Arranging and installing the plants presents [...]]]>

This weekend we get a special treat: we’ll be taking delivery of over 250 tropical plants and installing two indoor living walls. It’s the culminating step in a complete renovation of Area Yoga Studio in Downtown Brooklyn and promises to transform the character of the space.

Arranging and installing the plants presents lots of artistic and technical challenges, but a lot of the success of the green wall has taken place quietly over the last few months, in the careful process of plant selection.

We enjoy pushing the envelope of green contracting in New York City, and we like to think outside the box in our species choices too:  the challenge is to avoid the tired old themes of corporate and institutional plantscaping without compromising ease of maintenance and good growth.

We start with a process of elimination based on temperature range, the space available, the access to sunlight and the budget.

Then we look at the things we can control, like light and water, and base our plant selection on what we can provide in a sustainable way. In this case we’re using T5 fluorescent lights, which have a great balance of energy efficiency, affordability and strong, broad-spectrum light for plant growth.  Water for the green wall is recycled from the sink of a nearby bathroom, reducing the building’s water use as well as the outflow to our overburdened sewer system.

Next we list what functions we want the plants in our living wall to perform. Where an outdoor green wall installation would consider the effect on insulation and shading, in this case we were looking mainly for air purification, and managed to include plants that reduce levels of formaldehyde, benzene, ammonia and others.

This brings us to the most gratifying step in species selection: aesthetics. A complex palette of leaves and flowers that will add a sense of depth to the space has to be balanced with need for a meditative atmosphere of concentration. It is a yoga studio after all. At the same time the plants and their built context have to be matched: a challenge in New York when most of the viable indoor plants are native to the faraway tropics.

And finally we have to source our plants. We try to get everything as locally as possible, but there’s only one place in nature where conditions match the low light and moderate temperatures found in a New York City building: the understory of a tropical forest. That’s where almost all houseplants come from, and it means that our closest source is Florida.

Transporting plants over those distances is decadent in energy terms, but it does give us an opportunity to advance state of the art green design. We may have brought the plants a long way, but we’re using them to experiment with indoor living systems for grey water purification, and creating a magical space for Brooklyn yoga students to rest their eyes in shades of green while they practice.  We think that’s work that needs to be explored, if anything to ultimately decide the process is not ecological enough.

So that’s how we arrived at the following list. They’re a beautiful bunch of plants and we can’t wait to get their hands on them.

Anthurium,  assorted colors

Bromeliad Guzmaniam, assorted colors

Gold Dust Croton

ZZ

Dracaena Dragon Series,  assorted varieties

Aspidistra

Spath

Aglaonema, assorted varietes

Spider Plant

Dens Orchid

Bird’s Nest Fern, Japanese and Kangaroo varieties

Nephthytis Allusions, assorted colors

Philodendron

Hoya

Pothos

So come take a class at Area Yoga on Montague street in Brooklyn and check out the new indoor living wall installation. It promises to be magical!

With a clear focus on Big Sur homes Olsen highlights homes that were built along the same style as the Slow Food Movement, where meaning, lifestyle and experience are just as important as the finished “product”, [...]]]>

The book Handmade Houses, A Century of Earth-Friendly Home Design, by Richard Olsen is inspiration for any green builder.

With a clear focus on Big Sur homes Olsen highlights homes that were built along the same style as the Slow Food Movement, where meaning, lifestyle and experience are just as important as the finished “product”, that is if it ever gets finished – which is rare since how can you finish an experience, it just melds into another.

The green building movement as embodied by modern forward thinking perceptions of society and the environment are very much founded in the 1960′s and 1970′s hippie and counter culture movements that founded so much of what we are today.

Call it 70s hippies’s can-do attitudes, where you Turn on, tune in, drop out, the homes in Olsen’s books are more about a lifestyle than about construction, and if it is about construction it is about building a lot more than just structures but rather the culture that needs those specific structures.

The homes are all “dropped out” in the wilderness, often with views of the Big Sur. They have the vibe of being built by somebody who smoked some really good grass, took a walk on the beach, found some driftwood and said, “Man this wood is beautiful, lets make something out of it.”

And thirty years later they are almost there, their homes an evolving work of art that are full of memories from raising children, hosting friends and living life.

An example of one person's creative home making

The book is an inspiration for me, a New York green contractor. My parents were hippies. We lived in homes like this during my childhood and I draw from that when we build.

My own house, the Eco Brooklyn show house for ecological building, could be in this book. An old hippie architect MISHA SARADOFF walked through it and exclaimed with glee, “I love it! You are doing everything WRONG!”

WRONG in terms of budget, formal architectural theory, schedule, and everything else that matters in mainstream capitalist construction. Misha once talked me out of becoming an architect for the same reason.

The Brooklyn green show house lower duplex with fire escape catwalk, cement floor and earthen walls

Stairs from old growth pine, clay wall and a boulder we found while digging out the cellar. We call her Lucy.

