Conference Update: Living Future, Federal Summit, and Greening the Heartland

This past month has been filled with fantastic sustainability conferences. To start off, PlanetReuse traveled to Seattle, Washington to attend the Cascadia Region Green Building Council Living Future Conference. Keynote speakers included Jason F. McLennan and Dr. John Francis, PhD. CEO of Cascadia GBC, McLennan annnounced during his presentation an interesting challenge to sustainability called the Living City Design Competition. To the most inspiring, informative entries, $125,000 in cash prizes awaits. Dr. Francis then shared with the audience many experiences which helped inspire his book Planetwalker. Dr. Francis helped with the 1971 oil spill in the San Francisco Bay scrubbing petroleum-covered beaches and creatures. Afterwards, he began a pact of no longer using any form of transportation that required petroleum and began traveling the country on-foot which later initiated a vow of silence. A fascinating presentation from an exceptionally interesting person. Many Living Building Challenge projects were reviewed and discussed in a very collaborative format throughout the conference. The Tyson Living Learning Future Project in St. Louis, MO, striving to be one of the first Living Building Challenge-certified projects, shared their successes as well as their struggles in a panel discussion with project Architect Dan Hellmuth with Hellmuth + Bicknese, Neil Myers with Williams Creek Consulting and Nathan Benjamin with PlanetReuse.

Next up was the USGBC Federal Summit which was held in Washington D.C. Among many others, speaking at the conference was the U.S. General Services Administration's Martha N. Johnson who announced the zero environmental footprint target for the U.S. GSA in her presentation. Nathan also got the opportunity to moderate a great panel in a session titled "Building Material Reuse - Successful Models and Future Tools" with Darin Headrick of Greensburg School, Liz Ogbu of Public Architecture, and Ted Huang with Webor Builders. To view their entire Federal Summit presentation, click here. It was great to see the excitement in the over 750 attendees from offices in DC and around the country that can really make change in Federal sustainable policies and procedures.

Then there was Greening the Heartland which took place in Minneapolis, MN. Perfect weather coupled with a great line-up of speakers and activities, this was a great conference. While there, Nathan spread the word about reclaimed materials reuse in his session "Reclaimed Material Reuse: Bridging the Gap Between Want and Need", met many great forward-thinking sustainable firms and companies, and heard a great presentation by keynote speaker Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity.

During the month of May, there was no shortage of beneficial sustainability conferences occurring around the nation. Despite the recession and budget cuts, it is great to see that sustainability is pushing forward with interest, support, and valuable conversation from coast to coast.

Steel Reuse in May issue of Modern Steel Construction

Steel Reuse in New Commercial Construction?? Never seen it before? Don't think it's possible? You're going to see it more and more as designers look beyond the easy recycling option of structural steel.

In the May 2010 issue of Modern Steel Construction you can read "Reclaimed Structural Steel and LEED Credit MR 3 - Materials Reuse", a great progressive article by Erika Winters-Downey with the AISC. Erika examines associated costs, testing, carbon footprint information, and the open communication between the steel fabricator and the Engineer of Record. She also discusses how, "reclaiming and reusing steel products provides a strong environmental option not available with many other construction materials." Great research and data to support a change in thought that needs to happen more and more. PlanetReuse was happy to help with research and provide information to help push the reuse industry further forward with materials that are commonly overlooked.

To read the article in it's entirety, click on the images or go here and flip to page 64.

Local Sustainable Furniture Designer Highlighted in 'House and Home' section of KC Star

This past weekend, the Kansas City Star featured the local sustainable furniture designers of Edwin Blue on the front page of the House and Home section. This environmentally-conscious company was able to turn their designs into a reality with a little help from PlanetReuse. We supplied Edwin Blue with enough sinker cypress to complete their entire first collection, 'Rise' which will be released in New York City at the 2011 International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Two other local outdoor furniture companies mentioned in the article are Acronym Designs and Studiobuild which both share a work-space in Overland Park. Founders Jared Foster of Studiobuild and Andrew Dickson of Acronym explain more about their re-purposed materials of choice in the article which you can find in it's entirety here. Enjoy!

Greening the Heartland 2010: May 19-21.

The 7th annual Greening the Heartland conference will be held in Minneapolis on May 19-21. This years' theme will be "Bridging" since it is now being held by both the USGBC of Minnesota and Minnesota Green Communities. Keynote for the conference will be the executive director and co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, Cameron Sinclair. Other than offering the opportunity to hear esteemed speakers, there will also be a USGBC-Heartland Regional Council meeting, workshops, sessions and tours of notable downtown Minneapolis architecture. Nathan Benjamin will be speaking on the topic of, 'Reclaimed Material Reuse: Bridging the Gap Between Have and Need' as part of the 'Holistic Green Track' sessions offered on Friday, the 21st.

The varying events scheduled at this conference will help to create an experience for attendees that will enrich their knowledge of sustainability, environmental protection, green building, social justice, LEED and Green Communities criteria. Check out more information on this must-attend event here.