News
Saturday, March 13th, 2010
GreenHomeNYC’s Green Careers Transition team is putting together a reading list - check out their previous selections. Continuing the series, GreenHomeNYC volunteer Mary Tchamkina takes a look at books that might help to motivate and guide your career transition.
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Tags: careers transition, educational resources, green careers
Posted in Green Career Transitions, News, Reading List | No Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Greg Kiss, Kiss+Cathcart Architects, Brooklyn, NY

Describe your “Eukera!” moment that shaped your decision to pursue environmentally conscious design.
I actually never had one single moment, rather a series of them that had guided the evolution of our firm’s philosophy over the years. Some people pursue environmental design out of moral conviction, others think of it as good business, but we just think of it as good design. Our primary interest has always been good architecture. Good design can be distinguished by its beauty, functionality, and economy; we believe that engagement with the environmental element is just as an important a component as the other three. If we were to omit it, that opportunity for enrichment would be lost.
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Tags: architect, careers transition, green careers, interview, sustainable design
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
GreenHomeNYC’s Green Careers Transition team is putting together a reading list - check out their previous selections. Continuing the series, GreenHomeNYC volunteer Mary Tchamkina takes a look at six books on designing in harmony with nature.
(more…)
Tags: careers transition, educational resources, green careers, sustainable design, urbanism
Posted in Green Career Transitions, News, Reading List | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Last month, the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council acknowledged the Empire State Building as an example of an outstanding retrofit project. Clinton Climate Initiative, Johnson Controls Inc., Jones Lang LaSalle, and Rocky Mountain Institute, all partners in the project, were given the Beyond Green High Performance Building Award, a prize reserved for projects that demonstrate leading practice in whole-building approaches to design and construction. Dattner Architects were winners of the same award in 2007 for their work on the Bronx Library Center.
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Tags: Energy Efficiency, landmarks, retrofit
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Monday, March 8th, 2010
Join GreenHomeNYC for our March Green Building Forum, with three guest speakers focusing on Stormwater issues. The evening will address methods to re-use and manage stormwater for community, residential and commercial projects.
- Wednesday - March 17 from 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
- Green Depot 222 Bowery at Prince Street
- Please RSVP below!
- We’re registered with AIA for continuing education credits. Sign up here
All GreenHomeNYC forums are free and open to the public.
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Tags: Green Building Monthly Forum, stormwater
Posted in Green Building Monthly Forum, News | 1 Comment »
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
Here in NYC, green buildings are rated by the US Green Building Council, who developed and promote the LEED building rating system. GreenHomeNYC volunteer Brian Rahm takes a look at a similar organization 8,000 miles away: the New Zealand Green Building Council.
NZGBC has established a rating system called Green Star, similar to the LEED paradigm. Up to now, rating and green building work in New Zealand has focused on commercial property rather than residential. Because of this focus, and the relatively recent interest in green building principles, many of the properties highlighted by NZGBC are still in the design phase, and are typically large multi-use high-rises in urban environments.
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Tags: International, LEED, nzgbc, rating, USGBC
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Yikes! You are probably wondering what any of these have to do with green buildings! Not to worry!
One Straw Revolution by Masonobu Fukuoka, Gaia’s Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway and Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell each explore in various contexts, the notion of leveraging existing system elements and assets in order to minimize necessary inputs, maximize desired outputs and control or reduce adverse impacts or, in simple English. . .strategies for creating systems that achieve potentially conflicting goals and are also self-maintaining. I would say that accomplishing this is certainly an aspiration of the “high performance” or “green” building.
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Tags: biodiversity, careers transition, educational resources, gardening, green careers
Posted in Green Career Transitions, News, Reading List | No Comments »
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
Already in February 2010 there has been three major policy announcements to further integrate smart building strategies into the city’s built environment. This news in the short term particularly impacts clean energy business owners and those doing business with the city - in the long term the City has begun the process to overhaul its entire regulatory framework. Below is a brief overview of the Speaker’s State of the City Address, the release of the NYC Green Code Task Force’s 111 recommendations, and a link to the DDC’s new Active Design Guidelines - all after the jump. (more…)
Tags: Energy Efficiency, Health, Jobs, NYC DDC, Policy, renewable energy, residential
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Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Governor Paterson has announced the New York Great Appliance Swap Out - a program that provides $16.8 million for New Yorkers to turn in their less efficient appliances for rebates on energy efficient appliances NOW through Sunday, February 21. The program uses federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
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Tags: appliances, Energy Efficiency, financial incentives, NY State, NYSERDA
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Thursday, February 11th, 2010
If so, you might be interested in a stormwater management competition, finishing up this week. Submit your ideas on smarter solutions for street runoff by February 15th and help NYC divert some stormwater from over 6,000 miles of streets in the city. If you’re a follower of GreenHomeNYC’s monthly forum, you might recall our August ‘08 session on this topic.
Find our more about the compeitions at www.mindsinthegutter.org, and read on for details of the judging panel.
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Tags: stormwater
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