But the show house is RIGHT from the standpoint of Olsen’s book. More work of art for the living than house, the Eco Brooklyn show house, like the homes in Olsen’s book, is part experiment, part evolution of human need, part creative expression, part collection of found materials.

My one critique of the book is that it portrays itself as an international look into handmade houses, but the truth is that the view is California white centric. Even the homes in other countries might as well be on the coast of Big Sur.

Certainly these homes are worth looking at but to the book as a history of “Handmade Houses” from the past century and not even mention the MILLIONS of hand made homes across the globe by poor dark people is myopic at best.

But the book still has value. With this kind of book you can see the home as an expression of the people who live in it. In this case it is not the home as a commodity that you buy off the shelf. All these homes are unique, just like people are unique. The homes are an expression of people seeking happiness in the world as themselves, something you can’t buy but have to discover for yourself.

The book is about design, history and aesthetics, the main aesthetic being Wabi Sabi. The book is not about building techniques. You don’t have any discussion about energy efficiency, construction ratings or any of the other things people are obsessed with today. The book takes a larger look at cultural trends, specifically the green building trends that can be traced to the 70′s.

[Building] is all about the human consciousness to me. Its about our evolution more than the buildings themselves.

Sitting in NY city watching this fellow green builder in the woods of Washington, I can’t help but long for those sounds of birds [...]]]>

Check out this dude. A real druid. A magical builder. Sunray Kelly

[Building] is all about the human consciousness to me. Its about our evolution more than the buildings themselves.

Sitting in NY city watching this fellow green builder in the woods of Washington, I can’t help but long for those sounds of birds and water in the stillness of the trees. I think a green builder carries that longing in their heart no matter where they build. I know I do. I may be a New York green contractor but I often build with the woods in mind.

You can take a green builder out of nature but you can’t take nature out of the green builder.

Inspired By… SunRay Kelley from Shwood Eyewear on Vimeo.

Eco Brooklyn, Inc., a green contractor, renovating a new yoga studio in Brooklyn Heights, NY.

You could almost [...]]]>

We are renovating a Yoga studio in Brooklyn Heights, one of New York’s many historic and wonderfully preserved landmark neighborhoods. This beauty is preserved thanks to the diligent work of the Landmark Preservation Commission (LPC).

Eco Brooklyn, Inc., a green contractor, renovating a new yoga studio in Brooklyn Heights, NY.

You could almost say the LPC is a green building organization since it encourages us to reuse the housing stock we have and doesn’t easily let us replace it. As a green building contractor we appreciate this.

Anyone who has tried to do construction in a land marked area knows that the LPC is a mixed blessing.  It is great that we have such an organization looking out for us, but boy can they be a pain in the butt.

Any work affecting land marked property requires approval from the (LPC) and woe to the person who ignores this. The general rule of thumb is, if the work affects the exterior of the building and you can see it from the street then Landmarks needs to be involved.

Work in the back of the building is generally, but not always, less of a Landmarks issue.

The trick to reducing the pain of dealing with Landmarks is to be diligent and play their game even when at times it can be time consuming and tedious. If you do this then you won’t have major problems.

Guidelines and Materials Checklists for Performing Work on Landmarked Buildings provides a comprehensive list of modifications that will obligate you to obtain authorization from LPC.  Our experience is the application and hearing process takes 20-30 days, although it can take months if Landmarks has objections or if the application was prepared with anything less than anal fervor. There is a program designed to expedite the process for certain projects within ten days.  So, if your renovation is plumbing, electrical work, construction on non-load bearing partitions or even HVAC work, you should start the application process here.

Montague Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY

For the Brooklyn Heights yoga studio job we needed to put up store signage, and being a good green contractor we called Landmarks to apply for approval.  Here’s what we need to support our application:

1. Color photo(s) of the entire building with proposed location of signage indicated.
2. Close-up photo of proposed location of signage.
3. Photomontage showing proposed sign location in relation to building and neighboring buildings and other storefronts in the building if the building has multiple storefronts.
4. Detail drawings showing dimensions of the sign and how it will be attached to the building.
5. Drawing of the sign with dimensions and sign lettering indicated.
6. Material and color sample(s).

As you see the list underscores the importance of being detailed. Play nice, follow their rules and you will be fine. We expect to have approval in a week or two.

Like so many green builders he is driven by [...]]]>

Here is a great local green builder from the Bronx. His name is Steve Ritz and he is a classic example of how green building is much more than the daily activity. He may grow vegetables but like he says, he is not a farmer.

Like so many green builders he is driven by love of humanity and life. The building is actually secondary.

As a New York green contractor we totally relate to Steve Ritz drive to turn NY green and healthy. We consider him an ally and inspiration. We share a unified vision of not only lessening our impact on the world but actually going a step further and bringing life back to the world.

That is the difference between doing no harm and actually doing good, treading water and swimming.

Steve Ritz swims.