One of the biggest contributors to humanity’s carbon footprint is housing.  By 2020, 60% of Earth’s human population will live in highly concentrated urban areas, which are notorious for straining natural resources and contributing to global warming, yet only 1/8 of the planet’s surface is suitable for people to live on.  The rest is ocean, deserts, and mountains.  Adding to this dilemma is the fact that civilization is already crowding out both agricultural lands as well as wildlife habitat. This is an environmental time bomb that is ticking ever louder.  A contest inspired by the tiny home movement may be part of the answer, however.

The Tiny Home Movement to the Rescue

One way to combat this problem is to reduce the size of the average home.  In the 1950s, the typical American family lived in about 1200 square feet.  That has doubled in the decades since to almost 2400 square feet.  In many cases, much of that space is wasted.  A common issue among homeowners is what to do with the “spare” bedroom or the “extra” family room.  Most often, these unneeded areas are used as storage space for items that could be sold, donated, or recycled, yet every inch of it adds to the home’s impact on the environment, through the extra materials used, and the energy needed to alternately heat or cool it.

In response to this growing problem, many people are going in the opposite direction.  They are purposely choosing to partake in the tiny home movement.  Singles and couples are finding that as little as 100 square feet is enough for them to dwell in quite happily.  Entire families share homes that take up 500 square feet or less.  These ecologically sensitive people use a variety of ways to buy or build structures that are cozy, energy-efficient, and have minimal impact on the earth, all while complying with housing codes and laws.

Tiny Houses Go Urban

One of the limitations of this approach has been the fact that large cities have traditionally discouraged the construction of smaller-sized green homes.  New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is working to change this fact.  “Developing housing that matches how New Yorkers live today is critical to the city’s continued growth,” he said in a recent interview.  “People from all over the world want to live in New York City, and we must develop a new, scalable housing model that is safe, affordable, and innovative to meet their needs.”

City Zoning Requirements Waived

Bloomberg recently announced a contest to design micro-apartments to accommodate the city’s growing population of single and single-parent households.  The competition will put designers and builders in competition to develop a plan for a housing complex made up of individual housing units with 275-300 square feet.  Each unit must have a bathroom and kitchen.  Innovation and sustainability will be major criteria for determining the winner.

All proposals must be certified by the Enterprise Green Communities Program, which provides guidelines for safe, green, cost-smart housing.  The funding for the competition is coming purely from private sources.  “With this important housing pilot, New York once again leads world cities in devising creative solutions to the challenge of accommodating growth in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the non-profit Partnership for New York City.

The initiative is part of Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan.  This is a long-term project that will either preserve or create 165,000 affordable housing units by the end of 2014’s fiscal year.  A conference for interested design teams was held on July 31^st, and the deadline for proposals to be submitted is September 14^th.   This tiny home movement hopes to be the wave of the future.

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Generating electricity from wave power technology has enormous potential for meeting the world’s energy needs.  The effort to turn the idea into reality is about to take a giant leap forward, as Lockheed Martin is partnering with New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) to build a facility off the Oregon coast.  Composed of 200 separate buoys, the project is expected to create 100 MWs of electricity in a clean, sustainable fashion.

The Latest in a Series of Initiatives

This isn’t the first time that the aerospace giant has joined with OPT.  A smaller-scale project near the Jersey shore was commissioned by the US Navy to provide power for their offshore installations.  Another one off the coast of Australia is currently being built and is expected to create 19 MW of power continuously.  That initiative was underwritten by Australia’s Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, which provided a grant of $67 million US.

Driven by Ocean-Grounded Pistons

The buoys are anchored to the ocean floor by a cable.  It in turn runs into a generator driven by a piston-like structure at its base.  Electricity is created by the up-and-down motion of the buoys as they bob on ocean waves.  They will create enough power for 40-50,000 homes, with no use of fossil fuels or other pollutants.

Built to Withstand Hurricanes

Two concerns about using ocean waves to create power are (1) damage from storms, and (2) periods when there are no waves.  However, buoys built by OPT withstood the full force of Hurricane Irene with no problems, and excess power created by them is diverted to battery charging stations, to provide continual energy even when the ocean is calm.

Vast Potential

Since almost half of all Americans live within 50 miles of a coastline, the potential of wave power technology and these buoys to meet residential energy needs is enormous.  Along with offshore wind farms, buoy stations could be meeting most of the country’s electrical demands within a decade.

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Deciding when you need LEED consulting services can often be tricky for builders or project managers. You can turn to a consultant for advice when you feel overwhelmed by the project’s demands, or ideally, you can turn to a consultant near the beginning of the process before any feelings of frustration or confusion surface.

The role of a LEED consultant, of course, can vary from project to project. They can step in to help with whichever aspects of the project that they are needed for. Essentially, their role is to align the environmental goals of the project with the budget of the project and to increase the health and safety of the facility’s indoor environment for the occupants, while also reducing the operation costs of the facility. However, the steps that the consultant takes to reach those goals can vary from project to project.

For instance, LEED consulting services can be valuable at the onset of the project to determine the target LEED scores or even to determine which LEED certifications the project should apply for. However, if the project manager is familiar with those steps and is comfortable taking them on his or her own, the consultant may not be needed until later in the project’s timeline. They can work with the owner or the design team to ensure that the project contains the required elements and that it will be compliant with the LEED standards. Many project managers find the paperwork of the certification process to be the most onerous. If that describes you, you may wish to have a LEED consultant heavily involved in gathering the correct documentation and doing the right calculations, as well as drafting and submitting the documents to the USGBC.

Earning LEED certification has a number of merits that are both financial and environmental. However, when the entire process is slowed down because of a missing document or a small design inconsistency that can cause the project to take longer to complete and incur more costs. By hiring quality LEED consulting services as soon as they feel that they need them, project managers can avoid these eventualities and keep their project on target and within budget.

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