construction

Sweet:

In what would be the biggest change to San Francisco’s waterfront since the construction of the baseball stadium, the city’s renowned Exploratorium science museum is close to clearing important milestones in its push to construct a new home at Piers 15-17.

The museum long ago outgrew the Palace of Fine Arts space where it started in 1969, but despite huge popularity with families and educators, it has struggled to relocate for more than a decade.

Things seem to have changed this time around.

A draft environmental review for the latest proposal failed to find any major problems, and a final report could be complete by the end of June. Museum officials are working on a lease with the Port of San Francisco. Even the notoriously strict agencies that govern what can be built along a waterfront are unofficially endorsing the project, which could be done as early as 2012 if it is approved by port officials and the Board of Supervisors.

SFGate: Smooth sailing seen for Exploratorium on pier


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NOW on PBS looks at mass transit projects and how the stimulus funding may be used, or abused, for such projects. This is a sensible look at what mass transit can offer around the country in terms of neighborhood revitalization, travel ease, reducing driving, lowering fuel consumption, building more sustainable communities and even increasing social interactions. But will the stimulus money actually be used sensibly?

From NOW on PBS:

President Obama’s stimulus money is nearly out the door and on its way to the states, but will it be spent in the way it is intended?

One alarming example: Mass transit. Cities and states, strapped for money, are cutting back on mass transit even as it becomes more popular with Americans. Meanwhile, President Obama is calling for increased mass transit as a necessary step toward energy independence. Will the government’s investment dramatically revitalize our national travel infrastructure, or will states spend the money according to ‘business as usual’?

This week NOW travels to North Carolina to see what the future holds for mass transit in these troubling financial times. Our investigation is part of a PBS-wide series on the country’s infrastructure called “Blueprint America.”

NOW on PBS “Stimulus Roadblock?”
NOW on PBS
Blueprint America on PBS


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Zahid Sardar of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Design Spotting column writes about converting a failed dot-com space into an innovative live-work space near Potrero Hill.

Live-work lofts were too small for sculptor Agelio Batle to raise a family, but residential neighborhoods weren’t right for a substantial studio. After a long search, he found the perfect spot between two Potrero neighborhoods – the work space of a failed dot-com

The remodel includes interesting design, art, room for their staff of eight on the lower floor, living space upstairs, green building materials such as cork flooring, passive solar heating and water-based (non-toxic) paints.

Batles’ Potrero Hill home echoes the past
Design Spotting column


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A few months back re-rest (one of the Apartment Therapy family of sites) posted an article about reusing material from old buildings, rather than just tearing buildings down and throwing everything in to the landfill:

Now here’s a green idea: rather than demolishing buildings with a wrecking ball or by implosion (though that is more fun to watch) take them apart piece by piece… and then reuse the parts.

Granted, it takes a lot longer to dismantle a building than to just tear it down, but you get lots of material and you create jobs. Plus many of the old pieces are going to be of a higher quality level than may be available today:

This makes sense not only from an environmental viewpoint, but also because so many of the materials in old buildings are much better quality than new materials. Old 2 x 4’s, for example, are not only thicker than new ones from Home Depot, they’re usually sawn from old growth timber that has a much tighter grain and is therefore stronger than newer wood.

Here’s the video they posted, as well:

Deconstruction Services from Portland’s ReBuilding Center


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I wrote yesterday that I read Apartment Therapy a lot and get many ideas from their site for topics on this site. I try not to just, you know, use them for too many ideas, though, as I read around and look for things of interest.

I found it amusing to read an article on SFGate about a condo design project, then see that article highlighted in Apartment Therapy. Really, we’re all just passing on things that we find interesting. Maybe someone will pass on some of my ideas here on other sites? Feel free, just mention where it came from; that’s what I do when I pull links from others.

The condo in the aforementioned article is in the new One Rincon building, which I find interesting (I’m all for density and tall buildings, but One Rincon is just ugly), but the design of the condo itself seemed, well, uninspired to me. So much for that.

But something else caught my eye on AT today. They provided links to a bunch of how-to guides on the website of the local Cole Hardware company. Cole Hardware has a location downtown that I pass often, and it’s super fun to head in there and look for project ideas. A couple years ago I found chalkboard paint there and made one of my walls into a giant chalkboard. And we recently picked up some rubber dip there to make handles on some toys. I love hardware stores.

Cole’s online how-to guide topics include Electrical, Decks, Drywall, Gardening, Fences, Planning and Designing, Safety, Weatherstripping, Plumbing, Power Tools, Installation and Maintenance, Paint and Wallpaper and Wood Finishes (which reminds me I need to stop in and get some advice about doing some work on my wood floors).

Cole Hardware how-to guides
Cole Hardware home page


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The US Green Building Council offers a free PDF download of their “REGREEN Residential Remodeling Guidelines” at their Green Home Guide site.

From the introduction:

Green remodeling is the design and construction of projects that reduce the environmental impacts of remodeling, including energy, water, and materials consumption; waste generation; and harmful emissions, both indoors and out.

It’s 180 pages of information, photos, how-to guidelines, case studies and strategies, including sections for each room in a house and chapters on home performance, major additions, gut rehabs and deep energy retrofits.

More about the USGBC:

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a nonprofit composed of leaders from every sector of the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. Our more than 15,000 member organizations and our network of 75 regional chapters are united to advance our mission of transforming the building industry to sustainability.

Download the PDF
Green Home Guide site


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Looking through this weekend’s home tours on the Dwell website, one in particular caught my eye: Arterra.

This is a 269-unit condo tower recently completed in the Mission Bay area, which not only looks interesting and innovative on the outside — I like the blue and orange colors and the offset window depths — but boasts that it’s San Francisco’s first LEED-certified residential high-rise (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a construction rating system developed by the US Green Building Council).

From Dwell’s site:

The building features two green roofs, low-VOC materials, Energy Star appliances and dual-flush toilets. The façade is made from Trespa, an environmentally friendly product developed from end-of-lifecycle recycled materials.

John King, the Chronicle’s architecture columnist (how great is it that San Francisco’s newspaper still has an architecture column!?) wrote about Arterra in August, and found the design to be a visual standout in an area that plays host to many generic designs.


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