LEED Platinum Buildings Go Mainstream

Preston Koerner at the Jetson Green blog has compiled a compendium of 33 buildings who have achieved, or are in the process of receiving, Platinum ratings from the US Green Building Council's Leadersip in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) initiative.

The link is here:

http://www.jetsongreen.com/2008/12/leed-platinum-p.html

BrightBuilt Barn is referenced in the article. Now that construction is complete, we are in the process of applying for a LEED Platinum rating - we will keep you posted on our progress through the rigorous certification process.

More on LEED can be found here:

http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CategoryID=19

German PassivHaus Construction Similar to BrightBuilt

Yesterday's New York Times contained an article on German "PassivHaus" construction; you can read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/europe/27house.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Passive Houses use superinsulation and strict air tightness to reduce the heating energy requirements of a building by 70% - 90%. BrightBuilt Barn has used some of these same concepts to create its own approach to sustainability.

The Wikipedia entry explaining the history and background of Passive Houses is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

The PassivHaus concept grew out of a collaboration in the late 1980s and early 1990s between two professors of architecture, Professor Bo Adamson of Sweden and Dr. Wolfgang Feist of Germany. Over time, their ideas were codified into a standard of building performance, as described on this English-language page of the PassivHaus Institut's webpage (most of which is in German):

http://www.passiv.de/English/PassiveH.HTM

The UK branch of the PassivHaus movement has an English-language website with more information here:

http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/index.jsp?id=667

It's gratifying to see advanced but pragmatic approaches to sustainability in building design and construction begin to get recognition in the mainstream press.

Last Pieces of the Puzzle?

Here are photos of the concrete sink and kitchen countertop at Jon Meade's shop today. They are just about the final substantial outstanding items which the Barn awaits.

They were a long time coming but look quite beautiful. Jon is a true artisan. They should go in next week. The final blower door test will follow shortly after!

BrightBuilt at GreenBuild

None other than Bensonwood's fearless leader, Tedd Benson, was the Keynote Speaker (along with Kevin O'Connor of This Old House and Steve Kieran of Kieran Timberlake Architects) at this year's GreenBuild event in Boston last week. The special track was specifically for Green Homebuilders and within this track, Tedd also led another seminar called "Extreme Green", in which he talked at length about a number of Bensonwood's cutting-edge projects, including - of course - The BrightBuilt Barn.

The picture you see here from the Main Event is of Tedd in the midst of giving a truly inspirational speech to 800+ attendees. Many people  after the event relayed to me how much they were moved by his words. Include me in that bunch. And yes, that is BBB on the big screen in the background. Pretty cool, all around.

BrightBuilt in Electronic House

BrightBuilt has been featured in another excellent Blog, Steve's Castle's "Green Technology" Column for the magazine, Electronic House. Take a look, and be sure to view Steve's other interesting postings.

Light Skirt in Action!

The Light Skirt is finally up and running and it looks just as cool as we'd hoped. Our Lighting Designer, Greg Day of DayMatero Studio, came up with Steve Barlock of Visible Light, Supplier of all LEDs in the project including the Light Skirt fixtures, to program the lights, choose the colors, and make some final adjustments. The barn glows GREEN when it is producing more energy than it consumes; YELLOW indicates a borderline condition; RED means that energy usage is current higher than required to meet our yearly NET ENERGY goal. These colors are indicators of real-time energy usage, and will soon be visible on our website. The first photo shows the LEDs in the shower. Pretty dramatic, eh?

The Big Push

Keith and Mary's dream is just days away from becoming a reality. Alan Gibson and his team are pushing to get the remaining (major) items crossed off his list before the weekend. Keith and Mary welcome Tedd Benson and a group of his Timberframer colleagues up this weekend for a tour.

Some of the final items are the lighting, deck, fixtures and various minor finish details. 

They were installing the 'light skirt' yesterday, preparing for the colored LED fixtures to go in. Our lighting designer, Greg 

Day of DayMatero Studio, and the LED systems supplier, Steve Barlock of Visible Light, will be 

up Friday to do some fine tuning.

The heat pump is in and all systems will be fired up this week as well. Although fairly imposing, the exterior portion of the heat pump will be such an efficient contributor to the comfort of the space that it's well worth it. After all, 

removing a furnace from a year-round structure in Maine necessarily involves a couple trade-offs. 

Alan's craftsmanship has been excellent and Keith and Mary's patience with this truly groundbreaking project has been pretty exceptional as well.