to hold on any longer.

Of course the death of one thing nourishes the life of something new. True to form, Michelle remains upbeat and optimistic about the future of green design and building. Keep an eye on her blog if this subject interests you. I have a feeling we will be hearing some great news in the months to come.

And Michelle…. Keep on doing what you do. You are an inspiration to me and countless others throughout the world!

Saving Energy Through Building Automation

I read a great article from Neil Gifford at Smart Buildings this morning. I always enjoy reading what he has to say about how technology is making buildings smart. When you really start to get in to this stuff like I am, you start to see how the future of green and sustainability has a lot to do with our adoption of technology in our buildings. This goes far beyond just automation for lighting and HVAC systems – even though simple automation helps a lot (I leave the room and the lights automatically turn off after 5 minutes). Neil talks more about how an intelligent building wide automation system should start to take data in real time by monitoring building loads and usage in real time and reporting that information back to facilities managers to act upon. Based upon specific data and parameters set, the system could automatically adjust heating and cooling loads based on occupancy data and similar factors.

Check out the article for all you designers, builders and facilities managers. Looking forward to getting more of these types of systems in our buildings!

The ZED Prize!

I came across a very interesting competition and had to share it. Seeing as how many of our clients and partners are deep in to the green living movement, I’m sure many will find this intriguing. Perhaps this post might even inspire some of our local architects and designers to get involved! It’s called the ZED Prize and the folks over at Zerofootprint are hoping to turn it in to the largest architectural prize issued worldwide in 2009. That is quite a bold goal!

The idea of the competition is to address the issue of re-purposing or “Re-skinning” (as they call it) existing buildings to have little or no carbon foot print. As they point out on their website, we are starting to do a good job of building NEW buildings that have low carbon footprints but we need to do a MUCH better job of re-skinning existing buildings. I would say they make a very good point. Especially seeing as how existing buildings account for 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions in north America.

Of course a smart building isn’t smart at all without a smart technology system helping to run it. That is where MediaLogix comes in! Our focus is on creating integrated building solutions for commercial buildings in Denver and throughout the west. We would love to partner with a forward thinking architectural firm or developer to help create the (Retrofit) buildings of the future! Email us or comment on this blog to get the conversation going!