Click on the above to read the full article published in the Baltimore Sun covering our Community Expo event (March 27th). Thanks again to all who participated/attended!

As part of the “Green Buildings for Cool Cities” project, the USGBC and Sierra Club have launched a series of “green building tours” across the country. In an effort to spread awareness about the significant role green construction plays in economic recovery, green buildings (both LEED certified and in pursuit of certification) in seven cities will be opened to the public and publicized accordingly. Sites include homes, schools, commercial and municipal buildings:

Charlotte, North Carolina – Charlotte residents can tour the Cherry Gardens Senior Apartments, a LEED for Homes registered low-income multifamily development. Contact Beth Clark at 704-575-4482 or Daria Milburn at 704-936-9433 for more information.

Tennessee – Green building tours will be offered in Chattanooga, Cookville, Crossville, Johnson, Knoxville, Memphis, Murfreesboro, and Nashville. Contact Stephen Sondheim at 901-761-1793 or Elizabeth Eason at 865-368-5075 for more information.

Colorado – Denver residents can tour the LEED Gold certified Wellington Webb Municipal Office Building and Fort Collins residents can tour the LEED registered Poudre Fire Authority Station #4. For more information on these two opportunities, call Jonah Fruchter at 303-945-1152 or Patti Mason at 303-454-3391. 

San Jose, California – The Integrated Design Associates headquarters, which was designed to have a net-zero energy usage as well as net-zero carbon emissions is the featured stop in California. Contact Julio Magalhaes at 650-390-8441 for tour details.

Augusta, Maine – Hannaford’s, the first LEED Platinum grocery store in the world, will be participating in the green building tours. Call Glen Brand at 207-272-0484 or Katye Charette at 207-329-0700 for details.

Brookfield, Wisconsin – Call Rosemary Wehnes at 414-828-1357 or Sue Loomans at 414-224-9422 for details on the Environmental Systems Inc tour.

Reno, Nevada – The USGBC and the Sierra Club are offering tours of three different green buildings in Reno. Call David von Seggren at 775-303-8461 for details.

All very interesting, and an admirable attempt to generate buzz with a wide array of building types (though one could still argue that the essence of “community” within these “cool cities” is lost without showcasing more comprehensive projects– hint, hint). For more details on the tours and to read some oft repeated but still noteworthy green building stats, take a look at the USGBC press release here. For more info on the “Green Buildings for Cool Cities” project (Baltimore, for the record, has been a “Cool City” since 2006), visit its website here.

This past Saturday, One Green Home, in partnership with the Verde Group, hosted a Community Expo/Street Fair– complete with a marching band and drumline, community booths, entertainment for adults and kids, fried food and dessert (the latter courtesey of one of our very own builders, Marko Jovetic). Fun was had and our houses were shown, and notably every passerby commented on the high quality finish and affordable price of both of our model homes– even Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

If you were otherwise engaged on the day, keep an eye on our blog for more pics (and potentially film footage) of what you missed. For now, however, thanks to Ingrid Lofgren of UMBC for the above pic (from the left: Martin Richardson of Keller Williams Realty and the Verde Group, Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano, Lloyd Williams of Clad Construction and the Verde Group, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake, David Borinsky of Bridge Private Lending, Yvette Chambers of the Verde Group, and City Councilman Bernard C. Jack Young).

If you’re still not sure whether or not you have time to attend our event this Saturday, let me provide you with more incentives:

Live music from…

• Brown Fish
• Fly Gypsy
• K the Jeweller
• and more…

Prizes including…

• A Flat Screen TV
• Grab Bags for Kids
• Art, CD’s, and Books donated by local artists
• T-shirt Giveaways
• and more…

Speeches from…

• Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
• City Councilman Jack Young
• Verde Group Representatives
• Oliver Community Association Representatives
• and more…

And more live entertainment from…

• A Marching Band
• Steppers
• Belly Dancers
• A Moonbounce

Not to mention tours of two of our model homes, 1515 N. Bond and 1504 N. Bond.

