Web-based resource to assist designers, contractors, and housing agencies integrate sustainability, health, durability, and energy efficiency into cold climate housing. It includes design strategies, decision making tools, comparative analyses, best practices, and resources. To aid agencies and communities in understanding costs and benefits of design strategies proposed by developers, the web site includes a systematic analysis of design alternatives at several scales.
Blueprint for Green Affordable Housing is a guide for housing developers, advocates, public agency staff, and the financial community that offers specific guidance on incorporating green building strategies into the design, construction, and operation of affordable housing developments. A completely revised and expanded second edition of the groundbreaking 1999 publication, this new book focuses on topics of specific relevance to affordable housing including: how green building adds value to affordable housing the integrated design process best practices in green design for affordable housing green operations and maintenance innovative funding and finance emerging programs, partnerships, and policies Edited by national green affordable housing expert Walker Wells and featuring a foreword by Matt Petersen, president and chief executive officer of Global Green USA, the book presents 12 case studies of model developments and projects, including rental, home ownership, special needs, senior, self-help, and co-housing from around the United States. Each case study describes the unique green features of the development, discusses how they were successfully incorporated, considers the project's financing and savings associated with the green measures, and outlines lessons learned. Blueprint for Green Affordable Housing is the first book of its kind to present information regarding green building that is specifically tailored to the affordable housing development community.
Examining the most important issues in achieving the goal of building more efficient and less damaging buildings, this book highlight the significant statutes and regulations as well as other legal issues that need to be considered when advising clients in the development, construction, financing, and leasing of a green building. Topics include federal incentive programs, financing, alternative energy, site selection, land use planning, green construction practices and materials, emerging legal issues, and the effects of climate change on planning and architectural design.
This practical guidebook to zero energy homes focuses on real costs and savings, exploring such topics as site selection and passive design, heating and cooling, and financial resources and incentives. Original.
Read Diane McEachern's posts on the Penguin Blog. Protecting our environment is one of the biggest issues facing our planet today. But how do we solve a problem that can seem overwhelming-even hopeless? As Diane MacEachern argues in Big Green Purse, the best way to fight the industries that pollute the planet, thereby changing the marketplace forever, is to mobilize the most powerful consumer force in the world-women. MacEachern's message is simple but revolutionary. If women harness the "power of their purse" and intentionally shift their spending money to commodities that have the greatest environmental benefit, they can create a cleaner, greener world. Spirited and informative, this book: - targets twenty commodities-cars, cosmetics, coffee, food, paper products, appliances, cleansers, and more-where women's dollars can make a dramatic difference; - provides easy-to-follow guidelines and lists so women can choose the greenest option regardless of what they're buying, along with recommended companies they should support; - encourages women to spend wisely by explaining what's worth the premium price some green products cost, what's not, and when they shouldn't spend money at all; and - differentiates between products that are actually "green" and those that are simply marketed as "ecofriendly." Whether readers want to start with small changes or are ready to devote the majority of their budget to green products, MacEachern offers concrete and immediate ways that women can take action and make a difference. Empowering and enlightening, Big Green Purse will become the "green shopping bible" for women everywhere who are asking, "What can I do?"
The lack of affordable housing and the climate crisis are two of the most pressing challenges facing cities today. Green affordable housing addresses both by providing housing stability, safety, and financial predictability while constructing and operating the buildings to reduce environmental and climate impacts. Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing is the most comprehensive resource on how green building principles can be incorporated into affordable housing design, construction, and operation. In this fully revised edition, Walker Wells and Kimberly Vermeer capture the rapid evolution of green building practices and make a compelling case for integrating green building in affordable housing. The Blueprint offers guidance on innovative practices, green building certifications for affordable housing, and the latest financing strategies. The completely new case studies share detailed insights on how the many elements of a green building are incorporated into different housing types and locations. Case studies include a geographical range, from high-desert homeownership, to southeast supportive housing, and net-zero family apartments on the coasts. The new edition includes basic planning tools such as checklists to guide the planning process, and questions to encourage reflection about how the content applies in practice. While Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing is especially useful to housing development project managers, the information and insights will be valuable to all participants in the affordable housing industry: developers, designers and engineers, funders, public agency staff, property and asset managers, housing advocates, and resident advocates. Every affordable housing project can achieve the fundamentals of good green building design and practice. By sharing the authors’ years of expertise in guiding hundreds of organizations, Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing, Revised Edition gives project teams what they need to push for excellence.
HOME Line wrote How to Be the Smartest Renter on Your Block to help renters through the process of finding, getting, and maintaining rental housing. Reflecting upon the real-life concerns we hear through thousands of questions on our tenant hotline, this book gives advice on the best ways to handle and avoid the most common rental problems.This book follows the rental process from beginning to end with several additional chapters on unique rental housing situations. The book begins with advice regarding finding and applying for an apartment and moves on to understanding the terms of a lease. Next, some of the most common issues renters run into once they've moved in are coveredgetting repairs made, dealing with neighbors, right to privacy, and more. Later, the book addresses what to expect when a renter intends to move out of an apartment and how to make sure a security deposit is returned. Furthermore, several immediate emerging issues in the rental market are covered: What does a renter do when a landlord is in foreclosure? Who is responsible for paying when an apartment becomes infested with bedbugs? Lastly, we take a detailed look at community organizing and how tenants can work collectively to hold their landlords and elected officials accountable. How to Be the Smartest Renter on Your Block answers these questions and more.
Books on green building theories, principles and strategies applicable to life cycles of all kinds of buildings and building types are already widely available. However, those specifically on greening affordable housing that guide various housing stakeholders at different life cycles are still very limited. This book intends to fill this gap. Integrating green building enables stakeholders to address the environmental component that has not traditionally been seen as an integral part of affordable housing development. The book presents theories and principles with practical methods, strategies and processes not only to make affordable housing green but also to support economic stability and social equity.
An essential guide for a firm of any size to effectively position itself in the marketplace For an architecture or design firm to survive and prosper in the new economy, it needs to redefine and reinvigorate its position in the marketplace. With dozens of how-to cases, examples, and guidelines, Positioning for Architecture and Design Firms provides the entire menu of tools, plus the inspiration needed, for making the changes required to stay competitive in the design world. Offering strategies for leveraging a firm's strongest assets into the formulation of a successful long-term plan, this book breaks with tradition to introduce the latest concepts specifically developed for building future business opportunities in an unstable economic landscape marked by shifts in competition, technology, and client expectations. With a wealth of information targeting the subject of positioning, readers will learn: Why the aftershocks of the Great Recession are likely to linger, and what you can do about it in relation to your firm's success How the coming generational shift will change the design business What positioning is, and how it needs to be developed to support and implement your strategic vision How your firm can establish a robust identity and operating model The importance of your firm's essential purpose How to turn your marketing department into a true marketing system, transforming it from production mode into an integrated positioning machine Why it is important to engage in advanced research and open innovation initiatives Addressing issues of firm identity, including an understanding of how to create the market positioning desired, Positioning for Architecture and Design Firms shows how a design firm—large or small, new or well established—can position itself to gain greater control over its destiny, and reach loftier levels of achievement. Learn about firm types, and match the right type to a firm's goals Develop and maintain a firm's identity in the marketplace Discover how organizational design and marketing support a chosen firm type
