Photovoltaic Systems

Archive for the ‘Materials’ Category

San Diego-based DuChateau Floors, maker of luxe natural flooring, just announced a new collection that replicates the popular look of reclaimed barn wood.  The Heritage Timber Edition is made with FSC-certified European white oak and then distressed with surface scrapes, nail holes, notches, and saw kerf marks reminiscent of salvaged textures.  Heritage has an environmentally friendly, zero-VOC, preservative-free, hard wax oil finish with planks of 7-7/16″ wide.  Pricing starts at $12 per square foot.

[+] Visit the website of DuChateau Floors.

Credits: DuChateau Floors.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. DuChateau Unveils Luxe Natural Floors
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3. Haskell Intros Eco Modern Series 9 Line

When the Museum of Science and Technology in Chicago wanted a “smart” house on their grounds to showcase energy-efficient and healthy living at its best, architect Michelle Kaufmann was a natural choice to design it.  After all, her passion for sustainability, coupled with an impeccable eye for style and plenty of award-winning projects under her belt, has made Michelle an authority on good green design.  The Smart Home: Green and Wired exhibit has inspired thousands of visitors with its perfect mix of high and low-tech green building techniques, materials and gadgets in a friendly, modern setting.

Current and recent projects for Michelle Kaufmann Studio include a sustainable neighborhood, a co-housing complex for some very with-it Franciscan nuns, and several private residences for green-minded clients.  With so much hands-on experience with many of the materials and technologies we write about here at Jetson Green, I was eager to pick Michelle’s brain.

I proposed a series of open-ended questions starting with “What is the one green product …”, hoping the busy designer would find it a fun, thought-provoking exercise.  Luckily she did — and I hope you find her responses as illuminating and insightful as I have!

What’s the one green product …

… every home would have in a perfect world?  Living roof that produces food for the family in the home.

… as stylish as it is sustainable?  Reclaimed wood.  Whether it is a live-edge dining table or wood flooring from wine barrels, material that has a history to it, a tactile memory, plus a lengthened life.  So lovely.

… that will be a game-changer?   Systems like Aqus that can make gray water easy, even in retrofit situations. Water is our next oil, our next scarce resource.  Products that help us get maximum use out of each drop will be successful. 

… to deliver the most bang for its buck?  The learning thermostat by Nest.

… to surpass your expectations?  No-VOC paints.  So happy to see most of the big companies now (finally) offer no-VOC options in all of their colors.  

… so clever/amazing/beautiful you wish you had invented it?   Solar Ivy, the solar panels that behave like leaves. 

… you include on every project without exception?  Healthy materials and systems. It is criminal not to as a designer or builder.

… you’ve been dying for the opportunity to work into a project?  A living wall that would create the home’s food, and purify the water and the air at the same time. I love when something beautiful has multiple uber beneficial functions.

… you’d want to have if you were stranded on a deserted island?  Solar charged water purifier — that could hopefully charge my iPhone too!

To learn more about Michelle Kaufmann, please visit her website.

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1. Misleading with Green Product Claims
2. New Zero Series Prefab from Studio 101
3. Green Home DIY Trends for 2011

When Vanillawood founders Kricken and James Yaker outgrew their home office and started shopping for a design studio in Portland’s hot Pearl District, opening a retail store was the farthest thing from their mind. Yet they happened upon a 1000 square-foot warehouse with beautiful natural light and too-good-to-pass-up lease terms, so the design/build team seized the opportunity to showcase their organic contemporary style.

The Yakers took a sustainable approach to the store build-out, using an OSMO natural wax finish on the pre-existing hardwoods, no-VOC paint from local manufacturer Miller Paint, and plenty of reclaimed wood, their signature building material.  Kricken and James are forever on the lookout for unique sources of reclaimed timber, like the live edge Oregon Black Walnut they transformed into shelving for their store to add warmth and interest to Vanillawood projects.  Here’s a round-up of their coolest new finds:

Shipping Dunnage:  The inexpensive timber used to secure cargo during shipping makes a stylish statement on walls, surfaces, and floors (as seen below).  Enthuses Kricken, “Shipping dunnage has an amazing patina of light and dark, thanks to visible strap marks.  The color variation is just stunning!”  Unwanted crating material from around the world has long been a source of consternation for shipping companies, who have no use for it after they’ve delivered their cargo.  Not only is it a burden on landfills, dunnage is a major polluter of our oceans, where it’s often dumped offshore.

Boomsticks:  Once an important part of the logging industry (tied together, they kept logs corralled as they made their way down the river), abandoned boomsticks of Douglas fir are back in fashion!  After being resurfaced from the bottom of the Columbia River, the logs are then planed into strips of varying widths and thicknesses. The Yakers used this beautiful wood liberally in their Vanillawood retail store and showroom, as wall paneling (below left) and countertop (below right).

Bleacher Benches:  Wooden benches from old high school gyms and community centers have become a particular favorite of artisan furniture makers.  These renovation cast-offs, often made of prized Douglas fir or mahogany, are perfectly planked for counter and tabletops. And in the case of this cool mirror, the designer made no effort to hide its origins!

The Vanillawood design team source a lot of their treasures through Viridian Wood Products — see our prior coverage here and here — whose ever-changing inventory fuels their creativity.  Kricken loves to find surprising ways to incorporate the wood beyond flooring in her interiors, wrapping it around columns and creating cozy niches with wood-paneled walls. “It’s all about layering textures, colors and materials — and using those materials in unexpected ways!”

To learn more about Vanillawood’s design projects and store, please visit their website.

Photos courtesy of Vanillawood.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. Viridian Intros Reclaimed Wood Veneers
2. Kirei Debuts New Reclaimed Wood Panel
3. Cross-Laminated Timber Opens New Possibilities for Wood Construction

Wood, metals, and plastic are all beginning to give way to a new category of materials that combine the best properties of each along with advanced properties. Many of them come from renewable stock utilizing biomaterials as the raw ingredients. One manufacturer of such biocomposites is e2e Materials, which is producing a range of plant-based products which the company describes as “like a form molded plastic – but stronger, fire resistant, biodegradable and looks like wood.”

The e2e Materials products are formaldehyde-free. The feedstocks used to create these materials include rapidly renewable resources including soy flour and jute, flax, and kenaf fibers. Furthermore, they can require as much as 80% less energy consumption to create the material.

In addition to having no formaldehyde, e2e products have no toxins or petroleum in them. The products are also naturally flame retardant.

The company is just opening its first manufacturing plant in upstate New York. Eventually, the company plans to have manufacturing plants distributed across the country with the intent to “address market demand within a radius of 500 miles with the agricultural feedstocks intended to be sourced within 100 miles of the facility.”

The LEED perspective in this is pretty clear, and this would eventually contribute to several LEED credits, including Rapidly Renewable Materials, Regional Materials, and Low-Emitting Materials.

Ultimately, the company believes this will be a market worth $100 billion annually. Uses for biocomposite materials include not only building materials and furniture, but also automotive components and packaging.

[+] More about e2e Materials biocomposites.

Credits: e2e Materials.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. Green Materials to Grow to $70B by 2015
2. Viridian Intros Reclaimed Wood Veneers
3. New FSC Floor Made with Old Pallets