by William | Dec 30, 2020 | Net Zero, Small Footprint
Dear Readers,
I’ll start this blog with a warning – it’s long. We of course like to make our blogs easily readable, but these ones are important because Shelby and I are also trying to understand what it takes to make a Living Building. So, you’re basically reading our research. Ok, warning out of the way, let’s do this.
Four of the seven Petals of the Living Building Challenge have been covered, Place, Water, Energy, and Health and Happiness. That leaves three to go. If you’ve read the past four blogs on their respective Petals, then you’ll know that meeting this certification will be filled with crazy challenges. We appreciate you all sticking with us as we talk through these Petals to better understand them! Believe me, we know they’re complicated. Imagine trying to figure out how to design a small house to these standards, let alone something much bigger.
To jog your memory quick, here’s that chart of all the Petals and their Imperatives:
by William | Dec 23, 2020 | Healthy Living, Small Footprint
Dear Readers,
The article you’re about to read was written during the COVID-19 Pandemic, at the end of the year 2020. That being said, keep the pandemic in mind as we look at this standard, because I think it’s unbelievably relevant. It’s important to have a healthy home in the first place, but that much more important during a pandemic…
We have delved into what it takes to meet standards set forth by the Living Building Challenge, for the petals of place, water, and energy. Below is a visual refresher of all seven petals and their imperatives.
by William | Dec 16, 2020 | Net Zero, Small Footprint
Dear Readers,
First came place, then came water. Now, comes energy…dun, dun, dun! The Energy Petal is the third of the seven petals for the Living Building Challenge.
Ha! I was going to say that we have high hopes for this one…but we have high hopes for the Water Petal and the Petal of Place, too. There are just way too many high hopes floating around this joint! But. If you are willing to stick with us (whether you are amused or annoyed by our ideas…), then William and I would be most honored to share our highness of hope with you!
To refresh your memory, here is a chart with all seven petals and their imperatives. In this blog, we are going to be focusing on Energy!
by William | Nov 18, 2020 | Healthy Living, Net Zero, Small Footprint
Dear Readers,
As an architect that desires to design healthy and beautiful spaces for people and their environment, the Living Building Challenge that we have recently come across is truly an exciting idea. As I’m sure you’ve guessed from reading the basics of the challenge, Shelby and I would undoubtedly like to strive for the certification with our own home. To help myself understand the mandatory Imperatives of the 7 Petals, I thought it best to write these blogs as I research.
In order to be Living Building certified, The Seed must meet the seven petals put forth by the International Living Future Institute. The seven petals are: Place, Water, Energy, Health and Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty. Each petal is made up of a number of Imperatives. Because the petals and their imperatives deserve decent explanations, and because we have many thoughts, questions, and challenges that go along with each of them, each petal will be its own blog. So, beginning with the Petal of Place…
by William | Nov 11, 2020 | Healthy Living, Small Footprint
Dear Readers,
William and I want t-shirts with our Sustaining Tree name and logo on them. Mostly for ourselves. Because we are egotistical and vain and want to wear our endeavor literally on our tummies. But, if you feel like purchasing a shirt for yourself and modeling our tree on your tummy, then we figured we might as well make that option available to you!
However, being us…the perhaps extreme idealists that we are…we want our shirts to be as environmentally and socially and internationally and community friendly as possible. I didn’t quite realize how tough that is to do…
We are deciding to go through Printful (a print on demand service) for our shirts for three main reasons:
~ I don’t want to bulk order a bunch of t-shirts with trees on the tummy to have them just sit around the house waiting to be ordered. William and I very well may be the only ones who want trees on our tummies, and having so many unwanted, unworn, t-shirts laying around seems like a waste…of a lot of things.
~ If you do happen to want a tree on your tummy, I don’t want to go through the hassle of mailing it to you. The post office is a 15 to 20 minute drive away (depends if I have to stop to save a turtle crossing the road) and I don’t feel like doing that. I’m lazy. Sorry.
~ Printful claims to be taking a turn to the sustainability side of our consumer culture. They are attempting to widen their eco-friendly merchandise options and make their methods also just a bit more earth conscious. Their more obviously sustainable options are their ‘recycled t-shirts’- made from recycled cotton scraps and upcycled polyester rPET (essentially, fabric made from water bottles…)! A less obvious sustainable option, the one focused on in this blog, is Bella + Canvas. Bella + Canvas is one of their avenues for more ‘green’ oriented t-shirts.
by William | Nov 4, 2020 | Small Footprint
Dear Readers,
Alligators! Cottonmouths! Sharks! Oh my!!
Our honeymoon 3.0 (celebrating our two year anniversary!) was certainly filled with all three…all thanks to the beautiful, nature-loving, audacious and adventurous, Farren (oh, and her fellow partner in wildlife and everyday life endeavors, Tom!). The two of them introduced William and I to the gulf of Alabama in a bold and very real way. Within an hour of being there, I already had a full-out biology lesson on seashells and their former inhabitants…especially about who eats who…I never knew snails were responsible for that lil’ perfectly formed hole you sometimes see on small seashells (which I always thought was just a convenience for making seashell jewelry)…they just drill their little snail tongues right on in there and suck up the insides…
Beyond the seashells, Farren and Tom, both working for the environmental integrity of Gulf Shores, Alabama, took us on many adventures. We went on excursions through the park and conservation areas, unintentional swims with blacktip sharks, alligator sightings, and a personal tour of a real-life Living Building Challenge certified building: Alabama’s Gulf State Park Interpretive Center…
