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Recent Articles
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A Better Approach to Design/Build
The most ambitious project I’ve ever worked on is a spectacular, über-green home in the foothills west of Silicon Valley. The owners, Linda Yates and Paul Holland, contacted me in…
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Recent Changes to LEED for Homes — Part 2
In this concluding part of my two-part blog series on the soon-to-be-released LEED for Homes version 4, I follow up my introduction to the topic (Part 1), in which I…
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Recent Changes to LEED for Homes — Part 1
My perspective on the latest version of the LEED for Homes standard (version 4) has an inescapably historic slant. This doesn’t mean that I categorically reject change. In fact, much…
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High-Performance and Net-Zero Homes — Part 5
In the prior installment in this blog series, I proposed a rationale for the adoption of integrated project delivery (IPD) and promised to follow with suggestions regarding its implementation, along…
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High-Performance and Net-Zero Homes — Part 4
In days of yore, buildings were designed and built by master builders. These were people who spent their whole lives learning about buildings by creating them – from idea to…
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High-Performance and Net-Zero Homes — Part 3
During the last month we’ve had a very stimulating conversation going about design – and how some important design opportunities for improving energy performance are often overlooked, and why. The…
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High-Performance and Net-Zero Homes — Part 2
Welcome back to the rant! (This is an extended, multi-month rant, in case you were wondering.) Last month I introduced the “Change Toolkit,” a hierarchy of interventions with Mindset at…
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High-Performance and Net-Zero Homes — Part 1
I come from a family of non-conformists. My dad was the product of a line of labor shit-disturbers of the first order; my mom came from milder stock but was…
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The Green Countertop Dilemma
During a recent visit to Eco6Design in Half Moon Bay, California, I was drooling over all the fabulous “eco” options for countertops. Serious eye candy! Vetrazzo, Fireclay Tile, Stone Age,…
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How Deep Is Your Footprint?
In my house we’ve been talking a lot lately about consumption—more specifically, about the relationship between consumption and our carbon footprint. In the green-building world, when we talk about a…