It’s going to be a great time– hope to see you there!

One Green Home will be hosting a block party event on Bond St– prospective homebuyers, current residents of the neighborhood, families, friends, etc are encouraged to show up, eat and be entertained, and tour our model homes. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will be in attendance, as will a number of other higher ups– and, of course, our builders will be on hand to answer any questions you might have about our project. The event runs from 11am to 4pm, and will take place in and around our properties on the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Bond St.

This is just a preliminary announcement– more details are coming soon, so keep an eye on our blog, twitter and facebook pages! If you’re too impatient, however, you can request more info at anna@onegreenhomeatatime.com. You can also take a virtual tour of our model homes and view our property listings at One Green Home’s partner site, http://comehomebaltimore.com/.

One Green Home and the Verde Group are sponsoring the 2010 Baltimore Natural Hair Expo at the Pikesville Hilton. If you didn’t get a chance to stop by and see us yesterday, stop by today from 11am onward– we’ve got a booth with tons of fliers, registration forms, and film footage. Our builders are on hand to give advice on affordable, energy efficient building (residential or commercial), and to provide details on our upcoming Block Party event taking place on March 27th (the Mayor will be there!).

If you’d like more info on the Hair Expo, visit their site here. It’s a worthwhile visit to Pikesville– jewelry, hats, and lots of other accessories to browse when you’re not getting valuable lessons in haircare.

Last Friday I attended an evening lecture at MICA entitled “Design Revolution Roadshow”, a traveling exhibition and lecture series focused on “product design that empowers”. Initially phrases like “humanitarian design” and “social design” disappointed—I had been told “green” and sustainability would feature heavily. Then I realized that, though the presenters purposefully avoided using the term “green”, the concept of “humanitarian” and “sustainable” as it related to their projects were intrinsically connected. Allow me to elucidate:

Lecture 1: “Project H”

Presenters Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller have travelled across the country and to other continents executing design projects, many of them education based. They use recycled materials to build teaching playgrounds in impoverished countries (see their Learning Landscape) and to design “live-in” clothes with the homeless—always with the concept “Work With, Not For” in mind. They place emphasis on “creating systems, not stuff”, and though the idea of “eco-friendly” design is not strange to them, their project manifesto focuses instead on how to sustain what they have created. From their website:

“Environmental responsibility and innovative green materials are design imperatives, but it’s unnerving to see “green design” being discussed as a trend, particularly without the social dimensions of sustainability. I’ve been trying for years to spark a paradigm shift that builds off material sustainability towards a more social or human sustainability. We can design “green” all day long, but if all that results are more bamboo coffee tables for luxury markets, green design is destined to get a bad rap. Indeed, one can hope that the term “green design” disappears in 5 years–not because design will no longer be green, but because it won’t need to be called out as a value add or as a particular distinction; all design will be green design. But let’s also imbue the next frontier in sustainability with compassion, where our ultimate judge of “goodness” is humanist rather than consumerist.”

 You can learn more about each of their initiatives, including their unique mode of travelling/exhibition by visiting either the Project H website or the Design Revolution website. Or you can just watch one and a half minute clip above.

Lecture 2: “Project M”

Project M is the brainchild of John Bielenberg, and its motto is “Think Wrong”. As a call to creatives encouraged to challenge convention (excessive alliteration not intended), it’s relatively succinct. Ironically, however, the phrase inevitably leads participants to “do right”—like Project H, Project M focuses on communities who are in dire need, whether it be architectural, educational, or social in nature. Again, communal involvement in each project is imperative, with sustainability stemming as much from “working with” as from the recycled materials they use and their emphasis on efficiency.

Project M has left its mark all over the country and the world—while initiatives like “Pizza Farm” and “Nada Bike” are small-scale successes, larger-scale architectural projects (Hale County, Alabama) show their interest in low-income community improvement. Though efforts in East Baltimore don’t seem to have taken root, the above news report on a Project M initiative in Detroit gets to the heart of what the Greenwood Communities Initiative is trying to accomplish.

