I certainly can’t resist a green story from the Kitchener-Waterloo region (my stompin grounds), especially when such stories tend to be few and far between.
According to an article in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, the city of Kitchener has final approval to build a $20 million ($CDN) arena. Construction on the 108,000 sq complex is slated to start this spring and should be completed by fall of 2008.
According to the article, the new arena will boast enough green features to make it “one of the most environmentally progressive in the country” – enough apparently to earn it a LEED Gold rating.
Here is a blurb:
Councillors unanimously added costs by supporting the installation of a green roof over part of the arena building. The roof will give the building a gold rating in a federal program that encourages the construction of buildings that save electricity and reduce harmful emissions.
The city will spend $925,000 to get a gold rating under the program, called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
Among other things, the building will use rainwater collected from the roof to flush toilets, and capture heat from equipment to heat water and warm locker rooms.
The city will recoup spending on these features in seven years through savings in electricity bills and water usage.
Sounds pretty cool – I’ll definitely be checking it out once it is completed.
Technorati Tags: arena, LEED, green contruction, green design, kitchener, waterloo, ontario, green roof, rainwater
Written by Bentley on January 9th, 2007 with no comments.
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I recently learned (from a brief article on the Illinois Institute of Technology site) about the History Channel’s “The City of the Future” challenge.
Of course the IIT site was understandably biased in it’s coverage of the competition, focusing solely on the Chicago project. It is important to note however that the Windy City is one of three finalists (New York and LA being the other two).
Nevertheless, the ideas coming from the Chicago team sound absolutely fascinating! It was a mention of the term “living machine” that really caught my attention right away.
As you may recall from my John Todd post, living machines (also referred to as ‘eco-machines’) are aquatic biological systems utilizing diverse collections of flora and fauna to process “waste” water.
The name given to the Chicago project (which was put together by a design firm called UrbanLab) is “Growing Water” and the concept is very cool indeed (be sure to follow the link and check it out).
Here is a blurb from the IIT article:
The premise of UrbanLab’s design is Growing Water. In 2106, water will be the world’s most valuable resource: the new oil. UrbanLab’s project envisions Chicago evolving into a model city for “growing water” by creating a series of Eco-Boulevards spread throughout the city. The Eco-Boulevards will function as a giant “Living Machine” which will treat 100% of Chicago’s wastewater and stormwater naturally, using micro-organisms, small invertebrates (such as snails), fish and plants. Treated water will be harvested and/or returned to the Great Lakes Basin. Ultimately, the Eco-Boulevards will create a closed water loop within Chicago.
I only briefly looked at the New York and LA projects, but even based only on my brief assessment I’m pretty confident that the Chicago team would get my vote (speaking of which, I’m pretty sure they are still accepting votes for the competition if you are interested).
Sadly, the purpose of this design challenge was to create a vision for cities 100 years from now. Hopefully we’ll see some of these ideas implemented on a large scale long before then.
Technorati Tags: living machine, eco machine, wastewater, sewage, rainwater, sewer, chicago, urbanlab, history channel, growing water, green design, green construction
Written by Bentley on January 9th, 2007 with 4 comments.
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