Drywall causes Odors and Corrosion in U.S.

Be careful, there has been a recent outbreak in the Gulf Coast area with homeowners complaining about Odors in their homes. The federal and state authorities have found a radioactive substance called "phosphogypsum" in drywall that was imported from China.

The reason for drywall imported from China has been due to the hurricane destruction these pasts years since 2006 and the U.S. Gypsums companies being unable to keep up with demand.

Among the list of risks that this substances causes are lung cancer, corrosion of metallic substances and nose bleeds. However, there is not conclusive proof that this product in fact causes cancer there are a lot of concerns.

This substance was banned by the EPA back in 1989, but is only monitored in locally produced products. There isn't really any plan in place that monitors a variety of foreign imports. As I have found on a few of my projects which materials were sourced from Chinese imports, the quality of their products typically do not stand up to locally produced brands (doors, windows, wood products, fiber-glass based products) and stress that all consumers begin to ask questions about the types of materials that you purchase.

Everyone must remember that your money is a "vote" for everything you purchase, and you should not enter lightly into that when it comes to your living environments. As a professional it is my responsibility to pay attention to the types and quality of products that I use on my projects. I will not plug any one provider over another, but I want to make sure that people are very careful and am constantly in search of new opportunities to find sustainable solutions for your living environments. Always ask "what am I getting" whenever you engage into purchasing the next material for your home, because your decisions do have a direct impact on yours and your families health.

If you still have questions regarding potential problems, take a look at the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) website regarding myths of carpets as one resource. To read the original source for the information I provided above click here.

US could save $1.2 trillion by going green

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Management consulting firm McKinsey & Company released a study showing that the United States (US) could save $1.2 trillion and reduce green house gases by 1.1 Gigatons (equivalent to removing 200 million vehicles from the road). Their study outlines the increased energy efficiency in buildings that are attainable through the use of existing methods and technologies by 2020. What's most spectacular is, if a committment of $50 billion a year over 10 years, that the changes have the potential for creating 900,000 new jobs and stimulate the economy one and a half times more than the current stimulus package.

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC), along with 11 other organizations from the goverment, sponsored the study on "Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy" produced by McKinsey & Company. The link to the full report (160 pages) and the company that did the research can be found here. I will post a follow-up to this with my commments and insight. The video posted was from Climate Protect.org, an organization focused on helping form positive and committed alliances for the mission of Climate Change. Their website is worth knowing about to get a feel for who is involved and how various organizations are trying to make change happen for the long-term sustainability of our planet.

Obviously a little of my political points of view will come out from time to time, but my goal is to present information that those who read this blog don't have knowledge of. I will let everyone who reads the blog decide how they want to use the information.

The Citadel: Europe's First Floating Apartment Complex

This falls under the category of designs in "harmony" with their surroundings. The architecture firm is called Waterstudio and this project is located in the Netherlands. There are a plethora of Polders in the Netherlands that are used as areas for flood waters to settle during heavy rain storms to protect neighboring homes from being damaged.

The project uses the water that fills up the Polder to cool the apartments. To help you better understand the design technique I will ask that you take a moment and try to find some repetition of the building forms on the picture to the right.

Can you see a pattern beginning to form? This is a type of design that uses a standard component, in this case the apartment unit, to help simplify the form. Then the Architect provides a couple parameters; Greenhouses, patios, building materials, quantity of units per acre, etc.; to begin establishing a method for organizing elements along the site. From here a variety of studies can be conducted to establish size of units, geometries between units, allow more sun, create privacy or just present "cool" and visually appealing architecture that the Architect can then evaluate and digest to re-present to a client.

As you can see there are a variety of ways that Architects can help form a thesis to develop the architecture that you see, and if you have read my other blogs you are starting to learn about a few of them.