Project Spotlight – Tacoma Furnished Monthly Rental
Back in the fall of 2019, we visited an in progress project in Tacoma, Washington that was initially intended as off-campus housing for Pacific Lutheran University students. The project involved an extensive expansion and full renovation of an existing single-family...
Geo Answers: Sustainability – Part 8: A Cradle-to-Cradle Approach
Nothing lasts forever. Even with the up to 40 year life-expectancy of infrared radiant heating devices, like nearly everything, eventually they will wear out. And it might not be the heaters that fail. It might well be that the building itself needs to be demolished,...
Geo Answers: Sustainability – Part 7: Resilience
Resilience is a special subset of durability and reliability. Something may be built to last and work as intended for a long time, like a solid old car. However, it may not adapt well to contemporary uses, or lack modern safety equipment and amenities, or otherwise...
Geo Answers: Sustainability – Part 6: Durability and Reliability
How long something continues to work properly and efficiently is practically synonymous with the concept of sustainability. Using durable shopping bags instead of one-use paper or plastic is a simple example of this concept. The more use we get out of things generally...
The NW Green Home Tour: New Social Equity Projects
No matter at what scale you examine the impacts of Climate Change, the people with the least resources are impacted the most while contributing the least to the problems involved. It's not hard to understand this dynamic. The more impoverished a person is, the more...
Geo Answers: Sustainability – Part 5: Operational Emissions
Generally, calculations of the impacts of using a machine only take operational emissions into account. As we have seen so far in this series, these negative effects are only part of the sustainability equation. However, given a durable application like heating your...