Lecture 3: “Change Observer”

Presentor Julie Lasky currently edits ChangeObserver.com, a subsite of Design Observer and an online  attempt to chronicle efforts in “social design” across the globe. Again, you don’t see the word “green” anywhere on the “About” page, nor did she mention it at any time during her lecture. And yet articles on organic materials, eating locally, and efficient design dominate the site. Particularly relevant during Ms. Lasky’s overview of the site was her emphasis on “incremental change”—the phrase “one ___ at a time” was introduced and praised, and I felt personally vindicated given our own focus on that exact methodology here at One Green Home. I also found it intriguing that the site’s function was described as a platform for designers to “cross-pollinate”, where ideas about “social design” (or as I am opting to refer to it, “sustainable design”) can be reported on and shared.

The lecture series ended with a panel discussion and questions from the audience, most of which focused on the more creative aspects of design and how to pursue a successful career in the field. Perhaps not as pertinent to me, but I was completely satisfied with what I had already heard. For more details, again, visit the respective websites of each of the above, or you can see the travelling exhibition yourself as it continues to tour the country—I highly recommend it.

You may recall a past post on this blog covering the $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers. With the deadline approaching (contracts must be signed by April 30^th), Baltimore City officials have provided even more incentive for prospective homebuyers to purchase now. Yesterday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that, through an extension of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) First-Time Homebuyer’s Program, $300,000 more would be divvied up between sixty low-income families.

The replenished grant program, which had been established and quickly exhausted in 2009, is meant to attract county residents back to the city center. Despite suburban wariness about the city’s crime rate, Mayor Rawlings-Blake pointed out that “affordable housing stock is still available for purchase in many of Baltimore’s 220 neighborhoods.” With $13,000 available in home buying support ($8,000 federal + $5,000/family), I wouldn’t be surprised to see all of the money gone within a few weeks.

However, given the fast approaching deadline one wonders how effective this tactic will be. Will candidates take advantage of the information available to them, or simply scramble for the free money? Qualifying families must take a homebuyer counseling class and have their prospective home inspected—a smart move on the part of the city to ensure that families avoid unwise purchases. Let’s hope shoddy craftsmanship and inefficient construction don’t slip under the radar.

To learn more about how the grant is structured, and to find out how to qualify, visit Live Baltimore here. For a general overview and quotes from the Mayor and Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano, visit WBALTV and BaltimoreHousing.org.

Our most effective, and may I say simplest, “trick” to making our homes affordable is buying in bulk. We’ve been learning, however, that our collaborative group meetings are just as important. Last week, we had our window supplier Rick Miller, of Zeskind’s Hardware and Millwork, visit our project site to teach our builders how to properly frame for historic wood windows. Notes were taken, techniques demonstrated, and all benefitted from the questions of their peers. Residents of the neighborhood even stopped by to listen. Thanks again to Rick Miller, for contributing his time and expertise to our group!

With President Obama officially behind the Homestar program (aka, Cash for Caulkers) as of last week, Democrats are now attempting to push it and a few complementary clean energy bills through the House and Senate. On the agenda for this week:

1. “Homestar”/”Cash for Caulkers”, which provides rebates for energy efficient upgrades to homes
2. “Building Star”, which provides rebates for similar upgrades in commercial projects
3. S. 1320, which provides manufactured housing rebates
4. S. 3059, S. 1696, and S. 3054, all bills that up energy efficiency requirements for high energy consumption appliances

Most of the opposition predictably focuses on bureaucratic complications and the price tag—Homestar alone will likely cost $6 billion, which, despite cited long-term benefits like job creation and lower green house gases, is simply too much for some to take. As such, it’s looking like the appliance bills are going to meet the least resistance.

If you’d like more details on each of the bills being considered, but don’t particularly want to read through them all, the New York Times has posted an excellent overview (along with the tentative hearing schedule) here. You can read additional coverage at SustainableBusiness.com.